OT: Secrets of the male . . . oh, never mind
stoney
Secrets of the male . . . oh, never mind
25oct03
SUSAN MAUSHART
What do men want? It’s a conundrum that has intrigued none of us from
time immemorial. What women want is the real bitch, and always has been.
On his deathbed, no less, Freud is said to have obsessed over the
question of what women want. Early in his career, he was sure it was a
penis – more or less like every other guy that’s ever lived, really.
Women might act as if what they really wanted was babies, Freud argued,
but babies were just "penis substitutes". Pretty decent swap, I’d have
thought.
Granted, both are cute and cuddly (up to a point). Neither is exactly
what you’d call an oil painting, but both can afford hours of amusement.
And they can certainly keep you awake nights with their ceaseless
demands. But babies are so much more – I don’t know – mature about it.
The sources of male happiness have never been all that mysterious. This
has led to a perception that guys are (in relative terms, at least)
simple and women complex. Balderdash! The needs of blokes are no
simpler. They are just better expressed, and much more frequently. "I’ll
have the cheesecake." "You take the kids." "Give me a promotion." "What
part of B-L-O-W J-O-B don’t you understand?" Women, on the other hand,
make you guess what they want. Not because we are innately sphinx-like.
Not because we don’t know what our needs are, but because . . . Gosh.
How can I put this? Ummmm. Oh, never mind . . . deep down we still feel
we’re not entitled to any.
It’s hard enough figuring out what women want with their coffee, let
alone what we want with our lives. ("Nothing for me thanks. Oh, well.
Maybe just a little . . .") Women even apologise when they want the
salt. And we wonder why we’re still waiting for society to pass us some
power. Having said all that, on the rare occasions when women do make
their desires known, we run the risk of being seen as unfeminine,
aggressive – especially (though it pains me to say this to my sisters)
by other women. I say, if liking your roast beef rare, and saying so,
makes you a ball-breaker – so be it. Maybe balls, like rules, were meant
to be broken.
All of which explains why I have not read Michael Gurian’s new book What
Could He Be Thinking? How a Man’s Mind Really Works. I mean, honestly.
Aren’t most of us just trying to forget? "Women know intuitively that
men are different from them," I learned from the publisher’s notes.
Yeah, and one of the main differences is that men never, ever buy books
about what women are "really" like – or that are predicated on the
assumption that female nature constitutes humanity’s ecological niche to
which all other creatures must adapt, or die.
Among the many "wonderful secrets about a man’s mind" Gurian reveals is
that the male brain "takes in less sensory detail than a woman’s, so he
doesn’t see or even feel the dust and household mess in the same way".
We all have our special gifts and talents. Women, it just so happens,
have a natural affinity for lint. We don’t just notice the dust. We feel
the dust (and vacuum anyway). There’s no point getting upset about all
this. Guys with a dust disability don’t need our censure. They need
practice – ideally, a year or two of intensive, special education in a
residential facility.
Books like Gurian’s present the data okay. It’s just the conclusions
they draw from them that stick in my craw. Consider the unimpeachable
observation that men are adapted to seek "competitive, hierarchical
groups". To Gurian, this explains why men become breadwinners. To me, it
suggests a God-given gift for childcare, still tragically untapped.
Similar is the finding that the male brain secretes less serotonin
(a.k.a. nature’s Prozac) than the female brain. Unfazed by the
"wonderful secret" that neurobiologists haven’t a clue how serotonin
works, Gurian maintains this is the "real reason" guys prefer
channel-surfing to conversation. (And they say I’m patronising.) Yet, if
women have so much more serotonin, how come we also have so much more
clinical depression? Couldn’t be the result of environmental factors,
could it? You know, like feeling too much dust, or reading too much pop
psychology?
To a man with a hammer, it is said, the whole world looks like a nail.
Yet, to a woman with a pair of cuticle scissors . . . Oh, never mind.
The point is, there are two good reasons women shouldn’t spend their
time pondering the mysteries of the male psyche. The first, and most
compelling, is that there aren’t any. Men, bless their little cotton
Y-fronts, have made sure of that – and it’s a technique women could
learn from. As for the second, let’s just say my feelings on this one
are similar to my feelings about my mother’s Confetti Coleslaw. I asked
her once what she put in it. "You probably don’t want to know," she
replied. Upon reflection, I’m sure she was right.
© The Australian
Stoney
"Designated Rascal and Rapscallion
and
SCAMPERMEISTER!"
When in doubt, SCAMPER about!
When things are fair, SCAMPER everywhere!
When things are rough, can't SCAMPER enough!
/end humour alert
alt.atheism military veteran #11
{so much for the 'no atheists in foxholes' rubbish}