Praised by The New York Times Book Review for being “persuasive [and] provocative,” John Strausbaugh reveals in furious, funny, and ferocious strokes how Americans became sissified, soft, and scared—and offers us unforgettable solutions on how to snap out of it. The American Sissy cocoons in a safe, virtual world— Fundadome. He plays with online friendsters and he plays with himself, anything to abate the growing anxiety about everything from terrorists to sex and spinach, air and water. He votes for sissy leaders, who lash out at the world like bullies—sissies in tough-guy drag. He’s so afraid of death and illness he doesn’t really live; he medicates and analyzes. And he’s so busy following the lives of the rich and famous that he has no time to have a rich and fulfilled life of his own. “I don’t mean sissy as girly man versus manly man,” Strausbaugh says. “This is not about big biceps. It’s about shrinking balls. And unless we stop acting like such sissies, soon enough some lean, angry barbarians from somewhere out Beyond Fundadome are going to overrun us, ramming their bayonets in our fat guts like fingers poking the Pillsbury Doughboy, and we won’t  be giggling.”

Strausbaugh leaves no sacred cow untipped. He is  as non-partisan as he is a straight shooter, taking equal aim at Democrats and Republicans, gays and straights, PETA fanatics, and the Christian right. But all is not  lost. Sissy Nation offers “modest proposals” for getting back the gumption that made this culture great.