Immature and sex-mad? Not us, say men

SYDNEY (Reuters Life!) - Young, single men are fed up with being typecast as immature, insensitive and sex-obsessed, with a survey finding that the majority believe in having a soul mate, aren't scared of commitment, and say real men can cry.

A poll of 70,000 men with an average age of 28 debunked many of the standard stereotypes to show that the modern man is driven by a sense of values, loyalty and family.

The survey, by men's lifestyle website AskMen.com, found that 77 percent of respondents look for girlfriends with "wife potential" while 75 percent believe they have a soul mate and 69 percent would never cheat on their partner.

"These survey results will be surprising to many women, most of whom have a completely different perspective of what the average man thinks and feels," James Bassil, editor-in-chief of AskMen.com, told Reuters.

"The idea that young guys only want to be single and jump from girlfriend to girlfriend is not true at all."

The online survey, conducted over a five-week period, found that six out of 10 men were fed up with inaccurate commercial descriptions of them.

Bassil said the images of men on television and in advertisements had not changed or been challenged for decades whereas the image of women in the media was always changing as their roles in the home and the workplace altered.

"In TV sitcoms and in adverts, young men are portrayed as immature, frat boys who are always trying to get around their wives or girlfriends finding out about their bad behavior. This is just not the case," he said.

The survey by AskMen.com, a unit of Fox Interactive Media, found that 56 percent of men believed that being a good father or husband made them "manly."

It also found that 75 percent admitted to crying over a woman while 57 percent of men cook at home and enjoy doing it.

"There really seems to be a revival of traditional values among men which goes against everything you see in the media," said Bassil.

(Reporting by Belinda Goldsmith, Editing by Miral Fahmy)

© Reuters 2008

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