Birds of a Feather

I was watching TV the other day, and I saw a commercial for Six Flags amusement park, and something really bothered me. You know how they have the Looney Tunes characters there, greeting the guests, taking pictures with the kids? Well, in this commercial, they had Sylvester the Cat dancing right next to Tweety Bird... and they were the EXACT SAME HEIGHT!!!

It freaked me out.

I'm beginning to think those are impostors.

I told this theory to a friend of mine, and he had an alternate (and probably more sensible) theory: those are, in fact, the actual characters there at the park, but when they shoot the cartoons, they use all kinds of trick photography and forced perspectives (like in those Lord of the Rings movies) to make them appear different sizes.

So if you were shooting a scene, say, Sylvester would be closer to the camera, and Tweety, well you'd place him...

Wait, is Tweety a him or a her? Is there any kind of consensus on this?

I had always assumed that Tweety was a dude, but a few years ago I started noticing Tweety all the time on little girls' pajamas.

...on hangers at Target! Jeez! You people should be ashamed of yourselves. That's how rumors get started!

Anyway, it struck me as me weird. Why would they put a guy character on girls' pajamas?

But the more I pondered it, the sad reality started to dawn on me: Who are they going to put on girls' pajamas? There isn't exactly an overabundance of good female role models in the Looney Tunes canon. Really, what are the choices?

The old Granny who owns Sylvester and Tweety? Who is, at best, a neglectful pet owner, leaving her poor defenseless bird alone with a blood-thirsty predator -- a pet himself who's clearly malnourished, as evidenced by his willingness to commit an act of violence just to get a bite to eat? This woman should not be enshrined on pajamas! She should be sharing a cell with Michael Vick!

Or what about the haggard old hen, a desperate single parent who's willing to use her only child as a pawn in her pitiful attempts to ensnare the dubiously oriented Southern bachelor Foghorn Leghorn? What kind of message would that send to little girls?

Or how about the poor unwitting cat who, after an unfortunate run-in with the machine that paints the lines down the center of the highway, becomes the unwilling recipient of Pepé Le Pew's lecherous overtures?? Actually, now that I think about it, that may not be such a bad choice. At least that character communicates something useful to girls about what the world will be like for them when they grow up.

I heard a staggering statistic recently: by the time she's 23 years old, the average American woman has been hit on 7,000 times.

Seven Thousand! And that's just the average ones. Imagine how many times the hot ones are getting hit on!

Believe me, I, personally, am not doing anything to drive those numbers down.

I remember reading this book called The Gift of Fear, and in this book I encountered a nugget that was probably the most profound insight into the difference between men and women I've ever heard. Forget all that shit about "Women want to talk about their feelings and Men just want to be left alone," or "Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus." That's all a bunch of white noise.

Open up your mindhole, folks, because I'm about to drop some knowledge into it.

The real difference between men and women, according to this author, is that, at their core, the thing that men fear most is that women will laugh at them. And, at their core, the thing that women fear most is that men will kill them.

Yikes, right?

In the face of this discrepancy, the fact that any two people of opposite genders have ever managed to get together is nothing short of a miracle.

Don't misunderstand me, ladies. I'm not saying all men are likely to kill you. A good 50% would never try and kill you at all. But how are you supposed to know which 50% those are? It's tricky.

And so you put up these walls, and I completely understand. You have my sympathy. But you have to feel for us, too, because we're expected to scale those walls. We have to circumnavigate the defense shields that have been built in response to the 7,000 other idiots who came before us, and that's a lot to contend with.

How does a guy communicate to a woman that, "Hey, I'm one of the good ones. I just wanna talk to you, get to know you, maybe buy you a drink. Or, God forbid, yes, I'd like to have some kind of sex with you. But murder does not make an appearance anywhere on my to-do list."

It's tough. The other night I was at this fancy restaurant, and there was a table of attractive ladies. As I made my way over to them, before I could even open my mouth, the leader of the... uh, oh damn... shit.

Quick, what's the collective noun for a group of women?

Oh, that's right: Coven.

(I'm just joking, people! Come on!)

