The New Rules of (Not) Drinking With a Straw

Last week, my wife, Sally, and I dropped the kids at a friend's house and headed to Shelter Island for a night at the Pridwin Hotel and Cottages. (I recommend it.) We had cocktails before dinner at the hotel bar. I ordered a vodka martini; Sally, a margarita. Then she excused herself to use the bathroom. As the bartender was preparing the drinks, he looked at me and said, “Straw?” Before I could answer, he said to me, emphatically, “Not for you, for your wife.” The intent of his statement seemed obvious. I had ordered a martini, and only someone without use of their hands would consider sipping it from a straw. But it was in the way he said it, “Not for you.” Consciously or not, the bartender had tapped into the deep and complicated relationship men have with straws.

The humble straw was invented—get this—about 5,000 years ago in ancient Sumer (modern-day Iraq), and they were made from gold and lapis lazuli. Think about that the next time your paper straw is disintegrating into your McDonald’s Coke. The modern version was patented in 1888, and plastic ones entered our drinks in the mid-20th century. Since then, men have been told to avoid them.

Frank Sinatra and his second wife, Ava Gardner, enjoying a cool drink with a straw in 1951.

Esquire has been on the front lines of this fight. In March 2001, among the “Rules” we frequently published, we said, “Rule No. 317: No straws.” In our Man’s Guide to Drinking, we issued an even more severe edict: “No self-respecting man consumes his libation with a straw.” Why? We never explain. But the assumption, I think, is that drinking from a straw is something a woman does, not a man. And I followed Esquire’s advice—it was an affectation that eventually became part of my personality. At a bar, I’d receive a drink with a straw and in dramatic fashion remove the item, slap it on the bar, and declare that “men don’t use straws.”

There's no data (that I could find) on the percentage of men vs. women who use straws. Anecdotally, I think every guy over the age of 40 has an aversion to them to some degree. This week, I asked at least ten men my age or older—all of whom are generally progressive—how they feel about straws. It was unanimous: In anything alcoholic, no way. “This is chauvinistic,” one 40-something dude told me, “but it seems feminine to me.” Perhaps it’s generational. I asked two Gen Z guys in the Esquire office; both of them shrugged and said they’re fine with straws. The one thing all generations agree on: Paper straws are an injustice.

Predictably, straws are now a front in the culture wars. Fox News host Jesse Watters is the anti-straw standard-bearer. He has blamed them on the “decline of manhood.” He’s said, “A grown man should not be sipping through a straw. It’s emasculating.” And he’s mocked President Biden for drinking a milkshake from a straw.

Fox News host Jesse Watters has launched a crusade against men using straws. His efforts have resonated among Republican elected officials.

I don’t think Watters is entirely serious—he has said his anti-straw crusade is “a little silly”—but he’s still used it to great effect. A Republican member of Congress, Tim Burchett from Tennessee, told Fox News, “I don’t drink out of a straw, brother. That’s what the women in my house do.” His response inspired a New York magazine story this spring that asked, “Why Are Republican Men So Weird About Straws?”

It’s fair to ask the broader question: Why are men so weird about straws?

This would be the moment I reappraise the straw. Given Esquire’s long history of opposing it, maybe the time has come to reverse course. But I’m afraid I can’t. The use of a straw while drinking any alcohol neat, as well as most cocktails, just isn’t correct. Consuming beer, seltzer, and cider with a straw is strictly verboten. If you’re enjoying something nonalcoholic, be my guest. In fact, I encourage it. If you ordered a soda from McDonald’s, flipped off the lid and drank from the top, you’d be a freak. Same for beverages that come from a blender: milkshakes, protein drinks, piña coladas. (However, there is a picture of Ernest Hemingway drinking a daiquiri sans straw.) Margaritas fall into a gray area. Generally, you should put your lips on the glass. If the rim is salted, however, you might consider a straw.

Preoccupying yourself with these guidelines is weird only if you make it weird.

My reason for avoiding them is not “You look like a girl.” Gender’s got nothing to do with it. Don’t worry yourself with whether a woman drinks from a straw. Instead, picture this: You’ve put on your best suit and gone out for the night. You’re feeling confident. You saddle up to a bar and order an old-fashioned. You slap down a nice tip, grab the drink, and turn toward the room. You take it in. You hope people in the room are looking at you and thinking, Who is that guy? He looks cool and sophisticated. Then you raise the cocktail to your mouth and … take a big sip from a straw? It just doesn’t compute.

Andy Warhol double-fisting drinks in 1966. Look down the row and there’s not a straw in sight.

The reason is you look like a child. Straws reduce men to boys. The people in the room won’t look at you, slurping your whiskey concoction from a straw, and say, “That guy looks like a girl.” They will say, “He looks like a little boy.”

A couple years ago, Esquire’s Dave Holmes—who also can’t imagine drinking a cocktail from a straw—said this in a column: “It’s time we stop being so worried about becoming women and start focusing on the real threat to manhood: staying children.” He’s correct, and it’s why you need to put down the straw. But don’t slap it on the bar and make a declaration about men and straws, as I once did, which is even more childish than using one.

This story first appeared in the weekly newsletter from the editor in chief. To receive it in your in-box every Sunday, subscribe to Esquire.