Romance for Real Women

Well, ladies, hurricanes trump romance, even for real women. In fact, the most romantic gesture I expect from my partner is his willingness to help move the patio furniture, tape the windows and fill buckets of water.

Today, that’s what we’re doing. Shopping for tinned foods; filling our tanks; and, buying batteries. Then there is always the emergency run to the liquor store where my partner reports there are no lines. Those pails have to be filled, too.

Edouard is out in the Gulf of Mexico and moving toward us at eight miles an hour with wind speeds up to fifty miles an hour. Our gleeful local reporters are warning it could easily turn into a hurricane given the warm waters of the gulf. (Tropical storms turn into hurricanes at seventy four miles an hour.) Less gleeful local officials are activating emergency preparedness systems.

I’m activating my own emergency preparedness system. The children are with Miss Moonbeam, who has called repeatedly this morning with instructions, commentary and warnings. I’m filling the tubs, inventorying tinned food, and laying in additional supplies.

I’ve contacted my friends, warriors with whom I sat out the Rita threat a few years ago. (Rita, a Cat 3 hurricane, was coming directly at us, but veered off to the northwest at the last minute. We stayed up as long as we could, finally going to sleep in the early morning. We woke to an eerie quiet, but no hurricane. We naturally congratulated ourselves on our perspicacity in not evacuating to join the rest of the state on stopped highways. In reality, we’d all left our preparations too late to evacuate.)

My friends aren’t as concerned about Edouard. It’s “only” a tropical storm. We’ll see.

Meanwhile, I’m off to inspect the pails.

I have sometimes criticized relationship gurus and no doubt I’ll have other criticisms as new so-called experts pop up with boneheaded advice for gullible young men and women. But real women know good advice when they see it and the advice quoted by Maureen Dowd in Sunday’s New York Times is the best I’ve ever seen.

Prompted by news articles about Christie Brickley’s notorious divorce from Peter Cook, Maureen Dowd found a 79-year-old Catholic priest, a Father Pat Connor, who gives marvelously refreshing, common sense advice on what to look for in a husband.

I won’t quote the entire column. You can look it up easily. But I do want to emphasize one important point.

Father Connor suggests you never marry a man with no friends. That this indicates intimacy problems.

I’d go a lot further.

Talk to your friends when you’re contemplating marriage or a relationship. Then really listen. Their advice is even more important than any you may get from your parents or siblings.

Friends, unless you’re running with a totally evil group, don’t have agendas. They actually want you to be happy and want you to be happy on your own terms.

Parents, however, well meaning, can’t always see beyond their own perceptions of what’s good for you. For example, you’re a doctor. He’s a carpenter. They see the socio/economic difference without understanding the stability issue is more important to you than the economic one. Your friends will get it.

Another piece of advice. Think long and hard before you ally yourself with someone from another, vastly different culture than your own. I did not say skin color here, please note. I said culture.

The female relatives of the gorgeous Muslim man you met in college wear burkas. But he’s Americanized, you say, he doesn’t believe in burkas, the headdress worn by Muslim women.

Sorry, my child, it’s not going to work. The world is growing closer together all the time, but not that close. You’ll be in for a world of hurt.

So, listen to your friends and carefully consider his background. Throw in Father Connor’s advice about intimacy, money management, humor, ability to disagree and more and you have an excellent starting point for evaluating your relationship.

If I do say so myself.

Real women know that post-coital etiquette is an important element in romance. So, let’s discuss.

You’ve decided to do it. You do it. Now what? Take a little control, that’s what. Don’t leave the entire post- coital glow up to him.

You know he’s going to be hungry. All men are always hungry. What you do not want is for the two of you to be pawing through your leftovers in what should be a romantic moment.

But what they eat and drink depends on their type.

So, think it through.

Say he’s a meat and potatoes kind of guy. He likes beer, not wine. So have a platter of sliced sausage and cheese ready in the refrigerator. Have frosted beer glasses in the freezer. Be sure the beer is cold. Sure, his breath might be a little garlicy, but you’ve already signed on for that.

He’s maybe a little more sophisticated. Have grapes and brie, of course, with water crackers and champagne. He’ll appreciate your understanding of what he likes. And, remember, grapes are always associated with romance. It’s a nice, subtle signal.