So the leader, the alpha, she starts in with me right away, before I can even say hi:

"Look, Jessica just broke up with her boyfriend, and we don't want to look at men tonight, we don't want to talk to men, we don't want to be around men, nobody's interested in you, nobody's going to give you their phone number, nobody's going to have sex with you, so just go away and leave us alone!"

I was totally taken aback. It was quite a greeting, and I'm not sure she even took a breath. I hadn't anticipated that level of ferocity, and as I tried to recover my composure, the only thing I could think of to say in response was:

"So, should I come back later to take your order, or...?"

Oral Arguments

I'm gonna get in a lot of trouble for what I'm about to write. Many of my fellow men are going to be none too pleased with me for this. But my conscience compels me, consequences be damned.

'Cause, guys, let's face it, we've gotten a free ride on this deal for some time now. But fair is fair.

Girls -- eyes up here. Stop texting your friends, what I'm about to tell you is important.

Ladies, whoever it was that convinced you that a blowjob was some kind of compromise, that it was some kind of way to dodge a bullet and not have to have sex... whoever told you that PULLED ONE OVER ON YOUR ASSES.

Think about it for a second -- we've got a Mexican standoff. I want to have sex. You don't. So how 'bout this, we'll meet in the middle and you'll put my penis in your mouth!?

How, exactly, is that a compromise?

I don't know who your representatives were at the summit meeting where this was decided; I don't know whose signature is affixed to the bottom of the "Blowjob Accords," but whoever it was let you down. These were not good-faith negotiations.

Now, don't get me wrong, we men are pretty happy with the way this turned out. I dare say the notion that a blowjob is viewed as a compromise when we want to have sex and you don't is quite possibly the greatest thing Man has ever created.

But enough is enough.

Despite the image you may have of me based on some of my jokes, I actually am a feminist. I believe in equality of the sexes. I have nothing but respect and admiration for you silly bitches.

Oh, come on! I'm just kidding!

I don't respect you. I want to, but how can I when you were gullible enough to fall for this premise?

Okay, so now that I've shined a light on this issue, let me get to the part that's gonna get me in real trouble. Guys, you know where I'm going with this. I can see some of you out there, shaking your heads, "Don't do it, man!" But don't you see, we're all living a lie.

What I'm about to type is the biggest dirty little secret in the entirety of the gender wars. Pay attention, ladies, because I'm about to give you the plans to the Death Star.

Not only is the blowjob-in-lieu-of-having-sex scheme a lousy compromise, I submit that it's not actually a compromise at all!!

That's right, and here's why: In every situation, every time it's come up, every guy in the history of guys would rather get a blowjob than have sex. Always. Without question. Hands down.

(Now, usually, when I talk about "all guys," I'm using it as shorthand to refer to straight guys. But in this particular case, I actually mean ALL guys. Even gay guys. Especially gay guys. Isn't inclusion wonderful?)

The best thing that can happen at the end of a date -- the absolute best case scenario -- is as follows:

GIRL: Wow, I really like you. I don't wanna move too fast, though. I'm just not there yet... but maybe this will hold you over.

*UN-ZZZZZZIIIIP*

*GULP!*

That's a touchdown with a two-point conversion, that right there.

Now, girls, if you ask your boyfriend about this, he'll probably deny it. But don't be fooled; he's only trying to preserve this sham for his own benefit.

The reasons a blowjob is better than sex are many.

In terms of how they feel, it's basically a push -- EXCEPT that most of you ladies aren't insisting on the condom for the blowjob (and who can blame you), so the edge in this category goes to the blowjob.

Doing battle with a condom might be the single worst part of being sexually active. There's all of the common anxieties:

"Did I put it on right?"
"Is it gonna slip or break?"
"Is it gonna choke the life out of my poor erection?"

But it gets so much worse. Guys, have you ever, when rolling a condom on, accidentally gotten some hair caught up your sheathing? And now it's pinned there, tugging excruciatingly every time you attempt to move. If our brave soldiers used this method to extract information from terror suspects, it would be universally decried as a violation of human rights.

And, ladies, in most cases, you may notice, the condom is lubricated on the outside. "For her pleasure." But inside? That's rubber-on-skin, baby! Every time I go to have sex, I have to weigh how badly I want to get laid against how little I want to endure a balloon burn on my wang.

