What Are “Men Extenders”?

Introduction

Have you ever come across the term “men extenders”? Perhaps? But maybe you can’t recall where? Well, I don’t recommend googling it. For research purposes I had to do this, but at least I used an Incognito browser window. The results were not pretty. It took me a while to turn up the origin of the non-penile sense of the phrase, but I am finally equipped (no pun intended) to tell you where it came from. Following that I’ll launch into a full exegesis, as is my wont.

The origin of “men extenders”

Outside the realm of the saddest cosmetic surgery known to man, the term “men extenders” appears nowhere on the Internet except pages deep into the Quotes section of the IMDB entry for “Barbie.” Here is the reference:

This movie is a perfectly fitting place to kick off this new (and highly useful) term, because as we all know from being kids, Barbieland’s denizens are replete with accessories. (Here’s an old joke from my brother: “Hey, have you heard about the new Divorce Barbie? She comes with half of Ken’s stuff!”) Of course, most of the accessories are hairbrushes and pink dream houses and pink convertibles, etc.—i.e. her stuff—and whenever one of my daughters got a new Ken doll the first thing she’d do was rip all his clothing off, exposing his greatest lack (which is an interesting counterpoint to the non-Ken context of “men extenders).”

I can’t remember exactly what got me thinking about men extenders, but I know it came from a dialogue I had with my wife, where she posed a question along the lines of, “What are the quintessential men extenders?” It turns out to be a fascinating realm of exploration.

But first, some housekeeping

Look, I’m going to get into some ideas here involving what’s manly, and what a man ought to be able to do, and what it would actually mean to extend a man’s, well, manliness. (And no, that’s not a euphemism for his member—enough with that already!) Naturally there has been a lot of evolution, perhaps even revolution, lately about what it means to be a man and what ought to be expected of us. So I should state right up front that I’m not going to be so progressive as to ignore the past, or try to make this all about a new male paradigm, much less delve into the realm of non-binary. This post is about the traditional sex roles that, looking across the landscape of mankind, continue to be predominant: roles that even the most modern man—and woman—are still saddled with.

Yes, modern man is more civilized than he used to be, particularly in progressive countries (of which, say, Afghanistan would not be an example). We men have learned to dress better, scratch our groins less publicly, be a bit less dense about equality, and may more willingly share the boardroom with women, to a greater or lesser degree. But this doesn’t change, in my mind, the fact that we men have certain impulses—unconscious biases might be the better term—that we either quell or indulge, depending on our personalities, our position on the cultural spectrum, and the situation. What I’m getting at is, when our intellect, education, and breeding cause us to modify and refine our behavior, what is the knee-jerk behavior that’s being subdued?

My past and present have enabled me to come at the thing from both directions: the base primitive male and the educated, enlightened, housetrained modern man. Consider the following photo:

Look at the dazed look in my eyes. I was not just the kind of dad who bottle-fed his baby once in a while so he could get brownie points for having done so at all. For complicated reasons, I bottle-fed one of my babies a great deal, in lieu of sleep. And I changed a lot of diapers. How many? Well, if I were to say in the presence of my wife, “I reckon I changed about half of A—’s diapers,” she wouldn’t burst out laughing. (I actually tried this. She said, “Probably more like 40%,” and didn’t even roll her eyes.) On top of that, I am such a modern man, I am able to keep track of a non-cisgender person’s preferred pronouns when they have changed. (This surely seems like no big deal to Gen Z, but believe me, it’s not easy for my generation and I assure you, we are trying.)

And yet, evolved as I am, I am a person who over the course of his childhood was in a number of fistfights, and rather than looking back on those episodes in shame, I recall them wistfully—fondly, even. And although my now fully formed neocortex would prevent me from ever resorting to actual combat anymore, I still like to have an excuse to duke it out (metaphorically speaking) with some rando when I’m cycling (see here, here, and/or here). Many a woman would call this “macho bullshit,” and maybe it is, but I’m gonna own it … it’s my macho bullshit and I’m not giving it up (even though I did a huge load of dishes earlier).

For more on the topic of male impulses that won’t go away, click here. On the other hand, if you are so highly evolved that the last few paragraphs have triggered you, maybe it’s time to stop and go read something else instead.

