The Man Show - Tips for NOT Getting Laid

Many years ago, when I met Eddy, I was enjoying an unusually fruitful time of sexual promiscuity. A few months prior to our meeting, I had been dumped by a longtime girlfriend and,  pissed off that I'd been dumped, I decided to have sex with every woman I could get my hands on. To increase my odds, I decided to take a job in Japan teaching English to female tour guides. It couldn't get much easier than that, I thought. As I had three months to kill before jumping on the plane out of here, I hit the local bars and quickly scored two girlfriends, as well as several quick sexual encounters to pass the time until my Oriental odyssey would begin. Not only that, but I caught back up on all the latest sports news, hit the gym, hung out and got drunk with the guys whenever I felt the urge, and generally treated my newfound girlfriends like total crap. Life wasn't too bad. This, I thought, was what it meant to be a MAN.

Dang it if Eddy didn't walk into my life and throw the whole plan into disarray. Now, here I am, thirteen years and a white picket fence (literally) later, never giving a second thought to the life that might've been had I not fallen head over heals in love with the voluptuous Eddy.

And though I've never questioned my decision to sell my airline ticket, give up the sex/job in Japan, and marry Eddy, there are still those things that I do that tie me to that brief period of being single - you know, being MANLY. But after 13 years, they're fading fast. For example, though I never could care less about any sports team other than the 49ers and would read the sports section everyday to keep abreast of what's going on, I find myself turning to the Food section instead. I still masturbate, but now it's so I'm better prepared for the real thing or releasing the tension during dry spells, not as much for the sheer pleasure or fantasy of doing someone else. Playboy is about the last vestige of a male magazine I still read, while the rest have been replaced with Sunset, Martha Stewart Living, Food and Wine, and Better Homes and Gardens. As you can see, I've become more and more 'domesticated' with each passing day. It would be pathetic if it weren't so wonderful. Selfishness has been replaced with giving, lying with trust, and loneliness with commitment. Now that I'm significantly older, are those things I thought made me a man still the norm? What IS the criteria by which 'manhood' is measured these days?

And so it came to pass that I channel surfed my way to the most logical place I could think of to find out what makes us MEN these days. That would be "The Man Show (on Comedy Central)" which describes itself as "A half-hour of joyous chauvinism... a whole truckload of man-fun combining sketches and large-breasted women in front of a live studio audience." Alright, I thought, a show to help me get back in touch with my former manhood. Man humor. Man sex tips. Man info. All man, all the time.

What a disappointment. This concoction of BS is hosted by two ugly losers named Jimmy Kimmel and Adam Carolla, who pride themselves on drinking beer, portraying women as sluts and/or adversaries to everything it means to be a man, and parading skinny, fake-breasted women around to tantalize their revved up audience of college knuckleheads and nerdy dorks (oh yeah, and us at home). This show seems to be part of the current genre of shows including "The Howard Stern Show," on the E network and "The Best Damn Sports Show, Period," on Fox Sports, the premise being that men need to be, well, more like men. This means we, as men, need to consume more beer, watch more sports, act more obnoxiously, treat women worse than we already do, and take back control of the planet from Oprah Winfrey. Here here! Didn't seem all that different from the mid-eighties, I thought.

Now, I'm all for looking at gorgeous, fake-breasted women (lord knows, that's one of the primary reasons I go to the local Gold's Gym every night and anxiously await the monthly arrival of Playboy - not to mention my porn collection), but we can see the real thing, sans bikinis, on the internet. In one episode, Adam jumped into the ring with a former boxing champion. Manly? With gloves and face protection? Please. I once got my ass kicked by three dudes in a bar just because I out drank one of them. Dressing up as Oprah? Been done a hundred times by far better comedians. I've watched three episodes and I still can't get any clues as to why their humor is particularly "manly." Ironically, Eddy seems to find it funnier. Oh, and you can find much better bikini/boob action on Son of the Beach (FX network), Wild-On (E network), or practically anything on MTV after 9pm. Brooke Burke on her worst day rules anything Adam and Jimmy put on screen.

The fact is, while sporadically funny, "The Man Show" is combo Howard Stern/Tom Green ripoff that thinks it can use provocative subject matter and busty babes to garner ratings and motivate guys to buy "Girls Gone Crazy" videos with which to jerk their underused dicks. I guess the formula works, because the show apparently has been on for quite some time. As far as the hosts' "manliness" goes, I'm almost willing to bet that they are actually quite pussy-whipped in private (just like Howard was before his divorce). Their sex tips wouldn't get Brad Pitt laid, the whole Barbara Streisand thing is more a gay phenomenon (Adam went to a Streisand concert), and the gross-out humor is simply outdone by the R-rated teen raunch-fest movies (i.e. American Pie, Tomcats, etc.).

Guess I'll have to look elsewhere to see what makes a "man" these days. If you know where, let me know. Freddy