Manslations Read online

  I know you want him to fantasize differently. I know, I know. But he doesn't. The good news is it shouldn't matter. I know that there are men who are “addicted” to porn, but that's a different thing. If we're talking about your average man with your average porn fascination? No worries: We do not expect or need you to like it.

  And if he does want you to get into watching and/or emulating porn with him, there's nothing wrong with saying, “Listen, that stuff doesn't do it for me, okay? It's not my thing.” Just make sure you follow that up with, “But you know what does do it for me…?” I think you'll find that this is one of those areas in which men can be excellent listeners.

  Fake Biology Break

  Okay, if I may, I'd like to pause for a moment and talk science. Given that I went to an arts school where my math and science requirements were fulfilled by taking a nutrition class taught by a fat person, feel free to take this “science” with a grain of salt. (But only a grain, because, as I recall from that class, sodium is bad for you. Or maybe it was good for you. Hard to remember when the teacher once listed a doughnut as a part of a healthy breakfast. Seriously.)

  Here's the issue for men. We are biologically predetermined to be the aggressors in sex, because we can make as many babies as there are vaginas to put them in. Women can only make one baby at a time. Or two, in my sister's case. Actually, wasn't there somebody on the news who had, like, eleven at once? Look, let's not get all hung up on the numbers. No matter how many babies there are, they still only have one place to hang around in until they're born, is my point. And for good or ill, men don't have that physical restriction.

  Now, this doesn't mean that all men need to do something about that fact, but on a purely physical level, men are only limited by (a) the hours in the day, and (b) our ability to convince you ladies to let us do sex unto you.

  So since our brains are constantly on the lookout for potential vacation spots for our penises, men are biologically trained to constantly be on the lookout for women who fit one of two criteria:

  They are totally smoking hot, or

  They might be willing to have sex with us.

  Preferably both at the same time.

  It's not personal. Your man—yes, your man—wants to have sex with every woman he sees. Not necessarily in an active way. He's not “after” her. He doesn't care about her. Doesn't have to. His brain and body are just alerting him to the fact that she exists and is potentially available for sex. And if a woman wants to have sex with him, this puts the male body/mind on full alert. Why? Because that's one of those two criteria—it's battle stations! “Alert! Alert! Sex is 100 percent available! DEFCON 1! Other alert-type noises!”

  This is where we see the big misunderstanding: “How can he want to have sex with her? She's an idiot!” Well, maybe so, but she is either a hot idiot or a willing idiot. Biologically speaking, we are not designed to let those things slip our attention. In a very real way, that is what male attention is for. (That and hooking up home-theater equipment.) The reason why he wants to have sex with her is that she exists and is, in some way, attractive. That's the beginning and end of it.

  Note that men don't generally attach much significance to our sexual fantasies. Sometimes we don't even really notice that we've had one. It's just our brain's way of saying “hi.” As in, “Oh, we're looking at a woman. Okay, let's run that through the simulator. Yep. That's what sex with her might be like. Okay, let's move on with our day.”

  Such a Near Miss

  How many times have you seen a Civil War–themed romance novel cover on which some unrealistically buxom Confederate war widow is leaning back, breathless, on her veranda, as a wounded, shirtless Union soldier is ravaging her?

  Okay, but then you also have men—actual living men— who are putting on that very same outfit and reenacting great battles of that same Civil War with like-minded idiots. If these men weren't such dorks, and if the women who are reading those romance novels would get rid of some of their cats, and if they would both take a few spinning classes, they could reenact both parts together! The guys would get to run around, pretending to shoot their dork friends, and then go home and bang the holy living hell out of their costumed lady friend on the veranda. It's a win-win. Such a shame. Ah, well.

  Here's an image for you. Think of a man's conscious mind as being not unlike your own. And then, imagine the part of his brain that's in charge of sexual fantasies sitting off to the side, not unlike a crack-addicted chipmunk flipping through seven hundred channels of homemade porn featuring every woman he's ever thought of for longer than, say, a nanosecond. Lots of times we're not even paying any attention. It's like cleaning the house with the TV on.

  I know that sounds gross, but it's true. And if it's any consolation, it's probably a lot grosser than you're picturing. Just thank whatever god(s) you worship for your inability to visualize it accurately.

  And no matter how disgusted with us you become, you just don't know the half of it. Which brings us to our first sex myth:

  MYTH: Men Only Ever Think about Sex.

  FACT: However much time you think we spend on this, well, it's probably more.

  When you roll your eyes and say that men are only ever thinking about sex, see, you think you mean that figuratively, but I'm telling you that men are literally always thinking about sex.

  I have occasionally heard one or another woman—disgusted with some dude's behavior—say something along the lines of, “I swear, half the time he's only thinking about sex!”

