by hilzoy
Via LGM, a hilarious comment thread on male contraceptives. Samples:
“No way I’m shootin’ blanks, homie. You can call me whatever you want. I made it through college and a short single life without any babies. I’ll tell my son over and over again to put a sock on the pickle. No pills.”
(Response:
“Answer this question, who cares if you “shoot blanks” if you dont plan to “kill” anybody and thus, have no need for “bullets?””
Heh heh.)
“I think men and women look at their bodies differnently. Men have an emotional tie to their “balls.” It just seems like the Pill would be easier to take for women, emotionally. I don’t know why, but I don’t care if I was 80 years old, I couldn’t do anything like taking this Pill. I’d rather get a vesectamy(sp), which is humiliating as well.
Maybe it’s because as men we know that women are attracted to the “top breeders.” Women want guys with strength, power and status; it’s innate so that they can bear strong children. If, as a guy, you give up your ability to impregnate a woman, women won’t want you, even if they aren’t necessarily trying to get pregnant. It’s all subconcious and don’t tell me I’m wrong.”
Note to guys: we are not, in fact, attracted to the “top breeders”. What on earth would have made anyone think we were? Darwinism is not a psychological theory, and it does not work in this simpleminded way.
And:
“I’m glad to see you have not fallen victim to the propaganda that has created this new breed of feminized men. That must explain why you and I are cousins.
It’s time, to CUT TO THE CHASE.
This article is not about pills. It is not about gender equality. This article is not about birth control.
This article is about mind control.
If you can get a man to swallow chemicals that tamper with his reproductive system, you can get him to do anything.
What’s next, a pill that turns your penis into a vagina twice a week?”
I once wrote a song called ‘Men Are So Weird’ (don’t even ask what personal experience it was based on. It had a minor following back in the day, mostly among other women who had a crush on this one guy who was, unbeknownst to them, the very man whose weirdness had inspired it. His girlfriend once came up to me and said: God, that is so true! I really didn’t know how to respond.) This comment brought it to mind, or would have done, if I thought it was in any way representative of men in general.
And finally:
“Men can’t be trusted to take a pill every day — they can’t even remember to pick up their f*cking socks. ‘Emotional tie to their balls,’ my ass. This is why my brother won’t get his f*cking dog neutered. You men should all be kept in a cage somewhere. What is that they have in baseball — a bullpen? That’s what we need for you guys. A f*cking bullpen.”
Discuss.
“Men are so Weird”
It is so entirely wrong of you not to dig up and post the lyrics.
What’s next, a pill that turns your penis into a vagina twice a week?
“Weird” is one way to put it. That’s of a piece with Hilzoy’s admirably cheerful equanitmity in the face of what I’d be more inclined to view as contempt and hatred for women.
Think I picked the wrong place to start my blog reading today…
Men are weird, there is no doubt about it.
I’m not even worried about children and I can still wear a condom. I’ve always wondered if it might be a better tactic to move from fear-based condom use to eroticizing it. One of the first guys I was with did that, and it works pretty well.
[I was going to give an illustration, but I suddenly realized that A) I could be sharing too much and B) my mom sometimes reads this blog].
oh come on, LB–is that the spirit of self-reliance?
Make up your own damned lyrics! The title gives you everything you need to get started–that and some exposure to men.
Instead of expecting hilzoy to write the whole thread for us, I think we should turn it into a Eurovision Song Contest! With all contestants singing “Men Are So Weird”! Who’s first?
If you’re ballsy and you know it, clap your hands.
“they can’t be trusted to pick up their f*cking socks”
— or to put a sock on their f*cking pickle for that matter.
[I was going to give an illustration, but I suddenly realized that A) I could be sharing too much and B) my mom sometimes reads this blog].
A) I don’t think so
but
B) er, yes.
(Hi, Sebastian’s Mom! Please join the discussion: Obsidian Wings is aiming to be the first blog in the world with regular parent-offspring blogging teams.)
Preemptive note: women are weird too.
