Tracy McMillan – Why You’re Not Married…Part 2.

So…Tracy – after the third marriage…
Should the bride wear black?

Last year an opinion piece directed towards women by Tracy McMillan caused the Internet Message Boards to light up. Tracy has published a follow on piece n HuffPo – which I am sure is going to cause as much controversy. With only 42% of black women who will ever marry, and the statistics of even divorced black women not looking too good – its probably time to start delving a little deeper into he issue than metro-sexual black men, or all the good men are locked up in Prison. Black women, by and large do the same things as their white counterparts. Reminds me of a conversation with a Jewish woman I dated, when on the first date she volunteered “So you a tired of the black women who are b*tches, and the white ones who are crazy.”

Tracy McMillian

I reminded her about obsessive, too smart Jewish women…

Tracy’s first foray through the minefield is here, and includes the first “6 Reasons” -

1. You’re a B*tch.
Here’s what I mean by b*tch. I mean you’re angry. You probably don’t think you’re angry. You think you’re super smart, or if you’ve been to a lot of therapy, that you’re setting boundaries. But the truth is you’re pissed. At your mom. At the military-industrial complex. At Sarah Palin. And it’s scaring men off.

The deal is: most men just want to marry someone who is nice to them. I am the mother of a 13-year-old boy, which is like living with the single-cell protozoa version of a husband. Here’s what my son wants out of life: macaroni and cheese, a video game, and Kim Kardashian. Have you ever seen Kim Kardashian angry? I didn’t think so. You’ve seen Kim Kardashian smile, wiggle, and make a sex tape. Female anger terrifies men.

Single Guy view – No sane guy out of his teens wants to marry a “b*tch”, “Diva”, or “Queen”. Once those hormones subside a bit about 30, he figures out that while a Diva may be a great “f*ck buddy”, the continued flak of waking up with her for the next 20 years just isn’t worth it.

2. You’re Shallow.
When it comes to choosing a husband, only one thing really, truly matters: character. So it stands to reason that a man’s character should be at the top of the list of things you are looking for, right? But if you’re not married, I already know it isn’t. Because if you were looking for a man of character,you would have found one by now. Men of character are, by definition, willing to commit.

Instead, you are looking for someone tall. Or rich. Or someone who knows what an Eames chair is. Unfortunately, this is not the thinking of a wife. This is the thinking of a teenaged girl. And men of character do not want to marry teenaged girls. Because teenage girls are never happy…

Single Guy view – Go to any black dating website and look at the “want list” of the women there. Whether 4’11″ or 6′ tall they all want a guy taller than 5’9″. Since the average height of black men in America is 5’9″ that eliminates 50% of the available men from their searches. Take out married, committed, or in jail – and the number of available black guys gets astonishingly small. Go to any of the Internet dating sites, and over 30 you find a plethora of women over 5’6″ – statistically the largest group. Face it tall ladies – the short girls done stole all your men! If  you are really serious about that relationship – get used to wearing flats. Your feet will thank you when you reach 50.

Searching for Denzel. I have a couple of women business friends I’ve known for a long time who have never been married who are in their early 50′s. One is short, dumpy, and very average looking. A recurring scenario is she meets a wildly successful handsome guy, agonizes over every word he says for months – to find out he’s dating someone else, he’s gay, or has a list of psychological problems that would put a poorer person in an Asylum. She doesn’t even get to bed the guy. She went through this with a guy I know who is probably one of the top 5 most eligible guys in town, who has a successful career, has lots of status,  is wealthy, and a long family pedigree of successful ancestors – all “must haves” in her book. The problem? Every other single woman in town knows this too. If I’ve got 100 Halle Berrys knocking at my door, character be damned in terms of a sex life… I’m not looking for a date with Whoopi. What I’m looking for is a Halle..with a brain.

3. You’re a Slut.
Hooking up with some guy in a hot tub on a rooftop is fine for the ladies of Jersey Shore – but they’re not trying to get married. You are. Which means, unfortunately, that if you’re having sex outside committed relationships, you will have to stop. Why? Because past a certain age, casual sex is like recreational heroin — it doesn’t stay recreational for long.

“Never Make a Pretty Woman Your Wife”…Or Apparently, a Dumb One

Wow – My first thought in reading this article was “this explains the popularity among women of those dreadful Uggs boots!”

Recall this image of Venus Williams -

Looking dumb as a beauty strategy to attract guys.

It also goes a long way to explaining conservative men walking around with tented trousers at the thought of the Sno’ Ho’ – Sarah Palin…

And the lore (and allure) of the “dumb blonde” stereotype.

Do Men Find Dumb-Looking Women More Attractive?

Ask a straight man, “How do you like your women?” and it’s unlikely he’ll answer, “Dumb and sleepy.” But according to new findings, these characteristics—and any other traits suggesting that the lady isn’t particularly alert—are precisely what the human male has evolved to look for in a one-night-stand.

In an article soon to be published in Evolution and Human Behavior, University of Texas–Austin graduate student Cari Goetz and her colleagues explored what they called the sexual exploitability hypothesis. The hypothesis is based on thedifferences between male and female reproductive strategies as humans evolved. For ancestral women, casual intercourse with an emotionally unattached man who had no clear intention of sticking around to raise any resulting offspring constituted a massive genetic gamble. By contrast, for a man with somewhere around 85 million sperm cells churned out every day—per testicle—the frivolous expenditure of gametes was far less detrimental to his genetic interests. Goetz and her team began with the assumption that—because our brains evolved long before prophylactics entered the picture—female cognition is still sensitive to the pregnancy-related consequences of uncommitted sex and women remain more reluctant than men to engage in it. They set out to test the idea that any indication that a woman’s guard is lowered—that she’s “sexually exploitable”—is a turn-on for your average man. “[T]he assessment of a woman’s immediate vulnerability,” surmise the authors, “may be central to the activation of psychological mechanisms related to sexual exploitation.”

