Sexual Politics: A Man's View
by Rich Ehisen
Oh, Testicles, Where Art Thou?
Every time I think
it’s safe for us to just move forth and be human beings devoid of the normal
rancor between the sexes, something has to pop up to reinforce the
implausibility of my silly expectations. Unless you’ve been hiding in a cave
for a while, you know another very public sexual battle is now raging, a battle
of equality, open access, and the very nature of our humanity itself. The stakes
are impossibly high, and the fallout threatens to once again polarize us along
gender lines and to tear us apart as a nation. I am not speaking of anything as
ridiculous as women becoming members of Augusta National, because I really
don’t give a rat’s ass about whether or not another wealthy white person of
any gender gets the opportunity to play golf with a bunch of other rich white
people in ugly clothes. Although Martha Burke and Hootie Johnson have somehow
convinced themselves that Augusta membership really matters to anyone aside from
them, those of us with common sense know better. (Besides, why would you want to
be in a club where the old guy running it is called Hootie….and likes it?
Hootie isn’t the name for a captain of industry, it’s what your
eight-year-old calls a pet hamster.)
No, the real issue
isn’t private clubs, or gender-bias in salaries, or even whose parents we eat
at during the holidays. The major threat facing gender relations in our society
today is mini-vans. You read this correctly. There is no scourge, no
plague, and no terrorist threat more likely to change the world as the
relentless push to force males of the species into driving those godforsaken
examples of four-wheeled testicular surrender. You want to stop Osama Bid Laden?
Make the goat muncher drive an Aerostar for a while and see how strong he feels.
I realize that women
have never been defined by such crass material items as what kind of vehicle
they drive. HUGE diamond rings, yes, but never automobiles. We men are okay with
that. We don’t expect women to understand our regressive need to drive SUV’s,
or to know the entire opening day starting lineup for the 1972 Oakland
Athletics, any more than we understand your need to own 6,000 pairs of shoes.
Since the advent of machinery we have accepted these differences with aplomb and
just moved on. Or, at least we did until some horse’s backside decided to
invent the ultimate neuter-mobile.
You see, mini vans
are not about transportation, or economy or anything else the car companies want
you to believe. They are really about power and control. Mini vans do strange
things to men, much in the same way kryptonite makes Superman act like Nathan
Lane after two tequila shooters. Perhaps it is the humiliation of being behind
the wheel of a vehicle so clearly designed to siphon off any semblance of their
manhood, or maybe it is the anger of succumbing to such humiliation, but there
is no doubt driving a mini van takes a toll on the guy driving it. Backbones
that for years were stiff and rigid become squishy and weak, self esteem turns
to self-flagellation and the hope of ever sailing to Tahiti with a wayward
supermodel morphs into just being glad the wife lets you use the shower an hour
and a half after she gets in. In other words, the mini van is a sign of
surrender, a clear signal of capitulation to a way of life devoid of risk and
adventure. If our cars are a reflection of who we are, then mini vans tell the
world we are fat, middle-aged and resigned to mediocrity for the remainder of
our pathetic lives. A woman driving a mini van screams ‘soccer mom,” but a
man in a van says “Yes Dear.”
Mini vans even have a
dramatic affect on how men drive. I think of how dogs react when their owners
put those ridiculous cones around their head to keep them from licking some body
part that the vet wants to keep clean. Faced with the shame of looking like a
canine from the planet Doofus, old Spot responds one of two ways – going
absolutely ape shit and attacking every thing in sight, or hiding his
cylindrical horror behind the couch until you finally remove the damned thing.
Men in mini vans do the same thing, either rebelling against their rolling
prisons by pretending they’re Dale Earnhardt blazing down the freeway like a
bat out of hell, taking out their simmering resentment toward a world that would
create such a heinous beast by capriciously cutting off anyone who comes near
them, or they learn every side route between work and home in a vain attempt to
convince their SUV driving friends that it’s really the wife who drives the
van.
FOR EXAMPLE:
“Hey Joe, when did
you get a mini van?” (Snickers and points, visibly looking at his friend’s
crotch to see signs of package removal.)
“Uh, that’s not
really mine. I’m just letting the wife drive my SUV today.” (Hands
automatically cover crotch area.)
I’m not much for
conspiracies, but I see a grassy knoll here. If you don’t believe me, then
take a quick look around the next time you are driving down the freeway. Look at
who’s driving the mini vans and who’s driving the Suburbans. While Hootie
has gone to the mat protecting the rights of crotchety old men to hang out
solely with each other, women have done gone and stolen all the gas guzzling,
testosterone-on-display vehicles! That’s right, the average driver of a big,
bulbous SUV is no longer a beer-bellied man toting about a load of fishin’
gear, but instead a 5’ 2”, 100 lb. blonde woman tooling around with eight of
her closest friends and laughing at how easy it all was to scam him into driving
the “other” vehicle. Aargh!
So while Hootie and
Martha duke it out over something as mentally insignificant as golf, I think I
will make it my personal life’s mission to resist the “The Call of the
Tame.” I think I’ll start by calling Chuck Heston and asking him to help.
“Chuck,” I’ll say, “Forget trying to make sure every man, woman and
child in the USA has an M-16 and a flamethrower. Help me out here, and let me
borrow your catch phrase….”
And then I’ll stand
up straight, raise my fist high in the air, keys to my beat up old Pathfinder
dangling from between my fingers, and shout for all the world to hear…
“From my cold, dead
hands…………”
Peace, out.
Rich Ehisen is the creator and editor of his own monthly periodical, The NorCal Sports Report. Having been involved in organized sports since the age of nine, he is still looking for his first ever sports trophy. Until then he’ll have to settle for buying them and faking it..