Posted on 12/03/2003 1:51:41 PM PST by yonif
One of the hottest TV shows in America today is Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, and indeed I have become quite intrigued at the notion of gay men having become the "straight man's messiah."
As I recall it, back in school the gay guys got picked on for their whiny voices and all-round wimpishness. Now they've evolved to the top of the evolutionary ladder – while the straight guys devolved into crotch-scratching, armpit-sniffing apes.
Queer Eye is based on the premise that heterosexual men are today coarse savages who reek like a toilet. Hairy orangutans who need their chest and back hair (wait, isn't that a rug?) waxed. Bad-mannered brutes and barbarians with apartments that look like Beirut. Unlettered in stylishness, unschooled in being gentlemen, they to be rescued from their boorishness by the guys they used to give wedgies to in the locker room.
In one recent episode, the Fab Five poured into the home of a quiet cowboy with two brain cells and one eyebrow. His apartment looked like a barn and smelled like a stable. His five o'clock shadow made him the twin of Uday Hussein. He planned to propose to his live-in girlfriend.
The Fab Five made it clear that in his primitive, primate-like condition only a she-wolf in heat would agree to marry him. So they plucked his eyebrow and taught him how to make chocolate mouse. Presto. "And on the sixth day, the Fab Five created man."
As I watched this clueless cowboy being taught how to wipe himself after going to the toilet, how to dig wax out of his ears and how to speak romantically to a woman rather than his horse, it suddenly struck me that this is exactly what the women in my life did for me.
My mother taught me how to tuck my shirt in and how to keep my room tidy. If I used foul language, she'd wash my mouth out with soap.
My wife taught me how to act like a gentleman, especially in the presence of a lady. If I ate with my mouth open she would first puke, then rebuke. Before I gave a public speech, she'd straighten my tie and take the lint off my jacket.
And because her face lit up when I bought her flowers, she taught me chivalry and the power of the romantic gesture.
BUT HOW can women teach men these things today? Raised in a world where they get attention by flashing a thong strap rather than a kind smile, immersed in a workplace where masculine aggression rather than feminine self-esteem earns a promotion, there are precious few ladies left. And in a world where there are no ladies, there can be no gentlemen.
Women once taught men that true stature results from dignity. But honestly, what can a college girl who flashes her breasts for the Girls Gone Wild videos teach a man about civility? What can a woman who prances around in her underwear on the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show teach a guy about dignified bearing?
What can Paris Hilton, whose videotaped sex antics make her the poster girl for heiresses gone bad, teach men about the blessings of philanthropy? I mean, come on. If you were a guy, would you listen to these women lecture you about not belching in public? Men no longer believe that women have class. And while they're prepared to date them and bed them, it's unlikely that they're going to agree to be preached to by them.
Reality TV and the Internet package women in four foul stereotypes: Greedy gold-digger Brainless bimbo Publicity-seeking prostitute Bitchy backstabber
IN A world of such rampant misogyny, where women have become complicit in their own degradation, they can have little positive influence over men. It has therefore fallen to the last feminine, nurturing spirits in our society – gay men – to teach the straight men the basics of elegance, refinement, even marriage. While America's women watch four commitment-phobic women on Sex and the City, gay men fight in court to be allowed to marry.
I have long said that the perfect man is a gay man who is attracted to women, marries them, and raises boys and girls who are domesticated and nurturing. Perhaps soon we'll see a new reality TV show called, Straight Tie (tie-the-knot) for the Gay Guy.
Of course, none of this means that there isn't more that men can do on their own to become gentlemen. Husbands especially are losing all idea about how to be gracious spouses.
Over the last few months I have received loads of e-mails from husbands who complain that their wives are too fat, and they have no idea how to tell them diplomatically that they should lose a ton or two.
"Nothing would make me happier than for me and my wife to have a passionate romantic life again. But let's get real, Shmuley. When we married she was a size six. Now she has trouble squeezing into a size 18."
Another husband echoed the sentiment. "Being married to my wife I feel like a polygamist. She's so large it's like I'm married to two women."
Yet another wrote, "While some guys get to see their wives in bikinis, I am afraid to take my wife to the beach for fear that she'll get harpooned. I have tried everything to encourage her to diet. She takes offense and kicks me out of the bed, which is OK since I barely fit in anyway."
Husbands who are married to women who let themselves go use it as ample justification for either their indulgence in pornography, affairs, or ignoring their wives and watching television. But before we get all cozy with the notion that wives are indulging their maternal instincts by appearing permanently pregnant and devouring even the wood of the kitchen cupboards, it is first worth noting the hypocrisy on the part of contemporary husbands who maintain that only their wives need appear sexy while they can have endless folds of whale blubber hanging down their stomachs.
