Men Cash in

By Simon Brooke

Guys, if a woman wants to buy you a meal or a new suit, just say yes. There’s no shame in being a kept man.

There is a moment in Sunset Boulevard where Gloria Swanson’s Norma Desmond takes penniless screenwriter Joe Gillies, played by William Holden, shopping.

Despite his protestations he is led by the faded star to a swanky men’s clothes shop where she buys a suit for him.

As she sweeps off to another part of the store, a salesman sidles up to Holden with an arm full of overcoats including one in ordinary camel hair and another in luxurious vicuña.

Gruffly, Holden opts for the cheaper coat, at which point the lugubrious assistant whispers: “As long as the lady’s paying for it, why not take the vicuña?”

Cue close-up of shocked Holden and swell of dramatic music as his character realises what he has become.

But what provoked such a dramatic moment of self-realisation and self-loathing in the Fifties would in fact be seen as nothing special today.

A recent survey by the Future Foundation revealed that 40 per cent of men are happy to allow women to pay for them in restaurants and shops.

The “kept man” has always existed, but whereas in his previous incarnation he would perhaps have been an out-of-work actor or an impoverished aristocrat, these days many more men are very happy for their female partners to take the financial strain.

The Sunset Boulevard image of the kept man is as past it as Norma Desmond’s career.

According to Egg, the internet bank, the woman now earns more than her male partner in one in ten relationships, and a third of men have spurned financial responsibility because of the stress it involves. Unshamed about their status, these New Kept Men might be at a stage in their careers where they earn less, or in a job where financial remuneration is not the major concern, or they might be looking after the children.

Or they might just consider that they can contribute something else to the relationship other than money.

One thing is for certain – modern masculinity is not necessarily diminished by allowing a woman to take up the bill in a restaurant.

“We never give the bill to the man to take care of because you can’t make that assumption these days,” says Nick Maddison of Tartine, a restaurant in Chelsea.

He has seen a major change in payment habits over his 20 years in the restaurant business.

“These days we would normally put it in the middle of the table. So often now it’s the woman who picks it up and the man doesn’t seem even slightly embarrassed.”

The reversal of traditional economic roles in my novel Upgrading is slightly more extreme, as the hero, Andrew, a twentysomething man, finds himself going out with a very rich older woman.

In this case he soon discovers that “She who plays the piper calls the tune” and he becomes fed up with the bizarre, demeaning situations into which his wealthy lover forces him.

But the research I undertook showed that many of my male friends were more than comfortable with their wives and girlfriends paying for them.

“You’d have to be very insecure these days to be bothered about it,” said one.

“My wife took me shopping and bought me clothes in the summer sale so I cooked dinner for her to say thanks,” another told me.

A sales assistant in one of the smart Sloane Street shops that my character, Andrew, visits told me that he has seen more and more women buying clothes for their other halves.

“Is it your birthday today then?” he asked one lucky (male) recipient of a smart suit and a couple of £50 ties recently. “No, I just need some new clothes,” came the reply.

There are also a number of celebrity couples in this situation: you can bet that Carolyn Portillo, a high-flying headhunter, is able to contribute more to the household bills than her backbench MP husband, while Mr Madonna must accept that his wife is going to be able to buy more presents for him than vice versa.

For more and men, released from the man-as-provider social stereotype, that vicuña overcoat is suddenly becoming an attractive option.

From The Times, August 27, 2002

Language and Culture Focus.

• Gloria Swanson – an Academy Award nominated Hollywood actress prolific during the silent film era

• William Holden – a popular Hollywood actor, one of the “Top 10 stars of the year” (six times)

• vicuña – the smallest member of the camel family famous for its very expensive soft and warm fur

• Chelsea – an area in South-West London

• headhunter – a person whose job is to find people to work for a particular company

• Sloane Street – a fashionable shopping street in London

Think of the best way to translate it.

1. One thing is for certain – modern masculinity is not necessarily diminished by allowing a woman to take up the bill in a restaurant.

2. …he becomes fed up with the bizarre, demeaning situations into which his wealthy lover forces him.

3. …you can bet that Carolyn Portillo, a high-flying headhunter, is able to contribute more to the household bills than her backbench MP husband…

Comprehension questions and tasks.

1. Do you agree with the author that, unlike in the fifties, a “kept man” is nothing special today?

2. Does the fact that some women now earn more than their male partners enable them to take the lead in the relationship?

3. Have the gender roles changed in the modern society?

4. Get ready to speak on the man/woman-as-provider social stereotype.