I cannot tell you how tired I am of being told that "men and women are different" every time I have a conversation that revolves around one of the numerous gender-based double standards that invariably result in me not getting deep-throated in an anonymous, consequence-free environment like the men's room at Laugh Factory! If only I had a nickel...
Anygag, the double-standards are inexhaustible.. I bet you could go back to the Stone Age and the first almost standing upright comic probably had a bit that went like this:
"Hey, buddy, you look woman-hole-whipped! I bet you're the gatherer at your cave and SHE'S the hunterer! Dude, you put the 'sap' in 'homo sapien'. You probably hold her animal skin-holdy-thing while she tries on skimpy animal skin foot coverings! Haha! I bet she clubbed YOU over the head and had sex with you when YOU were unconscious!!! These Upper Paleolithic women got ideas!!! Hahahahaa!! (please note that this joke endorses absolutely no previous knowledge of actual pre-history).
Unfortunately, as much as I chafe at the whole idea of men and women being fundamentally different, like gravity to physical movement, it's been the most consistent, immutable, restrictive set of rules governing my entire life. It drives me fucking crazy. And it's part of the reason gay comics have nothing to fucking talk about other than Judy Garland and how 'technology is annoying'; they can't delve into the antipodal nature of the sexes.
Take, for instance, the perplexing female obsession with shoes and handbags.
What's that you say? Women love shoes?! Come on, Bill, you can't steal Jeff Foxworthy's closer from 1987! You're right, person in my head, so let's start with that idea as a constant.
X= The female preoccupation with shoes that eludes 99.99% of all men.
Now, let's solve for Y(the fuck these bitches love shoes)..
When I was living with my ex-girlfriend -- a period in my life I call 'oops' -- she always tried to recruit me into her cult of footwear fascination. One of the ways she did this was by showing me pictures of shoes on ebay.
"Oh my God, it's a Manolo Blahnik mary jane, but look at the little daisy on the strap. This is soooooo cuuuuute! What do you think?"
Guys, for those of you in new relationships, the answer to this question is a tricky and important one. It will set the tone for the next 4-5 years of the relationship. I only say it will "set the tone for the next 4-5 years" because after your inevitably wrong answer, the only tone will be the dull tinnitus in your earbones from her incessant "listen's" and "I'm not your maid's" and "why is there a used condom in the laundry hamper's?" Don't worry too much, though. After 5 years, most relationships turn into week old scones dunked in toilet water anyway, so you may as well maximize your joy before that soppy, crumbling demise.
In short, "What do you think?" is THE SINGLE MOST crucial question in the development of any relationship after "Do you like kids?" (answer: only when they're in Hong Kong making my sneakers.)
If you act too interested, she is going to mold you like a raw lump of man-clay into her very own FABULOUS "Sex and the City"-style gay bff. She will fire her new creation in the kiln of warehouse-, sample-, and department store holiday sales. And then glaze you to perfection with weekend after weekend of shoe shopping for the shelf-life (pun intended) of your relationship.
Before you know it, you're 30, it's a Saturday afternoon during college football season, and you've just driven fifty miles out of town to check out armoires at "the really good IKEA" (that's the 3rd Nordic horseman of the relationship apocalypse, by the way). You'll be standing there, with the studious furrow of an Oxford professor, seriously contemplating the pros and cons of the Leksvik model with two doors versus the Leksvik model with THREE doors, and.you'll instinctively start checking your pants, wondering "Where the fuck are my balls? I swear to God I had them when I got here! Did I leave them in the parking lot? Maybe at the Swedish meatball stand in the mini food court?"
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the ultimate goal of IKEA: to emasculate American men so they can fuck our women and continue their stranglehold on the heterosexual porn industry! ABBA was merely the first trojan horse of theirs for this purpose and it nearly succeeded.
IKEA, the most recent and insidious front for that covert operation, is Plan B. When you call IKEA lost and found, a recording will say 'PRESS 1 IF YOU LOST YOUR BALLS. OPRIMA NUMERO DOS SI PERDIO SUS CAJONES EN ESPANOL' When you press 1, all you will hear is a looping audio track of an evil Swede laughing that Muppet show "horgy-borgy" laugh in your ball-less face as you reassure yourself "But I know I had them just a minute ago!"
Of course you won't find them because they have retracted into your colon and are trying to reformulate into ovaries.
Regardless, it turns out that you didn't actually just lose your balls. You lost them years earlier, on the couch, when you spent 25 minutes toggling back and forth between pictures of two similar versions of the same shoe only to pull out your credit card, and click "BUY NOW" on both of them. Then you will say out loud "What the hell, they're both cute!" You will have actually used the word "cute" in a way that doesn't involve an inappropriate comment about a high school girl; and THAT, my friends, is a small step towards your first queef.
So, don't act too fuckin' interested in her shoes or you'll end up with a fjord between your legs, Mr. Shoelover!.
