19 Comments
User's avatar
Martin Mc Carthy's avatar

Tommy, I’m truly amazed that you’ve actually been studying what women think of men and found out that one fairly astute woman said that they can be useful sometimes when they get their shit together. I can see some truth in that, and I’m still laughing. Enjoyable, as always!

Tommy Swerdlow's avatar

I'm gonna get mine together one day Martin.

Lee Doyle's avatar

Kicking ass, Tommy. I can’t help thinking if we stopped making other humans our gods/goddesses men and women might have an f-ing chance at a true connection, in the messy mystery.

Tommy Swerdlow's avatar

It is a messy mysterious matinee. I couldn't think of another word that started with M. But a true connection is messy and if you don't like getting your hands dirty you're going to have a problem. And yeah, keeping our partners mortal (and not our mothers and fathers) helps.

Carl Richard's avatar

Good analysis of our time. Still don't understand men selling their daughters to traffickers. That is psychotic. Or a leader of young men bragging about being a john of trafficked. I stop trying to understand. It's brain damaging. ...and we wonder why Alzheimer's decease is on the rise,

stacey's avatar

Fantastic. Thank you.

Tommy Swerdlow's avatar

You're welcome Stacey

Nicholas Morton's avatar

maybe men and women are both

just dumb monkeys. i don’t know how you can read joseph campbell. im exhausted by those two paragraphs alone!

Tommy Swerdlow's avatar

I think it was one paragraph.

Ralph Gardner's avatar

It's a case of men learning (all of us, women too) learning to becoming deeply vulnerable in healthy ways which enables in becoming stronger and more loving as human beings. Learning to become more acceptable of differences between self and other, embracing diversity is also the business of learning to ask more insightful questions. This is the pathway Einstein chose as to how he learned to better answer questions that greatly expanded his understanding and therefore, his expansion and depth of knowledge. Connection is everything with vulnerability; being OK with not knowing or simply being wrong on so many topics. Learning to making 'not' knowing, an 'ok' thing.

Paul's avatar

Except for a few nice accomplishments men are the scourge of the earth. The real domestic terrorists. Think every major fucked up incidents all around the globe and throughout history are a result of men and their dicks (money, ego, drugs, guns, rapes etc.etc.) Without us us what would happen to 'Mankind'? The ladies would probably do just fine.

Eleanor Anstruther's avatar

I love dude energy, and love to have it in my life. But I am sick to the back teeth of men putting it all on us to tell them what we want, and then blaming us when the answers are confusing. My girlfriends and I always land on the same point. We wish men would grow up, take responsibility, be accountable and stop complaining. Be nice and figure it out and stop needing us to approve of you all the time. Here ends The Eleanor Sermon (this sermon has another version that goes on for at least an hour).

Renee Missel's avatar

These women sound terribly entitled, angry and fucked up.

That is not what Friedan and Steinem were aiming for.

Your last paragraph captures what is needed better than Campbell’s. Campbell was a fascist by the way. I never saw him as sexist. He filled a need after women’s lib ascension .

Tommy Swerdlow's avatar

My mother said he was a fascist too. I still like that book. I like Celine too. But I'm glad you like the last paragraph. As you said to me over French food. Intimacy is a talent. That's the truth.

Tommy Swerdlow's avatar

And I agree with you about the angry, entitled and fucked up. Entitled especially,

Renee Missel's avatar

To be honest, i am tired of women who objectify men because they feel that men objectified them for years.

roytwilliams's avatar

Tommy, each to his or her (or their) own. Theres' a lot of commonality, but there's also a lot of 'snow blindness' ( if you get my drift - sorry, I'll stop the lame puns), around too. Why should any relationship have anything in 'common' with any other? Let 1,000 flowers (etc) bloom, no?

Enough. Gardens are full of 1,000,000 beautiful flowers. You can't 'have' them all. You'd be fucking 24/7, for life/s. What a 'sentence.' (Chill, dudes - of any number of genders ... da capo ..