# Tom Junod On Masculinity And His Dad

Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-dishcast-with-andrew-sullivan-1371188/tom-junod-on-masculinity-and-his-dad
Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-dishcast-with-andrew-sullivan-1371188/tom-junod-on-masculinity-and-his-dad.md
Podcast: [The Dishcast with Andrew Sullivan](https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-dishcast-with-andrew-sullivan-1371188)
Published: 2026-05-01T17:33:55+00:00
Episode link: https://andrewsullivan.substack.com/p/tom-junod-on-masculinity-and-his
Audio file: https://api.substack.com/feed/podcast/194141444/78b53f4f3c81e0536b55a372ea9129d6.mp3
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JSON: https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/the-dishcast-with-andrew-sullivan-1371188/episodes/tom-junod-on-masculinity-and-his-dad
Duration seconds: 3566

## Resource

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit andrewsullivan.substack.com Tom is a journalist and author. A former staff writer at GQ and Esquire, the film A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood was based on his Esquire article on Fred Rogers. He’s currently a senior writer at ESPN, and his new memoir is called In the Days of My Youth I Was Told What It Means to Be a Man . It was an intense conversation — about dads, sex, Catholicism, and growing older. For two clips of the episode — on being your dad’s wingman as a kid, and the dark secrets that Catholic families often carry — head to our YouTube page . Other topics: his dad’s serious injury at Normandy; emulating leading men in Hollywood; selling women’s handbags; his extreme vanity and obsession with scents; “the first metrosexual”; women flocking to him; making Tom complicit in his countless affairs; how men benefitted from the early Sexual Revolution more than women; Vatican II; Tom’s close relationship with his Catholic mom; Tom fearing his dad; the friends who worshipped him like a celebrity; hiding his Brooklyn accent; hiding extreme porn and dildos in his briefcase that Tom found; sadomasochism and bondage; dad’s sleeping with both Zsa Zsa and Ava Gabor; a mystery mistress who spoke at his dad’s funeral; Tom’s grandmother who was a notorious adulteress in the press who pimped out Tom’s dad and his aunt; and the challenge of writing my own memoir. Browse the Dishcast archive for an episode you might enjoy. We have some real stars coming up: Tiffany Jenkins on privacy in a liberal democracy, Adrian Wooldridge on “the lost genius of liberalism,” Jerusalem Demsas on the state of the left, Ben Rhodes on Iran and speech-writing, Harvey Mansfield on modernity, Daniel McCarthy on conservatism, HW Brands o…

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