So what are the quintessential men extenders?

As you saw earlier, the men extenders example given in “Barbie” is the horse. Certainly this makes sense; in an archetypal way, a man on horseback is utterly masculine … just think of the Marlboro Man. Of course, nobody rides horses anymore, and a modern man who can afford a horse and the land, stables, etc. required for one is probably more like a polo player than a cowboy … not exactly macho. It’s only because “Barbie” itself is so archetypal that this notion works in the movie.

So what about a motorcycle? Consider the Bon Jovi song “Wanted Dead or Alive” and its central lyric, “I’m a cowboy/On a steel horse I ride.” Frankly, I think this song kind of killed any chance of a motorcycle extending anyone’s manhood. The video, showing well-groomed pretty-faced rock stars playing in a stadium full of star-struck teenage girls, makes them come off as pretty much the opposite of an actual cowboy.

A truck? Now we’re getting somewhere. A big manly truck … built Ford tough, etc. I certainly see a lot of pickup trucks when I’m out biking, and it’s not uncommon for one to accelerate mightily as it passes me, as if to demonstrate something. If I’m riding with a pal when this happens, I’ll generally remark, “Wow … did you hear  the size of that guy’s testicles?” And more often than not, the dickhead who uses his pickup in that antisocial way is a well-upholstered middle-aged white guy and his truck is immaculate and probably never leaves the asphalt. In contrast to that, the smaller pickups that pass me, which invariably give me plenty of room, are usually more run-down, and are full of gardening tools (shovels, mowers, etc.) and driven by workmen, usually Chicano ones, like the guys who, in a few short hours, dug a deep trench in my backyard to install a French drain, while I watched from the kitchen window while doing dishes, feeling deeply inferior as a man.

Does this mean a big, expensive truck can’t be a men extender? Why, no. It’s just that a pristine Range Rover with leather seats exemplifies only wealth, not manliness, so there has to be more going on. Take, for example, my friend B— who drove a bunch of us to the Deschutes River recently to go inner tubing, and hauled everything in the back of his big pickup. Nothing about his payload that day was particularly impressive, but he mentioned that a pal gave him the truck because it was so old and beaten down it was getting hard to keep running. B— gladly accepted it because he has a lot of fun making little repairs to keep it on the road. And that is fundamental: the know-how that goes with the physical object. Bonus points for lashing a canoe to the roof and knowing all the right knots so it doesn’t slide off and maim somebody.

The more I ponder it, the more utility seems absolutely central to men extension. This is why, in fact, a beard or a tattoo or an ear gauge cannot be a men extender: because these decorations don’t do anything; anybody can choose to have one. It’s a sartorial thing done to you then you just parade it around, as frivolously as a fancy woman of old showing off with a big feathered hat.

Is know-how itself a men extender?

Not all know-how is a men extender; it has to be paired with the right object. For example, men who are really good with tech stuff, while they can earn legendary amounts of money, will always be considered a bit nerdy, and seeing these tech titans in action isn’t very impressive. “Look at how his fingers fly over that keyboard!” moaned no enraptured woman ever. And the C-suite types? Knowing how to properly tie a silk necktie isn’t a men-extending behavior, and the hoodies of the Mark Zuckerberg set are frankly childish. What about men who are just really good communicators? Tony Robbins might be worth $600 million, but he’s never going to star in an action movie or get a grill named after him. His tools—a ballroom and a microphone—aren’t the kind the guy next door would secretly covet. How about a telescope and a masterful knowledge of astronomy? Naw. No layman could ever appreciate whatever it is these oddballs see in the night sky. I myself got to see Halley’s Comet through a powerful telescope at an actual observatory, and it was pretty much the most boring thing ever.

I guess I’m not exactly unearthing the pure essence of men extenders here, but it’s like so many things: you know it when you see it.

