Tag: men and women

Marriage: We’ve Come Along Way, Baby?

/ Alessia / 4 Comments

In Wives Legal Rights, by Richard T. Gallen, a Dell Purse Book, © 1965, marriage is defined as both an emotional relationship and a legal arrangement, “a valid contract between a man and a woman, granting certain rights to each, demanding certain responsibilities of each.” It’s taken decades for Webster’s to catch up on the definition of marriage to include same sex couples (which, as you’ll see at that link, is upsetting to co-called conservatives — selfish, intolerant bastards), and the legal definition is even worse. So it shouldn’t be surprising that other concepts are having an equally long a culture lag.

wives-rights-responsibilities-duties

Paging through this retro Dell booklet, it’s easy to see that the gender split isn’t just regarding who is in a marriage, but what role each gender has within a marriage. Women are legally required to perform domestic chores and to care for husband and children. On the flip-side, men are required to support, protect and maintain wives and children (but nowhere is is listed that husbands are to care for their wives and/or children).

wives-rights-responsibilities-duties-husband

This may not seem very alarming on the surface (to me it’s a giant WTF?! moment), but the antiquated way of legally assigning roles in a personal relationship sure is government dictating personal lives. Even if marriage laws are no longer written this way, the cultural lag exists and for many, such shifts in change have not been made, making it more difficult even for those who do believe differently.

It’s easy to see where the cultural assumptions of women having the ‘home sphere’ impacts equal pay for equal work, the pink ghetto from pink collar jobs etc. Women are still not true equals in society because we are not seen as having equal footing and participation, which leads to attitudes & assumptions about women’s roles in society and individual marriages.

It’s not just the cave men (and their families) who wish to keep women in their (historical) place, but the insidious perceptions off of which people operate — sometimes unaware they hold such notions (or the unhappiness they instill) until they are tested. But once you are married, it is often too late to renegotiate what has already been seen as accepted.

My advice to you is to clearly discuss your expectations about roles in relationships with prospective mates. Be clear about what you and won’t do or tolerate — and be equally clear what you expect. Better to leave that old fashioned thinking fish in the pond, than to forever be on the hook.

Of Sex Surveys Run By Maxim

/ Alessia / 6 Comments

OK, I like Maxim — unlike Cosmo, it’s a magazine that’s pretty clear who and what they are all about. But I have a little bone to pick regarding the 2009 Sex Survey in their March issue (yeah, the one with dreamy Dushku on the cover — I’ve got a girl crush on her, and I don’t care who knows it).

“More than 2,000 female readers of Maxim.com, TheFrisky.com, Lemondrop.com, and PopSugar.com, aged 18 to 48 and from all over the country, took our in-depth survey…” Now I’m no statistician, but 2,000 speaking for an entire gender on the globe — or even the nation — seems pretty small. What’s worse, is that I would have expected a greater number than that just from Maxim‘s site; yes, even just female readers of Maxim should be more than 2,000. Then again, a recent survey says that only seven percent of a magazine’s subscribers seek/read the magazine’s website. But that survey only had 316 participants?!

Then you add in the other websites — all of which I’m sure boast more than 2,000 unique visitors a day to their advertisers — and you have what I’d call a diminutive survey participation rate. (Word to my bloggin’ pals: don’t feel badly about poor blog participation/comment ratios; the Big Sites don’t do any better.)

And that’s before we even get to the readership bias issues of pre-selected groups of women…

It’s pretty clear from the canned “In an effort to help the male readers of Maxim magazine understand us women a little better, they’ve asked…” line used in all the posts of the female-centric sites which partnered with Maxim for this survey that the publication sent out a form letter to the sites they selected — and that they selected/defined women based in large part upon the stereotypical female interests of celebrity gossip, shopping and relationship sites. Not all women are defined by such activities and websites. And the latter, women interested in reading about relationships, pretty much precludes women who are happy in their relationships — which would pretty much seem to be the best ones to offer men (and women) insights into what works. But whatever.

