You know, I have heard, just one too many times, how I need to “get in touch with my female side.” Happened one day when a discussion of metrosexuals came up. Pressed for my take, I opined that becoming a girly-man was near the bottom of my list of things to do in my life, barely above “Being Viciously Sodomized by a Convicted Serial Killer.”

There was a moment of shocked silence, and then a barrage of the usual accusatory questions. No, I don’t have more than one type of Shampoo, ma’am, just Denorex. One type of soap, thank you very much. No, I don’t even own a blow dryer. Do I have a nail file? Nail files are for sissies. Hell, half the time I use Listerine for after-shave.

Towards the end of the inquisition, some hag looked at me, and in that smug, snotty, and superior tone of voice women use (And guys, ya’ll know EXACTLY which one I mean) sneered, “Pete, you just need to get in touch with your inner woman.”

I look at her a moment, and then said, “You know, if I even suspected I had an inner woman, I’d go straight to a priest for a goddam exorcism.” Let me tell you, you could have heard a pin drop. Had I stood up and crapped on the table, I could not have received a more stunned moment of quiet. As I left, the jaw-dropping looks I received were heart-warming. Dare to get in the face of political correctness, and flip it the bird, and most people don’t know how to react.

Of all the suggestions in the world, this is one that goes in the list of "Top Ten Things That Make Pete Want to Vomit." It's a coin toss to see if "Drinking My Own Urine" beats it out. Suggest, if you will, than some woman get in touch with her “Inner Man” and see for yourself if you don’t get some snide comment about being an inconsiderate slob in return. This is just yet one more intrusion of the “woman good, man bad” mentality that has poisoned this society. Let me, however, say that having an “Inner Woman” would be like being host to an alien parasite, and I’m a misogynist.

To be truly egalitarian, any woman who says they have a male side would be wise to not hold their breath in anticipation of my shoes resting under their bed o' nights. If I wanted to sleep with a man, I'd become gay. Masculine women, and feminine men, in my book, are some of the truly most useless things on the planet, and I think anytime one of them dies, and ceases to use up valuable oxygen, that their death should be recorded under "Public Improvements."

Come on. Why in hell would I want to get in touch "with a feminine side" and be like a woman? How about you be more like a man, honey? Learn to check if the toilet seat is up or down before you try to use it – or is that too mechanical? Instead of the oft’ bragged “multitasking” how about exercising a little concentration and focus to execute a task excellently and right the first time? Maybe you could decide how you feel about something before you go around bending the ear of everyone in sight to get validation and approval, hmm?

Feminine side my tuchis. I’ll be willing to bet some feminist schnauzer or one of their fem-boy fembots is going to write me a nastygram about how I “need” to stop using such intemperate phrases as the paragraph above. Here’s a clue, cheeseball, before you even click that link: I’ve heard ten times as bad coming out of any given gaggle of hens, and I can walk into any Hallmark shop in the country and find such blatant misandry that if someone were to put out the same garbage except for replacing “man” with “black” they’d be up on charges for hate-speech. I am temperate compared to that crap.

This whole androgyny thing is vile, know what I mean? It's like we're striving to make everyone a hermaphrodite or something. Or at least everything male. A big part of it, to be sure, reflects "Politically Correct Thinking." Politically correct thinking (Hey, I may have to issue a glossary some day!) is that which is demonstrably false through empiric demonstration, but since it serves someone's political agenda it is allowed to be uttered, forced to be accepted, and questioning or examining it is the social equivalent of heresy. It’s politically correct dogma that, except for a few external characteristics, men and women are equivalent, and fungible.

Even writing that made my eyes roll so far back my head hurts now. Any schmuck with an ounce of reason can see that men and women are not alike, that they are physically and psychologically dimorphic. Ever seen that movie (And it doesn’t matter, the damn scene has been used so much it oughta be stock footage by now) where the woman shoots the intruder, and steps back, her hand going over her mouth, to stifle a sob? The gun drops from her nerveless fingers as she runs weeping for the phone (to call a man, no doubt) for help, then … well, then said intruder wasn’t dead so he has to be killed again.

Know why this scene is never done with a man? It’s because about the time the woman drops the gun and dashes for the phone, a man in that position would be slamming his second clip into place. The times I have seen this and muttered, “No, you dumb bitch, at least put a second round into the rat bastard!” is legion. We don’t have a scene like this with a man because it would be unbelievable (Well, maybe if we put some left-wing Nancy-boy in there). And we don’t have the woman putting a few more bullets in to make sure they guy is dead because it is equally unbelievable. Why is it unbelievable? Because, my dear Watson, men and women are different.

And there’s not a damn thing wrong with that at all. I’ve been saying for years that the Men’s Movement has to take step one, namely, defining masculinity for ourselves. Go ahead and love your wives, your girlfriends, your daughters, mothers, and sisters; the fact remains that not a blessed one of them knows diddley or squat about being a man. Why the hell we allow any woman to complete a sentence that begins with “If you were a real man…” Bugger off, sister. I don’t work your side of the street, so stay off of mine. You don’t know jack about being a real man. And I have zero interest in defining “real womanhood.” It’s not my job to manage someone else’s life, and make it work for them.

I don’t want a masculine woman. And time and again it has been shown that despite the coming and going fads for sissies (SNAGs, Metrosexuals, et al) trumpeted in rags like Cosmo, when all is said and done women prefer unfeminized men. We have no problem with women who express distaste for masculine characteristics. And it is well and proper that they reject them, as most women would make ridiculous men. Somehow, though, to reject a “feminine side” is shocking when expressed by a man.

Give me a friggin' break, will ya?

The only possible use I could see for a feminine side would be if it sported it's own set of hooters. Hell, I might never leave the house then. Inner woman? I'll pass, in a big way. If you want one, be my guest. Don’t be surprised, though, if I greet you with garlic and a crucifix.

Pete Jensen