The first time I saw an erect penis it was crammed down my throat before I could say “Ew.” I was a reckless kid who nobody loved, so I agreed to go behind the neighborhood bowling alley with an awful redheaded boy, hoping he would let me wear his Saint Christopher medal. His name was either Kenny or Ted; both names make me gag.

A couple of years later, still reckless, I hitchhiked everywhere, and the guys who picked me up were usually friendly, even the ones who managed to unzip their pants while driving. Suddenly, out sprang their dicks and the offer of a dollar to touch “it.” There was no way of guessing which guy might do this. Well dressed or slob, jalopy or brand new Cadillac, it was a crap shoot. No one ever stopped me from getting out. They were disgruntled, the ones with their dicks out, but they handled their disappointment pretty well.

Now, with Louis CK in mind, I have to wonder what drives men to show their dick to women who’ve expressed no interest in seeing it. In Louis CK’s case, the idea was obviously to shock or cause discomfort. But that seems like a genuine perversion. It’s hard to believe most men think of their penises this way.

But since women don’t go around forcing people to look at their genitals, I think it’s fair to call it a Man thing. What is behind this behavior? I tried thinking about it from a Freudian perspective. Maybe, when little boys first see their dad’s penis, they are overwhelmed by its size. This instills a worry about their own tiny penis. Will they ever measure up? The worry permeates their entire existence. Then once their own penis is full grown, they feel a need to say, “LOOK! ” They are proud, but still there’s that fundamental insecurity. All women represent Mommy, as we know. So he’s saying, “See, Mommy? I’m as big as Dad!”

No? Not buying that? How about a primal fear that the dick will somehow disappear. They have to keep presenting it for approval. It’s still there! Yay!

Or, is it just the physical version of mansplaining? Instead of clobbering you verbally with their superiority,  they want you to shut up and look at their dick. “Get a load of this, sister!” It’s an explanation that needs no explanation.

Having seen my share of penises, both willingly and otherwise, I think I have a healthy appreciation of them. One in particular, as I am happily married. Scrolling through Tumblr, when a dick pops up on my dashboard, I admit to feeling slightly offended. My feeling is mostly, “Go away, I didn’t ask for you.” I wonder if teenage girls are immune to images of dicks? From the sound of it, dick pics are a form of communication among our youth. Maybe when these teens grow up, the men will be less likely to use their dicks Louis CK-style, as an instrument of horror.

I believe I speak for most women when I say, Please keep your penis in your pants unless we specifically ask to see it and/or consensual sex is about to take place. Is that so hard, ahem?

Men, can you enlighten us on the mystery of your show and tell behavior? Ladies, your thoughts?

Why should it matter?! You are stuck in your binary thinking.

Even wondering is a microagression. I’m not kidding. What’s your fucking problem?

The whole idea of gender is ridiculous and insulting. It’s not only a cultural construct, but bla bla bla.

There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy, and I don’t even understand Shakespeare.

Gender is a spectrum. You need to be more gender-expansive.

Here, try again.

Some people are really mad about the latest issue of National Geographic.

Me, I don’t have to worry about being a gay man in a woman’s body. I’m comfortable with myself just as god made me. For others, it’s not so easy.

I certainly don’t care who uses which bathroom, as long as the line’s not too long.

But I admit I still like to know if I’m looking at a boy or girl.

Are you as fucked up in this respect?

Thoughts, insults, advice?

Sweden has got to be one of the word’s most progressive countries, with its ban on spanking children and its generous 480 days of paid family leave for each child.

Now, its largest union has a hotline for employees to report mansplaining in the workplace. It defines mansplaining as when

“a man explains something to a woman without being asked, particularly something which she might already know more about than the man”.

This is a huge step for women’s sanity and I’d like more countries to follow Sweden’s lead.

No more can some prick in your office tell you how to work the copying machine in that condescending voice. In the lunchroom, you won’t have to listen to Mr. World Traveler expound on how to get the cheapest airfare.