However, there are various different sorts of weirdness that I think are specific to one sex or the other, not in the sense that all members of one sex are weird in that way, but that the overwhelming majority of people who are are members of one sex.
Example: why on earth would anyone read Harlequin romances? They have no redeeming features at all. And yet some people are weird enough to read not just one, but lots, even though they are all virtually identical. Very weird. And the overwhelming majority of those people are women.
I used to have to say something like this whenever I played my song.
Also:
Socks? Pickles? Pickles??
I once knew a woman whose cats had litter after litter. She refused to have her cats neutered because it wasn’t “natural.” It’s not only men who can be weird about these issues.
The latest figure I could find for vasectomies in the U.S. was from 1991 when almost a half million men had the operation. So obviously not all men are weird about this. My masculinity doesn’t reside in my genitals.
“Some of you sitting there with your cock in your hand, Don’t get you nowhere, don’t make you a man.” -John Lennon
Case in point: my wife. She’s very, very smart, but this (romances) is her one time-waster. I’ve been married to her for nearly fourteen years now, and I still don’t get it. I don’t think she does Harlequin anymore, and she’s to a large degree shifter her attention to more worthy literature, but every now and then it’s back to the trash.
She doesn’t get my scifi collection, either, but I still have myself convinced it’s a superior vice.
More seriously, I don’t see what the issue is about “not trusting men to take the Pill”.
Women who take the pill do so because they don’t want to conceive: and would continue to do so, I would hope, or whatever other form of contraception they want to use.
If a man doesn’t want to conceive, he should be using a condom, as that’s currently the only form of contraception under his control: the male contraceptive pill would give a second form of contraception under a man’s control, which would be good for all the men out there who don’t want to accidentally end up with 18 years of child support to pay. (I’m prepared to bet that men’s right’s activists will find a reason to be viciously against the pill, though.)
Of course, that would bring home a whole lot of other issues about getting men to wear condoms because that’s the best way of preventing STDs if you’re going to have penetrative sex…
Some days I’m even more glad than usual to be a lesbian. 😉
Slarti: She doesn’t get my scifi collection, either, but I still have myself convinced it’s a superior vice.
It is. (Well, except for all novels more than two inches thick, including all those by Robert Heinlein, but with a special exemption for C.J.Cherryh.) (Oh, and Georgette Heyer rocks.)
Slarti: Back in the day, when feminism was more fun, people used to wonder what genuinely female pornography would look like — the idea being that just making something like Hustler, only with guys, wouldn’t do the trick; that was just gay male porn whereas whatever women came up with to serve similar functions would be somehow different. I thought then, and continue to think, that romance novels are, essentially, female porn, even though the point is less the actual sex than the (endlessly postponed) romance.
She does Georgette Heyer. So to speak. One of my wife’s favorites, to crossreference with another of her favorites (Sleepless in Seattle reference, there).
I’ve noticed this odd confusion between infertility and impotence before. I don’t understand it, but then I’m obviously defective because I don’t understand the attraction of professional sports either.
Nell, Hilzoy has obviously been affected by her state’s sexist motto, whereas your state’s seal is much more feminist.
Slarti: oh dear, regency romance. The hard stuff.
KCinDC: Yikes. I had no idea. Can you suggest a manly deed that I might undertake, the better to embody my Maryland-ness?
She doesn’t like the romance novels that are much closer to erotica; the ones with prettied-up descriptions of actual sex.
Regarding fertility, I’m still awaiting The Spigot. Think of an intermittently-reversible vasectomy. But not anxiously, because our fertility issues have pretty much already taken care of themselves.
Hmmm…that Wiki entry has a description of the motto that’s not actually inscriped on the seal. Odd.
Ah. I see; I’m looking at the border.
It’s my mother’s family motto, Hilzoy, so I need to find some manly deeds to embody my Calvert-ness. I think I’ve probably done okay with the womanly words, depending on who’s judging.
hilzoy, you’ve done auto mechanics, right? I think that qualifies.