While this all sounds like I’m gonna spank some behinds rosy red (and you know I love to wear my leather domminatix gear when dishing media madness and relationship mythology), I don’t entirely disagree with the Maxim survey results.

So stick around for more; I’m breaking it up into more easily digestible points/posts.

Cosmo On Being Well-Hung

/ Alessia / 2 Comments

I kid-you-freakin’-not, in their section titled “The Single Girl’s Bible” Cosmo offers three-step instructions on how to hang a picture. With illustrations. Because it’s just that difficult.

Jeebus.

What the hell, Cosmo, are you actually under the impression that women don’t know how to hang pictures — that we’re on the dating scene because we need to marry a hammer-wielding man or our framed posters of hang-in-there kitties will never be hung on the wall?

While the column is by Molly Triffin and the “how to hang a picture” credits go to Thom Filicia, Cosmo has editors, right? Someone who makes the decisions on what to publish & how to publish it.

And I’ll accept any loose definitions of “editor”…

Like there’s a retarded horny monkey who randomly flings his or her own poo at the things that “need” to be published on the slick pages — a monkey who does this in exchange for food (to make the poo to fling), something for sexual release (a blow-up monkey doll, or a helping hand of some sort), and shelter (some place to eat, screw and fling poo — the office will do).

But then I’m not sure a retarded horny monkey would even suggest that single women wouldn’t know how to hang a picture — at the same time implying that married women have no need for this masculine knowledge.

Women hanging pictures? Using tools?! That’s not just wacky, that’s dangerous!

Thank Gawn I’m married so I’ll never have to learn how to do this. Not.

Cosmo Is For Those With Relationship Autism (And Living 60 Years Ago)

/ Alessia / 1 Comment

I know that you’re thinking I’m an insensitive bitch for saying “Relationship Autism” — but I have members of my family & friends on the Autism Spectrum (as well as others with similar challenges) and so I know what the hell (and what hell) I am talking about.

I know, I know, I know, that me mocking relationship advice &/or those who need it seems pretty freakin’ hypocrytical — but dude, there’s a difference between honestly trying to help people and doing what Cosmo does. And just what is it that Cosmo does? Oh, thanks for asking — because I’m dying to tell you.

Cosmo tells us things we all should know — like if he strokes your thigh, “sexy one-on-one time” is on his mind. (February 2009 issue.)

A-doy.

Something we all know — unless, of course, you seriously are on the Autism Spectrum or otherwise have a note from your doctor regarding an emotional &/or cognitive deficit. (But if you or someone you know does have such issues, they should not — repeat, NOT — be reading Cosmopolitan magazine. In fact, I don’t know just who should be reading Cosmo…  There’s danger in that-there publication.)

But just in case we aren’t grasping this subtlety of human behavior or have some memory problems, Cosmo wants us to know that he likes it if we grab his thigh too. (March 2009 issue)

This sort of turn-about is about as close to liberated as issues of Cosmo get.

(And no, I am not done with pointing out Cosmo‘s flaws — until they clean-up their act, I’ll keep up my activities alerting you to their irrelevance.)

Of Platonic Friendships, Jealousy & Tunics

/ Alessia / 2 Comments

Growing up, my dad often expressed the fact that men were always looking for sex.

When you just hung out with a boy, he’d outright ask — or at least those eyebrows would, “Did he make a move on you?”

When you laughed out loud that Steve was sooo not that kind of guy, dad said, “Oh, yes he is.”

And when you argued your case, illustrating just exactly how Steve never did make a move of any kind, even when you were literally crying on his shoulder about how some jerk guy had treated you, dad would reply, “Oh, he’s one of them tunics then.”

“Tunics” was the word he used because once, in struggling to recall the word “eunuch“, his mouth mistakenly said “tunic”. We never let him forget it either, so the word “tunic” became synonymous with “eunuch” — and you can imagine our laughter in the 70’s when fashion sported the tunic and there was much flowery talk, including of freedom, used to sell it.

