Continuing on the gender issues…reading about the failed sex tests in this years Doha games got me thinking... is gender becoming irrelevant in today’s day and age? How can a sex test go wrong?
Gender is not a drug that if you don’t take 3 hours before the test, you can be female negative or male positive! Last time I checked, we were born with it, and there was nothing we could do about it…
Maybe the artist previously known as Prince is the only one in the world who has got it right! He claims to be neither man nor woman and has changed his name to a SYMBOL, a symbol that combines the biological signs for a man (circle with an arrow) and a woman (circle with a mirror). And maybe Michael Jackson too is on the right path of androgynous wisdom…
A man will always be attracted to a woman. This ensures the long term survival of the species. But in a time of population explosion, procreation alone is no longer a necessity for mating. When cloning is questioning the very existence of gender difference, are we headed for a gender neutral society?
In a world where increasingly, it is becoming difficult to tell the gender of a person on the street, is unisex going beyond just clothes? Is it becoming another personality type?
Saturday, December 23, 2006
Penis Envy
I am single. I am also 31. This is why whenever a friend invites me to a party, I always try and go. So when I was invited for dinner at a mutual friend’s house (who by the I had never met) I shamelessly said yes! In hopes of meeting ‘the one’…finally.
Sure enough, I entered the room and during a round of introductions, there was this cute as a button guy that I could totally see myself with! So I kept my smile pasted on, and proceeded to be my charming witty self, all the while making sure that ‘the one’ was within ear shot. But as the evening progressed, I felt that this guy was carrying himself a little “differently”, but I chose to ignore it.
Now I never believed in the stereotypes that being more groomed, more sensitive and having limp wrested gestures are red flags for this “man prefers men” sign. But I am sure you will agree with me that there is SOMETHING about gay men that is “different”. You cannot tell what it is, but you can most definitely tell that the cute guy is gay within 10 minutes of meeting him. That is unless, like me, you are wearing rose tinted glasses of possible wedded bliss and are in complete denial of the elephant in the room.
Sigh...but even I could not go on believing he was straight when he held his boy friend’s hand at the dinner table and said “oh he cooks so well, I am gaining weight!”. My dreams lay shattered on the floor… I should have picked up the pieces of my 5 minutes fantasy and walked back home like any mature woman who claims possess a high E.Q., saying “bygones”. But no! I was inexplicably filled with anger and I snapped at him over dinner, criticising and pointing out how wrong the Indian recipes he was reciting were. I even laughed out in his face when he said that if you add turmeric to black dal, it turns yellow. ..God! I thought gay men were supposed to know these things!! Was he faking it? Did I stand a chance? Nah..
I just could not believe at how unjust and unfair it is that in a world full of cute, successful and available single women, who are ready to commit there are cute guys who happen to prefer other cute guys!
Why are more and more men we meet turn out to be gay? Is it true that at this moment, there are more gay men than there have ever been in the history of the world? Ever.
Evolution has ensured that men’s instinct is to hunt and women’s instinct is to nurture. This makes men and women perfect complements to each other. Men and women have played out traditional roles born out of this very instinct for centuries now. A man comes home after a hard day’s work to find his little wife cooking at the stove with a baby on her hip. She not only takes care of his home and hearth, but an unsaid part of her role as a wife is also to make her man feel more masculine and more in control. God forbid if she herself ever had to change the light bulb herself! A man has evolved to feel in control in and outside his house. A woman has evolved, needing to feel taken care of and finding bliss in nurturing the young ones.
This compartmentalization of the role of the sexes was essential when there were few helping hands, mortality rate was high and survival itself was the only primary need. With such a division of labor, progeny got unlimited attention and had greater chances of survival.
Apart from this, to ensure that the human race lived on, women got pregnant almost as soon as they weaned a baby. This left them in no physical state whatsoever, to hunt or to take on more physically demanding chores. The division of labor lived on. I am going to take a wild guess and say that I doubt there were ANY gay men during the stone age.
Is female emancipation making men homosexual?
Post industrialization, computerization and capitalism, society has evolved by leaps and bounds. Household tasks have become easier and much quicker. Good medical facilities have ensured high survival rates. The biggest need is no longer about survival, needs have evolved to more individual dimensions- accomplishment, achievement and even self actualization. Life is easier, disposable incomes are rising and so is consciousness on the part of women.
The average urban woman is now as educated as men. Women are working and are earning enough to support a family all on their own. They are also postponing marriage in favor of career advancement. Since they stay single longer and are literally, wearing the pants in life, they have the space and time to be more aggressive and in control -typical masculine traits.
