From Green Laser + Night + Fog

I am about to present to you the best masculinity test in the entire world. Forget all those brain scans. Forget the surveys. If you’re wondering if someone is a man or not just bust out a nice laser pointer one night, and shine it on something far away.

If the response is, “you’re stupid”, then you’re talking to a woman. If the response is, “Holy God, give me that fucking thing”, you’re talking to a man.

It really is that simple.

Men like to directly influence things. When you light up a stop sign half a mile down the road with a laser pointer you’re saying to the sign (and everyone in view), “I am touching you from way over here, and you can’t stop me. Feel my power.”

When you offer such influence to a woman, in the form of handing her your laser pointer, you might as well be giving her a steamy turd. It’s like stupidest thing she’s ever heard of, and she can’t believe that she’d spend time hanging out with anyone who’d find pleasure in such a thing. And that makes sense. Men want to wield power, and most women couldn’t care less.

So the next time you’re wondering about whether or not someone is masculine or not, wield a nice laser pointer in their vicinity. If their pupils dilate like a 4-year-old boy with a Tonka truck then you know you’re dealing with a man’s man. ::

[ Bad Guys Really Do Get the Most Girls | newscientist.com ]

First, and most importantly, “Duh.”

Secondly, this is well known in the geek world, and I wrote about it here. But I do like the subtlety of this piece.

It’s interesting to contemplate how these traits in an extreme form would be bad for men, but to a more minor degree they can be advantageous. It’s also interesting to point out that the traits still exist therefore they are obviously successful.

Anyway, good stuff.

Links

[ Bad Guys Really Do Get the Most Girls | newscientist.com ]

This is insane. The United States of America in the 21st century, and one in four people in NYC has genital herpes. And the breakdowns are even more staggering.

36% of women have it, but only 19% of men. 49% of blacks have it, but only 14% of whites. 49% of blacks? Half? Are you kidding me? WTF is going on with the black folks and the women in that town? Who are these people? Where do they hang out? Where did they go to school? What caused this?

This is an example of a culture problem that needs addressing — especially since herpes isn’t the only negative outcome of sex that can often result in an STD. And the approach to this problem doesn’t call for an “equal but different culture” theme, but rather a “what the fuck are you doing” theme. We’re talking about ignorant, adult-age children hurting themselves, not equals making informed decisions.

Society suffers when people suffer. It’s our responsibility to keep those within our society from hurting themselves. The question is, how do we do this without becoming the culture police? How do you do it without infringing on basic freedoms? And given the numbers we’re dealing with, combined with a political correctness backdrop, how do we even begin to address the issue without being labeled racist and sexist?

Links

[ Genital Herpes in NYC | yahoo.com ]

I have a bit of cognitive dissonance right now on the topic of sexism. What, for example, makes this ad sexist vs. sexual? Or, what makes any ad sexist vs. sexual? Is it a lack of equality? Is that what we are to believe?

Is it any implication that men are looking at women as sexual animals? Are we as a society attempting to claim that sexuality is about, or should be about, equality?

Maybe I used to watch too many nature shows, but when I see apes and monkeys and lions and tigers having sex, I see them participating in the power exchange. It’s a control game. It’s a domination game.

So, as a study of nature would predict, we as humans play it too. And I don’t think that’s wrong. What’s wrong is not realizing that we as humans are both animals and thinkers at the same time. We have, for the sake of this argument, two levels.

We’re simple, primal beings with tendencies towards aggression and sexuality — both of which give us pleasure — and we’re also highly advanced problem solvers who understand the need for social justice.

We need to accept the fact that we’re not going to extinguish our animal side any time soon, and that attempting to do so is likely to cause more harm than good. The goal should simply be to clearly define the line between the primal and logical. A fragrance ad with a plane full of bimbos should be accepted as good fun for men, just as a similar ad full of men should be for women.

As an example, women portrayed as attractive bimbos shouldn’t imply that women can’t be physicists any more than men portrayed as lumberjacks should imply men can’t be surgeons. Women understand that men have ranges spanning the primal and intellectual, and men should understand that women have those very same ranges.

To put it another way, we accept women viewing men as sex objects because we know they also respect men as more than that. It’s the same for viewing women as sex objects. A man, or a society, that understands that women can span both should not be scolded for appreciating the primal dimension.

Once we as a society grasp this we will be able to accept both bimbo advertisements and female lawyers with equal ease.

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On a final note, “Bimbos and Lumberjacks” would be a great band name.:

Tell me this doesn’t support the argument that oral sex was designed by God as well. Oh, and why would that not include gay oral sex too? Oops — probably not his intention. His argument from design is seriously underwhelming, but at least it succeeded in making creationists look silly.

Kirk Cameron from “Groin Pains” is the guy on the right. I think he laughs there towards the end because he suddenly realized how gay this whole thing looks. Here are some choice quotes:

1. “The contents don’t squirt in your face.”
2. “Notice it has a point at the top for ease of entry.”
3. “It’s just the right shape for the human mouth” (makes an o-face)
4. “And it’s even curved toward the face to make the whole process so much easier.”

You can’t make this stuff up.

To add insult to injury there’s the small issue of the banana he’s holding being a product of man’s design. Wild bananas don’t look anything like what he’s holding. We select and cultivate the bananas we see every day for characteristics desirable to us. Yet another victory for creationism.:

yahoo.com

I’ve got an idea. How about we synchronize our beauty pageant age limits with our pedophilia laws?

In other words, if a girl is so young that it’s socially unacceptable to treat her — or even think of her — in a sexual way, don’t allow her to enter a beauty pageant designed to make her look sexually attractive.

Brilliant!

More truth from the Onion.

No surprise here.

[ Link: Women Don't Respect Househusbands ]

I’ve received a myriad of comments about my Bimbo/Caveman essay, including some from my fiance. Many were quite positive, but the majority were negative. What I saw being reflected back to me was a clearly misogynist overtone, which was not the goal of the piece.

As such, I’ve spent some time rewriting it tonight and am happier with it now. I’ve kept the key points and have hopefully eliminated the portions that were easiest to misinterpret. Comments are welcome:

[ The Bimbo and the Caveman: V2 ]