Menfolk, Women's Expectations and the Lowest Common Denominator

My evening adventures through the city this weekend brought something to my attention. Men use sexually charged language inappropriately to try to be funny. Shocker!

Case in point: upon arrival at the intersection of Dundas and Ossington, my friend and I were approached by a guy (I refuse to call him a man, but he wasn't a boy either) whose opening line was about the heat in the city. Yes it is warm and yes we are sweaty. Well, he felt the need to share that he too was sweaty, but it wasn't his forehead he was concerned with, rather he was experiencing discomfort somewhere else due to the fact he was not wearing undergarments. My friend and I looked at one another and promptly told the guy "we're going over here now".

Was I supposed to be charmed by his confession? Have men actually begun to think that their not wearing underwear is even remotely in the same category of sexiness as a woman being sans panties? Fine, don't wear underwear, but don't think that I want to know about it and don't try to entice me by sharing that knowledge. There are things I need to know, and then there's that.

I find it interesting the way in which men try to talk to women. Granted, the guy at the intersection was clearly under the influence and I'm sure that affected how he handled the situation, but still. How is it that men don't yet understand that being sexually provocative is not a good way to reach women with whom they have sexual interest? If you're talking to me, I already understand that you're probably interested in sex with me, so spare me the theatrics! If you have anything real to offer you wouldn't have to resort to these tactless tactics. Men don't seem to understand that the best way to woo a woman is by #1 being interesting to her, #2 making her believe that SHE is interesting to you and #3 not acting like a frat boy. When having a pleasant conversation do no ruin the vibe by saying something that implies your sexual interest in me. When you do that I feel uncomfortable and want to get away from you. Why'd you have to go there?

What is the cause of this? A book I read a couple of years ago may offer some answers: Female Chauvinist Pigs by Ariel Levy (http://www.ariellevy.net/books.php?article=2). In her book she describes how female sexuality has been bastardized, reframing exploitation as empowerment. Gone are the days where a man was required to treat a lady as such. Now it seems that the "No Girls Allowed" club is admitting females but has passed on the former obligation to clean up their language. Girls are now in on the joke, but are still the butt of it as well.

Yes, women are sexual creatures. Yes, we can be dirty little girls sometimes. Do we want to be treated as though we are sluts off the get-go? Umm, well, I don't! I have been treated like a piece of sexual meat since I was 12 years-old (not exclusively, but it’s happened) and I find the level of refreshment sad when I encounter a straight man that is more interested in my head than in my pants. I am on guard, waiting for the bomb to drop. Even general comments about sexuality, when delivered without a sufficient respectful build-up, come across as off-colour and essentially ruin what might have been a pleasant conversation. I now distrust the non-sexual things you've said as smoke and mirrors to "get me".

Why do we have to be sexualized to be interesting? Why is it that now instead of hiding and being shamed by our sexuality we are now being encouraged, and is some instances expected, to wield it as a weapon or share it with anyone and everyone? Since when is giving it up right away a good thing for the woman? It shows she knows what she wants. Really? Or is it that we'll take whatever we can get, now that we don't require much of men?

We can have sex with whomever we please now that we have the pill and pseudo-pornographic behaviour has become mainstream... Strippercize anyone? Sex is normal and public and anyone who wants to have it can, granted they can find a willing partner.

Sex is easy. It's not that hard to find sex... but love. There's the toughy. I sometimes wonder if men are interested in love. If they are, they have a funny way of showing it, as most of the behaviour I've witnessed mainly focuses on trying to get their dicks wet. I think men are capable of love and do seek it but women have become so indiscriminate that people who have no business being in a relationship together are hooking up and staying together because sex changes things.

Let's face it, as much as we'd like to deny it, penetration changes the dynamics between two people and connects them in emotional ways that they, almost always, don't anticipate. Least of all the women. It used to be (or so the fairy tale goes) that you would save yourself for someone who you really cared about, and someone who really cared about you. Sex was a sacred act of love and affection between two people who had decided to take their relationship to the next level. It was a physical expression of love. This appears to be somewhat out-dated, as anyone who has had a one-night-stand can tell you. If you're horny, fuck. It's not a big deal. It's just sex. It's JUST sex. Well pardon me, but huh? How is it females of my generation have been convinced that sharing their bodies intimately is no big deal? It is a big deal!

Men are evolutionarily tuned to want sex from anything with two legs and a heartbeat. I get that, and I don't necessarily judge them for it. Women are the gatekeepers and we've fallen asleep at our post; letting men get away with things that lessen us as people.

This is not a man-hating post. At first glance perhaps I seem to be harbouring some resentment, and maybe I do, but this dynamic is doing a disservice to us all! Men need boundaries. They need it to be a little difficult to get with a lady so they can prove their salt, be a Man (with a capital M) and figure out if this is a woman he would like to be linked with.

Women make it too easy, and as I've seen evidenced with one of my male friends, once he's got someone supplying him with sex, there's no end to the bull shit he'll put up with to keep the supply lines open. It's kind of sad and I feel sorry for the guys that end up with codependent bitches that assume that once a guy has had sex with her, he's hers for life. It’s just not how men think. Sorry ladies.

