Romance for Real Women

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.

As a “woman of a certain age” and that age not being 25, I find looking at young gorgeous men is becoming more and more satisfying. This has nothing to do with the real world, my marriage or anything I actually want to do. I just like looking at them. And for the most part, the young men are images on the internet, some with names and some without.

My first visual crush was David Beckham, the most photographed man in the world. If you doubt that, you haven’t been paying attention. Or searching each week for new pictures to send out to a couple of friends in an email titled Becks Friday. Every week for over two years, I had to cull through dozens of new photos to pick out just two. Hard work but someone had to do it.

About two years I decided to expand my Friday offering to include other gorgeous men, Brad Pitt, Gabriel Aubry, Beiron Andersson, and many more made their way into my picture stash and Hot Guy Friday was born. My email distribution list has grown and HGF is forwarded to many more eager women, so we thought Real Women would enjoy a weekly treat as well. So to kick off my guest blog, the original Hot Guy, David Beckham.

First his Emporio Armani advert…

And an all time favorite, his Motorola RAZR2 advert:

The man is an inspiration…….

Alouette

One of my friends, Alouette, distributes “Hot Guy Friday,” a delicious pictorial treat of beautiful men. Sometimes the images are ads, sometimes they’re action shots and occasionally they’re funny. But the guys are always hot.

Everyone on Alouette’s list looks forward to it and gets in touch with her if we don’t get it by mid-Friday.

She knows what is apparently news to our local newspaper. When David Beckham’s new ads for Armani underwear began appearing in local department stores, our local beacon of first amendment freedoms sent a reporter to check on female reactions to the image. (You will certainly remember it. Beckham is sprawled on a bed, his legs wide open, wearing the close fitting underwear. The ads are so hot, they reportedly stopped traffic in Milan and London where they were shown on billboards.)

“Now it’s our turn (to look),” said a “giggling” local female the reporter located in a department store. He apparently found her insight so newsworthy, he quoted her in the third paragraph of the story.

Well, it may have been news to him, but not to us. Real women like to look. It’s one of the reasons we go to movies, buy magazines and surf the net. It’s also one of the reasons some of us might feel compelled to weigh in on whether or not we really believe Beckham is also packing a tennis ball in the ads, something many bloggers appeared to believe.

The story went on to compare the “assets” of Beckham and Djimon Hounsou, also an Armani model.

I am not going to get into that discussion although I will point out that Mark Wahlberg, who did some of the early sexy underwear ads for Calvin Klein, looked pretty good to this real woman back then.

However potent the tennis ball issue, the truth is we do like to look. So in the interests of sharing the eye candy, Alouette has agreed to post Hot Guy Friday on this blog beginning tomorrow.

Enjoy. In the meantime, here is one of the Armani ads.

The connection between romance, real women and man-pleasing recipes is an old and acknowledged one.

With that in mind, I was browsing through my collection of cookbooks to pinpoint dishes that have what we can call “man appeal.” But, while I reviewing my old favorites, I thought rather than just providing a list of recipes, I’d develop a tips list. After all learning how to identify the successful man-pleasing recipe is the crucial first step to cooking them. So here is my list of “How to identify recipes than will please your man.”

Now, a word on sources. Do you remember that fabulous “White Trash Cooking” book by Ernest Matthew Mickler? It had recipes like “Rainbow Salad” where you chop the iceberg lettuce and then add tomato. After my friends stopped laughing, a number of them, especially the men, admitted they’d grown up on these recipes and loved them.

A few years ago, my partner found “A Treasury of Top Secret Recipes, the Complete Guide to re-creating American’s bestselling Brand-name Foods and Restaurant Recipes in Your Own Home.” He wrapped it up and gave it to me. Now, there was a clue.

Any Texas cookbook is a good source of man pleasing recipes because people in Texas eat beef. A little pork and chicken, yes. But mostly beef.

You do see where I going, don’t you?

Okay, let’s get down to the nitty gritty.

Tip One: Recipes that begin with “six cups of vegetable oil for frying” have the highest possible chance of pleasing your man. Real men love fried food. Earmark these recipes and return to them later.

Tip Two: Avoid recipes that begin with “three cups of sugar.” These are for you and your friends. Make them when he’s not at home. Real men do not care for an overabundance of sugar in their food. Earmark them for girls night out parties and such.

Tip Three: Let your eye wander down the list of ingredients called for in the recipe. If there are more than four for a week night dinner and more than six for a fancy meal, do not earmark. The exception is if the recipe lists “oil for frying” as an ingredient. And, I shouldn’t have to tell you that salt and pepper don’t count either.

Tip Four: Identify only those recipes that call for meat. Real men do not like fish. The exception to this rule is fried fish, which real men adore.

Tip Five: Be highly critical of amounts called for in potentially man-pleasing recipes. For example, if the recipe is “Steak for Two” or “Burgers for Two,” triple it.

Tip Six: Real men love casseroles. King Ranch Casserole calls for seven ingredients, an exception to the six ingredient rule. Casseroles with plenty of cheese and mushroom soup always have a high man-pleasing potential.

Tip Seven: Do not go hog wild on preparing appetizers for your man-pleasing meal. Real men eat appetizers and to them, the hardier, the better. The problem is that once they’ve eaten them, they aren’t quite as hungry for the meal you’ve so carefully prepared. Imagine his annoyance if after having eaten the Baby Backs before dinner, he is unable to finish his chicken friend chicken steak. Don’t chance this, dears. Give him a little bowl of Planters if dinner isn’t quite ready when he arrives.

Tip Eight: Do not anticipate high levels of postprandial activity. This isn’t a case of “I do for you, now you do me.” If he’s finished what you’ve given him, his heart won’t be in it. I guarantee it. Let him relax and watch the game…at least for a little while.

