European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - October 1, 1994, Darmstadt, Hesse It s a Guy thing Don t try to figure it out by Bill Keveney the Hartford Conn courant Man spits or watches 1 1 hours of football or howls As he and his buddies re enact last night s episode of Beavis and butt head. The meaning of such behaviour has puzzled women and probably More than a few men through the Ages but finally we have an answer. It s a Guy thing. Of but just one question. What does that mean it s a Guy thing May be a popular description of stereotypical male behaviour but that does t mean it can be easily defied perhaps because it s not supposed to the phrase exists mainly s6 men Don t have to explain Why they do the things they do and so women can avoid having to consider the Nasty particulars. Translation it s a Guy thing you would t want to understand. Or maybe the difficulty of defining this throwaway line is that Efren Haven t Given a whole lot of thought to their Macho eccentricities introspection not being at the top of the list of Guy things As in it s a Guy thing. I Don t even understand. Well then who does believe it or not a lot of really smart people have Given this phrase and its relation to understanding Between the genders a lot of thought. Their thoughts Range from theories of men redefining themselves in a Post feminist world to sheer amazement at the prodigious Levels of male saliva output. Men for no reason at All seem to spit a lot. All i can say besides Gross is hey it s a Guy thing " said Amy Guy no relation of Kenyon urge in Gambier Ohio. At the heart of the phrase is the notion that certain activities by nature or nurture Are particular to one sex and perhaps not very Well understood by the other. That May explain Why you rarely hear the words shopping and belching in the same sentence. There is at least one known fact the meaning of " s a Guy thing is in the mind 01 the beholder. \ r men sometimes say it to women to try to explain the unexplainable. Any attempt to break it Down any further / would defeat its purpose. After All nobody Ever asks the French to explain a est la vie."-"-. It also May serve As an explanation for Why men like to watch monday night football together in terms of a need for male bonding said James Bracy a social psychologist at California state University Northridge. -.? when a Vorren use the phrase they May truly be curious searching for the. A Mechanic gets in his work while engaging in a favorite Guy pastime. Rosetta Stone of male behaviour and hoping not to come up with the same old Tabulara a. Or in another interpretation women May just want to mock male behaviour according to Guy. Chuck Kleinhans an associate professor of radio television and film at Northwestern University in Evanston Iii says when men use it s a Guy thing it Means Don t bother me about this or you would t understand when you hear a woman say it it s to put Down in either gender s Case the phrase is accompanied by a shrug. Women May shake their Heads too. In general men do not use the phrase in conversations with other men. Thadav Oulen t be a Guy thing. There s no hey Bob let s do a Guy thing today like instead they just go golfing. An inability by Ronen to articulate their Guy Hood to women May have something to do with the alleged Gale penchant for doing rather than saying according to Paul Somerville who also claims to be the founder of the department of manliness at Morningside College in Sioux City Iowa. As an example Hie cites a line by John Wayne an archetypal Guy s Guy from the movie the undefeated. Woman you said you were going to talk to him and you ended up killing him. Why Wayne i guess the conversation just sorta dried up a so much for historical antecedents. But Why did this phrase come about now the news Ras usual May not be Good fellas it s another one of those the dominant male going the Way of the dinosaurs deals some theorists say. Before feminism men usually did t have to try to explain their behaviour their efforts to be the strongest the toughest the funniest said Joe Urgo associate professor of English and humanities at Bryant College in Smithfield . Male behaviour was interpreted As human behaviour. But not anymore. Thus the catch phrase can be viewed As a Welcome male self consciousness a reassertion of the right to be a male heterosexual in an Era that questions the Primacy of that categorization Urgo said. Not that there Aren t women and Gay men who enjoy the Manly arts of belching Hunting designing tall buildings or starting Warsi or according to Marshall Fishwick a professor of communication studies at Virginia tech in Blacksburg it seems that the boys want to reclaim some of their uniqueness that they gave up when girls began to play baseball become lawyers Andflyf-14s." _. One Way to understand what the term Means is to look at the behaviour it describes. Somerville shas done some cataloguing in tha Tegard. Somerville s list of Guy things includes the common Hunting drinking fishing playing Golf mud rain and football make an Ideal Guy Way to spend an afternoon. At right the popularity of the three stooges among grown men is one of those strange phenomenon