And don’t forget the robot that hits people.
That’s very cool scientific work. Female chemical contraception has been elegant from the start: interfere with one tiny part of the natural cycle, by adding a little extra hormone, and there’s no implantation. Elegant, not too intrusive, effective.
Up to now similar attempts at male contraception have been ham-handed–attempting to shut off all sperm production via hormones just has to have nasty side effects. But this work, interfering with one delicate part of sperm production without actually changing the level of sperm production, is very very clever.
I’d be happy to try it, in the interest of scientific experiment.
Hmm, some people think the figure on the Virginia flag isn’t a woman but a man dressed as an Amazon?
Hmm, can I see a thread on the outside site where I can share too much without scaring my mother? 🙂
Actually I have a really funny other story about a discussion with my mother which proves that I can do diplomacy.
And no, mom I’m not making fun of you, I’m making fun of me.
Oh, goodness. Hilzoy said “regency romance” and I swear I had to look back, because I thought she had said “regnery romance.”
Now that the democrats have won back congress, should Regnery press move onto a romance novel line?
Maybe a dating memoir from Ann Coulter?
Or a novel about woman contemplating marrying a divorced Republican (name your office)?
Or a powerful woman in, say, a cabinet post who has a secret crush on her marred boss?
Regnery Romance….so you have something to discuss with your first date with the person you met on the Hannity personals…….
Oh, and I’d enjoy seeing the lyric, too, only because I write them myself (see the website)
Slarti: She does Georgette Heyer. So to speak. One of my wife’s favorites
Ah. Well, Georgette Heyer no more wrote “Harlequin romances” than the Bronte sisters or Jane Austen did: Heyer set the standard for Regency romances, and they are fabulous stuff, well worth reading. My personal favorites are The Masqueraders, The Reluctant Widow, the Avon family trilogy (These Old Shades, Devil’s Cub, An Infamous Army, with The Black Moth and Regency Buck as rather odd sidepieces), Cotillion, and A Civil Contract. (I recommend Lois McMaster Bujold as an author you might both enjoy: she wrote a wonderful series of space-opera novels about Miles Vorkosigan, partially set on the planet Barrayar, which has (over the fifty years or so before the novels begin) been moving from the 18th century to the 35th century technologically, and is only just beginning to catch up with what this means sociologically. Almost the last novel in the sequence, A Civil Campaign, is a homage to Bujold’s favorite romance authors – including, of course, Georgette Heyer.
Ellen Kushner’s Swordspoint is another novel in the “fantasy of manners” genre that clearly owes a good deal to writers who were hooked on Georgette Heyer in their formative years.
Health warning: Do not, under any circumstances, read Simon the Coldheart. At least, not sober. It may go better if you’re stoned.
What I find weird is folks who expect human beings to behave rationally with regard to the very organs that make us behave so irrationally.
Gromit: What I find weird is folks who expect human beings to behave rationally with regard to the very organs that make us behave so irrationally.
The organ that makes most people behave irrationally is the same one that allows us to behave rationally.
Ears?
I once asked a girlfriend (I was young, but old enough to know better) if all girls had their periods at the same time each month, surmising some sort of universal tidal effect.
She laughed and said “Men are so weird!” She didn’t sing. She tap danced. Eventually, right out the door.
So far, I’ve got a baseball allusion in the post and a John Lennon quote in a comment. That’ll do me for the day.
We are weird. I enjoy discussing sex with women just to see what’s up. I remember discussing with a couple of women the frequency with which men and women think about sex as we go about our ordinary daily activities.
Their average seemed to be more than several but less than half a dozen times a day. My answer, speaking for men everywhere, was nearly every waking minute, with the exception of a few moments last Thursday when I had to concentrate to throw a guy out at third base in a baseball game.
When I need to stop thinking about the subject, I distract myself by thinking about Slart hitting each individual nail into his wood floor with one of those manual hammers.
Then sleep comes over me.
Of course, I exaggerate, but not by much.