Tip Nine: Use some judgment. If your guy is young and healthy, chances are he’s not going to have a coronary. In other cases, if might be a good idea to keep the bottle of low dose Bayer aspirin close by. There’s no need to mention this to him. You’ll know you’re watching out for him.

Enjoy.

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.

My sweet daughter, Elizabeth, a real woman in training, came to me yesterday and asked the following question: “Moooom,” she said, stretching out the syllable, “Do you think I’m fat?”

Oh. My. God.

Elizabeth will be in seventh grade in the fall. She’s slim and tall. Blonde hair. Blue eyes. She does well in school and has been a gymnast since she was in the third grade. She has lots of friends and their greatest joy appears to be sleepovers where they paint their nails odd colors. They text each other constantly. They have serious discussions about clothes and boys.

She is the girlie-girl I never was and in no sense is she overweight.

Caught by surprise, I said, “Who told you that?”

She shrugged and twirled the ends of her hair. “Nobody.” After a moment, she added, “Maybe Heather.”

Ah, ha. Heather. My least favorite of her little chums, Heather is a know-it-all who always wears a sly expression as if she’s constantly monitoring any situation for her own advantage. No, I’m not fond of Heather. Now I like her less. And, in the spirit of truth in blogging, I should add that Heather actually is a little overweight.

However, I long ago learned that direct attacks on little friends from Mom are rarely productive. So instead of launching into a diatribe about Heather, her parents and forebears tracing not so many generations back to ape men, I merely asked how the question came up.

Still twirling her hair, Beth said, “Well, we were talking about Crystal’s swimming party.”

Crystal’s swimming party, the social event of the season, endlessly discussed. All the classmates are invited including, yikes, boys. Crystal’s party is the reason we’ve been on not one, but two shopping trips to find just the right bathing suit, a sweet little yellow one piece suit with flowers and a tiny skirt.

“Darling,” I say, “don’t you think you look wonderful in your bathing suit?’

“I don’t know,” she says and now her head is down, her face covered by her hair.

“Well, I do,” I say decisively. “Did you know that department store light is the worst place to look at yourself in a bathing suit?”

That gets her interest and an eye peeks out behind the curtain of hair.

“Yep,” I continue. “In all the years I’ve been buying bathing suits for myself, I’ve never, ever tried them on in those fluorescent lights.” This is true. I don’t. I can take only so much in a given day.

“But I did,” she said softly.

“Yes, you did and you looked great. Didn’t you?” I go for the kill.

She shrugs again, but this time I get a smile and a hug and she’s off, probably to text a friend.

I’m shaken. I think I’ve dealt with the immediate issue fairly well. But this is one I’m going to have to keep an eye on.

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.

Yesterday I mentioned the (to me) outlandish request from my son that he be allowed to get a tattoo.

Perhaps as an indication of how I feel about this—at least for now—I did some research on the web on the subject of tattoos, specifically ugly tattoos. There are some interesting examples. Here’s one link that features “gamer” tattoos. It’s a hoot. http://www.gamerhelp.com/article_viewer.cfm?article_id=129780

In keeping with my plan which is to conduct a war of attrition, I forwarded the link to my son. His response.

“Ohhhh, Mom.”

My son William came to me yesterday and declared his intention of obtaining a tattoo.

Oh, God.

I know tattoos have grown in popularity. I’ve seen studies where upward of twenty percent of the population sports body art. Most Hollywood celebrities have one or more tattoos. Here, two words come to mind: Angela Jolie.

So what is a real woman to do?

Well, first I sputtered.

Then I asked why he wanted a tattoo.

He said he “just does.” Unfortunately for me, that’s been a good enough reason for some of my own choices.

Sensing my reluctance by the fact I began pulling out my hair, he went on the attack.

“Granny has a tattoo,” he said.

It’s true. My Mom, the original flower child, has a rose tattoo just over her heart.

“Aunt Mary has tattoos,” he said.

Another fact I couldn’t deny although I did point out that Mary had the name of her first husband tattooed on her backside and regrets it.

I suggested getting a tattoo is a big decision, one not easily changed.

This elicited a long suffering sigh.

I suggested he is too young. (He’ll begin high school this fall.)

“Granny was my age when she got her tattoo,” he shot back, a fact only slightly exaggerated.

Then, I took refuge in the excuse of mothers everywhere desirous of hoping to postpone an argument with their children. I told him I was busy and we’d talk about it later.

After he stalked out, I was left to grapple with my instinctive reluctance to give him the go-ahead on something that is accepted so readily today.

They’ve gone mainstream, I told myself. Everyone has them, even members of my own family. Then I had the vision of bathing his beautiful little body when he was a baby. And superimposed the image of a dragon on his little chest. Oh, God. Oh, God.

Okay. So, what’s your problem, Lesli with no e, I asked myself. What do you have against tattoos? Nothing, I answered honestly, I don’t have anything against them, in fact, I think some are extremely attractive.

After a few minutes, well, really more like a sleepless night, I came to the conclusion that William wants one because he thinks it’ll make him somehow more interesting to his peers.

But he’s interesting now. He has plenty of friends, too many I think sometimes after picking up after a Saturday when they’ve all been here. He’s a good student and an athlete. A tattoo isn’t going to make him more or less interesting.

So, I’ve come to the conclusion I’m going to make him wait. (Despite his grandmother, he’s still very young for this kind of decision.) I’ll play the game all mothers are experts at…attrition. Then, we’ll see if this is just a passing enthusiasm. And, we’ll talk. In the meantime, I’m going to do a little research on the subject of tattoos. I’ll let you know what I discover.