| Seems to me, it all started with the pill. No, not that pill. The other pill – that little blue one. Ever since the words "erectile dysfunction" snuck their way into Prime Time TV ads, guys are suddenly gushing about their sex lives.
It’s not that men haven’t long written about/thought about/bragged about sex. I’ve just never seen them quite so confessional about it.
In this past year, two anthologies have come out bearing candid, personal short stories by men about sex, love and everything in between.
First there was Committed: Men Tell Stories of Love, Commitment and Marriage, an American collection edited by Chris Knutsen and David Kuhn whose writers wax philosophically, hilariously and frankly about their own personal run-ins with, well, love, commitment and marriage.
Now there’s What I Meant to Say: The Private Lives of Men, a Canadian – and perhaps, as a result, somewhat racier – anthology of stories by male writers edited by Globe and Mail writer, CBC host and manliness expert Ian Brown (he authored Man Overboard: True Adventures with North American Men).
When I first started writing my column over a decade ago, men often told me I should let them write a guest column from their perspective. "Go nuts," I’d respond. "I’d love to hear more of men’s honest and personal feelings about sex."
Not a single one took me up on it. I understood why.
Back then, sexuality was women’s turf – a battle between feminists who thought sex automatically objectified women and those who (gasp) actually liked sex. Guys venturing into the territory of female sexuality risked hitting a landmine.
As for men’s sexuality, it was seen as simplistic, easily dismissible and, at best, handy for making jokes about to support our own arguments.
What can I say? We had to go through it. After our pill came out, we realized it would take a lot more than sexual reproductive freedom to satisfy ourselves. We needed some time to look at our vaginas in groups, make some porn, do whatever it took to try and figure this sex stuff out. And since guys’d pretty much been running the sexual show, we figured they owed it to us. It took us awhile – and we’re certainly not there yet – to build up enough sexual confidence to be interested in hearing what guys had to say on the matter.
Then along came Viagra. Not that it deserves all the credit. And, just as the pill has its pros and cons, the little blue pill is certainly no saint.
But also, just as the birth control pill gave women the permission to admit they actually had sex and opened the door to talking more candidly about everything in their sex lives, ED drugs have allowed men to admit that yes, they too had sex (OK, we knew that), but that they also had issues – like getting and maintaining their erections. But it also started men wondering if the ability to "get a good stiffie" was all there was to it, a point David McFarlane expresses in the opening line of the opening essay in What I Meant To Say, entitled "Boner and Nothingness."
"It is a misconception, common to women and men alike, that an erection necessarily has something to do with sex," writes McFarlane.
The essay is an amusing account of life with a body part that comes with its own, independent hydraulic system but McFarlane also asks some good questions about the role of erections in lovemaking – "it often seems that the only times that erections are absolutely obligatory are those rare occasions […] when you don’t have one."
Conversely, he writes, a raging hard-on will be met with the criticism that there is more to sex than his penis.
I can see how things might get a little confusing.
Just to prove that sex isn’t all men think about, there are other touching insights into manhood, as in an essay by Russell Wangersky called "Heroes," or one by Ron Graham on his relationship with his father, and a very funny piece by Philip Preville about shopping.
But men haven’t gone completely – warning: incoming pun – soft on us. There is still plenty of sex on their minds, judging by most of the essays in this book. In exposing his periodic obsession with going to strip clubs, Brown exposes himself in "Look and See." On why men respond to the financially motivated come-ons from strippers: "Flattery from a woman is such a rare thing in most men’s lives – there’s always something we tend to do wrong – that we’ll take even the blatantly insincere variety [from strippers]."
Russell Smith’s essay "Surrender" is by far one my favourites – a sharp, honest account of what attracts him to a woman, and just how intoxicating, volatile and exhilarating relationships can be. Seems it’s all in the wrist… cuffs, that is.
Some of the other stories are less astute, and a few are overly reactionary and/or defensive, but I suppose that’s how it must feel when guys read some of the stuff we write about them.
As Douglas Bell writes in his essay "First and Foremost": "We’re all manipulative and self serving. […] Both sexes will dress up this desire in whatever manner suits their interest in the moment."
Fair enough. But frankly, at points, I found myself wondering whether we’re kidding ourselves to think men and women will ever really understand each other when it comes to sex.
In fact, why bother, suggests Bert Archer in his contribution, "Why Boys Are Better Than Girls," a challenging essay on why the direct, "Wham, bam, thank you Sam" nature of gay sex is far less emasculating than "the sorts of compromises men must make in order to have sex with women."
Like I said, we’re not always gonna like what the boys have to say, but I figure it’s about time we allow men a chance to at least try and say what they mean to say. |
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