I’ve decided, after much contemplation on the subject, that men and women want pretty much the same thing when it comes to love and sex, just not at the same time.
The other difference is men’s need for visual gratification. I think it is difficult for men to understand that women are used to their bodies (duh) and we can’t quite get why they don’t want to be visually gratifying for us 24 hours a day.
Which gets me to the question, “What’s next, a pill that turns your penis into a vagina two days a week?”
Well, no doubt that guy would forever call in sick to work two days a week, just to be alone with his new friend.
If it’s one of those talking vaginas, he could interrogate it.
Brain.
John: The other difference is men’s need for visual gratification. I think it is difficult for men to understand that women are used to their bodies (duh) and we can’t quite get why they don’t want to be visually gratifying for us 24 hours a day.
I get the impression, too, that (straight) men also don’t quite believe that women have a need for visual gratification… certainly not when it involves his partner ogling an attractive man… who isn’t him. 😉
“people used to wonder what genuinely female pornography would look like”
It wouldn’t be about sex, it would be all courtship, all the time. That’s what I understand the attraction to Harlequin romances and the like is.
On the other hand, I refer (privately) to house buying and remodeling shows like my wife watches as pr0n for women, so I may not be the best judge.
When I got vasectomized, my partner at the time pointed out that my marketability to available women just about doubled.
It wouldn’t be about sex, it would be all courtship, all the time.
Not for some of the women I know. In my experience, women can be pretty raunchy, and there’s some deep flowing waters there.
people used to wonder what genuinely female pornography would look like
It looks like this.
Our google search rating is sooo going up after this thread.
Jes, beliefs like the one you mention change with maturity.
I used to presume “ogling” at other men by girlfriends, even when it wasn’t happening, and it worried me.
Now, for some reason, I find it kind of hot to contemplate.
When I write “change with maturity”, I can’t tell whether I’m less mature or more mature now.
Jes: I see someone else has read Joanna Russ …
Lizardbreath and zmull: you asked for it…
They say that men are courageous; they say men don’t have no fears
They say a man will look you dead in the eye when a woman would dissolve in tears
They say that men are aggressive; they tell me men think wars are fun
They say that men stand their ground like heroes when women just turn and run
Well, if that’s true the men I know must be a very peculiar lot
Cause any place where there’s a hint of conflict is a place where they are not.
Men are so weird, men are so weird
Men are so weird, so weird, so weird, men are so weird.
Well, if you have a good time on your very first date
A man will assume that you’ve got your eye on the matrimonial state
He’ll think you’ve got handcuffs in your backpack and wedding bells in your head
He’ll say ‘excuse me’ and jump out the window or dive underneath his bed
And if you should happen to run into him he’ll say ‘I don’t want to be unkind
But I’m really not ready to get serious yet’ — when the thought hasn’t crossed your mind.
There is no easier way to make a grown man turn and run
Than to ask for an explanation of some perplexing thing he’s done
Maybe you’re just curious about why he gave your car away
Or shaved his head, or left for France, or joined the CIA
But he’ll refuse to tell you, cause that’s the only way he knows to prove
That no woman alive has got the right to dictate his every move.
If a man is a little uncomfortable with something you say or do
The very last thing that’ll occur to him would be to mention that fact to you
He’ll think: Women are so fragile, it’s so easy to break their hearts
And if I tell her I’ve got any kind of problem with her she’ll probably just fall apart
So by a curious process of reasoning unique to the masculine brain
He’ll decide to act like a jerk and drive you away cause it’ll cause you much less pain.
(Spoken — something like “If you get really desperate, you might find yourself saying something like …)
I communicate best in English; I can use other languages too
But all of them involve speech and speech seems to be unknown to you
You keep making threatened gestures, I could make gestures that would ease your mind
But I fail to see why we have to express all our thoughts in pantomime.
