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"Themes of fate, morality and power overlay a subtle and essential feminism to make this lyrical book a must-read. If this is Madhavan’s first book in the Girls from the Mahabharata series, there is much to look forward to in the months to come." - Open Magazine

"A gleeful dollop of Blytonian magic ... Reddy Madhavan is also able to tackle some fairly sensitive subjects such as identity, the love of and karmic ties with parents, adoption, the first sexual encounter, loneliness, and my favourite, feminist rage." - Scroll



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18 September 2007

Men Are The New Women

The opposite sex has always been a source of great confusion and mystery to me. But recently, it’s like they’re all, “Oh let’s fuck with the girls some more” and invented some new gender thingies that completely throw me off. Let’s recap: some of the men I’ve been with in the last year or so have said stuff to me like, “Let’s take it slow”, “I want this to mean something” blah blah blah to which my only bemused (half-naked) reaction has been WTF?

At first, I thought it was a one-off. Just one anomaly in a sea of otherwise normally horny men, for whom good sex was when you showed up and took off your top. But noooooooo. The one thing that women through the ages had going for them (see Lysistrata), the power of sex, the power of saying not tonight, I have a headache, has been taken over by the men. In fact, not so long ago, I actually heard a boy tell me, “Not tonight, I have a headache.” Seriously? SERIOUSLY? You’re taking this away from us?

More and more of my male friends tell me, “You know, sex isn’t that important.” And I’m wondering when they reached that conclusion, for me, sex isn’t that important unless I have to go without it, in which case I turn into a mixture of Cruella De Ville and Bambi, alternating between long drags of my cigarette and fluttering eyelashes at whatever’s closest. My female friends, a strong posse who are not afraid to say what they want, often lament the lack of sex, we talk about everything, unless the boy is special, we are ribald and often objectifying. My male friends are now beginning to talk about “feelings”. I’ll say (in a moment of drunkenness) “Oh my god, I don’t think I’ve ever seen breasts that huge!” and they will look at me reproachfully, and turn their bodies away, pictures of injured innocence.

Am I missing something here? Is this just the men I know? Or are all the men in the world taking the reversal of gender roles one step further and embracing our stereotypes? As women get stronger, more assertive, more take-your-pants-off-in-a-movie-theatre, men are becoming the chased, the ones with the goods to be withheld, the ones with the sheets clutched up to their chins. Therein lies the catch. So, traditionally, women do not chase right? As it is, while we’re chasing (well, me at any rate) we’re constantly second guessing ourselves—will he still respect us, will he still want to be with us—so the more the men are doing this drama about oh-sex-isn’t-all-that, the more we’re going, really? What’s wrong with us?!?


Why are the men doing this? To be the forbidden fruit, I'm assuming, to be the ones with the sexual power along with everything else. HMPH.


39 comments:

  1. stress. reduces appetite. go for stress free guys next time.

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  2. You know men about whom you can say 'I've never seen boobs that huge' ? Interesting life.

    Totally agree with your closing epiphany. The best way for a man to keep a woman interested is to say that HE'S not.

    Of course, some of us (men AND women) just grow out of playing games. Wait a few years, you'll find out.

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  3. wimmin'z lib has taken a WHOLE new dimension it seems... :)

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  4. actually my guess would be (and this is just speculation!), the roles are being reversed because of the explosion of culture... men are being told they dont have to live the 'boys dont cry' lifestyle anymore and women have always tried to tell their men (dont deny it!) to express themselves and talk about their feelings and all that jazz..
    well it seems that with women becoming a force to be reckoned with, many males are thinking, "hey, if they want to wear the pants, fine - but we gotta have something too.."
    a side note: i dont think its as prevelant as you make out though..
    cheers..

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  5. well, i think this type is (more than) adequately balanced by the Enfield riding, tight-tee-over-six-pack types who can break a cinder block with their heads.

    or, just blame Brokeback Mountain, which has caused immeasurable scarring to the notion of manhood. :)

    i think i'll stick to falling asleep in bars.

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  6. you're from delhi arent u? a pity really, if you got all that cork in your wood. u might as well have grown up in Calcutta or someplace.

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  7. you, my friend, must have almost become a man.

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  8. I know what you mean!!!!! I so know what you mean!!! And chasing men is so much more tougher than being chased, especially for sex! My guy needs so more fore-foreplay, I feel I'm a feeling-less sex maniac!

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  9. Really, boys do cry now. We feel too. We feel like shit at the butt end of love. Hell, I managed to out-depress alcohol the other day.

    This has been us all along. The swing towards metro-ness has allowed us to leave the machismo and 'my dick is bigger than yours' syndrome.

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  10. Yeah. That has always confused me. Men are turning girly "wussies". Masculinity is slowly losing its meaning. I want to start coaching classes on 'being men'.

    Btw, I hate typing this word verification thing where I type strange characters in a small box just so that my comment gets posted. WTF.

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  11. Dunno! I have about had it with fugly-ass wormint chasing men. So anyways, eM, are you fugly? That would explain it all.

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  12. hahaha.. this is most reassuring - to know i'm not the only woman who has felt more male (horny, superficial) in a relationship (one week stand).

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  13. I don't reckon its new territory. I just think everyone's all confused and messed up....but its still fun now.

    Actually, on the other hand, perhaps we men like being asked out - its only fair to share the fear of rejection now.

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  14. The hunter becomes the hunted- Nature's way of getting back.

    Absolutely agree with your "observation". Sex and the City is in no way an exaggeration in today's world - Women are the ones who are doing the chasing

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  15. I'll echo crazydiamond here... Dude, I love getting asked out. A woman who isn't afraid to stress an equal playing field from the start.

