Pollack describes a boys code, a gender straight jacket, that tells you that real boys are tough, don t feel pain, and if they do, never show it. Real boys primarily define themselves by sports and physical activities rather than those that are intellectual or artistic. Real boys are self-sufficient, can handle their problems alone, don t whine or complain, take it like a man, are tough. Real boys wear emotional masks when it comes to fear and vulnerability with the one permissible emotion being anger. Anger is the funnel through which the full range of emotions of a real boy flows.
Real boys take charge, bite the bullet and do what has to be done.
Real boys distain anything that is feminine. The greatest insult you can give to a boy is to say that he is acting like a girl. Real boys relate to each other either through competition or as of comrades in arms on the fields of athletic battle. Then it is permissible for one boy to openly embrace another or to pat him on his rear end. All of us males can think back on our childhood to times when some version of the boys code was applied to each of us.