Men are pigs. That could easily be the conclusion after reading two popular stories going around online this week.
The first is the tale of the guy who, not getting enough attention in the bedroom, decided to send his wife a spreadsheet listing all of the dates he propositioned her, all of the times she declined, as well as the “excuse” given each time. Whether she was trying to watch a movie or had just returned from the gym or had to be up early the next morning, the results were clear: During a six-week period, she turned him down 27 times and consented only three.
After posting the spreadsheet anonymously, the woman pleads for sympathy from readers. “Our sex life HAS tapered in the last few months, but isn’t that allowed? We are adults leading busy, stressful lives. I cook for him, I do his laundry, I keep our house clean and tidy. It’s not like our sex life was going to be this way FOREVER, it was a temporary slow-down due to extenuating circumstances.”
There are plenty of problems in this relationship, and many of the commenters on Reddit, where it was first posted, suggested that the couple get counseling and learn to communicate better. But a spreadsheet? What kind of passive-aggressive lunatic would submit his wife to this kind of humiliation? Is a couple’s sex life supposed to be treated like some project to be examined by McKinsey consultants?
One could forgive the guy for getting that impression. Studies and surveys about sex are standard fare in every newspaper, magazine and even network news broadcasts. It is so common to read about other people’s intimate lives on social media platforms that one hesitates to call them intimate anymore. Is it any wonder this guy wanted to clarify matters numerically? Talk about regression analysis.
Of course, Spreadsheet Man looks like a prince compared with another man described in a recent Huffington Post column by Robin Korth called “My Naked Truth.” The article describes Korth’s recent experience with a man she met on a dating website. She’s a reasonably attractive 59-year-old. He’s 55. They seemed to be hitting it off but things didn’t go so well in the bedroom.
When she asked if there was a problem, he proceeded to explain: “Your body is too wrinkly … I have spoiled myself over the years with young women. I just can’t get excited with you. I love your energy and your laughter. I like your head and your heart. But, I just can’t deal with your body.”
He told her when the lights were out he could at least pretend she was younger. And, by the way, could she buy some special undergarments that would “hide” her age a little better?
“I felt like a Barbie Doll on acid as I listened to this man,” Korth writes. He was totally oblivious to the viciousness of his words. He had turned me into an object to be dressed and positioned to provide satisfaction for his ideas of what female sexual perfection should be.”
And that is the truth of the matter. For all the messages we hear about how casual sex can be an empowering experience for women, it is worth remembering just how vulnerable physically and emotionally sex can make us. Sleeping with a man you hardly know can open up a world of hurt.
These men and their attitudes about women and sex are not as unusual as we’d like to think. Their actions are the crude but inevitable consequence of the way we have come to view sex now — as something public and ordinary, something to be measured regularly and something that is ultimately only about individuals and their peculiar preferences. If men and women are in relationships just to have a good time, then why shouldn’t they “tell each other how they really feel.”
Of course, these are the kind of attitudes that breed not gentlemen but something else entirely. Oink Oink.