January 21, 2005

The Gospel of Born-Again Bodies

By R. MARIE GRIFFITH

One of the most durable themes in modern American political culture, crassly visible in the latest presidential race, is virility. In this brutish and partisan arena, candidates vie for masculine supremacy before audiences they hope will admire their strapping vigor -- indeed, not simply admire but lust after it (if they are women) or identify with it (as manly men or wannabes). Long before Arnold Schwarzenegger's famous slur on liberal "girlie men," pundits like Bill O'Reilly and Ann

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