ideal, then one’s own effluvium might have to be. I don’t know that any Ivy League school has done a study on this, but I think it is generally accepted that men tend to reek more than women do, on the average. Isn’t that just like nature? Making one sex smell worse and the other more acutely?
What does nature want, anyway?
Mind you, I’m not saying it’s women’s fault. In fact I’m …
Wait a minute.
Wait a minute; wait a minute.
Am I being sandbagged here? I thought it was sexist to suggest that men need anything in particular from women that they don’t need from men. I thought what a liberated woman was supposed to say when a man asked her to go upstairs and come down wearing nothing, but a pair of fluffy pink house shoes was, “Because I’m a woman, right? Get your friend Ed to do it.” I thought a person was a person now.
On second thought, however, I guess things have lately come around to the point where men don’t always have to be skittish about saying something that discriminates. If you ask me, a lot of the credit for that should go to President and Mrs. Reagan. I know I find it very hard to think of either one of them in terms of, you know, a person, as such.
So, what the heck. If I’m out of line here, tell me. (That last sentence is a good example of something men say to women that doesn’t coincide closely with what men think they really need.) But here’s what I think:
What men really need is for women to have more sense than men do.
Let me give you an illustration. A man is sitting home staring off into space, of an evening, and all of a sudden he springs up, slaps his head, and exclaims to his significant other (who is, I don’t know, knitting, whittling, restructuring a holding company):
“Hey! I’ve got it! Wouldn’t it be a neat idea if I invented this magnetic chemical so strong that a tiny drop of it in Cincinnati would attract a freight train all the way from Dayton? And then I could develop a piping system whereby we could pipe this chemical beneath all the streets of Moscow — see, the great thing is, the Russians have all their radar pointing up — so we could sit down at the negotiating table and kind of lean back in our chairs for a minute or two, smiling and listening to all their rantings, and then we could shift forward suddenly, with narrowed eyes, and snap: ‘Can it. Here’s the deal. You come to your senses and drop all this Communist malarkey right now, and give us Cuba back. Or else.’
“And the Russians sputter for a minute and then they get very still and say, ‘Or else what?’
“And we smile again. And lean back in our chairs again. And say, in this casual tone, ‘Ohhh, or else we will open the little pores in the pipes that at this moment are in place beneath all the streets of your capital city, thereby releasing this magnetic chemical that is so strong it will pull you, by the nails in your shoes, down into the earth up to about mid-calf level the minute you set foot out of the Kremlin. Then try to keep some kind of crazy godless economy afloat.’
“Wouldn’t that be neat?”
Okay.
What this man thinks he needs from this woman is for her to answer, “Yes, dear, I suppose so.”
No, I take that back. What he thinks he needs from her is for her eyes to sparkle as she answers, breathily, “Oooo, yes!”
What he says he needs from her is for her to give him some thoughtful, objective feedback on this thing.
What he really needs is for her to say, “No.”
Why?
Not because a man (or a woman) needs the consolation of saying to himself/herself, “There is no telling how far I could go if it weren’t for Ms. [Mr.] Cold Light of Dawn over here.”
But rather because a man needs for a woman to help him understand the limitations of “Get them by the balls and their hearts and minds will follow.”
There may also be something along those lines that a woman needs from a man. But I haven’t sorted it out yet.
New Renaissance
What does nature want, anyway?
Mind you, I’m not saying it’s women’s fault. In fact I’m …
Wait a minute.
Wait a minute; wait a minute.
Am I being sandbagged here? I thought it was sexist to suggest that men need anything in particular from women that they don’t need from men. I thought what a liberated woman was supposed to say when a man asked her to go upstairs and come down wearing nothing, but a pair of fluffy pink house shoes was, “Because I’m a woman, right? Get your friend Ed to do it.” I thought a person was a person now.
On second thought, however, I guess things have lately come around to the point where men don’t always have to be skittish about saying something that discriminates. If you ask me, a lot of the credit for that should go to President and Mrs. Reagan. I know I find it very hard to think of either one of them in terms of, you know, a person, as such.
So, what the heck. If I’m out of line here, tell me. (That last sentence is a good example of something men say to women that doesn’t coincide closely with what men think they really need.) But here’s what I think:
What men really need is for women to have more sense than men do.
Let me give you an illustration. A man is sitting home staring off into space, of an evening, and all of a sudden he springs up, slaps his head, and exclaims to his significant other (who is, I don’t know, knitting, whittling, restructuring a holding company):
“Hey! I’ve got it! Wouldn’t it be a neat idea if I invented this magnetic chemical so strong that a tiny drop of it in Cincinnati would attract a freight train all the way from Dayton? And then I could develop a piping system whereby we could pipe this chemical beneath all the streets of Moscow — see, the great thing is, the Russians have all their radar pointing up — so we could sit down at the negotiating table and kind of lean back in our chairs for a minute or two, smiling and listening to all their rantings, and then we could shift forward suddenly, with narrowed eyes, and snap: ‘Can it. Here’s the deal. You come to your senses and drop all this Communist malarkey right now, and give us Cuba back. Or else.’
“And the Russians sputter for a minute and then they get very still and say, ‘Or else what?’
“And we smile again. And lean back in our chairs again. And say, in this casual tone, ‘Ohhh, or else we will open the little pores in the pipes that at this moment are in place beneath all the streets of your capital city, thereby releasing this magnetic chemical that is so strong it will pull you, by the nails in your shoes, down into the earth up to about mid-calf level the minute you set foot out of the Kremlin. Then try to keep some kind of crazy godless economy afloat.’
“Wouldn’t that be neat?”
Okay.
What this man thinks he needs from this woman is for her to answer, “Yes, dear, I suppose so.”
No, I take that back. What he thinks he needs from her is for her eyes to sparkle as she answers, breathily, “Oooo, yes!”
What he says he needs from her is for her to give him some thoughtful, objective feedback on this thing.
What he really needs is for her to say, “No.”
Why?
Not because a man (or a woman) needs the consolation of saying to himself/herself, “There is no telling how far I could go if it weren’t for Ms. [Mr.] Cold Light of Dawn over here.”
But rather because a man needs for a woman to help him understand the limitations of “Get them by the balls and their hearts and minds will follow.”
There may also be something along those lines that a woman needs from a man. But I haven’t sorted it out yet.
New Renaissance
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