Is this new found freedom independence and sense of control in women putting men off? It is true that men and women are still genetically programmed to pick a mate who has the physical characteristics best suited to create fit and beautiful progeny. i.e. men are attracted to women with flat stomachs because a flat stomach means the woman is not pregnant and so is ready for procreation. Are men still instinctively still attracted to ‘weaker’ women that allow men to be in control? Are strong independent women driving men away...into each others arms!? Are men getting back at us by loving each other instead? Is the need for procreation becoming secondary to the need for love acceptance and cherishing?
Is it right for me to feel penis envy, but in a totally new way?
Sure enough, I entered the room and during a round of introductions, there was this cute as a button guy that I could totally see myself with! So I kept my smile pasted on, and proceeded to be my charming witty self, all the while making sure that ‘the one’ was within ear shot. But as the evening progressed, I felt that this guy was carrying himself a little “differently”, but I chose to ignore it.
Now I never believed in the stereotypes that being more groomed, more sensitive and having limp wrested gestures are red flags for this “man prefers men” sign. But I am sure you will agree with me that there is SOMETHING about gay men that is “different”. You cannot tell what it is, but you can most definitely tell that the cute guy is gay within 10 minutes of meeting him. That is unless, like me, you are wearing rose tinted glasses of possible wedded bliss and are in complete denial of the elephant in the room.
Sigh...but even I could not go on believing he was straight when he held his boy friend’s hand at the dinner table and said “oh he cooks so well, I am gaining weight!”. My dreams lay shattered on the floor… I should have picked up the pieces of my 5 minutes fantasy and walked back home like any mature woman who claims possess a high E.Q., saying “bygones”. But no! I was inexplicably filled with anger and I snapped at him over dinner, criticising and pointing out how wrong the Indian recipes he was reciting were. I even laughed out in his face when he said that if you add turmeric to black dal, it turns yellow. ..God! I thought gay men were supposed to know these things!! Was he faking it? Did I stand a chance? Nah..
I just could not believe at how unjust and unfair it is that in a world full of cute, successful and available single women, who are ready to commit there are cute guys who happen to prefer other cute guys!
Why are more and more men we meet turn out to be gay? Is it true that at this moment, there are more gay men than there have ever been in the history of the world? Ever.
Evolution has ensured that men’s instinct is to hunt and women’s instinct is to nurture. This makes men and women perfect complements to each other. Men and women have played out traditional roles born out of this very instinct for centuries now. A man comes home after a hard day’s work to find his little wife cooking at the stove with a baby on her hip. She not only takes care of his home and hearth, but an unsaid part of her role as a wife is also to make her man feel more masculine and more in control. God forbid if she herself ever had to change the light bulb herself! A man has evolved to feel in control in and outside his house. A woman has evolved, needing to feel taken care of and finding bliss in nurturing the young ones.
This compartmentalization of the role of the sexes was essential when there were few helping hands, mortality rate was high and survival itself was the only primary need. With such a division of labor, progeny got unlimited attention and had greater chances of survival.
Apart from this, to ensure that the human race lived on, women got pregnant almost as soon as they weaned a baby. This left them in no physical state whatsoever, to hunt or to take on more physically demanding chores. The division of labor lived on. I am going to take a wild guess and say that I doubt there were ANY gay men during the stone age.
Is female emancipation making men homosexual?
Post industrialization, computerization and capitalism, society has evolved by leaps and bounds. Household tasks have become easier and much quicker. Good medical facilities have ensured high survival rates. The biggest need is no longer about survival, needs have evolved to more individual dimensions- accomplishment, achievement and even self actualization. Life is easier, disposable incomes are rising and so is consciousness on the part of women.
The average urban woman is now as educated as men. Women are working and are earning enough to support a family all on their own. They are also postponing marriage in favor of career advancement. Since they stay single longer and are literally, wearing the pants in life, they have the space and time to be more aggressive and in control -typical masculine traits.
Is this new found freedom independence and sense of control in women putting men off? It is true that men and women are still genetically programmed to pick a mate who has the physical characteristics best suited to create fit and beautiful progeny. i.e. men are attracted to women with flat stomachs because a flat stomach means the woman is not pregnant and so is ready for procreation. Are men still instinctively still attracted to ‘weaker’ women that allow men to be in control? Are strong independent women driving men away...into each others arms!? Are men getting back at us by loving each other instead? Is the need for procreation becoming secondary to the need for love acceptance and cherishing?
Is it right for me to feel penis envy, but in a totally new way?
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