Anyway, dad used the word “tunic” to describe platonic situations.

He just couldn’t understand how any man — even one who respected you — would be able to restrain himself from stealing a kiss or at least giving you one of those long romantic looks which would turn a girl’s belly to goo and let her know that romance was in the air…

Dad’s point was that everyman was looking for romance & sex — unless he was physically unable to perform it. So if Steve wanted to spend time with you, but did not make a move at all, there must have been something literally, physically preventing him from it.

It’s not that dad was a letch — he was, and remains, one helluva a romantic, intelligent and sensitive man. To him, spending time with a woman was about all a man needed to do to feel amorous — especially a single guy whose ultimate love was still waiting for him out there somewhere. Any girl could be The One — or at least a lot of fun.

He even told me about a time when my sister and I were little girls and we went to the mall with him. He spotted a pretty young woman with her own child in a stroller, and he and that woman shared a moment. Their eyes locked briefly, they each noted the other’s children and presumed marital status, then locked eyes again & smiled, as if to say that if they had met in another place and time…

Even happily married people with no intentions weren’t sexually or romantically dead; so why, dad reasoned, would an available guy do the time with an available girl if he wasn’t wanting to do the deed?

Dad was not a whistling wolf. He did not appear as a cartoon sex predator. Yet he said men were always ready and looking… It was confusing, but I had to believe him. Sometimes he was right too. But does that mean that there are no such things as platonic friendships between heterosexual men and women?

CNN recently posed the question in a recent article titled Should your wife have guy-friends? According to recent data, platonic relationships do occur:

Some 83 percent of the people surveyed think that cross-gender friendships can and do exist, according to a 2001 Match.com poll of more than 1,500 members. And a 2006 study by Canada’s Public Health Agency of nearly 10,000 Canadian children shows that they often start early, with 65 percent of boys and 60 percent of girls declaring three or more close opposite-sex friends by grade 10.

But as many of you with such opposite-sex friendships know, they aren’t always accepted — especially by your romantic partners and lovers who just don’t understand:

Jealousy over an opposite-sex friendship can be the result of projection, says Dr. Bonnie Jacobson, a New York City clinical psychologist and author of “Love Triangles: Seven Steps to Break the Secret Ties That Poison Love.”

“People project onto another person something they would do,” Jacobson says. “If Tom says to Sally, ‘I don’t want you to hang out with Harry,’ it’s very likely Tom feels he would violate that boundary [if he were in the same situation], so he imagines his wife will, too.”

I know this is true; I’ve seen it acted out. But what about the guys, like my dad, who really just don’t get it? Not because they are projecting, not because they are jealous jerks, but just because the concept is so foreign to them?

Well, keep those lines of communication open. Listen to his concerns, his point of view, but reassure him too by explaining how it works for you. Other advice from that CNN article includes the following reality checks:

• Be honest. “Never lie about the time you spend with your friend,” Sabatini says. “If you don’t feel comfortable telling your husband you’re going to hang out, then maybe he has a reason to worry.”

• Socialize as a group. “Spend time with both your significant other and your friend,” Sabatini says. “And acknowledge your love for your spouse in front of your friend.”

Dear Cosmo, I Hate You; And I’m Pretty Sure You Hate Me Too

/ Alessia / 3 Comments

Cosmo, you claim to be a magazine for women, but with your featured headlines screaming “What Sex Feels Like For Guys: Once You Know the Key Arousal Triggers, You Can Double His Satisfaction” I know who it is you really serve. And it isn’t me.

Honestly, do you really think women need pressure to perform for men — or any partner? Make no mistake: That’s what you are saying when you want us to focus on the satisfaction of others. It’s not like women have a long rich history of selfishness; on the contrary, ours is a history of selflessness. So when your cover also screams “Get More Pleasure: The Secret to Savoring Every Moment” I know it isn’t going to include my sexual pleasure. (It doesn’t. And, as I wrote before, Cosmo doesn’t exactly want us to find pleasure in our naughty dreams either.) It’s clear that you, Cosmo, believe my sexual satisfaction is unimportant, a distant third to pleasing him and capturing him (which is really about pleasing him anyway).

