Like night-dwelling lepidoptera to manufactured light sources, speculation on male fascination with and use of today’s version of porn … social networking sites … sparks often these days in camps both male and female.
Many shelves could fill the space from Mars to Venus and back again with tomes expounding on the vast distance between male and female perspective on the territorial imperative, base animal urges, the socialization processes that sees years of development drop faster than boxer shorts, but no matter how much reading goes into the study, we women just don’t get it.
The penis-bearing population tends to rhyme monogamy with monotony, with an added stanza involving mahogany … wood carrying the obvious gravitas.
Women, on the other hand, are more likely to bring numbers into play, as in “How do I love thee? Let me count the ways … “, considering the forest rather than focusing on that single bit of timber:
If two stand shoulder to shoulder against the gods,
Happy together, the gods themselves are helpless
Against them while they stand so.
Truth be told, though, men don’t get it either. Ask a man why in the world he would chance hurting the woman he loves, jeopardize a relationship he treasures, and perhaps a big chunk of worldly wealth, as well, over hours of bullshit conversation that just, perhaps, might lead to a video call gaze at the privates of a woman hundreds if not thousands of miles away who is pitiful … or bored … enough to comply with a request for a viewing and his answer is more than likely to sound something like: When you put it that way, it does sound pretty stupid.
Much like boys on the verge of manhood run home after school with the hope of spanking the monkey in every room of the house before Mom finishes work, grown men who should be well beyond amazement at their own erections are caging time alone to facebook themselves stiff.
One dear friend consults often with me, looking for clues to his own perfidy. Married for a decade to a woman he adores, he has, so far, been physically incapable of consummating … in the real world … any of the many trysts he perpetually pursues through the pathetic porthole of everyone’s favorite social network, but that hasn’t stopped him from trawling daily for new fodder for fictitious fucks. His wife, of course, twigged to prolonged chat sessions that sometimes resulted in sticky tissues littering the lounge, and was, not surprisingly, insulted.
He is as confused as his wife is concerned over what even he admits is an unreasonable compulsion for virtual versions of conquest, but insisting, when not pressed to justify honestly, that it’s innocent fun. The theory that it amounts to nothing less that a virtual version of cheating doesn’t sit well.
Many of the women discussing their mate’s online activities do so with an amusement often reserved for naughty boys.
“As long as he doesn’t cum all over my keyboard, I don’t care what he does,” says one sensible woman. “It’s cheaper than golf and not as embarrassing as him trying to look cool at the local disco.”
When asked about the idea that time spent with other women online shows little respect for the real life relationship, opinions differ. Some wives wax philosophical, suggesting that the women who make themselves available for such shallow interactions are no more than animated porn that can answer back … an interactive video game … and since men come complete with joystick, the temptation to play is just too strong for their little minds.
Others rail against their men spending time and energy on women not them, appalled by the subterfuge involved, disturbed about the apparent desperation for ego-boosting, perhaps resenting the sex they’re not getting from men sated by Rosie Palm and her five sisters.
Online retaliation is one tactic employed when enough proves to be enough. Lord knows how easy it is to reel in gullible fish, and women with a high threshold for tedium may take to the Net in their spare time, as well. Post a few photos and … voila! … sad gits the world over will pant over your chat status, beg you to add them to your Skype contacts and pour out carefully chosen tidbits of their life story in anguished longing for … well … for what is often sitting in the next room, but just a bit TOO real.
Perhaps because men are a bit slow and all this “social interaction” seems so new, so exciting, so challenging (in such an unchallenging way), self control that may eventually develop has yet to gain a foot hold.
Or …
Maybe providing the chance to cheat from a distance, pretend to be whoever and whatever the imagination can create and proclaim innocence since no physical interaction can yet happen virtually is a gift from the gods.
Is this why humans evolved big brains, opposable thumbs and pendulous penises? Probably.
What a fantastic post. Still chuckling here.
It is interesting, the whole online “cheating” while not REALLY cheating. I think it’s the combination of conquest and conquer, easy access, titillation, anonymity in some cases and danger that attracts people. I say people because it’s not just men in relationships who do it, although I agree more men than women do it.
I knew of couples who were doing the same thing unbeknownst to the other and found themselves in the same adult video chat. Perhaps two computers equipped with web cams in two different rooms would aid in a couple coming together sexually as opposed to with others or alone.
If you like pina coladas ….getting caught in the rain…
Interesting idea … cyber sex with your partner, removed. Can’t quite get my head around the math of that, or the need for, but maybe that’s just me.
Of course, women are involved. Bored? Feeling conquistadorial?
Virtual conquest sounds to me like losing, but with a huge dose of denial.
I agree, packed full of denial also.
I think there is another, darker side to all of this. One must keep in mind that not all of the women who populate porn sites are there because they are ptiful, bored or choosing to participate. There are huge networks of women who are pimped online in what is a clear version of sexual slavery. Esp. in sites that come out of Southeast Asia, the Middle East and Russia. Many of these women have been enslaved since childhood and have no other life that the one their pimp demands of them. Participation in these sites perpetuates the trade.
I’m not sure this is so much the case on facebook, Jane, but it might be happening more often that people would guess …
Oh, I thought you were referring to porn sites and on-line sex chat-rooms. I re-read your blog, never found where you were talking about facebook.