Sorry guys, but your wife doesn't want to be married to the Pillsbury dough boy. You complain that it is challenging to sharing a bedroom with the Goodyear blimp, but having the Michelin man in bed with you is equally challenging. If you want her to get rid of her thunder-thighs, then perhaps you should consider taking a chainsaw to your love handles.
More important, though, is the question of who is to blame for the burgeoning size of the modern wife. Some would say it's the fact that after having children her misshapen body can often not throw off the added weight. But blaming the kids for being bloated is an unfair burden to slam on your children.
Telling your son "Mommy started looking like a hippo after you were born" is not going to improve your child's self-esteem. Still others attribute a wife letting herself go to the enormous responsibilities that women who have to balance family and career carry, leaving them little time for a healthy diet and exercise.
Yet, these same wives who have little time to look after themselves in their marriages suddenly find a huge amount of time to beautify themselves if they decide to have an affair, and indeed one of the biggest giveaways of a wife's infidelity is when she suddenly begins exercising, dieting, and wearing silk undergarments instead of cotton.
WHICH LEADS me to the following unassailable conclusion. When wives put on a lot of weight it is almost always the fault of an inattentive, unloving, or distracted husband. When a woman's looks no longer mean anything to her it's because she's married to a man whom she thinks doesn't notice her anyway.
Even brainy career women who wish to be appreciated for their minds rather than their bodies still wish to be physically desirable. What woman doesn't want to be regarded as beautiful? How much more so a married woman who revels in her husband's attention.
The blame lies with her husband who usually is lazy and doesn't help with the household responsibilities, and in addition, long ago stopped noticing her when she did get dressed up so she concludes, why bother?
"With all the responsibilities I have with the kids, my job, and running the home, why put time into my appearance when he never looks anyway." The healthiest diet for a woman is to feed off her husband's compliments. When told by the man she loves that she is beautiful, a woman is given the incentive to live up to the compliment.
Silence and indifference, however, are like junk food that bloat her and make her fat. Indeed, marriage runs on what I call the football-fat equation. Every hour he puts into watching mindless TV sports equals one extra pound on his wife's backside. Pretty soon she starts looking like a linebacker.
A man from Los Angeles wrote to me about how his wife grew faster horizontally than their two-year-old grew vertically.
"There is no easy way to tell your wife she's fat," he wrote. "Yes," I agreed. "But there is a very easy way to tell her she has beautiful hair, a beautiful smile, and beautiful skin, even if she's overweight. Pretty soon she'll want to be prettier. It's all in your hands."
To another complaining husband I wrote, "When was the last time you took your wife to the mall to buy her clothes, helped her try them on, and told her what she looks best in?"
Would a woman who lived alone on a desert island get dressed up every day to please the coconut trees? And if she lives alone in the solitary island of a lonely marriage, will she not console herself by indulging in the sensual pleasure of food when she is bereft of the sensual pleasure of touch?
While husbandly apathy is the main cause of a wife's weight gain, telling her she is beautiful even when she is overweight is a better weight-loss program than the Atkins, South Beach, and Dr. Phil diets combined.
If your wife has grown too wide, encourage her to trim down not by telling her she's fat, but by telling her she's gorgeous. Her feeling that you notice her beauty will inspire her to notice her weight. This might sound simplistic, and it is. Simply stated, it works. The next time you notice that your wife has added a couple of pounds, perhaps it is you, rather than her, who should be looking in the mirror.
The writer is a relationships expert whose books include Kosher Sex, Dating Secrets of the Ten Commandments, Why Can't I Fall in Love?, and Kosher Adultery.
Mrs. Dawgg sez the above is a fairly apt descrition of a majority of the guys she knew before she met Mr. Right.
Of course she says I do need one of those back shaves and I told her "over my dead body' of which she assures me can be arranged.
"Does that mean you can't use whipped cream?"
No, it means you got to use Kosher Whipped Cream if you plan on using it for sex.
Well being a man myself I must aggree. Sex is physical first emotional second. That does not mean that I am immoral just human. Being a conservative Christian I work to live the values as best I can. That means if I ever get married I will stay the course for better or for worse.
The article didnt say praise their bodies, but praise the parts of them that still look good (you can have nice hair and eyes and still be fat).
The other thing is that there's not an overweight woman in the world who doesn't know she's overweight or truly thinks she looks good at that weight, so the thought that you'll just encourage them to gain more isn't likely. If anything, they'll realize that someone still loves them and is paying attention to them and it may be incentive they need to lose the pounds.
LQ
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