Intimacy and Androgyny

Last week at young adults, we were discussing the topic of intimacy between men and women. To a large degree, the conversation devolved into women asking men to be more like women: to enjoy talking on the phone for hours at a time, sharing feelings, etc; and men asking women to be more like men: to enjoy watching sports for hours at a time, to love playing Halo, etc. That is to say, many were of the opinion, implicitly, that intimacy between men and women would be more fluid if they were both androgynous, which is to say, both male and female, or, effectively, neither male nor female. That’s a losing proposition to begin with, and besides, where would be the fun in that?

Pardon, my optimism, but I am of the general option that we should focus on each other’s strengths, rather than seek to rectify each other’s shortcomings. Thus, for instance, rather than say that men are emotionally shallow, perhaps we would be better served to consider them as being emotionally resolute. Conversely, rather that state that women are prone to bouts of fancy, perhaps we would be better served to consider them as having a great degree of emotional flexibility. This is not a mere rhetorical ploy, but it has its utility, as well. For instance, imagine that one was befallen by some measure of tragedy and needed to talk about it. If one wanted the listener to be relatively unaffected by the news, to be a pillar of strength against which to lean, for instance, one might seek a male ear. If one wanted the listener to empathize and cry with them, to serve as a measure of consolation, one might seek a female ear. Thus, rather than asking all of humanity to grow more androgynous, individuals would be better served by recognizing the strengths and weaknesses belonging to each gender and learning where and when such strengths would be best utilized.

Of course, any psychologist or sociologist will tell you that there is far greater within group variability than between group variability. Hence, the degree of difference between all men and all women tends to be less than the difference between any two randomly selected individuals of the same gender. That is, individual differences are too nuanced to be accurately reflected in the average differences between two large groups such as men and women (or any such crude grouping, really). Averages are blunt instruments. Accordingly, stereotyping in the manner above is not a substitute for getting to know people on an individual basis. There is no replacing that. However, understanding group tendencies is a quick and dirty place to start. Of course, before we can being to utilize the strengths of each gender, we must come to understand what strengths each gender brings to the table, or, more broadly, we must begin to understand the way in which our other halves come to view the world.

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I made a mix CD for a girl friend the other day. She liked the mix, but pointed out that, like most mixes made by guys, the playlist was dominated by male voices. Of the 18 songs on this particular mix, there were only 3 songs by female artists. True enough, my music catalog is almost entirely male. Of the 9.4 days of music that makes up my itunes collection, there are only 11 female artists represented.

She is working on rectifying the problem by making a mix for me made up exclusively of female artists. It will appropriately be named “Estrogen,” and will surely help me gain perspective on my better half.

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More to that end, I decided to buy a book of poetry written by a female to see if it was all that different than all of the books of poetry written by males which I have consumed over the years. I picked a collection entitled “Strike Sparks” by Sharon Olds, whom I encountered on The Writer’s Almanac with Garrison Keilor. I opened the front cover and found myself knee deep in issues that were decidedly feminine in nature.

The first poem was about spousal abuse. The second poem was about growing up with a sexually abusive father. A little further in, there was a poem about what it’s like to have a miscarriage. There was a poem about what it feels like for a mother to envy the youth of her daughter, and another that recorded the burgeoning of a female orgasm, while another documented what it feels like to fall in love with a man. I realized that many of the issues dealt with in the book were things that I could never experience first hand simply by virtue of the fact that I am male. Even if I was immediately present to the event – say a woman was falling in love with me – my experience of the event would be markedly different than hers. Indeed, my perspective is the mirrored image. My knowledge about her experience is limited to how able a given woman can articulate her side of the story to me.

The most remarkable poem for me to read was one entitled “New Mother” about what it’s like for a woman to make love for the first time after having a baby. To begin, it was a great poem, if a bit racy. But it was eye opening, because I never once stopped to consider what that would be like. The beginning of the poem documents the new mother’s fear and uncertainty, which are each allayed by the new father’s patience and tenderness.

All of you so tender, you hung over me,
over the nest of stitches, over the
splitting and tearing, with the patience of someone who
finds a wounded animal in the woods
and stays with it, not leaving its side
until it is whole, until it can run again.


I also liked the title poem, “I Go Back to May 1937,” from the perspective of an abused child that goes back in time to the day of her parents wedding. Initially, she wants to stop the wedding, having knowledge of all of the hurt that is owed to it. But then, defiantly, she assents to the marriage, choosing instead to live, to endure the suffering, and to write about it.

I Go Back to May 1937

I see them standing at the formal gates of their colleges,
I see my father strolling out
under the ochre sandstone arch, the
red tiles glinting like bent
plates of blood behind his head, I
see my mother with a few light books at her hip
standing at the pillar make of tiny bricks with the
wrought-iron gate still open behind her, its
sword-tips back in the May air,
they are about to graduate, they are about to get married,
they are kids, they are dumb, all they know is they are
innocent, they would never hurt anybody.
I want to go up to them and say Stop,
don't do it - she's the wrong woman,
he's the wrong man, you are going to do things
you cannot imagine you would ever do,
you are going to do bad things to children,
you are going to suffer in ways you never heard of,
you are going to die. I want to go
up to them there in the at May sunlight and say it,
her hungry pretty blank face turning to me,
her pitiful beautiful untouched body,
his arrogant handsome blind face turning to me,
his pitiful beautiful untouched body,
but I don't do it. I want to live. I
take them up like male and female
paper dolls and bang then together
at the hips like chips of flint as if to
strike sparks from them, I say
Do what you are going to do, and I will tell about it.

Chew on that one. Tomorrow morning, I get my hands on the "Estrogen" mix CD and I expect it will be equally eye opening. Stay tuned.