It is common knowledge that real men don’t eat quiche, just as it is equally understood that real women don’t pump gas. Certain things are just not done and certain social barriers are not crossed. We are also told that men are from Mars and women are from Venus. Real Men watch action movies with chase scenes and gratuitous sex, lots of gratuitous sex, they value their stoic independence, they do not eat vegetables or fruit cake, they do not ice when injured, take directions when lost, or reveal their inner emotions even to those closest to them, they are masters of the barbecue, an obvious carry over from our proud Neanderthal heritage.
Apparently, there are differences between the sexes. I’m not talking about the basic anatomical differences, such as large, voluptuous, firm breasts with exciting parabolic curves, or wrap around legs that go on forever, thick hair with that wild come hither look with a Jennifer Lopez ass. Those are all superficial trappings that men don’t even think about more than once every three seconds. I really want to say something meaningful about the male side of the equation, real men versus “Betty Crocker” men.
At first I thought real men drank lots of beer and constantly watched sports. Talked about sports. Read sports magazines and sometimes got off the couch and played sports, or just got up to to get more beer. Some men get off the couch just because they can. It really varies. These observations may be unfair and a crude and an inaccurate stereotype that doesn’t apply to more than 90% of the male population. I began to look deeper into what defines manhood. There had to be more than these few superficial indicators.
At my place of employment there are several guys who live and breathe sports. I can rarely take part in any of the conversations. Every since the NHL recently expanded from 6 teams I am no longer with the program or in any way in the sports loop. These guys know the names and stats on every pro and college team in Canada and the United states in any sport. They can talk at length, and usually do, about any combination of these teams and their players. With this almost infinite knowledge they are able to bet and lose large sums of money each and every week end. It is an amazing skill set, but does it encapsulate the essence of what it is to be a man or is it just an escape mechanism geared to keep women out?
In some sports related conversations I can ask certain innocuous and generic questions concerning the half time shows, a theoretical question on violence in amateur and pro hockey versus the non contact Olympic-type hockey. I know I am actually better advised to stay out of these conversations as I usually get evil impatient looks, or, the opposite polite superficial answers to my lame questions and/or comments, which led me to question my masculinity which in turn resulted in 3 years of expensive and intensive therapy. I don’t talk sports any more. I began to question my own maleness. I was at a low point in my life. I contemplated watching the Super Bowl.
Through therapy the first thing I realized was that everybody needs it and every one can benefit from it in some way. We are all screwed up to some degree. My masculinity was not necessarily in question. My “puck envy” was not really an issue. I soon discovered that there were in fact lots of things that real men can do and talk about as long as it doesn’t have anything to do with feelings, emotions, monthly cycles of any type, budgeting, balanced diets, window treatments, matching colour schemes, food preparation and household chores. Otherwise we as men are not confined to sports topics our conceptual world appears in techno colour with Dolby surround sound. Men can converse on just about any topic. Let me give you an example.
Men do like to talk about their sexual exploits either real or imagined. These stories often go back to university days if they attended, or high school days if they did not. Most of this type of conversation can be heard in men’s locker rooms after showering and still naked. I’m talking a wide range of venues including but not limited to: private racquet clubs, various fitness and golf clubs, and the YMCA. Men will also talk about business and investments. As a group, men like to boast about accomplishments of a physical nature, or the parallel in the business world talk is cheap and conversations turn to hostile take over bids and other forms of accusition. We, as men, seem to be busy preening our feathers in mating rituals and bragging quite a lot of the time, there does seems to be an abundance of pomp and circumstance. Did the emperor actually get new clothes?
While living on my own for several years I had to develop domestic survival skills. One day I found myself in the laundry room of my apartment. A place I have learned to hate with a passion. Sorting laundry seems to be such a simple thing to do. I will now sort the laundry. I will put lights here and darks here. Although I am pleased to report that I have discovered where all the missing socks go, I am not at liberty to tell. In my laundry room there is a large sorting table in the geographic center of the room. In fact the whole place is very organized; all the driers along one wall and all the washer along another wall, creating the amusing situation in which one has to remove the wash from one side of the room and some how transport it to the other side of the room some 15 feet away. The room was obviously designed by a man. On a related theme all female public bathrooms were also designed by men. I’ll go no further.
Here’s a good example demonstrating the difference between the sexes and how one seems to depend on the other in very simple ways. While sorting my laundry even in the best of light I defy anyone to identify at least 7 times out of 10 a blue sock from a black one. I can not do this. However, the elderly, legally blind lady on the other side of the sorting table miraculously “seeing” my problem was able to help me with my dilemma. I was both amazed and appreciative. I value my male independence and the varied survival skills I have acquired while still depending on a blind octogenarian woman to sort my wash.
Fishing trips are a time and a place for men to express their maleness in it highest form. It is a time to drink, eat food out of a can, sleep, trade stories and lewd jokes and fart in public, constantly. I was on such a fishing trip as a rite of passage. It was the opening of trout season in April when it was still too cold to sleep in a tent. In fact we brought electric space heaters and plugged them and ran them on high for 24 hours a day. Our tents were toasty warm. Leaving a small carbon footprint is also another male trait.
The actual alpha fishermen amongst us got up before the break of dawn. Dawn broke for me at my convenience because I had my own tent and heater and did not fish. I heard the other guys get up in the dark and stumble and swear as they bumped into things and each other before making their way to the river only a few hundred meters away. At the river they baited their hooks with some miserable dew worm, who also didn’t want to wake up and really did not want to die even if it was of a Hindu disposition and may in an ironic twist come back in another life as a trout. Either way that worm did not have a future. The guys cast out their lines opened a bottle of beer (the sun was not up yet) and fell asleep in their sleeping bags on the ground or in lounge chairs, snoring contentedly next to their fishing gear. It was a true vision of manly sportsmanship. Man against nature in its highest form, as God intended.
I eventually wandered by seeking male companionship after waking up some two and a half hours later. I made a point of photographing everybody sleeping with their beer and later e-mailed the pictures to their wives and girl friends who found the pictures revealing and entertaining and served as a constant source of ridicule at dinner tables for months to come. Oddly, I was not invited on the fishing trip the following trout season.
No one caught any fish that year. It wasn’t just about the thrill of the chase, that was immaterial. We were all about male bonding, camaraderie and sharing stories around the camp fire. Returning home, smelling of campfire smoke and bacon fat while suffering from mild hyperthermia, but secure in our notion that while on the fringes of civilization facing great odds and limited beer stocks we had not only defined our individual male identities but also merged and bonded as a group.
When I got back home dirty and smelling like road kill, my dear wife asked me what we had eaten and if our meals included any vegetables.
I looked at her with bemused wonderment and said, “Dear, real men don’t eat vegetables.”
Marty Rempel
“The Wonder Years”
