8.29.01

For the love of all that is holy, will this week ever end? Can you believe it’s only Wednesday night? I’m going insane waiting for the big 3-day holiday weekend. Not that I have anything special planned for it, just don’t want to be at work this week.

Had more car problems last weekend. Had to replace my alternator and my car battery. However, thanks to a good friend of mine, it was relatively painless and only cost me a pizza and about $250 I didn’t have. I guess when it rains it pours.

To follow up from my last few posts, I have finally contacted my aunts. I chickened out and just went with the nice, safe emails. The one aunt that I hear from every once in a while wrote me back immediately and luckily I sent the message when I did as she was leaving the next day to go to California to see the other aunt! With that in mind, the aunt in Cali will be at her beach house until mid-September and won’t get my email until then, so we’ll just have to wait and see what the final word is on that one. My grandma is going to California with my aunt, so I’ll have to wait until October to contact her.

Inspiration often comes from the strangest places and this weeks entry is no different. On a morning radio show that I occasionally listen to, they were talking about Gary Condit and the rumor going round that he is clean-shaven…extensively clean-shaven if you get my drift. The show’s host asked what the ladies in the audience thought of this and if they’d ever known any men who had this silky smooth habit.

Much to my surprise, more women than not, loved the idea that a man would shave his body hair. The few women who did not love it remarked that it was “unmanly” for a guy to be so intentionally follicly-challenged. This got me thinking about why women loved it so and what that says about modern women; and more importantly, modern men?

To quote my favorite movie and yours, Fight Club:

Tyler: Do you know what a duvet is?
Jack: It’s a comforter.
Tyler: It’s a blanket. Just a blanket. Now why do guys like you and I know what a duvet is? Is this necessary for our survival in the hunter/gatherer sense of the word? No.

That’s a damn good question, Tyler. Why do guys today know, or care, what a duvet is? When the hell did this happen? Why do guys know when to stop wearing white? Why do guys care about their fingernails? Why do guys spend $400 on a pair of loafers? Why do guys suddenly know how to dance? Why are guys waxing and shaving the hair on their chest…among other places? What the hell is going on here? If you ask a woman, this is the “civilizing of men”. If you ask a man, he tells you he’s late for his tanning session and you’ll have to call back later.

When did we become pussies? What happened to the men of old? The guys who would rather spend Sunday afternoon in front of the TV instead of going to the sidewalk sale down at the mall. The guys who could fix a flat without calling AAA. The guys who had NO clue how to coordinate their wardrobe. The guys who could tie a tie, but would only do so on special occasions. The guys who didn’t know, nor give a shit who Tommy Hilfiger, Versaci, or Calvin Klein were. Guys who thought it was ridiculous to spend $10 on a 3-pack of boxers at Wal-Mart, let alone three times that for one pair of silk boxers. Guys who got most of their critical thinking and/or reading done while on the throne. As Jack in Fight Club says, “We used to read pornography. Now it’s the Horshach Collection.”

I’ve been trying to figure out why we’ve become so emasculated and, well, I can’t pin it on any one thing. I’ve come up with Feminism, the sexual revolution, the high rate of single-women heads of household as my generation was growing up, to blaming the media, advertising, and the excess of the ‘80’s. Of course the full weight of the blame lies on the shoulders of the modern man for allowing whatever influence to make such a drastic change in their lives. The argument can be made for any one of these being that influence and probably a million more things that I haven’t even come up with yet. But, for my money, it all leads back to women.

Thanks to the Feminist revolution of the ‘60’s, ‘70’s and ‘80’s, women today have more power in society than they seem to think. Maybe they don’t get paid as much on average as a man, but who cares about money when women are responsible for such a major shift in our society. Not only do women have more job opportunities than their predecessors, but they are also deciding to get married later, therefore relying on men less to provide for them. Not that there is anything wrong with women being more independent – hell, guys generally don’t like women who are such high maintenance – but this independency has given women the right to pick and choose men rather than be the ones chosen. Again, a great thing, but at the same time, this forces the men to adapt to what women want, or at least think they want, in a mate. And what do women want? They want a girlfriend with a penis.