THE FLIP SIDE:
If, instead of engaging her shoe-fawning hysteria, you tell her "I don't really care," (or as I like to call it, THE TRUTH), she will perceive your words as having nothing to do with shoes themselves but rather everything to do with your FUCKING ATTITUDE, ASSHOLE!!! From her shoe-addled POV, you basically told her that you don't care whether or not she burns to death in a firey fire. You'll try to back off your disinterest, but she will never trust you again and you will spend the rest of your tortured relationship trying to convince her you love her even when, let's face it, you kind of stopped after the first time you had to ASK for a blow job. There is no sadder sentence in the world of relationships than, "Can I please have a blow job?" Invariably, it is met with a reluctant sigh. And teeth.
THE SOLUTION:
Casually look over one shoulder and say, "Yeah, babe, I bet you'd look really sexy in those." You are then allowed two, maximum three, beats before slowly backing away from the scene of the crime and busying yourself with something overtly masculine. If need be, walk around with a wrench and pretend to tighten pipe fittings on all the plumbing. She will think "Awesome, he cares but alas his manly soul has to tend to unfathomably manly things." Lather, rinse, repeat.
Which leads me to my next talking point in this disturbingly thought out shoe polemic.
Men are sexual creatures. We literally do not have the hard-wiring to properly comprehend the aesthetic details of a picture of shoes or to appreciate an actual pair when a woman holds them out, awestruck, for you to lovingly admire. Hamsters will go into overdrive, bolts and cranks and levers will creak and spin until springs snap. All to no avail. "Shoe appreciation" will remain Sphinxlike in its inscrutability.
Every so often, however, we will have that night when shoes come clearly into focus. We will be out with our woman and we'll notice that her ass is sticking out extra deliciously and flirtatiously. Her boobs are perking up ever so slightly more than normal, and the tanned definition of her supple calves jump out at us from above a pair of 4-inch heel crème colored boots.
We will think 'Fuck yes!' and want to double her over the bar stool. It is the discerning male who understands that the golden skin against the heeled crème boots and the tilt they provide, is the mechanism actually responsible for filling up our dick.
The day before, if she showed us those shoes on a table, we'd have looked at them like they were a scrambled Rubik's cube or the London Times Sunday Crossword. Just the simple act of putting them on and creating that fertile curve is like performing a magic act for a mongoloid. We will cheer with a heavy thudding, flat-hand clap and drool like retards at the Jolly Ranchers factory (retards love sour apple. True story.).
Plainly stated, the right shoes enhance a woman's fuckability, and she knows it. Ergo, we should assume that any time a woman shows us shoes she wants to be fucked. The more shoes she wants and/or owns, the more ways she wants to be fucked. You want proof? Imelda Marcos was a giant festering Filipino whore. Carrie Bradshaw from 'Sex and the City'? That slag had a new boyfriend every week for like 6 years.
See shoes, think ooze.
Therefore, X = love of shoes, Y = love of getting fucked.
But what about the handbag?
What can be said for shoes cannot be said for them. Handbag on a table; handbag on an arm. The fuckability factor remains the same. To this day, I can't discern the difference between a $10,000 Birkin and a Chinee '$5 dolla, $5 dolla!' purse made of rich Corinthean pleather. And neither one would make me want to fuck a girl more unless they had "I really want to suck you off with no strings attached, Bill Dawes" stitched into the side of them. Which they never motherfucking do, I've looked.
So now if...
X = The female preoccupation with handbags that eludes 99.99% of all men.
And we try to solve for Y(the fuck these bitches love purses), the only thing I can think of is STATUS.
Shoes= sex; Handbag=status.
I'm sure this is a newsflash to everyone, but women want status...or at least the appearance of status. Even if they are dating poor emo guys with heroin habits and baby gap jeans on; deep down they want to be taken care of and treated like princesses, and they are going to do everything they can to fool the outside world and show everyone around them that this is actually what's going on; that they are pampered royalty.
How do you reconcile this discrepancy between fantasy and reality? One word: HANDBAGS! Or maybe that's two words, who the fuck knows. You can date a guy with bed head, skinny jeans and a chain wallet as long as the world sees you out with a Versace snatch purse or even a convincing 10-gallon Gucci knock-off. You present yourself as high style, you are high style.
Best case scenario, ladies, you go on Ebay and you get a $4,000 Armani for $39.99 plus shipping and you can be your own grownup Barbie princess and STILL afford to pay for organic chicken soup and cough medicine for your faggy man-boy who's home unemployed with the sniffles listening to "Bright Eyes."
So what does it mean when you put these two fascinations together? Shoes and handbags. Well, it's pretty simple really. Let's go through the permutations:
A girl with a handbag fetish and flats has no real sex drive and wants a sugar daddy (and yes, models wear flats often, so it follows). A girl with stilettos and a backpack wants to be soundly pounded in the vagina by a dirty boy living on Ramen noodles (often, while wearing the stilettos). A girl with flats and a backpack is a dirty crunchy hippie good for nothing... unless she's French, then she's good to go (however, both types will smell like shit). Finally, a girl with stilettos and a handbag fetish is a sex worker.
There, I cracked the code. Be grateful and happy hunting.
Oh, and handjobs? Don't do it, ladies. It's a code you're rarely ever gonna crack.
That's why God gave women lips.
(I know, I know, you thought they were for talking. Sorry, ladies.)
Posted by Bill Dawes at 10:17 PM