The point is finger food is best. You really don’t want to be slopping around with Irish stew at this point.

Here’s an important tip. Make sure whatever you decide to offer him fits on one platter, a platter you can gracefully carry to the bedroom. If you’re very confident and have laid in a lot of supplies, have him carry the platter while you take up the slack with the bottles and glasses.

Tip number two. Use a breakfast tray if you have to, but ensure there is a place to put it that is not on the bed. Keep that area clear for other activities that may come up. Get it? Clear off your nightstand. No sense sweeping your tissues and romance books into a drawer in front of him. Too ad hoc.

Tip number three. Whether he’s a meat and potatoes guy or a sophisticate, you’ll need napkins. If you give him sausage, trust me, he’ll eat it, but he’ll get his fingers greasy. If there isn’t any room on the platter, drape the napkins over the food.

Tip number four. If you’re uncomfortable padding around naked, have a chemise or peignoir draped artfully over a chair…within reach. Slip into it on the way to the kitchen. Practice this move if you have to.

Tip number five. Don’t fight him for food and don’t take the biggest pieces. He’ll notice.

Advance planning is the key. If he’s very alert and has been very well trained, he’ll know this kind of effort required a little planning. That’s nothing to worry about. If he mentions it, tell him you’ve dreamed of what just happened. Tell him, you’d hoped it would.

He’ll eat that up, too.

The Fourth is coming up on Friday and it’s something to look forward to because real women love men who can grill. Men who grill are manly men. A man wearing an apron while tending a grill is masculine. A man wearing an apron in the kitchen is a wuss…unless of course he is a chief in which case he is a manly man.

There’s something about a man who wields a large spatula around a burning grill that causes that lovely atavistic frisson which can lead to still lovelier things later provided he also cleans the greasy grill pan.

One of my sister’s husbands liked to fish. He would bring home everything, including the tiniest, most inedible aquatic vertebrates. At that time, she was still interested in pleasing him, so she’d go into apparently genuine raptures about the most insignificant of catches. (He always took this excessive praise as his due which amazed me and was a part of the self importance that finally led Mary to give him the boot.)

It was only later that I understood she was experiencing the same thrill I experience when a man grills, that sort of primal connection to food and the feeding of loved ones.

Here then are my top five reasons to encourage your man to grill.

First, it gets him away from the television set. There is nothing more annoying than to be stuck in the kitchen while everyone else is watching TV. Grilling will get him onto the patio or porch where you can watch him and wave to him encouragingly while you’re stuck in the kitchen.

Second, it gets the kids away from the television. All kids love fires. This shouldn’t alarm you unless of course they begin to set them. A grilling fire will get them off their cell phones or ipods at least for a few minutes.

Third, he’ll drink less beer. This may not be entirely true.

Fourth, he’ll demonstrate his competence to the entire family. This is a good thing. Children and partners are all reassured when the man of the house demonstrates competence in tasks they’ve set for themselves. We tend to believe, rightly or wrongly, that this competence translates into other areas. It will be up to you of course to make sure the chicken is cooked through before it comes off the grill. This may lead to an argument. Be gentle, but firm.

Fifth and most important, you’ll enjoy that shared sense of accomplishment when the hot dogs and hamburgers come off the grill. You’ll glance at each other tenderly between mouthfuls of char grilled beef fat. And if some drips down your blouse, not to worry. You can always change into something pretty later on.

He’ll want you to.

Some of my darling friends have visited this blog and because they are my darling friends, they haven’t hesitated in sharing their opinions.

“But, Lesli,” one said, “it’s supposed to be about romance. You’re talking about your daughter.”

“That’s true,” I said, “but it’s called romance for real women. Real women have children and we have to train them not only to be real women, but to appreciate real women.”

That didn’t wash.

“But that’s not romantic.”

“Try being romantic if your daughter is in a snit about a bathing suit,” I returned.

She was mum.

I went on the attack. “Try having a romantic evening when she’s in tears because you didn’t buy the bikini.”

“Try having sex while your son is whining because he wants a tattoo.”

I would go on, but it’d start to sound as if I was feeling sorry for myself.