Women today are looking for a “man” who can share his emotions, who doesn’t try to hide it when he cries at a sappy movie. A “man” who loves to go shopping and help her try on clothes, rather than painfully holding her purse for hours on end while she tries on the same dress thirty times to make sure she likes it. A “man” who dresses in the latest styles and labels and takes care of his appearance regardless of whether he’s sitting around the house or out on the town. A “man” who watches Oprah and gets his reading material strictly from her recommended book list. A “man” who dyes the hair he has so desperately clung to with daily doses of Rogain. A “man” who checks himself in the mirror even when he’s not in the bathroom. A “man” who has clothes in his closet that he has never worn. A “man” who can’t program a VCR. A “man” who sees women as people, not as objects. Again, a girlfriend with a penis.

Now of course these are all generalizations, and I’m sure I’ll be crucified by some of my female audience for being so stereotypical and chauvinistic, but this is what I see in the media and attached to the arms of many women today. In Abercrombie and Fitch ads we have barely dressed men (isn’t that ironic considering they’re supposed to be a clothes company) who are very feminine with their long, perfect hair, smooth facial features, and stringy, skinny forms. The Backstreet Boys and their ilk are getting the pulses of women, young and old, going with their trendy clothes, dyed hair, charming smiles and perfectly choreographed dance moves.

But how does all this effect women? When the lines of gender become crossed and confused, one wants to make him or herself even more identifiable as their sex. That’s why we have 12 year-old girls wearing halter-tops and low cut jeans. They are barely old enough to be considered women, but they want to be seen as such so as to be distinguishable from the androgyny around them. And who can blame them when the guys are prettier than they are.

Speaking from personal experience, I was virtually raised by my Mom and my older sister. My Dad was busy being a farmer, busy providing for us, so when I saw him it was generally briefly for dinner, after which I’d go to my room and play with my Star Wars guys until it was time for me to go to bed. Although I had that male figure in my life, I still didn’t know what it meant to be a guy. In high school, I was very concerned about clothes and how I dressed, always making sure I was up on the latest trends going through our small town. I had a much closer relationship with my mom and generally got along better with the girls in my class than most of the guys. My girlfriend in high school used to take me shopping and I didn’t mind. I was an emotional wreck if one of my friends was going through a mini-crisis. It makes me wonder what the guy who’s parents got divorced or never married to begin with, raised by his Mom alone, just what kind of identity crisis did he go through when growing up? Or maybe that’s the problem, many guys today have never known what it is to be a man because they haven’t had any role models; so how can they be expected to become men? Even with a father in the house, it took me until I got to be about 23 before I really began to realize just what it meant to be a guy – and that I was doing it all wrong.

With the advent of this newfound perspective on life, I’ve come to realize the error of my ways. I’ve come to realize that true men are not sucked in by fashion trends, they that concerned with their appearance, they don’t get overly emotional when something bad happens, they don’t hold grudges because someone didn’t like their shirt, nor do they look at their fingernails and think to themselves, “Ooo, that cuticle is really creeping up again.”

But how can men change their current Boy George ways and get back to simply being George? It’s all up to you, ladies. You rule us, we know it, we admit it; in the immortal words of Bryan Adams, everything we do, we do it for you. If you continue to want men who are less than manly, our boys will continue to grow up with this false manhood.

True men are honest, trustworthy, hard-working, intelligent and commanding; yet sensitive, compassionate, fun, and loving. These are much better, more attractive qualities than whether or not his underwear has a name on it other than Hanes. So let your man be hairy, let him smell sweaty, let him wear those old sweatpants around the house, let him sit in front of the TV all day Sunday and watch football, let him go get a few beers with the guys, let him watch Baywatch, appreciate him for being who he is and who he wants to be. Besides, don’t you have enough girlfriends already?

Space Monkey X