No, I’m so not over this Cosmo issue; and you can’t make me stop ranting about it. Cosmo, with its pandering to men under the guise of female liberation, is actually so misogynistic that it is dangerous. And people need to know.

In The Cards: Ace Of Diamonds

/ Alessia / Leave a comment

As promised, the first rhyming fortune-telling verse.

The Ace of Diamonds:

Since that this ace is now your lot,
You will wed one that’s fierce and hot;
But if a woman does draw it,
She will wed one with wealth and wit.

Now just what have we learned? That the Ace of Diamonds is a good card, yes; but also that women are valued for their passionate lusty ways while men are valued for their wealth — and wit. Now feel free to discuss.

13 Reasons To Hate Cosmo – In Just One Issue

/ Alessia / 10 Comments

Gawd I hate Cosmo. It’s like they simply cannot fathom that we see they’ve been running the same articles over & over again since Helen Gurley Brown became editor-in-chief in 1965, and began using the mag as an extension of 1962’s Sex and the Single Girl.

Don’t get me wrong, Sex & the Single Girl was wildly wonderful for the time (and holds up much better than you might think); but it was one book in 1962 and if we’re supposed to have come a long way, baby, then why the hell are we operating off a 1962 manual?

Plus, you can only recycle so much.

Even if you think, “There’s new chicks aging into woman’s mags every year,” you have to accept the fact that they know — or should frickin’ know — that old news is not only old news but hurtful and dangerously inaccurate.

Thirteen Examples Why I Hate Cosmo
(All from the February, 2009, issue.)

1 On page 50, In The Best Times To Impress Him, under “When his buddy gets dumped,” the advice reads as follows:

If your female friend suffers a breakup, you bring over Sex and the City DVDs and talk about how she “feels.” If your guy’s male friend gets the ax, however, he has only one job: to help the dude get laid. So give your man the green light to spend more time than usual acting as a wingman when out with the boys.

Ugh. So A), couples only have same-sex friends, they are B) stereotypes. (My friends and I — male and female — have a strict code that should any of us own &/or view Sex & the City, we are to drive them to the closest impatient care facility & destroy the DVDs.) And C) pimping is good for your relationship, so to hell with the scars on either “your guy’s male friend” or his sexual conquests.

2 Page 54, “How I got him to…” is an ode to man-ipulation. It starts with the “men are easily distracted like babies” — so change his cell phone ring to his favorite tune to keep him from answering it (hey, he’ll like listening to the small clip repeated so much that he’ll totally ignore a call from work, his mom… maybe even you). And then ends with stuff you already should know how to do, like if he says it’s natural to flirt with other women so you’re free to do the same, feel free to do it. (We know it may not make him get jealous and stop like “Chloe” wanted; but hell, neither of you are dead; so why the hell not flirt? Flirting is not picking-up or cheating.)

3 page 67: Beauty News. It’s not “ads” but the usual editorial serving as ads; and even worse, it’s stupid.

When you pull off your tights, a cloud of dust pops up. Cold temps plus indoor heat zap moisture. Switch to a hydrating body wash, like Caress Glowing Touch, $3.50.

4 Page 74: Beauty Q & A:

Q: When I wear heavy fabrics, I sweat a lot. What can I do to prevent it?

A: “Layer a cotton tee under a sweater — the natural fibers absorb moisture,” says NYC derm Doris Day. Also try a stronger sweat blocker, like Secret Clinical Strength Anti-Perspirant, $7.99.

‘Cuz A) believing the “derm” wouldn’t sell Secret ad space and B) asking why she wears sweaters in the first place is out of the question… Because “Q” is a made-up question from struggling editors.

