The Virginity Project

The Love Parade...

Angst, hope, fear and joy. You can always rely on good old virginity loss to deliver such a jaw juddering compilation of human emotion. Wars may be won and dictatorships may fall, but taking the giant leap into adulthood will always be scary - guaranteed. Out here in the rest of the world, however, there is no such luck. Sands are shifting, gender is bending and ordinary people everywhere are still trying to work out what it is we should be doing.

The tension replicates itself everytime a helpful gent opens a door for me. For a split second the fear is palpable as his eyes lock on mine, his arm starts to shake and....he panics. 'Shit! I've just made the most terrible mistake. I forgot. Women open their own doors now. OMG! She looks murderous.......aarrrRRRRRGGGGGHHHH'. Sound of heels being turned, swiftly followed by door slamming in face.

Just for the record, I have no issue with door opening. But I do get the dilemma. There's a whole load of argy-bargy going on out here as we dance the strange dance of trying to work out where we all stand. It used to be so simple. Not any more. In the words of a young woman I interviewed recently, 'we’re just going mental, aren’t we? We’re taking over.’

We are. Oh look. We have.

There are details to work out its true, but on the whole, most of us are leading lives that our grandmothers wouldn’t recognize. But where does that leave the male of the species? Confused is what. Birth control got the ball rolling, and it pretty much hasn’t stopped since. We earn money, we rule roosts and we generally dance to the beat of our own drums. Literally. Ever heard of DIY? The two boys walking behind me in Cavendish square the other night certainly had. Let me refresh your memory:

Posh boy one: (Talking about mutual female work colleague), ‘Don’t you think she’s just really blaaddy hot? I do, but she obviously masturbates wayyyyyyy too much!’

Posh boy two: ‘Yah, she's just not having the cock is she? She’d much rather go home and masturbate. But she’s still blaaady hot!!’

What? I wanted to know, was all that about?

Well, boys and girls, I think I might have figured it out. Beneath the joviality of two happy ‘hoorays’ out for a jocular night of ‘penis jousting’ - their words, not mine, I believe we may have arrived slap bang at the centre of a very sore spot.

Men are petrified that they are surplus to requirements. Think about it. All the signs are there. Women do not require the presence of a man any more than they need another area of their body that requires hair removal. We are self-sufficient. Heck, we don’t even need men for pleasure any more. ‘Female’ and ‘masturbation’ were two words that didn’t often appear together until relatively recently, at least in public. But they do now and there’s no turning back. Women have found their power, and they’re not afraid to use it.

And how about babies? Worried about replication? Don’t!! Our new found earning power can buy us all the sperm we need - bringing with it a whole new meaning to the words ‘grow your own’. Just imagine. No fuss, no muss and no more pesky ‘relationships’ to navigate. Babies bred without the addition of an actual man. There is it. Fear with a very real basis. Welcome to our brave new world.

Or not. Men are so much dimmer than I thought.

It’s never, ever going to happen - and I’ll tell you why. Never in a month of Sundays will we fall out of love....with love. We live for it, we breathe for it and our lives depend on it. There is not a cat in hells chance that women will ever get bored of men. Hello? Hormones!! The urge to build a nest and sit in it will never cease. We have been hardwired this way since the dawn of time.

Men might become house-husbands and women will likely take over the world, but partnership will always be the name of the game no matter how many girls find new ways to ‘entertain’ themselves whilst the likes of you lot get your acts together. Although I suspect that in the case of our two lovable toffs, the line that launched a thousand books might be more appropriate: ‘he’s just not that into you’. Stick an ‘S’ on the front of that quote dears, and we might be scratching the surface of truth.

Whatever. Some things will never go out of fashion and love, my friend, is one of them. Worry not gentlemen. The future is not orange. It is red, it is heart shaped and it’s rhythmic beat is coming to a town near you – soon!!!

overheardlastnight.com

A quick ‘wave’ from sabbatical land as I report fresh from the front line of the gender divide. Two young ‘chaps’ blew the whole thing wide open last night as I skipped through London’s Grosvenor Square. Unwittingly so. They didn’t know I was listening - at first.

Toff One: (Talking about mutual work colleague), Don’t you think she’s just really bloody hot? I do, but she obviously masturbates wayyyyyyyyy too much!

Toff Two: Yah, she's just not having the cock is she? She’d much rather go home and masturbate. But she’s still blooooody hot!!

Me: (In front, shoulders moving silently up and down as trying to stifle laugh)

Toff One: (Whispering), I think that person just heard what we were saying.

I did, but I'm not sure I understand what I heard.

Answers on a postcard, but preferably an email to The Virginity Project.

Puuurlease put me out of my misery! (Whilst I go and do the obvious).

I love my coat of many colours...

