Saturday, April 28, 2018

All Men Are Pigs (Pt. 3)

If you're new here, this is a weekly column consisting of letters written to my grandchildren (who exist) and my great-grandchildren (who aren't here yet) — the Stickies — to haunt them after they become grups and/or I'm dead.


                                   THE AGE OF UNLIGHTENMENT?

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Irregularly Appearing Imaginary Guest Stars
Marie-Louise -- My beautiful muse and back scratcher 
Iggy -- My designated Sticky
Dana -- My designated gentlereader

       "Modesty forbids what the law does not."   —Seneca the Younger


Dear (eventual) Grandstickies & Great-Grandstickies,

Pat Paulsen was a comedian that was world famous for a few minutes in the late 60s and almost famous for the rest of his life. He told a joke from the perspective of a sex education teacher.

After a hard day at work, when I come home, all I want from my wife is a good handshake.

I'm paraphrasing since I haven't been able to find it on the web. It sorta/kinda encapsulates my feelings after the writing my last two letters, All Men Are (sexually speaking) Pigs. I thought I was done. But I stumbled on an article from Psychology Today that contains a message all girls/women/female H. sapiens — whatever — should be aware of.

Since half of you are girls, my dear grandstickies, and since odds are there will a female H. sapein or two amongst my yet to be born great-grandstickies, I thought I'd better pass it along.


A gentleman by the name of Leonard Sax M.D., Ph.D. writes a column called Sax on Sex (cool, right?) for Psychology Today. He's a family physician and psychologist. Apropos of nothing, I fervently hope he also plays the saxophone.

On 11.20.17 he published a column titled Who Is Distracted by a Girl Wearing Skintight Leggings. Subtitle: Answer: Maybe the girl.

The good doctor was commenting on the exact same article I wrote about in my last letter. I didn't stumble on his article till after I wrote last week's letter. Clearly a sign from God... or at least Marie-Louise.

It's hard to tell since she's a very discrete muse and strictly follows the ethical guidelines of the International Association of Certified Muses. Telepathy and body language (particularly facial expressions) are the primary forms of communication employed by professional muses.

Marie-Louise can communicate seven separate and distinct messages with her eyebrows.

Sorry... where was I? oh yeah, Sax on Sex.


Dr. Sax gets our attention by pointing out that some public schools in Evanston, Il have adopted a dress code that permits kids to wear nearly anything as long as you can't see their nipples or genitals. He provides a link. He's not kidding.

Next, he tells us about an interesting experiment.

Randomly selected men and women at the University of Michigan were randomly assigned to wear either bulky sweaters or swimsuits. Each volunteer then took a math quiz in a tiny room. No windows. No observers.

The results? Men in swim trunks scored slightly better than men in sweaters. Women in one piece swimsuits got roughly half as many correct answers as women in bulky sweaters. According to Dr. Sax, "Subsequent research has replicated and extended this finding."

Why? When a woman (or girl) wears a swimsuit (or skin-tight leggings), often "self-objectification" occurs. He then informs us that girls/women who self-objectify are more likely to be depressed, self-harm and not like their bodies.

While I would hardly describe my research as exhausting, I went a-googling around the web and found all sorts of articles that support girls (and women) being allowed to wear pretty much whatever they want, dress codes or not. If this turns the male H. sapiens around them into testosterone poisoned chimpanzees, tough titties. Oddly, the phenomenon mentioned above was not mentioned.


I know, I know. Rude and crude. Please accept my insincere apologies. I couldn't resist in light of the following. Yet another story about a young woman victimized merely for dressing comfortably.

Long story short... well, the first sentence of the story in the New York Post says it all. "A Florida student says she was humiliated when school officials decided her 'protruding' nipples were a distraction and asked her to hide them with Band-Aids."

There's that D word again, distraction. Her appalled mom provides a perfect illustration as to how far we've come, culturally speaking, in a very short time. She's quoted as saying "We should not treat a girl like this because of where her fat cells decided to distribute genetically."

I suspect that my mom (a product of the draconian Black & White ages) would've reacted somewhat differently if one of my three sisters had been pulled out of class for not wearing a bra to school. There would've been yelling and intemperate words; phrases such as modesty, self-respect, you know what boys are like, do you enjoy being gawked at? etc. would have been uttered.

The young woman in question, who I'm sure, like most teenagers, is oblivious as to how she looks to the rest of the world, helpfully supplied a couple of selfies for the article.

And that, as the immortal Forrest Gump said, is all that I have to say about that. Poppa loves you.

 Have an OK day.


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©2018 Mark Mehlmauer   (The Flyoverland Crank)

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