I never read men’s magazines growing up, but I refrained for the most men’s-magazine-y of reasons: it just wasn’t done where I came from. Can you imagine pulling a copy of Esquire out of your messenger bag at the Devoid Of Faith/His Hero Is Gone show? As a result, when I pick them up, they may as well be written in another language. A couple of years ago, Ezra wrote an appreciation for precisely these magazines for teaching him the unspoken rules of what you might call constructive masculinity. ("I surprised myself by warning a friend not to grind his coffee beans in advance, as they release important aromatic properties when crushed. I don’t even drink coffee.") Ever since I’ve toyed with writing an answer piece about the rediscovered virtues of HeartattaCk or Inside Front or Icarus Was Right or Maximumrocknroll. ("I surprised myself by warning a friend that it isn’t okay to grope someone while playing a game of mid-set spin-the-bottle, as that exploits the uncertain border seperating performative physicality and sexual advance. I’ve never even been to Columbus Fest.") Instead, I just find myself unable to cease my bewilderment whenever I read, say, GQ. That magazine and I have nothing in common. We can’t take each other seriously. It’ll continue like this forever.

As it happens, I picked up the October GQ to stare at Megan Fox. (Moe is right about her, by the way.) But in the same issue, there’s an overlong feature about the characteristics of a "21st Century Gentleman" that seemed worth reading if you’ve already paid for the magazine. Who wouldn’t want some helpful advice along the following lines: "Being a gentleman in the twenty-first century means taking responsibility for how you behave instead of relying on a set of simple rules. It means the rules have gotten more complex." Notice what the editors did there: that first sentence is really straightforward and useful and, frankly, reflective of an enduring wisdom; the second sentence is a haymaker, intended to disorient you so you follow the magazine’s advice. And that advice is… "Embrace The Pocket Square"; "Learn To Form A Tie Dimple"; "Find A Signature Scent"; "Upgrade Your Denim" and so forth. You can learn a lot about taking responsibility from that.

But then, suddenly, there’s this burst of brilliance, relegated to a sidebar. Devin Friedman wrote it, and I think the two of us ought to have a beer.

"Sinatra," they say, "there was a real man. That was when gentlemen ruled." Seriously? I mean, I’m all for getting drunk and fucking the waitress. God bless. But can we not call it being a gentleman? The Sinatra era, let’s remember, was the era of male duplicity. The wife night and the girlfriend night. And what about the casual racism? The willingness to sell each other out for a better-paying gig? Sinatra, Martin, Lawford: What kind of fathers were those guys? The worst part is that the Rat Pack have for the past forty years given cover to your garden-variety turd who’s more interested in pulling out a lady’s chair than listening to what she has to say. I’m not suggesting I wouldn’t have wanted to spend a night in Mia Farrow’s hotel room with Sinatra, a few friends, and a bottle of Jack. Bu I wouldn’t go around telling people I’d just met a perfect gentleman. Any asshole can light a woman’s cigarette or hail her a taxi.

I am currently working on my response to that. ("I’m not suggesting that I wouldn’t have wanted to drive in the freezing rain at 4 a.m. in a wheezing rented van with Cap’n Jazz. But I wouldn’t go around telling people that was punk rock. Any asshole can plan a tour badly.")

Given that I’ve already expended 500 words on the totally obvious, it also seems worth pointing out that the photographs accompanying this feature clearly cater to the homosexual man, and yet there’s absolutely nothing in the magazine that so much as recognizes that many, many men are, in fact, not heterosexual.

Update: Yglesias adds that GQ evidently wants men to start dressing like Mr. Burns.