A number of influential gender theorists contend that men suffer from a pandemic
crisis of masculinity in their work and family roles that they seek to assuage
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conventional view through a cultural analysis of the consumption practices of a
group of men who fit the stuck-in-the-middle socio-economic profile commonly
associated with the crisis of masculinity. We first discuss the ideological
structure of phallic masculinity. Then, in our analysis, we find that our
men’s everyday consumption practices construct a specific socio-cultural
articulation of phallic masculinity whereby its internal paradoxes are leveraged as
a means to produce desirable experiences and self-identifications. We further show
how men adapt feminine practices as a revitalizing retreat, which we conceptualize
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