Men, Women and the Sex Thing

Fat, Forty and Fired by Nigel Marsh is one of my current favourite books. The pearls of wisdom are thrown down in such a way that you are more likely to fall on your bum laughing than by tripping over one of little blighters on the way to the loo in the dark. I have children I know what that’s like - albeit with marbles not molusc gallstones.

One passage that kept me in stitches was about the different ways men and women view sex. This seems to be the root cause of a lot of marital and relationship strife. So, in the spirit of bridging the chasm between the sexes I did some Googling.

Did you know that there are 247 reasons women have sex. Yep, just 247 of them, exactly. They’re not all sweetness and light either. There’s a new book out all about it called Why Women Have Sex by Cindy Meston and David Buss. Sexual attraction, great abs, tight buns and a good sense of humour are way down the list. Higher up are reasons like relieving boredom, keeping the peace, curing a headache and just a quickie thank you for cooking dinner. Pity sex also ranks pretty high. The number one reason we have sex is to, well, orgasm. Just like men really.

The notion of love is number two, but this is murky as it seems to have little to do with emotional commitment and more to do with your smelly armpits.

Love and attraction have less to do with your great sense of humour and double D cup silicone implants and more to do with pure animal magnetism. It’s pheromones and symmetry really. This should help all those singles out there looking for the next big O. Just rule out anyone whose ears are higher up their face than yours.

Love is a tricky one anyway. The book says that women use sex at all stages of the relationship. What we look for in a man is firstly good genes for reproduction and secondly good financial stability, a nice car and the ability to look after the result of the reproduction all the way to college.

We use sex to get a man, keep a man, drive a man away, keep other women away, lure a man away from another woman, get a new car, get a good night’s sleep and lose weight. But give us 15 minutes spare in the day and we’d rather have a nap, a cup of tea or a bath than a quickie. Men responded slightly differently to that question – “Ooh,” they said, “Just enough time for a…” Little head. Big head.

Slightly further back on the evolutionary scale, but only by one or two little genetic markers, female apes have it easy in the dating game. They just bring food to the man of their dreams and fling poo at any other woman stupid enough to encroach on their property. There’s a lot to be said for flinging poo. It is unequivocal, not like the complex machinations of human females.

Another study says that men have a straightforward sex drive, while the female of the species has a libido that is fluid. What the hell does that mean?

The researchers say that a man takes 4 minutes from start to finish. This puts women on the back foot, we need an average of at least 10 minutes of action preceded by 20 minutes of foreplay. Not the Australian version of it either.

Despite all that blather about curvy women being so sexy, it turns out that almost 48% of men would dump their woman if she got fat. Us females are way more forgiving of a little bit extra around the middle, only 20% of us would tell you to take a hike.

It’s a minefield out there. In under 30 minutes I found 3 surveys telling me men need cuddles more than women and 3 others telling me why women need to cuddle and men don’t, it is terribly confusing. I prefer the statistics that tell me at my age sex just gets better over the one that says that only something like 25% of women over 35 ever get busy between the sheets or anywhere else that matter. It turns out that with small children, my chances of great sex are only 14%. That’s not very high. It’s pretty bloody depressing actually. Add that to my working full time and the odd go down to, well… nothing.

Who are these people who measure this stuff? Just let me regress down a branch on the evolutionary tree, swing over to Tarzan and fling some poo. It’s much easier just to do it like they do it on the Discovery Channel.

Slowpoke the Elf and the Hippie Commune

Words are clever little things. They clothe themselves in layers of meaning and wield a power far greater than an atom bomb. Wars are rarely started by weaponry, far more often the spark that sets off the blaze is as simple or as complex as a word. It is words that brainwash young men and women into taping explosives to their chests and blowing themselves apart. We need not fear the terrorist, we need fear the orator.

Just yesterday I was laughing about it. I was pointing out how language allows us to be excruciatingly polite and yet brutally rude at the same time. It is why I can learn to speak another language, but never truly understand it.

This morning I was given a copy of Dancing Jax by Robin Jarvis. It is a book written for young adults, but exploring post modernist literary theory and the breakdown of modern society. At the core of its horror are words. Perhaps that is why I find it so terribly frightening. I can handle a saw wielding maniac or a hockey mask wearing fiend, but a book? For some reason it kindles a fear inside of me that usually only listening to a speech of Hitler’s or Julius Malema’s can bring.

It is far removed from Fat, Forty and Fired by Nigel Marsh, the book I finished yesterday. This current reading spree has its roots in the lack of Internet access at work and with time on my hands I find myself dipping into the other worlds words have given me keys to. Nigel Marsh is an ad exec, a man after my own heart. He takes a year off to find himself and ends up being CEO of Leo Burnett Down Under.



It is hysterical, but in the subversive manner of the Court Jester of old. He holds up a mirror to the fallacy of work/home balance and the tenuous links that bind families together. It poses the difficult question of how do you judge yourself? By your job, your family, your press clippings, your awards? Once you have that answer you have to ask yourself, is it worth it? Is it real? His blatant honesty at his own learnings, failures and accomplishments is cloaked in self deprecating humour and slightly uncomfortable (like a crumb in the bed sheets) truths. It’s a definite must-read for any wife, husband, parent and advertising drone.

My lack of access to the virtual world or more precisely, my virtual safety net, has raised uncomfortable questions for me. Could I handle being on desert island for 2 weeks with no cellphone or Internet access? I don’t know.

The virtual and the actual have become to intertwined that I doubt students ever have to enter a library. Hell, I could live alone in a cave, never leave my home and never speak face to face with another human being again. You could actually live a fantasy life on one of the many role playing games, earn real money from virtual realities and die believing you are Slowpoke the Elf.

People have been murdered for fantasy samurai swords. Is this crazy or does it just bring to light how bizarre our sense of value is. Does it spell the end of hard currency as value is determined by how many friends you have on Facebook or followers on Twitter? It makes me want to join a hippie commune and grow vegetables. Sadly, my deep revulsion to the campfire kumbaya would mean I’d get evicted within the first day.