— He’ll tell you that you’re awfully demanding; he’ll tell himself ‘I told you so’
He’ll go on doing his best imitation of a panicked Marcel Marceau.
beliefs like the one you mention change with maturity
Ah, but you are a devout member of the Church of the Clitoris…
Fwiw, that’s from my callow youth. Be merciful.
Hilzoy: I see someone else has read Joanna Russ …
I own almost everything she ever wrote. 😉
Brilliant, Hilzoy. *still cackling*
Hilzoy:
Thanks for posting that, it got a giggle. Definitely a coffeehouse song. I think the refrain should end “Men are so *damn* weird” but perhaps that’s obvious.
You should post it at The Muses’ Muse for comments and feedback……*g*
Great, now I have to figure out how I managed to get married to one man, and ho another one gave bith to me… ;p
I cracked up. Certainly not all men, but I know exactly what you mean by the nervous mime type.
Nope, absolutely not all men. Thus the earlier comment about Harlequin romances.
The day I wrote that, I was all bemused by my own encounter with this particular brand of Weirdness, and then, bizarrely, three or four of the women I’m closest to in the world (not including my Mom) called up to tell me about their own similar encounters. (They had not heard about mine, or communicated with one another. My favorite involved one of the Mysterious Vanishing Men who was, at the time, running for statewide office, which meant that my friend, on whom he’d done his vanishing act, got to see pictures of his smiling face wherever she went. Even worse than the time I had just begun to get over my breakup with the love of my life and suddenly his novel — the one he had been blocked on for years but started writing again the day after I left, and which I thought of, with some justice, as The Novel That Ruined My Life — was translated into English, and started showing up on great big displays in bookstores all over my home town. Simultaneously, there was Mister Heartbreak popping up in all my favorite magazines — NYR, Harpers, you name it. No fun at all.)
RISUG sounded very interesting when it was first posted about. It sounds like it won’t make it to the US market in time for me, but it sounds like a great solution for the next generation.
…ex-boyfriend runs for statewide office……
……ex-boyfriend has novel reviewed in Harpers and NYR…..
We’re travelling in rather rarefied dating circles around here……
My first wife told me, about the time we split up, that she knew marrying me was the wrong thing to do right around the time she was making that slow walk down the aisle. I’m thinking that a lot of anguish and heartbreak right about then might, in fact, have wasted a great deal less time than finding out about it a few years later.
Or, you know, even while we were going through counseling might have been nice.
The way I look at it, though, is that if I hadn’t gone through that, I wouldn’t have this family.
Well, bouncing off of Sebastian, I think we should all pause to Google.
Take measures to insure it is not a pregnant pause.
Ogling would be good, too.
I have a feeling this thread is headed for limericks now.
Not a limerick, but….
I sat belonely down a tree
humbled fat and small.
A little lady sing to me
I couldn’t see at all.
I’m looking up and at the sky,
to find such wondrous voice.
Puzzly puzzle, wonder why,
I hear but have no choice.
‘Speak up. come forth, you ravel me’,
I potty menthol shout.
‘I know you hiddy by this tree’.
But still she won’t come out.
Such softly singing lulled me sleep,
an hour or two or so
I wakeny slow and took a peep
and still no lady show.
Then suddy on a little twig
I thought I see a site,
A tiny little tiny pig,
that sing with all it’s might.
‘I thought you were a lady’.
I giggle, well I may,
To my suprise the lady,
got up – and flew away.
“I Sat Belonely”
early John Lennon.
Hmm, when I was just coming out I had a slightly older Navy boyfriend. He got transferred and it was clear that we were going to break up rather than deal with distance. I was mostly ok with that, but thought we would keep in touch since there weren’t any nasty feelings. Instead he vanished off the face of the earth. He didn’t talk to any of his other friends in San Diego–poof he was gone.
I always found that troubling. In retrospect, it was almost certainly about the fact that he was deeply closeted and didn’t want to maintain his gay contacts in other cities. But in the “all about me” aftermath I was much more devastated by vanishing. I was convinced I had done something stupid or socially akward. (My default understanding is that I’ve done something socially akward.)
