A Feminine Thread
Wednesday, March 28, 2007
I was at an art gallery opening the other night and one of the female artists, a very attractive one I might add, was talking about relationships and men. In the course of conversation she made a very interesting observation about women. She said that women, herself especially, have this thing, this…susceptibility you might say, to men who are, well, a little mean. Now, less the PC crowd recoil in stark raving horror, she of course didn’t mean she and her gender wanted to be beaten, and said as much. No, she meant that women get a thrill from men who were a little…oh…abrasive–at times. Somewhat unkind now and then. Bastards, really. They kind of get her motor revved up, so to speak. She said it with the implication that all women had this same, shall we say, guilty pleasure?
She told me that when her boyfriend gave her flowers, it was nice, and she loved him. It was sweet, but not very…stirring. She thought that it would ‘nice’ if he wasn’t so nice, if he wasn’t so damn sweet all the time. Now if we take this to be axiomatic of all women, and there’s evidence to support it, what does that say about them? It’s Black Bart vs. Dudley Do Right, Stanley Kowalski vs. Ward Cleaver, Mr. Darcy vs. Mr. Nice Guy. For an expanded view on the differences, see my earlier column, “Outlaws and Bankers.”
Now please understand, I’m not presenting this idea, I’m just agreeing with it. History has given us a long line of examples of this same concept in literature, music, and other forms of artistic expression. Whatever the venue, it seems that there has been recognized a common thread that runs through the female which points to some unaccountable attraction to the bad guys of society.
The good guy in the white hat with pearly teeth rides up on his clean, trotting horse and the women…appreciated him. They respect him. They admire him. They sigh with a happy and contented heart as they watch him ride off into the sunset. Then, they look across the street to the saloon, and standing outside the door, is a leering, sweaty, just a little bit dirty, outlaw, wearing black, with smiling eyes that rove up and down their bodies. They’re a little scared and feel slightly violated. A flush comes to their face and they start breathing heavy and have to fan themselves in seventy-degree weather.
With the good guy, they want to have his children. With the bad guy, they want to have his body. They don‘t want to want to, and many of them are irritated at themselves for it, but they just can’t help it. Much as they hate it, it’s there nonetheless.
Now the feminists all say that’s nothing but garbage, nothing more than a male fantasy rooted in their own phallic driven ego. They’ll roll their eyes and cluck their tongues at how men are so childishly self delusional.
But it wasn’t a man that told me this.
I’ve never heard this from a man in my life. In fact, I think most men don’t want to believe it either. It seems that most men want to believe in the second law of thermo-dynamic male-female interaction: “I do something nice for her and voila! She likes me.” Uh, no, she likes what you did for her, idiot. I don’t mean to be too harsh on my own gender, but when you think about it, men are pretty dumb. Especially when it comes to women. Men are, for the most part, clueless. Except for me, of course. Not that I understand them, mind you, I don’t. A man understanding a woman is like a woman understanding the remote. Sure, she can use it, but she’ll never fully comprehend the spiritual symbiosis that is achieved in that special harmonic channel surfing nirvana.
But leave me not digress.
Although I don‘t, and will never, understand the elusive female, I’ve learned to ‘know’ them…just a little. Yes, well…when you’ve had as many women as I have turn you down, you pick up a few things. Which is why I’m in agreement with the female artist at the gallery. And she’s not the only woman who’s told me this. In fact, I have one friend who admits to having a ‘problem’ with this very thing. She’s a little too affected by the rough ones, a little too enthralled with the bad guy type. She said she can see a guy get angry and kick a door in and it makes her knees weak. She said she has this fantasy of…uh…we better stay out of that deserted and darkened alley. I want to keep this
PG-13.
Anyway, regardless of whether it is a common thread or a triple braided steel cable that runs through women, why is it there in the first place? And what does it say about these lovely little delicate creatures? They’re sickos, that’s what it says. They’re sick for being that way, men are sick for not seeing it, and I’m not so sick that I‘m gonna’ answer it. Actually, I’m not answering it because I don’t know what the answer is.
My artist gallery friend put forth the idea that it was some sort of reassurance that a tough guy can better protect her if the need ever arises. Makes sense, I suppose. A guy that sheds a tear because he loves you so much doesn’t really inspire thoughts of fighting the lion at the mouth of the cave. I mean, Rob Lowe is a good-looking guy and all, but any woman wouldn’t even hesitate to trample that pretty little guy to death to get to Sean Connery.
I guess the bottom line is this: A woman just wants to be loved, plain and simple. She wants to be loved like the ocean loves the tide, like the trees love the forest, like the stars love the heavens…but not too much. I liken a woman unto this grand and beautiful Earth upon which we live. It seems that she wants to be banged into by a meteorite now and then. Ravaged and razed by an out of control, blazing intensity, her fault line ripped open by a foundation shaking 8.9 on the Richter scale. Every once in a while she wants her fertile ground to be pounded by the thunderous torrents of a powerful deluge that leaves her exhausted, devastated, and completely worn out.
So why do these gorgeous creatures have this feminine thread of occasional mistreatment that, to varying degrees, supposedly runs through all of them? Who knows? Who cares? The idea that they have it is intriguing enough for me.
Yes, for me, this is just another layer of the many intricacies and facets that keep me bound and chained to their beckoning whims and frustrating fancies.
So like the lost and hopeless alcoholic with his drink, I hold up The Woman, gazing at her alluring beauty, inhaling her rich fragrance, mesmerized by her intoxicating yet dangerous smile and cry out in a pitiful but unrestrained voice, God help me, but I love it so.
Then, with all caution obliterated and reason be damned, once again, I swallow her luscious poison.
Good night, sweet prince, and flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.
(Hamlet)
Keck