5 Fun Fearless Males 2009, page 83. Heavens, if they are so fun & fearless — and celebrities — why don’t I already know about them? And why would I care? It’s not like I’m so deluded to think that my discovery of them (should I even agree with their sales pitch selections) makes me frickin’ eligible to date them.

6 Page 98: What Sex Feels Like for Him. Yeah, we can count on Cosmo to tell us how our man feels about us & with us; so there’s no need, should we A) actually be curious or B) not already have him telling us what he wants and why, to actually ask our real, not pseudo-Cosmo-guy, ourselves.

7 Page 103 starts 50 Guy Phrases Translated, in which Cosmo rapes other written works, distilling them to hysterical uselessness. Cracking the male “cryptic code” includes translating, “Can we talk about this later,” to, “I never want to talk about this again.”

Gee, really?

I suppose next you’ll tell me that when he says “We should go out sometime,” that he’s just afraid to really ask me out… And “You look hot” means he wants to have sex. Oh wait, that’s #2 & # 29.

8 We are not to be “alarmed” by our “freaky sex dreams, we are soothed (starting on page106).” Sex with the ex, girl-on-girl action, and dreams of sex without condom use aren’t what we fear think they are — nope, they aren’t even hot dreams we should just enjoy.

Cosmo, you’re worse than a wet blanket; at least then I’d have a wet spot & be damn happy for it.

9 In Love & Lust (apparently a regular feature) the Cosmo skinny is that playing hard to get (but not too hard to get) is phat. Yes, it’s 2009 and we believe women don’t know that the thrill of the chase is thrilling to both chaser and chasee. I mean, come on; this is the stuff we all miss when we ‘settle down’ and, if we take each other for granted, end up in divorce court for.

But thanks, Cosmo, for telling the women of today who paid $4.50 for your rag that “texting him your location at all times” is “not hard enough”, that waiting to reply to his text a day later with “Who r u?” is “too hard” but that “sending short texts and resisting the urge to engage in volleys” is “just hard enough.”

10 On page 112, more of Love & Lust, has the classic, “he lost his class ring in my pussy” story. If you don’t know it, ask your dad to tell you a sex joke.

And then work on your freakin’ Kegles for gawd’s sake.

11 Page 192, in Cosmo Weekend Living, we are advised not to make our rooms too girlie &/or paint our rooms pink because “guys don’t feel comfortable in estrogen-heavy rooms.”

Yeah, unless our estrogen-heavy bods are naked; then, like they notice — let alone care.

12 Page 52: Cosmo for your guy — “show this to your man!” Two problems here: A) the whole mag is an ode pandering to negative male stereotypes, so if you’re going to encourage him, why stop at one page? and B) if your guy needs help to know that whispering “Remember that time on the kitchen floor?” is sexier than whispering “I’m so drunk!” to you, I doubt reading it in print in Cosmo will be of any help — to either of you.

(And then he might just flip through it and start thinking about your pink duvet and why you programmed the ringtone on his phone.)

13 Oh, are we at thirteen already? But there’s so much more… OK, I’ll give you just one more & then I’ll stop. For now. The perfumed ads reek. As if I didn’t have a headache already.

PS I didn’t buy this copy of Cosmo; I liberated it my sister-in-law from it. And yes, she heard all of this as an oral presentation as I took it.

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From The “Wha Wha Wha Poor Men” Files

/ Alessia / 4 Comments

This is a relatively-new blog so I have not yet had the time to get into Everything, but if there’s one thing that irks me (and let’s face it, we know there are sooo many things that do bother me), it’s men complaining about how bad they have it.

Poor poor men with their hugely disproportionate power base. Poor poor men who — despite a 100+ year old suffrage and other assorted women’s movements — still retain a huge majority of the economic, legal and brute force (via armies etc.) power in the world. Poor poor men who can’t deal with (amazingly small) micro-changes in gender roles. Wha wha, my heart so does not bleed for you.