Following a friend’s recommendation for naked work, I spent the bulk of the past ten days in the buff. I can thoroughly recommend it. I have just experienced the best week’s work I have ever done. Inspiration, alongside a fair volume of sweat, sorry, perspiration, has fairly oozed from every pore. Alone, I would like to add. Not in the office. That would be wrong.

Though I suspect it is precisely because I don’t live here that I like it so much, a journey from the smoke to the sticks inspired me. I was house sitting in Twickenham and none but a squirrel and a bunch of birds were privy to my naked secret. Twickenham is a glorious place to be in the summer. There are bikes to be ridden,

drinks to be drunk

and scenery to be seen.

Late last week, I gave in to the pull of the river as the sun hit the highpoint of its day. The town centre was in slow motion as I grabbed an overpriced ice/mango combination from Café Nero, (my latest obsession), and moved towards a bench and the cool green breeze of the Thames.

Three fat pigeons entertained me. There are no skinny pigeons here in Twickenham; there is bread aplenty for everyone. The two larger birds conga’d as fast as their little feet would carry them behind the smaller one, which I took to be a girl. You could just tell that the other two were boys, tongues hanging out, dazed expressions on faces, trousers hanging half down, ok, ok, the sun had gone to my head, but you know what I mean.

A book that has kept me quiet lately sprung to mind. The Penguin Atlas of Human Sexual Behaviour. This nugget hopped off the page.

‘Males must compete to impregnate, while all fertile females are virtually assured of finding a mate. This is why males are mostly larger and, in animal species, more colourful’.

Larger? Maybe, colourful, I don’t think so. Perhaps in the pigeon world there are varying degrees of grey sumptuousness, some shades of which are impossible to resist. Whatever. My mind was already humming with the scorching realization that if nature decrees we ‘birds’ are guaranteed a mate, why on earth do we spend so much time trying to nice ourselves up? What evolutionary cock up has occurred when women are waxing, waning and botoxing their way to acceptability?

Where did we all go wrong? Why hasn’t anyone been informed?

Do the Elle’s, the Vogues, and the Glamour’s of this world not realize that the primping, the preening, the airbrushing and the re-touching, all the effort and the work that goes into making us look like superhuman, smooth, non cellulite ridden, hairless creatures, is all a waste of time?

And the ten year old I encountered in the mixed, (now there’s a rubbish idea), changing rooms at Richmond Swimming Pool a while back? I’d had the temerity to let my underarm hair grow for more than ten minutes, ‘Oi. Love. Shave your armpits won’t you?’ He yelled as he brushed past me in the showers. Now he clearly did not realize, that on the contrary, it was he, not I who needed to be paying more attention to his personal appearance. On a partner scoring scale, that attitude won’t be getting him very far when he’s the fattest pigeon on the block with no hope of finding a girlfriend.

It’s a topsy-turvy old world. At some point, something flipped over its evolutionary axis and dictated, that colour or no colour, the female of the species would fluff feathers, plump plumage and show out in the hope of attracting a mate. Furthermore, at another point, we all bought into it. The second wave of feminism tried to right this wrong when they got involved in bra burning, but it was too late.

‘You’re so good at being a girl’, my friend Katherine once said to me. I was painting my toenails fuscia pink at the time. She’s right, I am. There are few moments I enjoy having to myself more than the ones I spend painting my toenails a pointless shade of pink. It makes me feel good, but sometimes it ticks me off that I find it necessary.

We all collude in this ideal of feminine beauty, but on reflection, I don’t care. I paint my toenails to make me happy and besides, the worm has begun to turn. According to market researchers TNS, British men spent a whopping 569m on deodorants, skincare and other toiletries in the last year. And check out the concealors on this.

Menaji, a new website designed exclusively for male grooming products has adopted the following slogan: ‘Look good = feel good = confidence = success’. Men, it seems, have finally decided they are worth it.

As I sat and wondered how many bird related clichés I could fit into a single sentence, the avian world seemed blissfully unaware of this cat amongst the pigeons. Business had resumed as normal. The birds were still chasing the bees.

Have your cake and eat it...

Ho hum. A slow afternoon in Ad-land reduced me to reading this weeks issue of Campaign. I am glad I did. 'The Gender Divide'. A cursory glance across the cover revealed this, a three page missive on advertising and gender politics that neatly ricochets us back to an interesting subject. On June the 30th, I responded to the cries of some of my virginal male correspondents. The general gripe was summed up by the following paragraph:

'This is the hard, indecipherable bit that even we women don't understand. Women can have sex upside down, standing on their heads whilst road-testing a rabbit and plotting their next career move...but we still want a man to be a man. How much of a man remains a mystery. Should you be macho, strong, confident and assured? Or a great cook, a good listener, a shoulder to cry on? Swing too far in one direction and we don't like you. Too full of yourself, so arrogant, get with the twenty first century Warren Beatty! Stray too close to the shores of metrosexuality and we'll have you down as 'the little brother I never had. AKA, the men we love to talk to but wouldn't deem worthy of a shag in a month of Sundays'.