The chance of procreation is another way in which the blowjob is better than sex. No man has ever been sued for child support for fathering "mouth babies."

(Just sayin'.)

The next way the blowjob is far superior to sex is performance pressure. Now, you girls can repeat all day long how these things don't matter to you, that it's pressure we put on ourselves... Well, that's all fine and good, but it doesn't make it any less real. And any guy who's ever put his penis inside a woman has wondered, at LEAST once, about his size and how long he was going to last.

So you see, once again, the blowjob reigns supreme. In fact, if a chick is going down on you, and you're slightly smaller than average, and bust your nut in under three minutes, you've actually done her a solid. She'll thank you for it.

Sex has a better publicist, to be sure. But for all its hype, sex is often complicated. And frustrating. And annoying. There are so many things that can go haywire, so many ways to be incompatible with someone. Will we be into the same things? Will we like the same positions? Will our bodies fit together well?

I remember this one girl, the first time we had sex, we were in the missionary position, which was appropriate since that's how we met -- I was bringing the Word of Christ to her people. So there I am, on top of her, basically perched in a push-up, and the second I enter her, she coos in my ear, "Play with me."

WHAT!? I just stopped for a second, looking at my hands, trying to figure out how I was supposed to make this happen. Surely I had misheard her. She didn't really expect me to do the Jack Palance. (If you don't get that reference, YouTube it, you'll laugh.)

"Play with me," she repeated. No, I had heard her correctly. And apparently she thought this was a reasonable request. I couldn't for the life of me figure out how I was supposed to manage this, so I froze.

She sensed the awkwardness, and attempted to defuse it. "Or no. Or no? Or... no."

Great! Now she was disappointed. Awesome.

But the more I thought about it, it pissed me off. Play with you? Play with YOURSELF! What are your hands doing!? I felt like I was carrying heavy boxes up the stairs, and she was asking me to tie her shoes. Tie your own fucking shoes! I'm busy here!

So she's having disappointed sex, and I'm having angry sex. Mercifully, it didn't last very long.

Then there was this other girl, the first time we had sex, as soon as I entered her, her hands shot up and latched onto my nipples. Hard, like jumper cables. Now, I'm not really into nipple play. Worse than that, I don't like it. I find it irritating, and not at all pleasurable.

But because this was her first move, she must have thought this was perfectly normal. The way I looked at it, one of three things was taking place:

1) Maybe she had some kind of nipple fetish, and was pretending she was milking me, or something.

2) Through sheer random chance, she'd been with a string of guys who were all into having their nipples assaulted.

3) One of the advice columnists at Cosmo thought it would be hilarious to write something like, "One thing that drives all men wild is when you try to peel their nipples off, like a sticker from a piece of fruit."

But what could I do? Say something, and make her self-conscious, ruining the session for both of us? Forever be the pussy she tells stories about who didn't want his nipples touched!? No, I just sucked it up, and had a lousy time.

And then there was the girl who wanted to constantly change positions. I'm not talking about slight variations, like legs up for a while, then legs down. I'm talking about fully disengaging, totally reorienting, and plugging back in.

"Oh, now do me like this!"
"Now let me get on top!"
"Over here, against the grandfather clock!"

It was like she thought she was competing on a reality show. "Now, for a $250,000, perform the entire Kama Sutra in under three minutes! Go!"

Make no mistake, I admired her enthusiasm. And I'm not saying I expect to just get to lay there like a tranqued-up lion. But I have to be allowed to settle into some kind of a groove. Little Arik will only put up with so many false starts before he's like, "You know what, guys? I think I'm gonna call it a night."

Now, I'm not complaining just for my sake in any of these scenarios. All three of these girls would have had a better time being with someone who was into the same things they were. But it's like Forrest Gump said: "Sex is like a box of chocolates. You never know when a girl is going to try and remove your nipples."

There's no way to know until you're there. But all of this awkwardness, you see, could have been avoided with a good ol' trusty blowjob.

With sex, there are just too many things that can go wrong. Too many factors have to line up, too many things have to go just right, or you're better off scrapping the entire launch, lest someone get seriously hurt.

I guess that's my ultimate point: For as complicated as it is, having sex is a lot like trying to launch the space shuttle.

