a reader on “dens”

This reader is slightly older than I am, and has more memory of “dens” than I do:

“One of the houses I grew up in had a den but as I recall we all made use of it; however, it was a room with knotty pine walls and had a heavy, adult feeling about it (including a stone fireplace).

It seems dens are back but are now called ‘man rooms’ or more often ‘man-caves.’ It’s interesting that the term of description has changed from ‘dad’ to ‘man’ and the place from ‘den’ to ‘cave.’ It’s as though dads/men are in such sorry straits that their special place needs to be described in terms that push back to a time of elemental struggles and gender difference.”