Extolling The Female Tongue

GOPUSA ^ | December 18, 2006 | Selwyn Duke

[Tolerance Sucks Rocks]

A long time ago I read a short online piece about how women could get their men to put the toilet seat down. Inherent in it was the idea that this was an example of men's lack of consideration and that the task at hand was one of disciplining these bad boys. I don't know, my attitude is that if women can leave a toilet seat down, men can leave it up.

Of course, this is just a silly, pebble-in-the-shoe issue, but I see it as a metaphor for a modern phenomenon: The casting of women's characteristic behaviors as the norm and men's as dysfunctional deviations.

This is strikingly obvious with the topic of communication. Man has long known that women were the more loquacious sex, and you've probably heard of studies to this effect. A recent book states that women have about 20,000 "communication events" (I love these terms the psycho-babblers conjure up) a day, versus about 7,000 for men. But this is nothing new; who didn't know a bevy of garrulous girls in school?

What is new is the assumption that this imputes superiority to women. "Communication" has become one of the buzzwords of modern psychology. And, whenever relationships are at issue -- be it in a book, article, talk or interview -- almost invariably an "expert" will inform us of two things. One is that women communicate more than men. The other is that an onus belongs on men as this "handicap" of theirs is an impediment to good relations. Why, men need to learn to communicate more and share their feelings, we're told.

Did anyone ever think that maybe women communicate too darn much?

Don't get me wrong, rhetorical license aside, I understand the importance of communication. What bothers me, though, is the knee-jerk assumption here that more is better, a conclusion that most of the same researchers take great pains to forestall when the issue is, oh, let's say, the greater size of the male brain. But this is a principle of sex differences research: When men have more, more is less. When women have less, less is more.

And that's it, more or less.

What seems to escape most is that this modern exaltation of the lip lies in stark contrast to what wisdom has taught since time immemorial. And the truth she imparts is obvious, which is why sayings encapsulating it abound: "Still waters run deep," "Empty kettles make the most noise," "Shallow brooks are noisy" and "There are two kinds of people who don't say much, those who are quiet and those who talk a lot."

It's why movies have always portrayed the strong, silent type who exhibits quiet fortitude as the most heroic of men. It's why good writers value verbosity no more than good surgeons do bloodletting. Delicate operations warrant use of a fine scalpel, something small and sharp that punctures precisely -- and cuts when necessary -- not an implement bigger and blunter. And this is true whether you wish to get at the heart of a man or the heart of a matter: a precise surgical approach is usually preferable. Big, blunt things are better suited to bludgeoning.

To be quite blunt myself, yes, I subscribe to the traditional idea that women are chatterboxes and it's not their best trait. Don't get me wrong, we men have our faults as well. For instance, I absolutely cannot stand my brothers' habit of channel-surfing, which I guess could be characterized as Chatting Finger Syndrome. But here's the difference. Whether it's this masculine foible or another, no one does intellectual contortions to cast it as a positive attribute. At best it's seen as cute quirkiness, at worst as a defect of manliness.

Now, just imagine how it might be if incessant channel-surfing were a characteristic female behavior. It would only be a matter of time before some sickologists conducted a study and portrayed it as yet another example of feminine superiority. It would go something like this:

Channel-surfing is akin to speed-reading, not a function of a fault but indicative of a unique ability. Because women have more neural connections between the two hemispheres of the brain, they can process information faster, allowing them to absorb the substance and assess the value of a given program in mere seconds. Thus, while a man may perceive just a brief snapshot of seemingly unintelligible imagery and sound, his wife has already assimilated the program's relevant information or ascertained it to be devoid of such. "She is anxious to read the next page while he is still on the first paragraph of the last," said Dr. Delilah Emasculata of the Sex Differences Research and Proof That Women Are Better in Every Way So Just Shut-up and Take It Institute.

The truth is that both men and women should understand their sex's characteristic frailties and, just as with any negative proclivity, seek to tame them. Hey, I always ask directions and I'm great at matching colors.

As for communication, I have some of the best advice you gals will ever hear. If you have something important to say, don't embed it in an interminable stream-of-consciousness monologue between words 1129 and 1145 and expect the man in your life to absorb it. It's not that he doesn't care. He has his sanity to think about, you know.

My mother used to teach us that "Speech is silver, silence is golden." I wouldn't expect anyone to learn much while channel-surfing in fully automatic mode. Tongue-surfing isn't much better.

Loquacity doesn't denote sagacity.

Oh, and the toilet seat? I just don't want to talk about it.

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Contact Selwyn Duke

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Note -- The opinions expressed in this column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions, views, and/or philosophy of GOPUSA.

[goldstategop]

The first rule a man learns living with a woman is the necessity of conversation. This is the ticket to sex, to going out with her and what have you. If that's too onerous, stay single.

"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." -Manuel II Paleologus

[OESY]

Boys Required To Pee Sitting Down At Norway School
September 27, 2006

It's an entirely new definition of "Standing Room Only." Or perhaps a new measure of "equality" has arrived.

Whatever it is, it has sparked a huge political debate at a school in Kristiansand, Norway, according to the Norwegian paper Fædrelandsvennen.

The trigger for the explosion of opinion? A decision in the local district that schoolboys must sit on toilet seats when urinating, not stand.

According to the news report, the rule was announced for boys at Dvergsnes School (pictured at right), prompting outrage from Vidar Kleppe, the chief of The Democrats Party.

He's accusing the school of "fiddling with God's work," and now he wants the issue discussed at the executive committee level of the area council, according to the newspaper "Dagbladet."

"When boys are not allowed to pee in the natural way, the way boys have done for generations, it is meddling with God's work," Kleppe, whose group is a splinter group of former Progress Party hardliners, said in the newspaper.

"It is a human right not to have to sit down like a girl," he said.

