The Diarrhe

Beyond quite reasonably not buying into liberal propaganda about gender/race/class conflict and the over-importance of disadvantaged group belonging, I’m more or less entirely for gender equality, sometimes fanatically so. But driving past a certain neighbourhood house on a cold February evening I can’t help but think about the one place women have no earthly right occupying.

I wonder what kind of man it takes to let his wife clear the driveway this winter; either he’s all about the equal relationship or he’s a lazy bastard. Chances are it’s the latter and either way, no woman of his should ever have to clear a path for the damn minivan. If some poor girl has to wear closed-toe footwear because she lost a few digits to a snowblower blade, her guy deserves to be put the fuck down, if only for losing an opportunity to pick up a supremely manly battle wound.

Sometimes I just can’t help but laugh when my generation tries to sound all cultured because more often than not it sticks out like a sore thumb. It seems to me that people shouldn’t be in such a hurry to give off an image of Bourdieusian cultural capital because there’s no substitute for age and occupational status. Those things take time.

I think that if things appear forced it’s ten times worse than just being oneself, ungainliness and all. There’s nothing like the present anyway, and the way I look at it ten years from now a lot of us will miss the days that we actually thought hookups for line bypass and $3 “martinis” made us the shit. Things only get more complicated the further we get in the life course so why not stick to what we know? It reminds me of that time my gay roommate made some comment about licking labia all night long; all I can say is, good luck making that work.

This girl at U of T’s Science Outreach camp was seeing a guy who stood well above six feet. It was 2003 and was my first exposure to the seemingly universal valuation that women bestow tall guys. I didn’t understand it. I remember wondering what possessed her to seek him out, considering she wasn’t even five feet tall and in one especially traumatic conversation, revealed that her boyfriend would have to get on his knees in order for the two of them to make out.

Whenever I hear the “yeah, but he’s not that tall” meme I go back to Science Outreach. I think about all the times men were cited by women as shallow for valuating physical attributes so strongly. But it seems to me that there’s no one such attribute that is so universally necessary as height is to women. You’ve got your Beyonces, your Salma Hayeks, your Gwen Stefanis, and Christina Hendricks to round it all out. Where I come from, every one of those answer choices will get you full marks.