Andrew Bolt is concerned. Frankly, he’s quite beside himself. As if he didn’t have enough to worry about with the endless squawking from the Doomsday Brigade and their so-called ‘scientists’ fretting about ‘climate change’, when everyone knows it’s naturally occurring heat and why on earth should anyone – let alone large, multinational corporations run by hard-working, faceless billionaires whose fortunes have been built on the back of corporate environmental irresponsibility – have to apologise for that?
And don’t even get him started on the gross incompetence of the Federal Government.. Honestly, sometimes it’s just like beating his head against a brick wall. Is he the only one who cares about this godforsaken country?
But now they’ve gone and given him something else to bite his nails about. You know who ‘they’ are. The stalking, predatory creatures with nothing but lust on their minds and the sweet scent of young flesh propelling them forward.
The trussed-up, pumped-up, toned-up, sexed-up New Divas of Dating. The ones who swan about the place pretending nothing and no one can hurt them while hiding the fragile, love starved heart of a tremulous 15 year old girl at her first rainbow party. Yes, you know who ‘they’ are. You may have even seen them in their natural habitats.
The cougars..
We’ve been hearing a lot about this curious breed of woman for some time. They’re the slightly salacious flavour of the year; the taut, tight and terrific women over 40 who not only refuse to act their age but also seem to be laboring under the idea that they deserve better than their single contemporary male peers for whom the right to date a much younger woman seems sacrosanct and immutable.
Silly cougars!
Don’t they know that once they pass the age of 40, they cease to be sexual creatures at all? They’re supposed to retire all notions of frivolity unless such larks involve elastic-waisted jeans, comfortable shoes and an embrace of book groups – basically, become lesbians or feminists, or a socially frightening combination of the two. Quelle horreur..
But here they are, flouting the system and openly declaring their proclivities for the golden boys still basking in the jasmine scented springtime of their youth. But Bolt knows that what they don’t see is the enormous emotional minefield they’re wading into, so high are they on the heady combination of come-hither French perfume and immovable Botoxed face muscles. These boys will BREAK their HEARTS and all they’ll have left is the tacit reminder of her folly – because “when the cougar unsheathes her claws, it’s on her own skin – and not her young man’s – that we must search for the scars.” Sad cougars.
And so the Boltster is worried about all these frightfully desperate cougars pouncing about, trying to regain their youth.
Because that’s what this comes down to, according to the Boltster: “A woman at 60 is feeling her looks and sexuality - her youth and her life - slipping away.” Her very life! Poor cougars.
That’s the problem with womenfolk though. They’re always using sex to get something else they want. Like respect or diamonds or a house.
But if Bolt was worried that he’s the only one wanting some pretty damn hardcore investigation into women’s disturbing treatment of sexuality, he should think again. He very fortunately has yet another sound social researcher on the case in the form of Ms Samantha Brett, columnist and blogger for the Age.
This week, Ms Brett posed the question of whether or not casual sex was actually harming women as opposed to liberating them. This exceptionally new line of questioning – because Lord knows it’s asked so rarely, like, at least every other day – was met with possible agreement from Brett.
In this particular case, Brett was trying to establish if David Wygnant – “an infamous Los Angeles based dating expert who coaches men on how to pick up women” was correct in his assertion that “women are increasingly having sex like men” making it “impossible for a man to look at this woman as a prospective future partner.”
Rather than critically assess the stupidity of Wygnant’s words – ie that perhaps it’s not women but in fact men who have the problem behaving like adults, and that maybe, just maybe, we all have sex like each other and it’s only recently that women have gained the social power to do so – Brett employed what seems to be an historical tactic on her part. She asked a man with questionable credentials what he thought about some such question involving female empowerment and reported his answer as fact.
I quote:
“I decided to ask Dr Drew, host of hit TV show Sex Rehab on VH1, who agrees that it’s really the women who are to blame.
“Women hold the keys to the castle,” he said. “Women should set the standards and the men will co-operate….you guys can change this.”
Did you hear that, you guys? We can change this. But we gotta get our castle in order and pull up that drawbridge. Or something.
Far be it from me to question the authority of a man whose important televisual outings include the hard hitting Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew and its dramatic follow up Sober House. No doubt Dr Drew has had incredible success dealing with the rehabilitation issues of malaise soaked celebrities and their many problems – but when it comes to deciding whether or not it’s my fault that some men are children when it comes to dealing with sex and sexuality, I have to make some noise.
Which is exactly what I would hope – and, against my better judgment, continue to hope – Samantha Brett would do. As a highly successful sex and dating columnist, no one could possibly accuse her of being stupid. And yet time after time she continues to trot out the same kind of sexist rubbish that feeds into the clap trap Bolt was getting his knickers in a knot about.
Women try too hard to be like men. Women are having sex like men. Women think they’re tough, but really they’re soft and gooey and fragile on the inside. Men are base. Men are incapable of deep emotional thought. Men are incapable of viewing women as real people. Men are only after one thing. Why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free? And on and on and on!
This line of thinking isn’t just offensive to women, it’s offensive to men. We cannot continue to push the ridiculous idea that men are rabid sex maniacs for whom women’s only role is to serve and pleasure. I know vast numbers of men who wouldn’t turn their nose up at pursuing a relationship with a woman just because she slept with him on the first date. I’d like to believe that this is largely because these men are fully formed emotional creatures, and not the single celled entities apparently swimming around in Dr. Drew’s pool. Because here’s an idea – if men can’t handle a woman having sex on the first date, maybe it’s not the role of the woman to change. Maybe the man just needs to grow up.
Women are constantly expected to walk a fine line between sexual availability and prudence. As pop culture would have it, we have to show that we’re up for it technically but that really we’ll only let you into our pants once you’ve bought us three dinners. We sensationalise older women dating younger men and call it a ‘phenomenon’ and create TV shows that simultaneously idolize and patronize them. We have columnists quoting the spurious opinions of middle aged men – or worse, columnists who ARE middle aged men – to lambast and shame the actions of women simply because they’re no longer playing by the rules.
Don’t we honestly have more important things to talk about than what a woman decides to do in her bedroom? Can’t we all be just a bit more interesting than that?
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