The modern male, he’s softer than a slug with a beer belly

It’s official. Modern man is a wimp. A new book by an Australian anthropologist called Peter McAllister entitled Manthropology: The Science Of The Inadequate Modern Male has come to the conclusion that men are the worst they have ever been – the ‘sorriest cohort of masculine Homo sapiens to ever walk the planet’.



According to a set of fossilised footprints, prehistoric Australian aboriginals would have left 100m and 200m Olympic champion Usain Bolt standing.



Some Tutsi men in Rwanda were able to jump higher than the current world record of 2.45m, Roman legions completed one-and-a-half marathons a day (bear in mind this was before Lycra and bottles of water with teats had been invented) and Neanderthal women would have had ten per cent more muscle bulk than modern man.

Progress? Modern man has evolved into a blob, says Liz Jones (file picture)



Of course, we don’t need a hefty scientific tome to tell us something that any woman who has ever asked her mate to pass the remote control and been confronted with a pathetic mew that says, ‘I can’t, it’s far too heavy,’ has long suspected.



Modern man has evolved, due to his love of cars and fast food, into a blob with all the muscle tone and definition of a slug.



Isn’t it interesting that while we women look up to Amazonians with amazing biceps such as Michelle Obama, men have the presenters of Top Gear as their heroes – armchair Lotharios who don’t even have the upper body strength to comb their own hair.



Look at Jamie Oliver, a body as soft as butter. Gordon Brown has a body mass index that probably far exceeds his own Government guidelines. Peter Mandelson? Man boobs. Simon Cowell? Peacock chest and underdeveloped thighs. I could go on. And on.



These men might all wear trainers and tracksuits and workwear such as denim jeans and combat trousers, but it is all just dressing up, an illusion, a hark back to the days when men actually knew how to do physical things like, ooh, I don’t know, put in a light bulb or change a duvet cover or make love to a woman.



Honestly, the number of times I have wanted to exclaim, while prone: ‘For God’s sake, put your back into it, man!’



Actually, these men aren’t like slugs at all. They are like snails – soft, spongy, grey bodies inside the crisp shells of their automobiles. In fact, unless the man in question is an Olympic athlete or a footballer, to ‘sport’ anything other than old-lady buttocks is to render him a possible homosexual, that sweet sub-species of maledom, the only ones on the planet who feel the need to stay in shape for a mate.



I wonder why it is that gay men like to stay in shape, and be all smooth and oiled. I hope I am not straying into Dannii Minogue territory here when I wonder if that is merely their feminine side emerging, a genetic tendency to have the humility to take care of themselves, rather than being an arrogant straight bastard who believes, despite the beer gut and nasal hair, he is catnip.



Modern men, on the other hand, like us women to stay at least as fit (and I employ that word for its original definition, not the new slang meaning) as Kelly Holmes.



There was an interesting blog posted on the internet last week in response to a debate that has been raging in the ether over a Time magazine special issue investigating whether being fat is down to genetics or to sheer greed. (Men like the ether – it means they can sit at a desk with a nice mug of tea and a biscuit.)



This man was writing in response to a feminist who was championing the right for women to get off the dieting treadmill: ‘My fear that a woman with the legal power to take half of my possessions might some day become so fat and sexually unappealing that I’d sooner cut my own penis off than have sex with the manatee that used to be my wife is unfortunately all too common,’ he types with one finger (men have not yet evolved sufficiently to be able to touch-type).



‘And [articles] like this one that dangerously suggest to naive future fatties that it’s OK are only leading your victims down the primrose path to a battle they can’t win.’



You see? Women are now the strong ones in our society. Men no longer chase wildebeest across the pampas, and therefore have become hopelessly soft.



This deterioration has happened merely since two great leaps forward: the industrial revolution and the advent of free internet porn, which has created the unrealistic expectation that the ugliest slob in the world can bag a babe.



What poor, sad creatures modern men are. What wimps. What wastes of space.

