One of my writing pet peeves - I have something like 785 of ‘em - is the failure of some romance writers to have men sound like men in their stories.  I’m never sure how this happens.  I mean, these writers do know men, have heard them speak to each other, right?  Well, to try to address this problem in my own work, in addition to listening to my hubby, brothers and numerous male friends and co-workers ramble on about every inane thing under the sun, I check out men’s magazines.  Or, magazines that purport to be for men but read more like women’s magazines with photos of near-naked women throughout (see: CARGO). 

The newest selection was the May 2005 GQ.  In addition to all of the other interesting ads and articles in there, including a STAR WARS feature, Walter Kirn has a funny article called, The Secret Lives Of Men.  Having said that, I’m hoping this piece doesn’t define any guy I know, any guy I’m married to or any guy I’d write as my hero.  But, it’s still funny.  In describing the difference between men and women regarding honesty, he says:

Women bend the truth, too, of course, but not like we do.  We break truth in half, then into quarters, and then feed it through a wood chipper to prevent the DA from gathering evidence for the trial that always seems to come.  Women fudge, but men construct whole chocolate factories.  When a wife tells her husband that a new sweater cost around $200, it probably means that the garment cost $299, excluding sales tax.  When a husband tells his wife that a new sweater cost $200, it means that the sweater cost exactly that, but he leaves out the fact the his girlfriend in Sacramento bought it for him as a birthday present in gratitude for the new Saab he bought her.

His theory?  Men learn this behavior as boys when they are trying to hide their sexual experiments (yeah, I mean jacking off) from their mothers.  He describes his first experience with this at age 12:

I remember the day it happened to me: a winter afternoon in Minnesota, my windowpanes frosted with vapor from the humidifier that had been plugged in to treat a flu bug I hadn’t actually contracted but had faked enough symptoms of, including vomiting, so that I could skip school and be alone with my shoplifted Penthouse magazine and borrowed jar of Oil of Olay.

He then goes on to talk about fantasies involving the chicks from Gilligan’s Island (minus Mrs. Howell), including where he made them strip and get on their knees, but then had no idea what to do with them next.

So….too much male realism?

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