Women need to decide if they want to open their hearts, and their legs, to a particular man and make that process more rigorous and discerning. Being loose is not empowerment, its poor vetting. It gets us emotionally involved prematurely and fogs our ability to see if the man we're with is a good match.

Another tool of female empowerment, the birth control pill, has also affected our mate selection (see http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2008/08/new-study-on-pi/). The pill changes our sense of smell, a natural way that we are able to pick men that are genetically different and therefore more desirable for us to mate with. Is it possible that the skyrocketing divorce rate is actually because women have been on the pill and therefore unable to pick the best match for herself? It's possible... I stopped taking the pill yesterday, not purely to improve my ability to sniff out a good man, but it certainly reinforces my belief that my decision was the right one.

So in the interest of all… I have some advice for each of the sexes:

Ladies, perhaps reconsider your birth control options and stop handing out your kitty like if you spread the word wide enough you’ll eventually catch The One. We deserve to be wooed. We should require this of our men. Being a "nice guy" shouldn't be enough. Make him prove he deserves you and talk yourself into believing that you're worth this burden of proof.

Men, be gentlemen, don’t dumb it down for the ladies and keep it in your pants.

Livid

Below is a letter I sent to Alcoa, an aluminum company operating in virgin jungle in the Amazon that I read about in Bloomberg magazine. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/marketsmag/mm_0909_trim3.html

Makes me ill inside when companies shit on the rest of us and tell us we like it.

This is the link to their page that claims they are part of the solution to our global environmental woes http://www.alcoa.com/global/en/eco_alcoa/eco_overview.asp

I'm livid!!!! See below.


I find it interesting the selective information you provide on your website regarding the environmental impact that your company has on this planet.

While I agree that it is important to use lighter materials to reduce the need for fossil fuels in transport, etc. You completely, though not surprisingly, forget to mention that you're tearing up virgin rain forest in the Amazon (highlighted in the current issue of Bloomberg magazine) in order to procure the ore you require for production! So short-sighted!!!

I expect that this note will fall on deaf ears as you probably have billions invested in your current projects in Brazil. It kills me that companies like Alcoa are so sociopathic in nature, destroying untold treasures for the purpose of money and "progress" that is unsustainable and then go on to reframe the argument as though they are the good guys.

So to the underling that has probably stopped reading by now, you can tell your superiors that your company makes me sick.

Don't Eat the Meat: Response to On-line article

http://hubpages.com/hub/Processed-Meats-Declared-Too-Dangerous-for-Human-Consumption

That's right people, processed meats are too dangerous for human consumption! As if I needed more justification for my predominately whole food diet. Never really been much of an eater of red meat and thank goodness for that!

The United States is a curious beast to me. A strong and smart nation that seems hell bent on self-annihilation. They feed their people some of the worst "food" imaginable and then wonders why its citizens health continues to worsen. A situation where there are multiple social mechanisms to ensure that poor people remain poor and then the poor people who can only afford cheap, processed foods are shamed because they become obese and then have health issues that they can't afford to treat. It's almost criminal. And this all seems to be in the name of profit in the free market. People don't have to eat such concoctions but they do because they're available, convenient and plentiful.

It reminds me of a product Stephen Colbert brought to my attention: a chocolate chip pancake covered sausage on a stick! How this is considered food is beyond me. Just because it's edible does not make it food! Or at least that's what I wish was the case. Over the past few decades, north Americans have become rather lax in what is considered food.

For instance, the Cheezie, a product almost entirely composed of oil. At a party this weekend one of my friends enlightened as to the pure evil that is this product. We lit a whole bowl of them on fire! Cheezies are flammable like you wouldn't believe! The result was a pile of burnt out ashes and a strange liquid by-product that I was really unsure of. This is what we put in our bodies people! Makes me ill inside thinking of how this food stuff is broken down in the body. It's a marvel really.

Then what I find further interesting is the various comments to the online article: they ranged from outraged to totally skeptical. One poster, referring to themselves as "Republican" called it hippie propaganda and a few questioned where this information was coming from even though it clearly states in the first sentence that the findings come from the World Cancer Research Fund review of 7000 clinical trials looking at the link between diet and cancer.

Why is it that people protect the status quo with such fervor? If people were to stop eating processed foods, whole corporations would go out of business, jobs would be lost and it would hurt the economy. How short-sighted! It is similar to the arguments against action on climate change. If businesses are forced to comply with caps on emissions it will hurt those businesses, assumingly beyond what they can manage financially. But here's the thing, if we do nothing there's a strong possibility that we will be unable to inhabit this planet, maybe not in our lifetime, but probably soon. The same as with food. Once you find out that there's convincing evidence that something is bad for you, that regular consumption of one thing or another will increase the development of cancer cells in your body, the individual should of course stop eating that one thing. One would hope though that the governing bodies on such issues should have a moral responsibility to remove dangerous products from store shelves. Apparently they feel no such responsibility. Its so clear that what is valued above the health of the populous is protecting vested interests.

I sympathize with the Cheezie lovers of the world, and those that can’t live without bacon. I do. We have come to expect that these “things” will be part of our food intake. They’re bad for us, but we don’t care. Same with smoking, so completely harmful, yet smoking is still pretty much state sponsored and accepted as stupid but ok.

We live to kill ourselves.