On Kleppe's contentious "stand" on making political waves, no comment was the response from school principal Lise Gjul.

But she did tell Norwegian Broadcasting NRK that the restrooms are used by both boys and girls, and the young boys are not "good enough at aiming" in order to have "a pleasant toilet."


COMMENT: I thought you guys might have known the Germans left Norway in 1945 shortly before the end of the war. Sitzpinkler refers to metrosexual tourists. How many times did you hear that appellation? What was your response, or did you just nurse bad feelings?

[mamelukesabre]

Not only do I alway put the seat down, I alway put the lid down too.

AND, I am alway yelling at my significant other when she forgets to put the lid down.

The reason...I don't want my dog drinking blue water!

[LexBaird]

if she tries to just sit down in the dark and the seat has been left up.

If I have to check the position in the dark of night, why shouldn't she?

[Tolerance Sucks Rocks]

I'm just telling what I read, to the best of my memory, in Mark Steyn's America Alone.

Apparently, the "sitzpinkling" craze has gotten to a point in Germany that there is actually a device that warns people against either standing to pee or lifting the seat up (one or the other).

[Pablo64]

"(I don't mean to be abusive, but do you realize how absolutely stupid that comment was?)"

Wow. Do you realize how rediculously uptight you are? Chill out for a second. You're taking offense where none was offered.

"Hanging around? I don't hang around."

Well, excuuuuuse me! Now that we know you're so much better than everyone else and don't partake of common things like "hanging around", I guess we'll all have to walk softly around you.

"I am a professional musician and I perform on a regular basis with some of the finest musicians in the country. I have been doing so for thirty years or so.

Oh, so other musicians who don't make their living as a musician are somehow not as good as you are because you're a "professional"? Riiiight.

"Your experience does not have a thing to do with me nor does it negate what I know to be true about some of the musicians I associate with, out of necessity, on professional engagements."

Sheesh! Again with the whole professional thing. Hey, we get it. You're God's gift to the music world. Only now it turns out that you are talking only about some musicians, not the blanket musicians you first claimed.

"My personal feelings do not determine with whom or where I perform."

Neither do mine.

"There was a city I lived in at one time where almost all of the musicians, to a man, would regularly engage in negative repartee about musical colleagues."

Sound like insecurity or jealousy.

Oh, I see. If I play a certain kind of music then I would begin to talk about people when they weren't present. That must be it. Why didn't I think of that?

First off, it was humor. You should look into it. Secondly, I have personally seen the difference with the various types of musicians I have been associated with off and on over the last 20 or more years. Not only with musicians, but with people of different professional, political, and economical backgrounds, so there is validity in asking the question.

"(I don't mean to be abusive, but do you realize how absolutely stupid that comment was?)"

Pot...kettle...black...

[Laissez-faire capitalist]

Hmmm....

It is better that women not try and force men to do something, but....

If this means that if women get to pick something that men end up having to do (like sitting down to pee), then men get to pick something that women have to do.

We must be fair and balance this out, riiiiggghhhttt?

As I side note, I am not saying this is how I feel, but...

Is there something that makes women want to try and control mens behavior, like rolling the toothpaste tube from the bottom, wanting to make them sit down to pee, saying to men, "do something" when all hell breaks lose, wanting men to talk more, etc, etc.

Maybe women should try and be a little less controlling of men.

Please, these are just thoughts, not necessarily indicative of how I feel so, please, don't engage in any emotionalized, subjective, Ad-Hominish personal attacks against me.

Thanks.

:)

[FReepaholic]

...The first rule a man learns living with a woman is the necessity of conversation. This is the ticket to sex, to going out with her and what have you. If that's too onerous, stay single....

Or go get a hooker.

[SouthTexas]

It's not that he doesn't care.

Now that's debatable.

[DonGrafico]

Tips for men:
Remember to leave the toilet seat in the up position when you are done peeing on it.

[Flashman_at_the_charge]

You men apparently need it down some of the time.

Statistically speaking the male of the house is more likely to find the seat in the wrong position than the female of the house and yet he is far less likely to complain about the fact.

[dforest]

I think women want you to lift the seat in order to clean it......if you don't , then please put the lid back down. Heh heh

[Graymatter]

I am a woman, but I've always found that other women talk way too much. My chatterbox daughters are always telling me I don't talk enough. Come to think of it, even my husbands mentioned that.
At no time do I sympathize with males so much as when I'm listening to a female.

[Yankee]

Too bad. The author brought it up. Now if he'd just put it down when he was done, we wouldn't fall in the toilet in the middle of the night. ;)

I never understood why you just can't look before you sit.

BTW--I put mine down when I'm done and I don't need any nagging broad to remind me to do so. ;)

[Yankee]

"My husband tried to get in touch with his feminine side but it was always on the phone with its girlfriends."

My feminine side is a lesbian. She likes women also.

[Yankee]

I understand womens's can's are even filthier than men's are.

I trust by "cans" you're speaking of rest rooms, and not posteriors. If you are speaking of posteriors I must question your taste in women.

Incidentally, you are correct. Women are bigger slobs in public restrooms than men, however men tend to do more damage to fixtures. I worked in a few pubs and bars in my time.

[Yankee]

Now if he'd just put it down when he was done, we wouldn't fall in the toilet in the middle of the night. ;)

By the same token, If she'd only have put it up after she was done I wouldn't have peed on the seat. You see, I'm as lazy and careless as she is. ;)

[Doomonyou]

Talk to me, Damn it!!!

[Lancey Howard]

It's always been one of my pet peeves - - women who forget to put the toilet seat back up.

[PzLdr]

The worst thing is that women CANNOT synopsize. The tale is in almost real time. The conversations that took place [or what passes for them] are relayed verbatim. And the woman talking does ALL the parts.