Literary Review

I know it’s facetious to say that sometimes I feel like a lesbian trapped in a man’s body. How can I, a cisgender heterosexual male, know what it is like to be a lesbian? But whenever I read about masculinity, it seems I don’t know what it’s like to be a man in a man’s body either. The meaning of masculinity has been contested for as long as I can remember. I was an adolescent during the rise of the ‘new man’, who was not only happy to eat quiche but keen to bake it and clear up after himself too. Boorish machismo was out and quiet sensitivity was in. But then came the ‘new lad’ backlash. It transpired that