I never thought I’d be like this. This insecure, biased, tainted woman who no longer has faith in the idea that a good man will come along and sweep her off her feet.
I never thought I’d be so hardened, so utterly opposed to the idea of men and their ability to procure any sense of happiness and fulfillment from me. I never though I’d be so hateful and disgusted by the gender I’ve so longed for since I first saw Cary Grant tenderly pushed into my mother’s old VCR.
It’s been a downhill disillusionment from the moment I assumed all men were like Prince Eric in “The Little Mermaid,” to my first boyfriend, to the wrath of Charlie Sheen and, finally, to the plateau of first dates and one-night stands that have left me with nothing more than a sour taste in my mouth and a gnawing feeling at the pit of my stomach.
“Men suck” is the million dollar phrase, the one you hear women consoling each other with on park benches and over one too many happy hour drinks. “They just suck” is usually the followup. “Yea, f*ck ‘em, they suck,” and on it goes.
While I’ve been one to utter these phrases more than my fair share, I’ve begun to do some deep thinking, angle searching and general last-hope procuring and have come to my most recent theory: Maybe men don’t suck, maybe we’re just too hard on them.
Maybe women are the ones who need to change. Not our actions, but our thoughts. Maybe we need to change the way we think about men, judge them and weigh them. Maybe we need to lower the pedestal, or take them off it completely. Maybe we’re the ones who need to realize that men aren’t like Cary Grant, because Cary Grant wasn’t even like Cary Grant.
Unfortunately for women, we’ve grown up watching fairytales and “The Notebook” while men have grown up watching porn.
We’ve dreamed about prince Charming and Ryan Gosling and they’ve dreamed about a threesomes with Jayden Jaymes. Our criteria have become men who bend over backwards, while theirs remains women who have no problem lying on their backs.
There's been this huge disconnect when it comes to how we view the opposite sex. We're filled with opposing views, ones that clash before they can ever really spark.
Men want to f*ck and women want to be held. Boys want tits, women want titillating conversation. Women expect men to work for it, men expect women to go down on it.
So the consensus is men are pigs. They are vile, disgusting pigs and all the good ones are in the past. Men aren’t like they used to be and the modern woman is stuck in a wasteland of overindulged boys with nothing on their minds but sex.
And while this description may be true, what’s not true is the idea that this is news; we are lying to ourselves if we think that men used to be different.
A suspected seven of our presidents (that we know of), the most powerful men in the world, have cheated on their wives while in office. Men who are supposed to be setting examples for their citizens, leading our country into better days, couldn’t keep their hands to themselves for just their terms alone.
Frank Sinatra was married four times, while Cary Grant managed five wives. Hugh Hefner was the man’s man of the 50s as he created an empire that demeaned women, making them nothing more than sex objects.
It seems we have a tendency to forget the past, wrapping it up in gold ribbons and referring to it as “a better time” when men would open doors and wait for marriage.
We refuse to see it for what it really was, men being able to hide their porn habits and dirty thoughts behind top hats and the Hollywood leading man.
Fortunately, for the men of the 20s, 30s, 40s and just about every generation before ours, there was no Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or YouTube to expose their dirty habits. They weren’t caught liking Sports Illustrated pages or posting on porn websites.
There was no Tinder or Grinder, but rather two extra dry martinis and a dance floor. Just because a man had to ask a woman on a proper date before doesn't mean he didn’t try and get her to bed after.
So while the disillusion we’ve come to see in men still stings with the weight of a thousand unwarranted Facebook likes and porn websites, what should lessen the sting is the notion that we’re not living in worse times, just clearer ones.
We see men for who they are up front, rather than once their wing tips and top hats have come off. We see them right away, their dirty and disgusting minds thrown in front of us.
We see them without the charm and the sophistication, but as the stripped down, naked versions of our favorite leading actors and Prince Charmings. Because if Prince Eric had a cell phone, you can be damn sure he'd have sent Ariel a dick pick or two.
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