Victor Victoria

Thor: A man can't live to be so old as 30 years, without having a certain two accusations lobbed at him. As is well known, a male with a real Y-chromosome can distinguish only 3 to 6 colors. If he can spell "shartroose" or can give advice on fashion or owns more than two pair of shoes, then even most open minded liberal will secretly question his sexual orientation. But what happens? Wife comes home having spent 6 hours and $300 at the beauty parlor getting the color of her hair slightly adjusted (say from "reddish ash blonde" to "copper dishwater blonde") and, after 3 minutes, starts bawling because Husband didn't notice. Or he didn't notice that this pair of heels is 1/2 inch higher than the identical ones in her closet.

Men don't notice stuff. We're always in trouble for not knowing the color of our wives' eyes after 3 decades of marriage. We don't know her favorite color and we never notice when she's made a "significant" change to her appearance. When she asks "Does this make me look fat?" we get in trouble for hesitating before we answer. She thinks we're cooking up a lie. The reality is that we don't have the faintest idea whether her butt will appear larger to her friends if she opts for her mauve capri pants over her cyan pleated skorts. Most of us learn to "just say 'no'" as quickly as possible, but it's a long hard road before we learn that lesson.

But fercrynoutloud, I'm sitting in a chair, half asleep wearing a quarter-century-old T-shirt (consisting of exactly 8 T-shirt molecules,) grass-stained sweatpants, mismatched socks, and two days' worth of beard, and suddenly I'm a fashion expert? What could be going on in her head that she thinks my opinion here could be anything but a wild guess? Further, for a man to decide whether something is "bigger" than another thing, he has to get out his measuring tape and measure both of them. This gives us quite a delemma, because in such a case, both things are the same thing: 1. Her butt in the pants and 2. Her butt in the skorts. A man knows darn well that a thing is the same size as itself. Her question can do nothing but confuse him.

Bottom Line Number One: Men don't notice stuff.

Now for the other accusation: "Men have forced women into aspiring to an unattainable body shape." According to this (wild and untenable) theory, it is men who, by lusting after the Victoria's Secret models and Playboy centerfolds, have created a standard for women which virtually no woman can live up to. Right. Wife comes home with her hair color adjusted by one angstrom, and presents Husband with $300 bill. Her response to his fit is "but I do it to look nice for you."

"LIAR!" I say. She knows darned well that he can't tell the difference between her "before" and "after" pictures. And every woman who went to high school knows that most boys want to get into most girls' skirts. Men just aren't that picky. A guy who can discern only 5 colors simply doesn't have the faculties to set any kind of fashion or body shape standard. The variety of shapes and sizes of models used in the Victoria's Secret catalog could be greatly increased, and men 1. would still "read" it just as avidly and 2. wouldn't really notice.

A typical timeline goes as like this: January 1, 1992: Kirstie Alley gets chubby. January 2, 1992: every woman on the planet notices that Kirstie Alley has gotten chubby. January 1, 2002, the first straight male asks himself "Is Kirstie getting a bit chubby?" January 1, 2007, Kirstie Alley achieves her 1981 body weight. Only 6 men in the world noticed that she briefly changed sizes.

Bottom Line Number Two: It's not men, it's women who have set their own unreasonable standard.

That's right, women go shopping, to church, to work, and compare themselves to each other, using their bizarrely overdeveloped fashion skills, and have set up a culture of competition amongst themselves. Their woman's intuition can immediately size up another woman's shape, clothing and primping and deduce "Although our butts are exactly the same size, she beat me, because that dress makes her butt look smaller than mine. However, her nail polish doesn't match her purse and those shoes are last year's design, so I'm up one point."

Contrast this to the man who observes both women and thinks only "I wonder which one I can get in the sack soonest?" The man who can't tell that his wife just had 6 inches of hair lopped off, sure can't tell whether some supermodel put on 10 lbs.

Tyr: Been there, done that. Almost in the same breath, I've gotten "If you really loved me, you'd have noticed my new updo" along with "Do you think she's prettier than me?" Prettier? As if it were a sliding scale? As far as a man is concerned, there are only two kinds of women. Those who'll sleep with him and those who won't. There is no "prettier" or "more fashonably colored in the hair" or "wears clothes that are more slimming." She's either Category A or Category B. Period.

Is it women who chase men all over the playground, the campus or the singles bar begging for sex? Noooooo. So where did the myth come from that says women have to "conform to the unattainable body image" in order to attract men? Men get blamed because women don't have enough sense to eat a decent meal every day or because women spend all their money on clothes and primping, thereby not being able to afford car insurance. But it's clearly not our fault. I've never heard a man say "Honey, I picked up these really sexy jeans for you today at the mall. Please eat nothing but grapefruit until they fit." On the other hand, the times I've heard "Come on Honey...for me?" are plethora.

In summary: It's not Victor, it's Victoria who is Victimizing women.

Tyr and Thor