The men extender I wish I had…

I myself cannot mourn not owning a beater pickup truck, or a canoe, or the earth-turning tools that (combined with laborer-grade sinews) might enable me to dig a giant trench in no time flat. Based on the gentrification of my neighborhood (which somehow transitioned from the Prius Belt to the Tesla Belt while I wasn’t looking), I don’t think my neighbors would appreciate a dilapidated F150 dripping oil on our street. Meanwhile, I don’t generally do much boating (in fact, when my wife and I have tried to canoe together, we just went in circles). And if I were a career gardener who needed a work truck, I probably wouldn’t earn enough money to live in Albany, and my kids needed good schools a lot more than they needed a manly dad. (In fact, having now left the nest, they scarcely need me at all anymore, which is fine I guess—I mean, it’s according to plan.)

But what I do long for, if I could just get my act together as a man, is a barbecue grill … and the know-how to use it. I mean, yeah, I could buy one of these giant gas grills that’s basically a stove you use outdoors, but I’m thinking more of something more traditional, like the classic Weber. Or, better yet, a giant commercial-type grill with the big ring you crank on to raise and lower that big blackened mechanism—a spit, is it?—that’s suspended by chains. You know, like you could roast a whole damn pig on (if you knew how). Because the fact is, I love barbecues, I love grilled meat, I love the smell of flaming lighter-fluid-soaked briquettes even if they’re deadly. And of course I’d love to extend my manhood … but even all these things put together aren’t enough to motivate me to actually buy a grill and learn how to use it. After all, I’m middle-aged, and already eat a dangerous amount of cheese, and had better look out for my health. Moreover, knowing I’d be buying this grill just to extend my masculinity … that seems somehow kind of wrong, kind of sad, kind of … well, emasculating, if that makes any sense.

My own favorite men extender

My wife assumed that to the extent I have any men extension, it would have to do with my racing bike, and my mountain bike, and the athleticism I’m able to pair with them. Honestly, I don’t think bicycles get the job done. Yes, I can ride them pretty effectively, but there’s really nobody around to see this except other cyclists, and at least on this side of the Atlantic the sport has never had the respect it deserves. Above all, a cyclist only propels himself along, and this doesn’t do anybody else any good. A fisherman with his own boat, especially like one of the guys in The Perfect Storm who braved horrific weather to haul swordfish out of the ocean, is very manly, as is a soldier, but some guy pedaling a bike faster than some other guys? Big deal.

My own favorite men extender is my toolbox, because it’s full of a lot of very cool bicycle-related tools that I actually know how to use, and which keep my family’s entire fleet going. Ditto my workbench and my smattering of household tools (drill, hacksaw, wood saw, etc.). Also ditto the tools I carry mountain biking paired with my ability to fix a student-athlete’s bike when it breaks down on the trail. Some of these bike-related tools are weird enough that the layman wouldn’t have any idea what they do. Others, like my wheel truing stand, have an obvious purpose but the layman wouldn’t know where to start. (Truing a wheel, by adjusting the tension on each spoke, is a real art and most DIY types could only cause harm with such tools.)

And what’s my absolute favorite tool? That’s a tough one, but I guess I’d have to say my Dremel rotory tool. It’s kind of like a drill, but you can put various different cutting bits on it, the coolest being a disc-shaped blade that will pretty much cut through anything. Sparks fly everywhere, which looks cool. The first time I encountered this phenomenon—though with some even cooler tool in my dad’s machine shop—I  asked him, “What are all those orange sparks?” He said they were tiny bits of molten metal. “Won’t they burn you?” I asked. He said by the time they hit you they’ve cooled off enough. So I think being brushed by a shower of sparks is actually kind of pleasant. (Of course I wear safety goggles—I’m not an idiot.)

Recently I bought a bike from a pal, and it came with a U-lock, hanging from the top tube, that alas lacked a key (thanks to my pal’s typically clueless teenager). I think I got a bit of a discount based on the hassle of that lock. But I had it off within minutes using the Dremel.

I used my Dremel again the other day, cutting a metal plate out of a giant cooking pot it’d gotten stuck in, and I mentioned to my wife, probably not for the first time, “The Dremel blade spins at ten times the speed of a drill.” Without grabbing my biceps, my wife did not say, “Get over here, you big hunk.” In fact, I don’t even thing she was listening. And that’s perhaps the most interesting thing about men extenders: I don’t think women even notice them. Women just aren’t tuned into that stuff.

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