You can run to the phone and scream, “Lars is at my desk telling me how to make a spreadsheet!”

Lars won’t go to jail or even get fired, but you – his victim- will receive advice for productive action against him.

Sweden sounds like a Shangri-La except for the sardine-on-crispbread-snacks and the weather and the no sunshine.

But I worry that forbidding mansplaining at work might have consequences.

What if Swedish men come home after a long day of being muzzled at the office and launch into endless monologues about why certain gaskets are superior, and how the government works, and where to get the very best meatballs and why Ingmar Bergman is overrated, and what to do if your co-worker ignores the chain of command?

Who do you call then?

Me, I call my sister. We have discovered that both our husbands like to explain how to manage the contents of the refrigerator. “Use the older one first,” they both advise, like we are toddlers or tourists from Mars.

Mansplaining in the home is still the Wild West, where it’s every woman for herself.

If you live with a man, what is your favorite riff from your Mansplainer-in-Chief?

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Did you know that the average man has more estrogen than a post-menopausal woman?

This seems to have major implications.

But before I contemplate them, let’s remember that as men age, their testosterone levels fall, just as estrogen levels fall in aging women.

Doesn’t that suggest that the two genders become more alike, hormonally? Or more genderless, perhaps?

Testosterone is what men worry about most, judging from TV and radio ads. They want more energy and they want a stronger pee stream. They want to be more impressive, down there. All kinds of fake supplements promise to make these manly dreams come true.

But you never see ads that target female insecurity about being female. There are products we’re supposed to need to be more attractive, but none that promise to make us more womanly.

Personally, I already feel much too girly. I wouldn’t mind feeling more manly if it increased my sense of direction or gave me a taste for beer, instead of white wine. I’d like the opportunity to mansplain all the time. I’d like to appreciate hard rock more, and to not panic when my computer acts funny.

When I used to lift weights at a gym for bodybuilders, you could always tell who was on testosterone: The men had bad tempers and the women had facial hair. It probably increased their sex drive, but who wants to fuck a bad-tempered man or a woman wearing aftershave? They appeared to sublimate that drive by screaming “TWO MORE REPS!” and grunting like agonized pigs.

I’m going to do some research on the function of estrogen in men, but meanwhile here’s something interesting.

Another study found that testosterone supplementation in elderly men increased spatial memory and verbal memory. This testosterone supplementation also naturally increased estrogen levels due to the enzyme aromatase. If aromatase was blocked, estrogen would not increase and spatial memory improved, but not verbal memory.

Well duh, because men are good at spatial shit and women are good with verbal shit! Our brains are different whether you like it or not.

Unless, as we get really old, our brains – starved of hormones – begin to work alike, with both genders forgetting the name of that actor and wondering where they put the scissors.

Thoughts, cisgender men and women?

photo: Jay Boogie by Campbell Addy

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You know how when you’re watching TV and you can’t quite recognize that actor who looks familiar, or you don’t understand what just happened, or a character mumbles something and you didn’t catch it?

So you ask you husband, “Who’s that guy again?” or “Why are they doing that?!” or “What did she say?”

And your husband gets mad because he’s trying to watch the fucking show and you keep interrupting? And instead of answering a simple plot question, he says “WHY DON”T YOU WATCH AND FIND OUT?”

It occurred to me that we need an app for this. If we had an app, we could get the answers to our questions without irritating our husbands and being subjected to their condescending sighs.

The app will be programmed with a database of every movie and tv series in existence and you will just type in the title. Then, you can get the cast, as well as plot points and dialogue, by scene.

Plus, you can do this silently or choose an audio answer in a friendly male voice.

HOW FUCKING HARD WOULD THIS BE, PROGRAMMERS?

Women I’ve talked to about this all share my shame and frustration at needing help just to watch TV, but that’s what it’s come to.