that defy explanation. Dismantling car engines and the esoteric talking Back and Forth in song lyrics laughing at the three stooges Beavis and butt head s predecessors and doing something called Lawn fishing which a even As a Guy am not familiar has been pointed out that a male with a . In astrophysics will howl with laughter at the stooges shouting such pleasantries As Aren t these Guys great while a female High school dropout will turn up her nose in disgust at the same episode and say something along the lines of this is the stupidest thing i be Ever seen " Somerville said. Saying hey a lot also is a Guy thing As exemplified by football announcer John Madden who uses the word fas a launching pad for most of his Guy thing stories about mud and turf and Guys with bloody noses Somerville said. " Somerville ultimately defines the phrase in terms of hat it in t. This is what a Guy thing is when All is said and done a thing that Guys can do that women can t of which there a a decreasing number Don t of which there is a slightly larger number or won t of which there is a rapidly. Creasing number do he concluded make any sense if so great if not Well you know its a Guy thing. ,. R i i i. Men s unmentionables get a new look by Dan Shaw the new York times using men s underwear us Echo be simple. But like asking for water in a restaurant or ordering a cup of Coffee to take aut it has become a potentially complicated and costly Endeavor. It s no longer Basic White boxers and briefs said Stuart Glasser the general merchandise manager for menswear at Bloomingdale a which is doubling the space it devotes to men s underwear and related items at its Manhattan . Store. It s a fashion business. It s a personal statement business. It s a casual Wear it s a multimillion Dollar designer business too. Now following the pioneering Lead of Calvin Klein Tommy _ Hilfiger Ralph Lauren Adidas Brooks Brothers jockey and j. Crew Are among those looking for expanded profits below the Belt. One would have been Blind not to see what happened with Calvin Klein said Ron Hirshberg the owner of Agron a los Angeles manufacturer that produces Adidas accessories and acquired the Adidas underwear License earlier his year. Everyone s into the Chase the upscale underwear wars have begun. It s the last Frontier said Richard Martin the curator of the costume Institute of the metropolitan museum of Art who organized jockey american classic an underwear exhibition at the fashion Institute of technology in 1992. It repeats the phenomenon of the designer jeans business when the conspicuous showing of the Label was almost More important than the design per in fact people Are beginning to Wear underwear the Way they Wear jeans. That used to be the Mark of a Fob walking around the House in your underwear said Valerie Steele who teaches the history of fashion at the fashion Institute of technology. Cata logs like j. Crew Are now filled With people lounging around in their underwear. It s a fashion the j. Crew catalogue which offers men s Boxer briefs in a dozen colors like beet Aqua Palm and Oatmeal Heather touts its underwear As Street clothes and objects d Art. Underwear All right but something More we often see it out and about the text of a recent Catalon asserts. And beyond that a special look even when stacked in closet or most men s underwear in the United states is made by Hanes and fruit of the loom and sold at mass Market stores like wat Mart and Kmart. In 1993, department stores like Macy a Nordstrom and Bloomingdale s had an 8 percent Market share of the to .6 billion men s underwear Market according to Market research by the Ned group in port Washington . But because the designer underwear they specialize in is expensive their 8 percent of the Market accounts for 14 percent of the country s underwear dollars. Many established fashion and sportswear companies want a piece of the top end of the business where a three pack of briefs can Cost $18 and one Bikini Brief can sell for $9.50. It is the emergence of men s underwear As a Street fashion for women As Well As for men that seems to be driving the Market for underwear with Eye catching or status waistbands. Hilfiger has even added a Button to the Fly of his boxers so they can be worn As shorts without the risk of embarrassing e exposure the style of showing off waistbands originated with Urban teen agers and rap artists who wore their pants Low and Loose like those of prison inmates who Aren t allowed to Wear belts. Then the rapper Marky Mark made stripping Down to his calvins an integral part of his act a gimmick that prompted Klein to put him in his. Advertisements. It All started with him Klein said in september 1992, when the first Marky Mark ads appeared on bus shelters around new York. When i saw him on the cover of rolling Stone in our underwear i decided to do a and so the Era of the Public display of underwear officially began. And if the trend in sales is any indication this new age will not be a Brief one. Forget fruit of the loom the Well dressed golfer can slip into silk underwear by Joe Boxer for $26 20 the stars and stripes saturday october 1, 1994 lot angelas times the stars and stripes 21