  I always wonder what in the holy hell she imagines he's thinking about the other half of the time??! Are you kidding me? I couldn't possibly fill up half my day thinking about… see? I can't even think of stuff that would occupy one out of every two thoughts, let alone actually think those thoughts. I think about video games, computers, and giant televisions a lot, and that's still got to cover at most maybe 10 percent of the time.

  Now, that doesn't mean that men are only thinking about sex. It just means that there is always some little piece of our brains thinking about sex. In the background, I'm saying. Just like the way that no matter whom you're talking to, you are subconsciously aware of every pair of shoes in the room and whether or not you think those shoes are cute. It's called “multitasking,” people.

  Sex with whom?

  Anybody. Everybody. You. Your friends, your sister, people we saw on the train. Celebrities, coworkers, or that time we saw half a boob across a crowded room and pieced her together into a whole woman.

  It's not exactly “thinking,” per se. It's just our mental filing system doing its thing: “Okay. Let's put her in the dopey but gorgeous section, and cross-file her under possible threesomes with Jessica Alba.”(Sorry, sorry. I'm so, so sorry.)

  Yes. Every man who sees you is thinking, however briefly, about having sex with you.

  Please re-read that sentence.

  No, read it again.

  See, I think you skimmed it and reinterpreted it to mean that “a lot” of the “disgusting” men are thinking about having sex with “some women” and “some of the time.” No, I'm talking about you, and I'm talking about all of us, even the nice guys.

  You know what, I don't think you're ever going to believe me on this one. And it's for the best. I think the fact that you can't believe that I'm serious right now is Mother Nature's little way of ensuring that you'll let us have sex with you enough times to keep the species going.*

  A Difficult Truth about Men and Masturbation

  Let me tell you something disturbing. This is a horrible thing to know about all of the men in your life. Ready to learn something just terrible? Here we go.

  Every man in your life thought about you while whacking off at least one time. Maybe only for a couple of seconds. But they did it. Yep. Every man you know and many you don't. (No, not your relatives, sickos. But probably all of their friends.)

  I'm not suggesting that each of them spent a lot of time on you. The duration of the male sexual fantasy is co
unted in milliseconds—as in, somewhere between one and five seconds is plenty, and then the aforementioned crack-addicted chipmunk switches channels. But trust me, you were in there somewhere. Maybe not every time, maybe not often, maybe not for very long. But it happened.

  If it helps in any way, these guys were picturing you having a fantastic time. Or both of you, as the case may be.

  Knowing this, you should be aware of what happens when you are in public. If you're attempting to be sexy out there, you might attract the attention of your targeted man, but it's not exactly a surgical strike. You are also going to hit every other man in sight. And you don't get to decide which one of them gets the fantasy. We're all getting it.

  And for what it's worth, we really appreciate it.

  Given that, you're probably ready to debunk this next one without my help, right?

  MYTH: When a Man Likes a Woman, He Only

  Fantasizes about Her.

  FACT: It doesn't matter who a man wants/likes/loves, he is going to fantasize about her, her friends, her sister, maybe her mom if she's hot, his ninth-grade Spanish teacher, that girl on the train, and that honey he saw in college that time where he didn't quite get a good look at the whole woman.

  This dovetails neatly into the next one:

  MYTH: My Boyfriend Isn't Like That.

  FACT: Oh, yes, he is. And it's fine, I swear.

  Look, even I'm like this, and I'm nice. I love my girlfriend; I brush my teeth several times a day; and I do my taxes on time. I'm about as nice-enough-to-introduce-to-your-grandmother a guy as you're likely to meet (as embarrassing as that may be), and yet the contents of my brain at any given moment would probably shock and offend Courtney Love, if only she could stay awake long enough for someone to explain them to her.

  Fantasy: Girl-on-Girl Action

  In October 2007, scientists figured out how to get female worms to be attracted to other female worms instead of males.

  Let's put aside, for a moment, any questions about whether a worm has a lot of choices anyway. Look, you're a worm: everybody's covered in dirt; everybody looks really weird yet indistinguishable from each other; nobody's got any money. It's like living in New York City, just without arms, legs, or an iPod.

  But in terms of application of this study, the scientist cautions anyone who thinks that this is going to unravel the mysteries of human sexuality. “A human's brain is much more complex than a worm's brain,” he* said. Yeah, right. Says the man spending his days trying to teach worms to switch-hit.

  The point is this: Every man who read about this wondered if they had an experimental version of the treatment that he could try out on his girlfriend.

  We aren't 100 percent sure why we want you ladies to bat for the other team at least once. Lots of women think it's because men like the idea of being the center of attention in bed, and they might not be wrong there.

