"Boys are underperforming in school, bullying and hazing are ubiquitous, and violence is a daily reality in many boys' lives," he writes. "And when you factor in the suicide attempts, the self-medication, the violent outbursts, or the sullen withdrawals, it's clear that we must devise strategies to enable all sorts of boys to feel safe enough to go to school, and secure enough that they will be valued for who they are."

The world of adolescent white males that Kimmel describes puts macho boys in a curious double-bind. "The most common put-down in American high schools today is 'that's so gay,' or calling someone a 'fag,'" he tells us. "The average high school student in Des Moines, Iowa, hears an anti-gay comment every seven minutes -- and teachers intervene only about 3 percent of the time." They use "gayness" as the foul line that contains their masculinity -- and a pretty juvenile definition of homosexuality at that, according to Kimmel. To them, a homosexual man "walks a certain way" and is "sensitive." A high school girl, depressingly, is likely to suspect a boy of being gay "if he's interested in what she's talking about" or "is a good listener." These young guys think being gay "means not being a guy. That's the choice: gay or guy." Instead of throwing up our hands and saying "This is nothing new," Kimmel would have us ask, "Why haven't we erased this kind of prejudice in our children in 2008?"

This is a clear reflection of what happens when we lack clear role models guiding our young generations to come to terms with their own male and female nature. We don't value the traditional masculine values anymore, so young boys hype the superficial aspects of typical male behavior (physical competition, extrovert behavior, pragmatic rationality) instead in order to make up for their shortages and confusions. What they're missing is that most girls don't really like pretentious machos, except for the equally confused.