At any rate, we went on to discuss more important subjects like the new Hulk movie. But she got me thinking.

The construct of real romance consists of all the day-to-day influences impacting our lives and how we live and think about life.

To me, it’s romantic my son feels he can share his woes with my partner and that my partner can be trusted to deal with the tattoo issue gently.

It’s romantic that my partner tells my insecure little girl she looks beautiful in her swimsuit.

These things fan the still beating flames of a long relationship. They tell me something about him and not so incidentally help me handle sensitive domestic issues.

In the bigger picture, broad, societal attitudes toward marriage, sex, and children inevitably affect our own attitudes.

Is it important for real women to know that more than 30 percent of the nation’s children don’t live with either parent while almost 20 percent of children live with a single parent, usually the mother? Does this fact affect our view of romance? Our attitudes and expectations for a partner?

I think it does and I think we need to stay aware of them.

So, I’ll continue to report and comment on them. Just as I’ll continue to report and comment on trends in sexy lingerie, chocolate, jewelry and other things dear to my still romantic heart.

A friend and self-proclaimed real woman came over last night to vent about her partner’s inadequacies.

Normally, I automatically side with a woman. Women tend to understand each other. But this time, I confess, I just couldn’t see it. All her complaints focused on the minor, practical details of living together. He’d failed to take out the garbage, although it was his job. He’d failed to wash the dishes although it was his turn. He’d failed to put the toilet seat up, although she’d repeatedly insisted he remember to do it.

After listening to her for a couple of hours and drinking at least three glasses of wine, I began to realize something about my friend. She’s is the kind of woman who will never be pleased; who will never allow herself to be happy. And, if she finds someone who loves her, she’ll hammer at it until it’s gone.

Another friend did exactly that. She married a young, ambitious guy and she wanted everything he could give her: a big house, jewelry, an ample credit line and big cars. To get them for her, he had to work and work hard. As he began to move up the ranks in the big electronics company he worked for, he began to travel extensively to Asia and Europe.

That was the trade off. No travel, no big house, no credit cards, no jewelry.

But she wouldn’t uphold her end of the bargain. Every time he came home, she bitched and bitched and bitched. He didn’t take out the garbage. She had to deal with the kids alone (never mind that she had plenty of help). He wouldn’t do this; he wouldn’t do that. Her complaints were endless and so very, very minor.

He offered to move the family to Asia to reduce their time apart. But, she wasn’t having any of that. No sir. She had the big house in the suburbs and that’s where she was staying.

Finally, he started coming home less and less. She started spending more and more and at last exceeded their very comfortable means. When he took control of the finances, she hired a divorce lawyer as a tactic. He was served. And, he agreed to the divorce. She was stunned and devastated.

Last night, I told my friend this story. I’m not sure she understood my point, although she did sense some criticism where she thought she’d get unconditional support. But I know her guy. I know he’s a sweet, hardworking fellow who’d do anything for her, although I guess he did forget to take out the garbage and put down the toilet seat.

Don’t misunderstand me. I’m as willing as the next person to go to the mat on important issues. Forgetting to pick up the kids, for example. Now that, I’ll tussle about. But this stuff, no.

I suspect this relationship is going to fail soon. I also suspect my friend is going to be devastated. She’s never going to see it coming.

Okay, I did it. I watched Swingtown. I not only watched it, I watched it with Mom, an authority on all things having to do with the sixties and seventies.

The plot is paper thin. A young couple moves to a more expensive neighborhood and is introduced to swinging by neighbors. Friends from the old neighborhood visit and are as horrified by the couple swapping as the first couple is, dare I say, seduced.

From the perspective of a viewer, the show didn’t work on any level. Viewers with a prurient interest in swinging are bound to be disappointed. The network only hints at the sex. It never shows any. Anyone interested in why swinging appeared to erupt mini-phenomenon in the seventies is also going to be disappointed. The network doesn’t offer a single clue into what prompted middle class interest in it.

Not surprisingly, Mom had a few ideas. She conceded that the network did get a few things right. Some men did wear high waisted polyester pants, she said, although she didn’t know any. Disco enjoyed a brief popularity and Mom says it was kind of fun, but nothing anyone reared on Dylan, The Band or Eric Clapton took seriously as “real” music.

