Sam and I are really getting tired of hearing how happy women are when they choose to be celibate or single (well, I’m tired of it anyway).
Recently I blogged about a Wall Street Journal article featuring a French female author who advocated celibacy as opposed to a heterosexual relationship. Now my current copy of AARP Magazine is carrying a story about (mostly older, mature) women who have abandoned the hunt for a spouse and supposedly are loving their lives as singles. Like I said before, aw phooey!
While the AARP article quotes 86-year old widower/researcher Hal Spielman as saying he found most single straight men over 55 would rather be in a relationship, the same article, written by mature single woman Marion Winik quotes social-scientist, Eric Klinenberg, Ph.D., saying women are more likely to be happily single than men because they (women) “often have better skills for creating a high-quality domestic life and making and maintaining relationships.”
Horse hockey! You want to know the real reason men prefer marriage and women prefer singleness? SEX. Men want it and need it and women - especially in their post-menopausal years - seem to be able to live without it.
Ms. Winik says she and women like her are not “opposed to having a relationship (with a man)”, but they are happy with their (single) lives.”
They are not opposed to having a relationship - as long as it doesn’t involve sex is what they mean. Too many women think of sex as an icky boring burden once they pass the baby-making, menopausal stages. No more sweating, grunting pig of a man to deal with, no more messy aftermath, if you get my drift.
I cannot tell you how many older women I know who tell me, all dreamy-eyed and mooney-faced, that they would like to fall in love again. Trouble is they define love differently than men. We men often think we’re in love when we’re really in lust. That has caused such a backlash against marriage that men and women have real difficulty living together anymore (see my July 18 blog, “Wanna’ Be A LAT?”).
One older woman I knew - God rest her soul - would liked to have fallen in love again after her husband died, but the guy who eventually showed up as a would-be suitor wanted sex and she was of the old-fashioned attitude that she wouldn’t have sex unless she was married - and she didn’t want to get married.
It’s kind of like the Fifth Dimension’s ‘70s song where Marilyn McCoo laments that she has no more man to pick up after. But all she does is cry.
It is painfully obvious that men and women have great difficulty living together. And trust me ladies when I tell you we men also enjoy having the freedom of coming and going as we please, of painting our walls any color we want, of not having to argue and comprise all the time. But - whether you believe in God or not - we are not meant to be alone. In fact, it is the process of living with each other that tumbles us together like agates collected on the beach and smoothes out our rough edges.
Sam and I marvel that any couple can stay married 50, 60 or more years, as many do. That’s really choosing commitment over selfishness. Hey all you tootsies out there. If you don’t like being married you shouldn’t have tied the knot in the first place - same goes for us men.
Three bags of poop on being against marriage though. Marriage is no worse than a daily dose of castor oil.
Recently I blogged about a Wall Street Journal article featuring a French female author who advocated celibacy as opposed to a heterosexual relationship. Now my current copy of AARP Magazine is carrying a story about (mostly older, mature) women who have abandoned the hunt for a spouse and supposedly are loving their lives as singles. Like I said before, aw phooey!
While the AARP article quotes 86-year old widower/researcher Hal Spielman as saying he found most single straight men over 55 would rather be in a relationship, the same article, written by mature single woman Marion Winik quotes social-scientist, Eric Klinenberg, Ph.D., saying women are more likely to be happily single than men because they (women) “often have better skills for creating a high-quality domestic life and making and maintaining relationships.”
Horse hockey! You want to know the real reason men prefer marriage and women prefer singleness? SEX. Men want it and need it and women - especially in their post-menopausal years - seem to be able to live without it.
Ms. Winik says she and women like her are not “opposed to having a relationship (with a man)”, but they are happy with their (single) lives.”
They are not opposed to having a relationship - as long as it doesn’t involve sex is what they mean. Too many women think of sex as an icky boring burden once they pass the baby-making, menopausal stages. No more sweating, grunting pig of a man to deal with, no more messy aftermath, if you get my drift.
I cannot tell you how many older women I know who tell me, all dreamy-eyed and mooney-faced, that they would like to fall in love again. Trouble is they define love differently than men. We men often think we’re in love when we’re really in lust. That has caused such a backlash against marriage that men and women have real difficulty living together anymore (see my July 18 blog, “Wanna’ Be A LAT?”).
One older woman I knew - God rest her soul - would liked to have fallen in love again after her husband died, but the guy who eventually showed up as a would-be suitor wanted sex and she was of the old-fashioned attitude that she wouldn’t have sex unless she was married - and she didn’t want to get married.
It’s kind of like the Fifth Dimension’s ‘70s song where Marilyn McCoo laments that she has no more man to pick up after. But all she does is cry.
It is painfully obvious that men and women have great difficulty living together. And trust me ladies when I tell you we men also enjoy having the freedom of coming and going as we please, of painting our walls any color we want, of not having to argue and comprise all the time. But - whether you believe in God or not - we are not meant to be alone. In fact, it is the process of living with each other that tumbles us together like agates collected on the beach and smoothes out our rough edges.
Sam and I marvel that any couple can stay married 50, 60 or more years, as many do. That’s really choosing commitment over selfishness. Hey all you tootsies out there. If you don’t like being married you shouldn’t have tied the knot in the first place - same goes for us men.
Three bags of poop on being against marriage though. Marriage is no worse than a daily dose of castor oil.
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