  Personally, I think the whole girl-on-girl fantasy comes from this: When two women are having sex, a woman made the first move, which is hot. She almost had to have, right? (I mean, unless the two of them got a phone call from a third party asking them to do each other or something, which…does that ever happen?)

  PURSUING SEX, OR AS IF HIS HAIR IS ON FIRE

  Okay, is everybody still with me? Anybody decide to join a nunnery or sign up for a solo space mission or anything? Good. The worst is over.

  Now we get into what happens with the male mind as he is actually going after sex. Remember, this isn't necessarily in any way related to whom he's fantasizing about. This is when it's for real.

  Let's start with maybe the biggest mistake a woman can make in trying to read a man's intention:

  MYTH: If a Man Wants to Have Sex with You, It

  Must Mean That He Likes You.

  FACT: If a man wants to have sex with you, it means that he is alive and capable of imagining having sex with you. There is no relationship between a man wanting to have sex with you and a man liking you.

  Now, I'm not saying that if a man wants to have sex with you he doesn't like you. He might—who knows? But the sexual desire by itself isn't an indicator of anything. After all, that's only one of the Two Big Questions.* It's never enough information.**

  To put this another way, all men want to have sex with you, but only some of them want to date you. It's like a pyramid:

  Okay, I think you're probably getting the hang of it now, so let's look at a tricky one:

  MYTH: There Are Two Types of Men:

  The Kind Who Only Want Sex and the Kind Who

  Want Relationships.

  FACT: All men have two types of interest: either he wants to have sex with you and date you, or he wants to have sex with you and not date you.

  Sounds similar, but it's totally different. See, it's not that there are the “nice” guys out there who will always want a relationship and then there are the jerks who are only after sex. Sex and dating are not related in quite that way for us. Nice guys or jerks, we all unconsciously categorize women in one of those two ways. Either it's sex and relationship, or it's sex and not relationship.

  So if a guy only wants to sleep with you, that's how he sees you specifically—not necessarily how he sees all women. And a different guy might want to date you specifically, even though he thinks of your friends as people to sleep with. (And yes, the guy who wants to date you does think about sleeping with your friends. And so does the guy who doesn't want to date you. It's very equal-opportunity.)

  So we know that men fantasize about all women, but what about going after them?

  MYTH: Men Only Go After Women with Perfect Bodies.

  FACT: Men not only want women with perfect bodies; we want their friends, their sisters, maybe their moms, their ninth-grade Spanish teacher… you get the idea.

  Here's a problem in our society: The pervasive attitude among American women is that they are fatter/skinnier/taller/ shorter than they should be, that they are being compared to models with unrealistically perfect bodies, that men are only interested in women of that type, and if they are not perfect, men will not pay attention to them.*

  I am here to help and/or be funny in the process. Maybe not in that order.

  First, I am not going to lie to you. Yes, we all really do want to have sex with the models with the perfect bodies and the big, fake boobs and all of that. We want it all the time. I want it right now. In fact, every time I see one of those women, yes, I think about having sex with her. And even when I don't see one of them. That's what memory is for.

  Women know this and think, “Well, how do the rest of us stand a chance?”

  Here's how you stand a chance. We are not looking for ONE woman. We are looking for zillions of women. And we would love for you to be one of them.

  Okay, that didn't really come out right.

  What I am getting at is this. Most men do not really have a “type,” any more than professional wrestling has rules. It's more of a “hey, whatever works” kind of philosophy. We look at all women.

  Listen, I know how women often complain that men are only into appearance, and they always date younger women, etcetera, etcetera. And how women are more than happy to date older men, etcetera, etcetera.

  Fine, but let's not pretend that women are into these “older men” because of the content of their characters. Look at these older men that women want to sleep with. Who are these men? Sean Connery? Harrison Ford?

  Probably just a coincidence that they are powerful, famous, and rich. I'm sure that if Sean Connery worked as a greeter at Wal-Mart to supplement his $300-a-month Social Security check, you'd still be after him, right?

  Guys don't only care about a woman's looks any more than a woman only cares about a man's bank account. (Or his guitar playing, if she's under twenty-five or so.)*

  To get back to the original myth, men do not “only” want to have sex with any body type, age, or anything else. We entertain every possibility.

  History Break: Sex and the Twentieth Century

  Lo
ts of the last century has been interpreted** with metaphors of male sexuality. If you don't mind hearing about penises as they relate to foreign policy, read on!

  World War II

  This was in the height of the classic American home, in which the man did X and the woman did Y. And when somebody came into your backyard and stomped all over your Pearl Harbor, well, it was a man's job to go out there and sock someone in the nose.

  Wars are often described in sexual terms. One man gets a little too big of a “war boner,” and he swings it in the direction of some other man who doesn't like how big it is. So the second man gets HIS war boner together, and they swing them around at each other until one of them gives up or is dead.