of going to self-help groups for terminal diseases like testicular cancer--testicles and their absence being one of the themes--or tuberculosis. The emotional confessions of the participants give him a vicarious sense of being alive and provide emotional release, which then allows him to sleep soundly. While he enjoys good health, he is closer to death than the people he communes with on a nightly basis. They face physical mortality at any moment. He faces spiritual mortality every moment of his waking life.
             It is through the depiction of the Narrator's support groups that the feminization of men in society is most effectively described--through the one for men suffering from testicular cancer in particular. These are full of men opening up, crying, exploring feelings... doing all those thing
             ...