“Since when are MEN ‘giving’ me orgasms?”
You take your life in your hands mixing sex with satire these days.
“We’re fine over here with our fingers and our vibrators, dude.” Emily Clair Minnette
Emily Claire Minnette responded to my article: “Don’t Expect Men to Keep Giving You Orgasms. We’re Losing Our Juice.” Her comment begins with “Hahahahaha!” a good sign for a humorist like me. Only it wasn’t the I- just shot- chicken- noodle- soup- out- my- nose type of message. She was surprisingly angry, something humorists don’t expect. Nobody takes us seriously outside of survivalists, but they take everything seriously.
I’d already received a number of comments, mostly of the “chicken soup” variety, but the operative word “giving” in my headline really ticked Emily off. It offended her so much, she wrote “Your dick isn’t that magical.”
Just to put this in context, I’d been reading about men’s declining testosterone levels, a subject often overlooked, since lots of things are declining in men these days. Causes range from diet to herbicides to women telling men their “dicks aren’t that magical.”
It’s no joking matter, though. We’ve lost 30% of our testosterone over the last 20 years. Frogs may have more testosterone than we do right now.
On one hand, I’m scared stiff of growing breasts, on the other, I’m being told my dick isn’t that magical.
In my article, I speculated that in 30 years we’ll be women. A scientist wrote saying it could be sooner. “Tons of synthetic estrogen are dumped into our water every day,” he said. “Your breasts could be growing already.”
Imagine my shock reading this. On one hand, I’m scared stiff of growing breasts, on the other, I’m being told my dick isn’t magical. Even worse, Emily recommended that I take my post “to a volunteer undergrad writing tutor next time,” so I could see “how dizzyingly incoherent my drivel is.”
I wrote back, explaining that the article is satire. That doesn’t excuse it from being “incoherent drivel,” but it does explain why it might be objectionable.
Political correctness isn’t exactly a humorist’s thing. Robin Williams was on a German talk show once. He was asked why there wasn’t more humor in Germany. “Maybe you killed the funny people during the war,” he replied.
Humorists tend to find humor everywhere. Whether others find it funny or not is another story. Like the guy who wrote me saying: “I don’t get tabs on my smartphone, so I didn’t know your article was satire.” That, to me, is hilarious, but you’ll notice I put “satire” in the subtitle of this piece. It’s one thing to never underestimate your audience, it’s another to wonder if they’re awake.
In Emily’s case, I wanted to point out a response I wrote to another reader, Heather Hooper. She took exception to my headline, too. “Sex is a cooperative activity,” Heather explained, “so is a woman’s orgasm.”
It took half my life to perfect my own hand jobs. There’s only so much time I can devote to this without getting dragged out of parks.
I agreed, since male estrogen levels have gone up 43% in the last 20 years. At this rate, we’ll be trading clitoral techniques and possibly bumping breasts.
Since I’m still a man with a few manly instincts life, I took exception when Heather added: “Maybe you can look at other ways to please a woman.” It took half my life to perfect my own hand jobs. There’s only so much time I can devote to this without getting dragged out of parks.
Besides, I’m always suspicious when someone says “find other ways.” To me, it’s like the Chinese having to pollinate flowers themselves since they killed off all the bees. “Shouldn’t they be looking at what killed the bees?” I asked Heather, “instead of saying, ‘Well, I guess we’ll just do it ourselves.’”
That’s essentially what I got from Emily. “We’re all fine here with our fingers and our vibrators, dude,” she wrote. “Your dick isn’t that magical.” I get the part about my dick not being magical, but is self stimulation all Emily needs outside of ripping me a new one — which estrogen may be doing already?
Fingers and vibrators used to be a fallback position. If hubby fell asleep before you were done, you went to your drawer. Women have been doing that for centuries. A wooden dildo was dug up that was at least 5,000 years old.
That doesn’t necessarily mean men were cut out of the equation completely, unless we were all women once, which would explain why hieroglyphics are so tidy.
Aren’t clogged drains our last hope of being needed? Maybe growing breasts isn’t a bad idea.
But lets get back to the issue at hand (sorry Emily, the pun wasn’t intended) If women are “doin’ it for themselves” in this new feminist age, where does that leave men? Car detailing? Plumbing? According to recent reports, women are applying for plumbing certificates in record numbers. Somewhere in Texas, there’s a women-owned car detailing shop where they do it in bikinis. Men can’t compete with that. Maybe growing breasts isn’t a bad idea.
I still question whether all women are “doin’ it for themselves,” so I checked out Reddit under the title “Ladies, in your opinion, are vibrators/dildos better than actual sex?” Surprisingly, most women still favour men over Hitachi Magic Wands.
“For me,” one reader wrote, “a vibrator is a short-cut to an orgasm, but I much prefer sex with a living breathing partner who is attracted to me and responsive to my actions.”
On another site, the answers were even more animated. “Sorry, you can’t wrap your legs around a vibrator,” one reader wrote. Another added, “And they don’t light your cigarette afterwards.”
This came as a relief, since there’s no telling when I’ll have full breasts, or what they’ll look like. Even with bench pressing, I doubt I’ll ever call them “spectacular.”
Which brings me back to Heather again, who responded to my comments with some helpful advice, particularly for those whose thingies need more than a little hand-to-hand coaxing.
So put less pressure on your poor penises and involve the rest of your bodies (and maybe some perverted and/or loving stuff from your minds.”
“It isn’t your fault,” she explained. “It isn’t anybody’s fault. It’s just the way it is. Even if the women you’re with DO come from intercourse, they might enjoy other things, too. So put less pressure on your poor penises and involve the rest of your bodies (and maybe some perverted and/or loving stuff from your minds.”
Well said, Heather, and certainly nicer than Emily, who still thinks my article is dizzyingly incoherent drivel. “We need an entire goddamn movie theater for the amount of projection in this rant,” she concluded which, needless to say, didn’t do a thing for my thingy (or my growing breasts).
I wrote back to both women, explaining again that I write satire, and I wasn’t trying to be any more offensive than I normally am.
“Oh, silly me!” Heather wrote back. “This was my first time reading one of your articles and I didn’t get it. Apologies!”
My mother found my disappointment so cute, she gave me a van Dyke goatee with prune sauce.
Bless her heart. She was just trying to be helpful. And I know it’s hard to recognize satire sometimes. It’s even harder to write satire when your breasts hurt, which is sort of what I’m feeling right now.
So I’ll apologize formally to both women, and point out to Emily that it was established long ago that my dick isn’t “magical.” In fact, my parents took pictures of me in the crib looking in my diaper. My mother found my disappointment so cute, she gave me a van Dyke goatee with prune sauce.
Anyway, I’d better get back to the chicken soup-coming-out-my-nose folks. These are my people. They’re laughing. That’s all I really expect. A magical dick would be nice, but I’m not holding out hope.
I’ll probably have to settle for small, reasonably firm breasts.
Robert Cormack is a novelist, satirist and blogger. His first novel “You Can Lead a Horse to Water (But You Can’t Make It Scuba Dive)” is available online or at most major bookstores (now in paperback). Check out Yucca Publishing or Skyhorse Press for more details.