That seemed to touch a nerve, alongside the realisation that this gender related dilemma is a universal theme. It ain't just the virgins that are confused. Perplexity blows through the corridors of politics; it is dissected by media think tanks. It is chewed up and spat out on in the form of advertising, and its coming to a television, radio or computer screen near you! Gender is a nebulous issue. Don't expect it to solidify anytime soon.

My regular religious correspondent drove the point home. "This paragraph applies to husbands, as well as young men trying to find a woman. As a real time computing software engineer with an MBA, I'm not being arrogant when I say I ought to be able to work things out, but I'm almost as confused as ever about the role of men. In some respects I'm more female than the four females in my family, less aggressive, more intuitive, more of a peace maker, lover of cooking good healthy food etc. Should I conform to male stereotypes, (probably not), or keep on discovering my female side?"

Politics provides the perfect mirror. Wending my way through Salon.com produced this little gem. Check out Barak Obama and Hilary Clinton, America's two leading choices for democratic presidency. Salon.com picks up the story as they go on the trail for votes.

'Obama warms up his audience with The Indigo Girls. They play "Hammer and a Nail," a 1990 declaration of female empowerment and emancipation. "You've got to tend the earth," the Girls sing, "if you want a rose." Then Obama comes out, looking lithe and dashing, with his 6-year-old daughter, Sasha, in his arms. The soundtrack starts to make sense. "I'm a sucker for girls," says the man who wants to be president. "There is nothing more difficult than me being on the phone hearing about their soccer game, hearing about what happened to them in school and knowing that I am not there in the evenings to share a lot of their life." He turns to his wife, Michelle, who is sitting nearby on a stool. "She is smarter," he says. "She is tougher."

In contrast, Hillary Clinton has run her campaign with all the muscular vision and authority of the macho candidates of yesteryear. On the stump, Clinton repeatedly tells people that they should let her take control of the country, eschewing Obama's more abstract calls for national soul-searching. "If you are ready for change, I am ready to lead," she says. "I want to be the president who sets goals again."

Obama is, 'the warm candidate, self-deprecating, soft, tender, sad eyes, great smile. Clinton is the 'male candidate - in your face, authoritative, know-it-all.'

Ironically, herein lays the rub for female voters.

"I am really impressed with his ability to articulate issues and just his sheer graciousness," says Julie Hansen, a local librarian who was waiting to meet the candidate. "He'll try to put people at ease. He has a grace. He has a warmth."

Nonetheless, she remains on the fence, torn between the two front-runners. She says she liked the mastery of issues and authority that Hillary Clinton has demonstrated in the debates. Plus there is the history-making potential. "She is a woman," Hansen adds. "And I want to support that."

In a few words, this Iowa voter had epitomized the struggle now playing out between the top two Democrats nationally. They are fighting for undecided female voters who are attracted by Obama's feminine appeal, but still drawn to the macho performance of the only woman to ever have a real shot at the Oval Office.'

Stick that in your pipe and smoke it.

Where to from here?

In my case, back to the latest issue of Campaign. Or Cam-PAIN, as we liked to call it at my last job. Times have changed and advertising has played a game of catch up. According to journalist Pippa Considine, 'the battle of the sexes is over. Men and women are more relaxed than ever about their gender identities and marketers aren't afraid to treat men like men and women like women'. Interesting. I'm not sure I agree with that, but one thing is clear. As men and women stake their claim over great swathes of new territory, the world of advertising is puffing hard to keep up.

Considine points out Lynx, who have 'reinvented the star of its ads to make him more of an accidental hero, chiming with the mood of indecision prevalent among men in the 21st century'. Roll over macho, welcome metrosexual. Nike grabs the baton with it's 'man boobs' ad, where a cynical male jogger is running to get rid of his flab. 'Its Dove for men, says Guy Murphy, JWT global planning director and a man who argues that men and women are increasingly interested in the characteristics of independence and integrity, which some advertisers are brave enough to reflect'. Again, with the Dove.

Considine shores up the economic incentive for advertisers to get with the programme. A report from The Economist earlier this year suggested that women in the west are responsible for almost 80 per cent of purchasing decisions. We're not just talking about washing machines and powder here. We are talking family cars. What was that crashing sound? Ah yes, the last bastion of male dominated decision making has just crashed and burned. Alongside, it would seem, its advertising.

Skoda are right on the money with a Fabia, and a fabulous, car/cake combination advertisement. You know the one. The nice men in white coats construct a life size motor out of icing, cake, Smarties and Golden syrup. Beautiful. I like cars and I like cake. So does my mum and my step dad. This truly is gender busting advertising for the twenty-first century. I've enjoyed my little afternoon rant, now, pass me a piece of sodding cake.