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  16. like, till yesterday, it was, "why are the guys so guy-like?"
    and today, "why are the guys not like guys?"
    what is a guy to do now?

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  17. can i just say, i wrote about this like a year ago. my theory is that men are doing this because they feel threatened, like they're being used just for sex (which they are, mwahahaha).

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  18. Thanks to strong/open/independent women, men are not so starved any more...so we are just a bit more choosy...with whom, when, where, why :)

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  19. i dunno... men still coming on very very strong and i wish they would hang back a bit! maybe it differs from woman to woman and you're the marriage material types.. or the men i date, in particular, have no self-control over their libido!

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  20. You are forgetting one thing - men get bored with a woman after having sex with her a few times. And then the only agenda is to get rid of her and move on. And the best way to get rid of a woman is to act emotional and clingy.

    Secondly, if you see this happening quite often you have to introspect. If you are a very attractive woman then definitely it is puzzling - maybe you are really making men emotional. If you are fat then it just means that those men dont just get the hots for you and are politely hinting you - exactly like when women say "lets be friends first".

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  21. this post ainnt turned out very good for your ego has it?

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  22. If you writing was half as deep as your vagina, this page might be worth a second visit.

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  23. I say in this day and age all bets are off...we all know the power of the forbidden fruit, eve n adam learnt quickly and yes its stuck in our collective unconscious...so why shouldn't they take that away from us women as well...
    I say give this to them...
    and I can't wait till they start child bearing...

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  24. ummm...calmness reduces appetite?!

    I never heard of that one! Must be new research ..... on hippos perhaps!

    What does reduce a great deal of appetite is lack of creativity ... its not a ritual you know!

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  25. ha ha....nice one....spot on....i think all that's happening is that the ( *puts on boring hat* ) compulsion to conform to certain norms of behaviour for the genders is disappearing...as a result of which you are actually getting to see what people are like...or want to be like...it's a good thing...more fun, more games, more unpredictability...

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  26. Sing ka toe pata nahin but you certainly put the sin in single lil eM

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  27. what's with the horrible judgementy and also anonymous comments here??? deep writing indeed. I suppose all you want to read is soulful poetry about how pure and petal-fresh women are?
    gand mara lo sab ke sab..

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  28. these people are not judgmenty...they're jealous....adds to the fun... eM, don't ever turn off anonymous commenting....

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  29. Quote Unquote Ms.Bradshaw...

    "Men are just Women with Balls"!!

    ...And I so well agree

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  30. I see you are a "Gray's Anatomy" fan as well.....

    Hmm.. no but seriously, WHERE are these men with feelings you talk about??

    I would like to have some of them as friends...seriously!!

    I dont meet those type at all, I seem to run into the testosterone tarzans or the normal males....

    Maybe its not about sex in general....maybe its just... you get my drift?

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  31. men are getting a lot more emotional these days..it all began with the metrosexual movement (dont know if was actually called that!) some yrs back..but i DONT agree that women are the ones doing the chasing, as far as i've observed...till i meet someone who can prove me wrong, i will stick to this theory..bring it on!!

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  32. u should meet happyassociate.blogspot.com and marry him. would suit him perfectly.

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  33. Dear Compulsive Confessor
    There is a story in a Malayalam Weekly, Kalakaumudi, Issue 1677,10/28/07 that you are the daughter of Sri N S Madhavan, a highly regarded Malayalam writer.
    He has written world class stories.
    So I expected a much higher standard in your writing and I must say that I was disappointed.
    Keep on writing, you might improve.
    You should be reading James Joyce and not Dan Brown.- Prasad Jacob

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  34. Oh.. now the mallu gang is out to get you it seems. WTF.

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  35. May be you are not choosing the right men. You see we ( takeing all living species into account ) all have emotions. And it differs from person to person. You got to be more selective i gusse.

    I was reading myindiareport.com and drifted here, read your post and saw lots of people have left comments. I expected the guys would go all out and send you invitations but I din't find that ( you see most of my female friends do complain of guys leaving msg in the networking site).Most of the guys here seem to really well behaved or may be pretending to be so. So if you fall for people who pretend, I am sure u end up disappointed. You got to put across to people as to what you expect from them.

    "Please ignore the speling mistakes".

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  36. The Compulsive ConfessorTotally agree with your closing epiphany. The best way for a man to keep a woman interested is to say that HE'S not.actually my guess would be (and this is just speculation!), the roles are being reversed because of the explosion of culture... men are being told they dont have to live the 'boys dont cry' lifestyle anymore and women have always tried to tell their men (dont deny it!) to express themselves and talk about their feelings and all that jazz..

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  37. FUCK!! We men can't win. If we're constantly horny, we're demonized for being a bunch of mindless chauvanistic pigs with nothing but sex on our minds. So then, we're accused of oppressing women by objectifying them as sex dolls and cock sockets.

    BUT THEN, when we men become all soft and sensitive about sex and start getting all romantic and all that shit, you very same bitches tear us down for being a bunch of faggots - and then you very same girls accuse of trying to oppress you by depriving you of sex! Un-freaking-believable!

    We become the monsters no matter what the hell we do because women have rigged this stupid game so that we lose no matter what move we make.

    We're fucked no matter what decision we make or how we feel because you ladies always become the poor VICTIM no matter what the hell we do or say!

    The feminist movement has brainwashed men for the past 30 years that being a masculine is evil and bad and unpure and OPPRESSIVE. So why the hell are you so shocked and surprised when some males end up effeminate as a result? You want someone to rage at, save it for the likes of Gloria Steinham and her feminazi sisters. They're the ones who started all this shit!!

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  38. DateDaily also has an article that asks the same question: Are Men The New Women? http://datedaily.com/dating/for-him-only/12a-are-men-new-women/

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