Good grief, there are some real lunatics on that comment thread.
I went through quite a bit of soul-searching before I got my vasectomy, but I’ve never regretted it. Nevertheless, I can see how plenty of other men might not have arrived at a place where they can say, “I am willing to accept never fathering a child [again]”. I would think that the opportunity to take biological birth control into their own hands and have the option to stop taking it later to have children would make them leap for joy.
This country is in deep, desperate need of real sex education. Not to mention a considerable amount of Drano to clear out all the medieval garbage that passes for how most of us treat the subject.
zmulls: Mine was only the reviewed boyfriend. (And hey: The Novel That Ruined My Life was, according to the NYT, one of the 10 best books of its year, which ought to have been some consolation, but wasn’t.) At the time I was involved with him, however, he had published some rather obscure books of poetry, and wrote a column in a not particularly well known paper. TNTRML had been started, and I loved the parts that existed, but as I said, he only really got going on it again the day after I left town.
Statewide office: the person in question doesn’t normally date politicians, and since she has gotten married in the intervening decades, probably never will again. I still scowl when I see that particular person pop up in the news, though.
And Seb: condolences. I’ve always found the idea that vanishing is somehow less hurtful to be one of the most perplexing thoughts I know. Even after I stopped assuming that it meant that I had done something unforgiveable, which I had by the time I wrote the song, it still hurt like crazy. Plus, the idea that I was so delicate that I would explode or die or something if someone tried to let me down easy, or alternately that I am so mean that I’d take that opportunity to try to extract a pound of flesh, was just — well, no fun to think about.
Hilzoy,
I know we were talking about two separate boyfriends. I was extrapolating for effect *g*
You must have had some beneficial effect other than leaving to have inspired the creation of a novel. The Muse works in mysterious ways….
You mentioned in a previous thread you were particularly pleased with Weldon’s defeat…..are you from Weldon’s district?
Seriously, though, is there a *good* way to break up with someone, or to be broken up with?
You can take any scenario from confrontation to quietly withdrawing, there’s going to be some serious internal reconfiguration on either side.
I had a breakup once that was as amicable and sensible as it could possibly be, and it still led to doubt and self-loathing in the end.
I dunno: I’m on decent terms with most of my ex-es, including the person who inspired the song, though over the years I’ve lost contact with some. I don’t know that there’s any good way, especially not if the relationship was all screwed up to start with, but making some feeble attempt at kindness and generosity and not saying anything totally unforgiveable is the best I can think of, so I usually stick with that.
Not causing gratuitous pain and anguish is a guiding principle, whether you’re talking about breakups or government policy.
“Feeble attempts at kindness and generosity” start with a sense of empathy and an acknowledgement of one’s own possible responsibilities……..not everyone subscribes to that doctrine….
My father, after my sister and I were born (’55 ’57), got a vasectomy. He lived and was raised on a farm. Humans were, at their core, animals. He and my mom enjoyed sex but did not want anymore kids. Simple. When you control animal populations you alter the male not the female. One of many reasons why I respected him.
Hilzoy: There is a Lorrie Moore short story about a man running for public office who is, nevertheless, always disappearing.
To tease a friend with a crush on John Barrowman I made a little musicvideo that is not worksafe.
I don’t understand why those guys think women don’t mind taking the pill? Most women I know hate it, but it beats the alternative. I just googled up Dutch figures and in 2003 the avarage age of first intercourse was 16.6 yrs, 44% used the pill the first time and 76% used condoms. And the pill is free for girls under 18…
Good heavens . . . reading those comments is like, as Kevin Costner so glibly put it in Bull Durham, a Martian talking to a fungo. I’ve always known I didn’t want kids, and in the early years of our marriage, my wife used the pill and I used condoms. I would have killed for a male pill. As it was, I couldn’t get onto the vasectomy table quickly enough.
Zmulls: Seriously, though, is there a *good* way to break up with someone, or to be broken up with?