She started to leave then. Like Forrest Gump, this appeared to be all she had to say about that.

I wouldn’t let her. I made some English tea and insisted she tell me why. Why did obviously middle class people, people with responsible jobs and children get into swinging? What was in it for them?

She looked at me like I’m an idiot.

“Oh, Bunny,” she said. “Don’t you get it?”

“No,” I said with some irritation. “That’s why I’m asking.”

“But it’s obvious.”

“Not to me.”

“Well, dear,” she finally said. “People like this, suburban types, slept all the way through the sixties. Think of what went on. Civil rights. The war. Women’s rights. Social justice. A lot of hard work went into the movement. These were issues that changed society and changed our perceptions of government, relationships, work, and most of all ourselves and what we wanted from life. Sex was only a part of it.”

“Okay,” I said, thinking I was about to get another lecture on the righteousness of the sixties. “So what?”

“They didn’t participate. Do you honestly think a guy in polyester slacks has a thought on women’s rights?” (Mom’s something of a snob, but I was beginning to understand her.)

“So when they woke up in the seventies, they found everything had changed. And, they realized they’d missed out. They felt they were owed something. Why I don’t know, since they choose to opt out and, remember, Bunny, there was still plenty of work to do in the 1970s. Still is, for that matter.”

“Okay,” I agreed. I didn’t want to get into a discussion of the environment. Mom despises what she calls my “Goldwater” tendencies.

Again, she started to leave. Again, I stopped her. “So, that’s it?” I asked. “That’s all there is to it?”

“Yes, dear. That’s all there is to it. People like this were selfish in the sixties and selfish in the seventies. Really, dear, they’re dead bores. I don’t understand why you’re so interested.” Then, she did leave.

I thought about what she’d said and have to admit.

She’s got a point.

CBS is set to air a new series tonight called Swingtown, a “drama with comic elements” about three Midwest couples “wading into the rising waters of the sexual revolution sweeping the nation during the mid-seventies.”

Well, not to challenge the network’s grasp of social history, but the sexual revolution swept the country in the middle sixties. The pill which liberated women from the fear of unwanted pregnancy became available in the United States in 1960. Three years later, some 1.2 million were using it to prevent pregnancy.

The availability of the pill was a crucial influence in creating the sexual revolution, but so, too, was the confluence of several other important events. Betty Friedan spoke to millions of women in The Feminine Mystique,” an examination of the hollowness of the post-war roles prescribed for women. A string of assassinations, JFK, RFK and MLK, rocked the nation before Vietnam tore it apart. By the mid-70s, Nixon was gone, the war was over, and so, too, was the sexual “revolution,” although clearly sexual mores had changed forever.

Those of you who have read any of this blog know that my mother was a charter member of the sixties generation. Some of you might even remember it was called the “free love” generation, a term she’s always detested. So when I noticed that Swingtown was set to air, I asked her about it. Swinging, that is.

“Bunny,” she said, “none of us ever thought about swinging. It’s so cold, so clinical. If we wanted to make love, we did. We still do.” (Author’s note: Mom insisted I include that part of her quote. Author’s second note: Yes, she calls me ‘Bunny.”) “But I certainly never went to any party to swap partners,” she concluded.

She actually didn’t conclude. Mom said a lot more on the subject of free love in the sixties, her own in particular, which I firmly declined to quote and would frankly rather not know. Nevertheless her point is a good one. Physical love freely given and received between consenting adults outside a committed relationship is fine. Not for me. But fine.

But parties…with tubs of whip cream, bowls of cherries and cheap wine…communal romps in dirty sheets…crowding against naked strangers in a hot tub? CBS may see the potential for “drama with comic elements.” I see heartache.

Which brings me to my own experience. I’ve known couples who were swingers. They confused Mom’s philosophy of free love, a young, exuberant pushing of the envelope, with the sterile coupling of strangers in a futile effort to recapture youth or grasp at empty pleasure.

To a person, all the couples I’ve known who tried swinging, broke up. Their relationships fractured under the weight. Not surprising, but pitiful.

