Recently (okay not so recently - it’s called procrastination, ever heard of it?) I wrote at length about an article called Treat Me Right, which was featured in GQ magazine, and has had me rankled ever since.  You did read my previous post, didn’t you?  You did?  Great, what was your favorite part?

Ah-ha, I KNEW you didn’t read it!  Well, go back and read it.  I’ll wait.

Okay?  Okay.  So, I certainly gave all those possibly female panelists a piece of my mind, since I am 100% positive that they read this blog.  I paid very little attention to the men (assuming, of course, that the men were not writing the females parts and setting up their own jokes, as suggested by commenter Michael).

So, in a list of sixty-one “bits of wisdom,” the editors made a whopping thirteen annotations.  Way to burn the midnight oil, boys.  I would say that a good four out of the thirteen are solidly decent contributions.  And when I say “solidly decent,” I mean “kinda mediocre but harmless.”  Another four out of the thirteen are complete garbage: unhelpful, unnecessary, annoying.  And a whopping five out of thirteen are the comments that are argumentative, childish, misogynstic.  Now, I’m not saying that they all had to be gems, and I’m not saying that I had to agree with them all.  But I can say unequivocally that I believe that the number of editor comments falling into that last category should have been zero. 

So, with no further ado, I bring you The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly.

The Good:

*The best annotation by far is in response to the women’s “Yes, you still have to wear a condom.”  The male response was Just don’t use the one you’ve kept in your wallet for the past three years in case the sales associate at the Banana Republic wants to pull down your slim-fit khakis in the dressing room.  Which, by the way, has never actually happened to anybody.   Truer words were never spoken.  Also, mildly amusing.  Advocating safe sex.  Reminding all the menfolks about how condoms expire, and are more likely to degrade in a wallet-type environment.  A+, boys!  Entertaining and informative.  (and as a side note, my favorite sweater is from Banana Republic.  I paid fifty bucks for that sucker on sale.  Anyway…)

 *Two other good comments were basically the men either restating or supporting the advice the women gave.  One regarding how the women want their guys to take their photo: Be careful when you show her the picure.  Whatever she says, tell her she kind of looks like Jessica Biel.  The feminist in me is not sure how to feel about this one, now that I’m reading it again.  But damn, it’s true.  Just tell me I look like Jessica Biel.  Or better yet, Angelina Jolie.  Sigh.  The other supportive comment is in response to the ladies saying how they just want their men to put a little effort into surprising them.  The dude response, which was in and of itself a pleasant surprise: It’s amazing how many women on our panel expressed this in one form or another, whether it was a grand, dinner-in-Paris moment or just showing up at her place with chicken soup and a DVD when she’s got the flu.  Even if you screw everything else up, you must remember this.  Yes.  Yes, yes, yes.  That is all.

The Bad:

I am actually going to try not to spend too much time on “The Bad.”  Generally if it is “Bad” and not “Ugly,” it is because it was boring.  Or irrelevent.  For example, feast your eyes on annotation #12, the entirety of which read thusly:  Duh.  The worst offender in this category was a response to a reader submission about a boyfriend who left love notes around her room (one above her bed reading “I want to be lying next to you” and another by her mirror, “my beautiful girlfriend”)…  The male editors stated We hate this man.  Super dooper helpful, guys.  Why aspire to be the kind of man that is a thoughtful, loving boyfriend when you can instead deride that kind of man.

 The Ugly:

 *The female panelists briefly explain that if a man pays attention to only the uber-hotties in the room and ignores everyone else, he himself becomes an unattractive prospect.  The male response…  This one gets filed under: Things women say that they wish were truer than they are.  Translation: Dude!  They say if we ignore the uglies then…  then…  they don’t wanna do us…  But bro!  We ignore the uglies!  I know, bro!  What should we do?  Dude, I know!  Let’s just discredit them and say it ain’t true, ‘cuz….  well then it won’t be true!  Yeah dude.  We’ll just call them liars.  That is way, way easier than having to ever make eye contact with a chick with small boobs.  True that, dude.  True that.

 *One piece of advice from a woman was, “As for picking us up in a bar: Do we look like the kind of girl who wants to make out in the bathroom?”  The dudes’ witty retort was, Sorry. We kind of thought you did.

………    ……..  BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHA!  Oh man!  Oh man that’s funny.  Ohhhhhhhh man.  Phoooooooooooooooo…..  *wipes tear* aaaHaaaaaaaa…… 

See?  You see what I did there?  So instead of pointing out and discussing how the men were being needlessly obnoxious, I am going to wallow in my own sarcasm for a few minutes.  Talk amongst yourself.

 *There was a small *For vs. Against* blurb in this article that was an argument about whether or not men should open doors for women (my own personal opinion is that it is not required, but is is certainly lovely, never fails to make me smile, and therefore is preferred).  So it seems that one women wrote the “FOR” side and another woman wrote the “AGAINST” side.  They both had sensible arguments.  The male response: Nobody said they were consistent.   Ooooh, har-DEE-har!  Inconsistent women…  I’ve heard that joke before!!  I mean, come ON.  Cheap shot.  Heaven forbid, the approximately 150 million women that live in this country don’t all share the same opinion on something!  How terribly inconsistent of them.  I’m tellin’ ya, those wimmins.  Always changin’ their minds.

*Female Advice: Baby talk is never romantic.  Male retort: Then why do you do it all the time?  Otherwise known as I know you are but what am I?  and I’m rubber, you’re glue…

*And finally, the excellent advice about how a gentle hand in the small of a woman’s back makes her weak in the knees was met with this: We were surprised (and encouraged) by how frequently our correspondents talked about the lower back… There are scientific reasons for this.  The small of a woman’s back is an erogenous zone dense with pro-sex nerve endings.  And it’s easy to find.  It’s right beneath that massive tramp stamp tattooed over her ass.  HEH??  Where did that come from?  We were all doing so well.  How did you get from respectfully discussing the advice of of your “correspondents” and the correlative research at the beginning of the setence to that ending??  Also, I’m really feeling like “pro-sex” is not really a word that works in the context of physiology. 

So, in conclusion, I suppose the next time I am stuck in the bathroom with a copy of GQ…  Eh…  {insert own joke about using the magazine for toilet paper}

Tags: gender issues, QG

Written by: dani

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 6th, 2008 at 11:26 am and is filed under Random Rants. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.