I hate mansplaining as much as the next person, more even, but where does the mansplaining impulse go when you actually need it, eh?

Let’s get the app. First, we need a name for it.

Thoughts?

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One of the exciting new features you can look forward to here will be the convenience of A Man to answer your questions regarding male behavior. The feature will be called Ask a Man, and written by my friend Romeo, who is not only male but has served in our armed forces, drives a truck and currently brandishes a forbidding mohawk.

Romeo has always shown a willingness, however reluctant, to answer all my questions and now he will answer yours, too.

Here are the ones that bother me most, or let’s just say they mystify me the most:

When two men greet each other with a handshake, how do they know which kind of handshake to use? If it’s the fist on top of fist, how do they know whose fist goes on top? How do they know whether it’s going to be just an ordinary handshake or a special Bro Shake? What is the signal?

My second question is, why are men so fucking touchy? They can’t take any direct criticism, obviously, but anything that might remotely be construed as some kind of criticism makes them get testy. While they love to open sentences with “You ought to try…” or “Why do you always…” it is strictly verboten to address a man like that unless you want him to snap at you or sulk for an hour. Why are they so thin-skinned??

While I await Romeo’s lucid explanation of these mysteries, feel free to submit your own question for him in the comments. I am looking at this coming Friday as the launch date for Ask a Man.

Spouse A says to spouse B: You never want to talk to me!

Spouse A is :
1. Male
2. Female

In my entire life, I’ve only heard this complaint ONE SINGLE time where it was the other way around.

Five years ago I wrote about this state of  affairs  here and nothing has made me reconsider its veracity. Women want to talk and men want us to shut up.

Ladies, how do you deal with this? Have you adjusted to your mate’s low tolerance for your stories, questions and opinions? Have you found other avenues for your need to discuss the things that don’t interest your male partner, i,e, everything? Or do you insist on talking even while he sighs and adopts the grim look of a soldier off to the front line.

Do any of you have any strategies for making this conflict more interesting or entertaining.

I am anxious to hear your thoughts (since god know I can’t discuss it at home unless I just want to talk to myself!)

As we all know, women like to talk and men want us to shut up.

I’m sure this was an issue for Adam and Eve: She wanted to talk about her day, but he just wanted to unwind and space out. The most common complaint of married women? “He doesn’t listen!” Husbands are typically frustrated by wives who describe problems but don’t seem to welcome instructions on how to solve them.  Smart husbands will pretend to listen at least some of the time, but their body language says “Hurry up before I explode.”

We’re talkative but we’re not imbeciles.

Recently, feeling starved for conversation, I called a male friend, Dr. Larue.  At some point, he complained about his wife’s habit of describing her day. If she had to talk, why couldn’t she do it with less emotion? Her expressiveness annoys him.

I pointed out that I only called him because my own husband doesn’t want to converse with me.  We discussed another couple whose ratio of talking to silence is creating a problem along the same gender lines.  We wondered why so many expressive women wound up with such uncommunicative men. (Probably because that’s the only kind of women and men in existence, it occurs to me now.)

So here is my business proposition, hatched with some suggestions from Dr. Larue: A telephone service for women who want conversation with a man!

Nothing sexual, obviously, since that service is already covered. This is about active listening. The ad campaign would be something like, “Women, Save Your Marriage! Need to talk? Call Bob, The Man Who Listens!”

There will be options like “For sympathetic listening, press one. For fascinated  listening, press two. For Slightly Combative but Still Supportive listening. press three” and so on.  There won’t be an option for advice, because, duh, you can get that at home.

I love this idea! I’d call “Bob” right now, if the price were right. The only problem would be finding the Bobs. When I asked Dr. L. if he’d sign on, he laughed heartily. “Are you kidding,” he said, “I can’t stand to listen!” I reminded him that he’d been listening to me. “Well, you’re entertaining,” he responded.

Ha! Tell that to my husband.