I haven’t seen Swingtown yet and I’m not sure I will. I’ve seen what it can do to decent people and the danger is far greater than the risk of STD or HIV, something Mom’s generation never worried about.

If you’re tempted, think very carefully. Then, my advice is: Take a pass.

If you’re a man, getting a date can be hard. If you read some of the relationship gurus who are popping up by the dozens on the web, getting a date can be harder than say, storming the beaches at Normandy or getting the kids to sleep at bedtime. But, if it wasn’t hard, then relationship gurus would have nothing to sell.

Real women know men need to be careful what they buy. A case in point is a fellow who runs a website called “Alpha Unleashed, the official new alpha resource for success in life and in love.”
Michael “Bishop” Emery, who owns the blog, recently posted an entry asserting that women “test” men before giving out a phone number or accepting a date.

This is true. Real women certainly don’t give their telephone numbers to anyone who asks. We look a guy over. There are obvious factual issues to consider. Is he married? We look for the “tell,” say, the tan line on his ring finger. Divorced? How many times? Does he seem to care about his children? (This would be indicated by knowing their gender, their ages, even where they go to school.) Does he support himself? What kind of work does he do?

Then there is instinct. Can he put together a simple sentence? Can he look you in the eye? If you’re in a public place, is he caging money from his buddies? Does he need a bath? Do they all? Women note these things instinctively and insofar as you might want to suggest these are “tests,” you’d be right.

But women don’t run the kind of tests Emery suggests. He’d want his followers to believe that women formulate specific questions for men and then want men to ignore them. By ignoring them, Emery says, men assert their power, power women find irresistible. This is the insight he’s selling.

Here is a direct excerpt from his Thursday, May 29 blog entitled “How Women Test Men – How to Pass”

So, the next time you’re standing in front of a beautiful women who you’ve just asked for her number and she says, “why don’t you just give me your number and I’ll call YOU…” try CHUCKLING out loud and saying:

Then hand her a pen, point to the paper, and look her in the eye expectantly.

Once I got over the bends, I doubled checked the column to be sure he is completely serious. I then had an insight of my own. I realized that this isn’t just half-way funny bad advice. It is, in fact, dangerously aggressive stuff.

I wonder what he’d suggest if the woman in question persisted in declining to give out her number. I hesitate to think.

If you’re confronted with the kind of situation Emery proposes, don’t stop to ask if the guy is a fan or has bought “Fire of Seduction,” the book he’s is peddling. This is not the time to chat. Run away. Quickly. Quickly.

Health officials in New York are warning members of that state’s more credulous population to refrain from ingesting toad venom marketed as an aphrodisiac.

Real women, of course, understand that eating toad venom isn’t such a good idea even if it’s packaged as “Love Stone.”

But aphrodisiacs have been around for centuries. The Chinese used to grind up pearls and ingest them as an aphrodisiac. In some parts of China, they still use pearl dust for medicinal purposes. Cleopatra, who knew a thing or two about seduction, dissolved a pearl worth 100,000 sesterces in vinegar and drank it after betting Marc Antony she could host the most expensive banquet in history. This, however, may have been more about conspicuous consumption than seduction.

In my own day, people used to suggest that oysters on the half shell were aphrodisiacs. That, and powdered rhino horn.

Viagra, of course, isn’t strictly an aphrodisiac. For it to work, the man must first be sexually stimulated.

I love oysters and good chocolate (also often cited as an aphrodisiac). However, neither has ever made me wiggle in my seat.

What does, however, are the following:

A man who gives some thought to a night out. A restaurant I’m fond of. A movie I’ve indicated I’d like to see, especially one based on a Jane Austin book which I know can be actually painful for men although I don’t understand why.

When I was younger, an offer to babysit the kids would send me scrambling out of my pjs. Now that I’m a little older, the gift of sexy lingerie hits my hot button.

Men who remove their own plates from the dinner table have it all over the blister beetle, sometimes called Spanish Fly, an aphrodisiac at least as deadly as toad venom.

And, men who can actually organize a meal without dozens of helpless questions are guaranteed my enlistment in the cause of their penile health.

Real women know these are not small matters. You won’t catch us ingesting toad venom, but we’ll go to home base for guys who measure up this way.