Not that we women hate me; many of us who complain the loudest have men for fathers & grandfathers, are married-to and happily live-with men — some of us even lovingly raise male children. Who knew?!

But every time we point out the disparity, the inequality, and yes, the personally & publicly horrifying things that men do, we are man-haters. It can’t possibly be that we are offended & disappointed by the male refusal to accept the responsibility which comes with power; we must simply hate them.

I tell a true story about a dog that mauls a child and, whether I have a dog or not, that doesn’t make me a dog hater; but tell a true story about a man who beats a woman and I’m a man hater. Totally stupid. :snort:

But it happens.

And if you dare to point out just how stupid that thinking is, you are only more of a man-hater. :sigh:

Today, on Twitter, a public conversation about this man-hating phallacy fallacy which highlights a seemingly rather benign conversation about women and their hate of men…

Briancarter, self-described SEO optimizer and “funny keynote speaker/stand up comedian” (it will become crystal clear in a few minutes why the funny-man makes a living being the opposite of funny), asks: Is there an antonym for misogynist? And to be perfectly clear, he is searching for “a hater of men” — and, yes, lesbian jokes will be made ha ha ha — let’s laugh at the lesbian-man-hating stereotype.

Two minutes later he tweets: lol classic! I asked is there an antonym to misogynist, RT @zainyk: @briancarter The View.

He gets a more serious reply from shellerae: @briancarter a misandrist hates persons of the male sex, a misogynist hates persons of the female sex, & a misanthrope is a hater of mankind

He replies: @shellerae nice, but no one ever uses misandrist…?

And then it disintegrates into more mocking of The View and women while Brian ignores more insight from shellerae, who tweets both “I love men {shrug} so would be hard for me to use & would avoid people who described themselves as such!” and “I think there are people who don’t hate the “gender” but more don’t respect it.”

And then we get to the meat of the matter when Brain says, “ya I was thinking: there are women who hate men, so why don’t we hear a word for that as often as we hear misogynist?”

Maybe it’s because man-hating is — if not a complete myth — then far, far less prevalent than the hatred of women. Duh.

As Astrogirl426 says: And anyway, there is a word for man-haters (of either sex): misandrope. Perhaps there just arent as many of us– I mean them ;)

It seems that the conversation ended with Brian’s lame tweet: lol no I think you took it way too personally- a lot of people answered that way… sorry :-)

Sorry? Sorry?! That’s all you have to say?

You start a conversation, one that adds to larger public discourse, which reduces valid female complaints of factual disparity to the simplistic, nonsensical, and dismissive “women hate men” — and then, between making and encouraging lame negative stereotypical jokes and ignoring sane comments, when you learn that you offend people, and all you can do is blame them for taking it “way too personally” — ending with a “sorry” which reads more like you are sorry for what they did or said than taking responsibility for your own actions?!

Jeebuz.

Of Cars, Cavemen & Cooking

/ Alessia / 1 Comment

I was driving this weekend and on the car radio (in some town I was driving through so I can’t remember the town or the station) a DJ was announcing the “news” that women are more attracted to men who cook over the presumed status symbol of the car he drove. (I’m assuming he got the idea here.)

The male DJ was freaking out at the idea, asking for female callers to confirm or deny such a thing.  As woman after woman called in confirming the “news”, he was becoming more incredulous.  “This goes against everything we men knew,” he said (though I am paraphrasing a bit from memory), “We guys go and get the job to get the car because that impresses women.”

Uh, what century is he living in?  We women have been able to have careers & buy our own cars for quite some time now — and while we may not be paid dollar for dollar for the same work, we certainly aren’t going to go all batty-eyelashes & giggly-hair-flips over a man with an automobile.

Since we are working, we obviously prefer a man who can & does cook.  We don’t want to be made to feel that we are responsible for a man literally dying from hunger while we work our medical internships, stay late at the office to get the promotion, or meet the girls at the martini bar for happy hour.  And isn’t it nice to have a man make the meal, serve the meal to us, and clean up afterwards!  We all like to be catered to, no matter our gender, orientation, marital status, height, hair color, or make of our automobile.