Whereas, by contrast, getting a blowjob is a lot like sitting back and having someone suck on your dick.

Hollywood Ending

I feel good. I recently got a massage. The funny thing about getting a massage in L.A. is that, if you tell someone you just had a massage, they always ask you the same thing:

"Did you get a happy ending?"

Happy ending! Every minute, with the happy ending! It's soooo Hollywood -- everything has to have a happy ending. I'm not a huge fan of the happy ending with a massage, frankly. It's too predictable. Whatever happened to the wry, ironic ending? The make-you-think ending, huh? The haunts-you-for-days-afterward twist ending...

(Maybe I should have M. Night Shyamalan direct my next massage.)

Another question you always get asked -- guys, you'll relate to this; girls, you may wanna... I don't know, text message your friends or something. But, guys, how many times has this happened to you? You're telling your friends about this girl you hooked up with, and you mention that you got a blowjob. Someone in the group (because every group of guys has one of these guys) is sure to chime in with this oft-repeated, time-honoured query:

"Did she swallow?"

They're very serious about it, these guys. "She better swallow. Bitch better fuckin' swallow..."

These are the same guys who slide cleats-up into an unprotected catcher in a friendly, utterly inconsequential game of softball. They're fired up -- as if, somehow, her refusal to ingest his seed is an indictment against his suitability as a sexual being.

I never really got caught up in this whole notion. I never care if a girl swallows or not. The way I look at it, my jizz is like... it's like a wounded falcon, that I've nursed back to health. And my only hope, my only wish, my only dream, is to one day release it into the world. Set it free. I don't care where it goes.

And if I'm being perfectly honest, roughly 90% of the orgasms I've had in my life have ended in a sock, anyway, so it seems a little disingenuous to start being picky about where stuff winds up.

I was living with a girl once, and she discovered my shameful pile of soiled, discarded socks behind the couch. (This was back in the days when I watched porn on the TV, before I had a laptop.)

But she didn't just come right out with it and confront me. Oh, no. Suddenly she was Mariska Hargitay from Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (an actress whose name sounds to me like Pig Latin for "target," but I digress).

Her plan was to back into the whole thing, and not let on that she had the damning evidence up her sleeve. She played it cool, good-copping me to get me to let my guard down.

HER: "Have a seat. Would you like some coffee?"

ME: "No thanks. What is this about?"

HER: "Well, I've been thinking about your sworn statement from the other day..."

ME: "Sworn statement?"

HER: "And something about it's been bugging me. So I wanted to ask you a couple questions."

ME: "Okay..."

HER: "Remember the other day, when you were complaining that you couldn't find any clean socks to wear?"

ME: "Um, that sounds like something I would say, I guess."

HER: "You guess? I can read it back to you if you--"

ME: "Fine, I said it."

HER: "What do you suppose happened to those socks, Arik? I mean, how do you explain them just... disappearing?"

ME: "I don't know... Maybe it's like Jerry Seinfeld said, and they escape from the dryer one at a time."

HER: "Come on. You don't really expect me to believe that, do you!?"

ME: (very confused) "What's going on here?"

Just then, she produces a lawn-size trash bag stuffed full of stiff, crusty socks, and plops it down on the table in front of me.

HER: "Perhaps you'd like to tell me about THIS!"

ME: (breaking down) "Okay! All right! I did it! And I'd do it again!!!"

And I would have gotten away with it, too, if it wasn't for those darn socks...

She got all indignant at this point, "I'm not going to wash those! That's disgusting! I'm throwing them out!"

I was backed into a corner, and I knew it. I wasn't going to be able to appeal to her emotions; she was too wound up. I was going to have to attack this from a practical vantage point. I was going to have to appeal to her logical mind, and make a well-reasoned case, if I hoped to defuse this situation. I'm a problem-solver by nature. This should be easy.

"What are you talking about?" I started. "I came on your face, and you washed that!"

In response to this, as you can probably imagine, she walked away, so I'm not entirely sure she heard what I said next, but I'll share it with you kids at home, anyway:

"We didn't throw out your tits after I came on them!"

...


Yeah, I miss that girl. Still not sure why things didn't work out between us.