Yes. Tell the person you are breaking up with as soon as possible “I want to break up with you” and avoid uttering criticisms of the person you are breaking up with to that person as a reason for the breakup.
Jesurgislac: Yes, truly, as much kindness and thoughtfulness as possible, and as little recrimination.
I think that even with those as givens, break-ups suck, for both the break-er and the break-ee. One wants to contain and constrain the suckiness as much as possible.
OT: Mel Martinez as new RNC chairman?
BizarroWorld isn’t impressed.
Hee.
One of the big problems with dealing with (some) men is that alongside the classic stereotype/ideal of the strong silent man, there also exists the weak silent man. These are the ones who don’t talk about emotions because they’re scared to, because of all the nasty insecurities it opens up. And it’s hard to tell the difference between the two types…because neither say much (or at least about important subjects).
PS: alongside Sebastian and his mother, there are already three members and two generations of our family posting comments intermittently on Obsidian Wings. (We are part of a vast intercontinental liberal clan dedicated to overthrowing the right wing order (or at least making really pointed comments about it)). I will have to see if the next generation wants to join in at some point, but she can’t yet read, which is a disadvantage for this blog.
Anarch has a daughter???
Make up your own damned lyrics! The title gives you everything you need to get started–that and some exposure to men.
Instead of expecting hilzoy to write the whole thread for us, I think we should turn it into a Eurovision Song Contest! With all contestants singing “Men Are So Weird”! Who’s first?
With Hilzoy having provided the actual (original) lyrics, this is undoubtedly a work of supererogation, but here goes a light-hearted (?) version:
MEN ARE SO WEIRD
(to the tune of “A Policeman’s Lot,” from Pirates of Penzance)
Is our strangeness of our minds all due to gender?
Due to gender?
Do our chromosomes determine if we’re odd?
If we’re odd?
In the sex war is there mutual surrender
All surrender!
To the roles set down by science or by God?
Or by God?
If we’re lost but still not asking for directions,
For directions,
If at views of naked women we have leered,
we have leered,
Is it due to our own private imperfections,
Imperfections,
Or simply to the fact that men are weird?
Men are weird!
Though we hide behind a mustache or a beard,
Or a beard,
We can’t escape the fact men are so weird.
Are so weird.
Unlike women, who’re invariably normal,
Ably normal,
All our eccentricities are strictly male.
Strictly male.
If the situation’s casual or formal,
Well, or formal,
Our masculine approaches always fail.
Always fail.
We are either not in touch with our real feeling,
Our real feeling,
Denying the emotion we long feared,
We long feared,
Or else, if some sensation sends us reeling,
Sends us reeling,
It stands as living proof that men are weird.
Men are weird.
Though we hide behind a mustache or a beard,
Or a beard,
We can’t escape the fact men are so weird.
Are so weird.
I will have to see if the next generation wants to join in at some point, but she can’t yet read, which is a disadvantage for this blog.
I’ll bet that she too could offer really pointed comments about it if you were to read the posts to her. They might be of the “I’m a soggy princess!” variety but, y’know, that’s its own brand of trenchancy…
Anarch has a daughter???
Good guess, Dutchmarbel, but not quite correct.
It seems that introductions are in order:
Anarch, as many of you know, is my son.
Magistra, as most of you do not know, is my daughter. She has her own most excellent blog, a husband (who doesn’t blog, so can safely be ignored here), and a wondrous daughter, “L”, who is almost four years old, preternaturally cute, and the apple of everyone’s eye (including, much of the time, her own). Read more about her, as well as mediaeval [sic] history, on her mommy’s blog.
Magistra’s ideas are close to mine I see, though I am not a believer and thus not stimulating one faith above the other. Death in our family was more computeroriented… (my 6yo to my 4yo: “no, granma is really dead, game over dead”) and even without religion it is hard to explain why people make war. Though my last hard question was “what’s the difference between a story and a fairy tale” combined with “is Star Wars a fairy tale then?”
That people are, rather.
Welcome Magistra! (And dr ngo: grin 😉 )