Man cave masculinity?

I recently spoke to Jeremy Glass, who I know from Thrillist, who’s now writing for Mic, about man cave masculinity  Jeremy did a “take down” of this antiquated marker of masculinity for Mic’s Style section.

You can read Jeremy’s piece, complete with some insights from yours truly, right here — “How My Girlfriend Killed My Man Cave — And Why That Ended Up Being a Good Thing” (4/22/16).

…and my correspondence with Jeremy for this story is below for your edification/enjoyment.

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Jeremy Glass: Basically I’m taking down the “man cave” and talking about how men nowadays are different and don’t need a space with leather, cigars, and porn to feel manly. Are men more sensitive, confident, and pro-feminist these days? [Does this impact man cave masculinity?]

DrCT: It’s not that men are necessarily ‘different’ nowadays — more sensitive, confident, or pro-feminist — though some certainly may be. One core mission of feminism has always been to liberalize gender expression for all humans. And in recent years, the narrative has really taken ahold in very public, mainstream spaces, impacting the ways we think about femininities and masculinities on a wider social level. Consequently, though antiquated trappings of hegemonic masculinity certainly still exist and impact people (and though new ones have certainly emerged), what we are seeing more and more of is space for masculinity to mean something other/more than the artifacts collected and displayed in one’s “man cave.”

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Well, what do you think? Is man cave masculinity a thing? And is that thing changing, perhaps even going away?