While the men embracing this new ‘trend’ in self sufficiency are now called gastrosexuals, apparently there are men, like that DJ, who are shocked if not appalled at such outrageous gender role changes. I could call them all cavemen — and in search of gold diggers no less! — and leave it at that, but we do have to face some facts here.

Along with personally maintaining culture lag, these folks are genuinely puzzled.  While their knuckles figuratively drag on the ground, these men stand slack-jawed & wondering — just how are they supposed to be a man and compete for a mate?

The times, they are a-changin’ and they just don’t see where they fit in.

I’d say you shouldn’t worry about them; but quite often these men move from perplexed to frustrated, doggedly refusing to change their beliefs and ways.  I’ve personally see quite a number of them become angry & abusive asshats.  To those of you who face such throwbacks, I say throw him back and keep on fishing.  If he’s not going to change, he’s going to expect you (or try to make you) change to fit his world view, and that’s just no good.

Even if he’s not an abusive asshat, you’re going to end up “taking care of him” because “you’re the woman, that’s why” — and if you at all wish he would become a fully-functioning human being able to care for himself on a daily basis, you’ll end up resenting your role as care-taking-mommy to him.

As an example, I offer up one of the female callers to that radio show who said that she didn’t care about cars. She not only preferred a man who could cook, but one that could do laundry too; she herself had been cooking and doing her boyfriend’s laundry for five years and she “hated it”.  Now I don’t know this woman or her man; but she was resentful enough to call into a radio show and complain — but there she was, doing the cooking and laundry (and who knows what else?) for this guy for five years!

She can’t blame him; she has to blame herself for staying there and doing it.

I hope she’s also got a good job.  That way, one day, she can come home good and exhausted, be faced with making his meal and washing his undies, and just snap — get into her car and drive away.

Of course, the flip side of all of this was the one female caller who said that she just wanted a man who had a car; she was tired of the guy who couldn’t afford the bus pass — and the way she said it, she was talking about those shiftless male gold diggers.  They not only don’t have a car; they refuse to work.  And they expect you to provide all the food — buy the clothes and launder them too.  Get in your car and drive far away from them, because they’ll drive you crazy and drain your accounts.

Men & Their Delicate Dangles

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If you follow me on Twitter (and you should; I’m told I’m a hoot), then you “heard” me mention that I had a fabulous email regarding my post on New Year’s resolutions and that I was excited to post about it. The email was from my bud, Slip of a Girl — and even cooler than her email was the fact that she’s posted the whole story and then some at her blog.

Now, aside from the fact that I do so enjoy being the center of attention, Slip makes some good points about how you need to not only be honest with yourself about your pet peeves but know which ones are important enough to be deal breakers for you — and that you can’t expect others to read your mind and know them, you have to communicate them. If only to spare yourself from suffering.

But I’ll be honest here and say that the best part of her post was when she goes off about one her largest pet peeves — which we share — that of men who make ‘ick’ faces about menstruation:

You men (and any women who loathe themselves & their bodies thus) need to accept the realities of a normal, healthy female body.

We women have to accept such things about men — even if we don’t completely understand them.

For example, we have to accept the fact that you guys will wake up with morning wood 99% of the time. We can’t blame you for it. We don’t have to do anything about it; but we do have to accept that your hormones cycle daily and so you have heavy loads of testosterone just waiting to be released along with your seed.

We have to accept that your delicate dangle, that thing there between your legs (which I can only imagine is something like a small, narrow, third breast just hanging there), will suddenly jump up and point like a fool whenever aroused — and beg to be used — like some independent tool with impulse issues.

And you pee from it!

We don’t understand it, sometimes it embarrasses us, and quite frankly it seems weird. But we mature. Even if we remain ignorant to “knowing”, we accept it and stop acting as if (& thinking that) you are freaks or gross or dirty.