Reminds me of an old 60′s song…

This is an inflammatory hypothesis, of course, and the language employed in the field doesn’t help matters. It’s worth noting that in the evolutionary psychology sense, the word exploitable simply means that a woman is willing or can be more easily pressured into having sex—which takes her own desires, rather disturbingly, out of the equation. Even if she’s the aggressor, a prostitute, or a certifiable nymphomaniac, having casual sex with her would still constitute “exploiting” her (or at least her body), according to this model. 

Jeremy Lin – Race Matters

Growing up in the 60′s I was pretty comfortable in my ignorance about Asian people. They were short, small folks weren’t they? During segregation black folks didn’t much socialize with Asians, as the few Asian kids that were here went to the white schools. That comfortable ignorance was shattered my freshman year of college when I went to the Penn Relays and a friend introduced me to a 7′ tall Chinese High Jumper, who educated this poor brainless twit to the fact that Asia is huge, and peopled by a lot of different folks…

With the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 eliminating racial quotas and restrictions on immigration (not to mention putting us all in the same schools in more enlightened parts of the country) – you would think folks would have learned a hell of a lot about each other by now.

I guess not in the last bastion of bigotry – Sports.

Jeremy Lin - The Kid's Got Game, Y'all

Opinion: Man to man defense

Last Friday, Jeremy Lin – the Knicks’ sensational out-of-nowhere superstar – finally sealed the deal.

Despite his record as one of the most exciting talents to come out of the Bay Area in years, leading Palo Alto High to a stunning 32-1 record in his senior prep year, he was recruited by none of the top basketball schools, finally opting to attend Harvard University after being offered a guaranteed spot on their team.

He subsequently dominated the Ivy League, and put up numbers in his senior year that should have gotten any NBA scout excited, becoming the only player in the NCAA’s Division 1 to rank in the top 10 in virtually every performance category.

And yet Lin went undrafted, finally accepting an offer of a deep backup slot on his hometown team, the Golden State Warriors – who gave him a handful of garbage minutes, shuffling him back and forth between the bench and the NBA’s development league, before finally releasing him in December.

The Houston Rockets, who’d lost center Yao Ming to retirement the previous season, briefly picked up Lin as a potential ploy to retain their substantial Asian fanbase, but dropped him a few weeks later – on Christmas Eve.

The Knicks, ravaged by injuries to all their big-name, big-ticket stars and reeling in the standings, picked him up to ensure they could field a full team on the floor. In the past week, Lin has led New York to a string of victories with a set of incredible individual and team performances.

And last Friday, after dropping 38 points on an elite Los Angeles Lakers squad, he convinced his remaining critics and doubters that they’d been wrong all along.

Most of them.

Minutes after Lin’s amazing game, with the streets of midtown still in the throes of LINsanity, Fox Sports News personality Jason Whitlock issued a flip, ostensibly satirical tweet that probably can not be reprinted in full here. Suffice it to say that it suggested that Lin would be celebrating his victory by entertaining “some lucky lady,” while also reiterating an ugly and cliché stereotype about Asian anatomy.

Why Jeremy Lin’s race matters

After heavy pressure from a range of sources, particularly the Asian American Journalists Association, on Sunday, Whitlock apologized for the joke, calling his remark “immature [and] sophomoric” and one that “debased a feel-good sports moment.”

While many people, including, apparently, Fox Sports News’s leadership, have been willing to let things go based on this act of contrition, I think Whitlock dodged addressing the larger cultural context behind his statement.

I think that’s unfortunate, especially in light of a few other recent in-the-news events.

The first is another offhand tweet by a television personality. Roland Martin, a commentator for the news channel behind this blog, CNN.

Just a week before Whitlock’s unfortunate gibe, as the Giants were headed for a shocking Super Bowl victory over the Patriots, Martin blurted a response to H&M’s sexy underwear commercial featuring David Beckham – suggesting to his followers that any men expressing enthusiasm for the ad should be slapped upside the head. The remark drew a firestorm of backlash from LGBT activists, who interpreted it as an anti-gay statement. Martin was subsequently suspended “indefinitely” from CNN appearances.

There is a connection between the two incidents, and it’s not just that they both related to prominent news figures caught out on social media. Both Whitlock and Martin are African-American men. And both were speaking from a position that illustrates a particular entrenched attitude among men of color about masculinity.

This isn’t the place to go deep into the record of how sexuality, gender and race have intersected in black, Latino and Asian American history, with tragic and sometimes horrific results. Suffice it to say that as a consequence of that history, within each of these communities, manhood – its definition, its expression and yes, the defense of it against those who would question it – plays an outsized role.

Whitlock’s joke said more about his own male insecurities, reinforced by mainstream culture’s stereotypes about black men, than it did about Lin’s anatomy.

And Martin’s joke was ultimately less of an attack on homosexuality than it was a rejection of “sissyhood”: Beckham has long been held up as an exemplar of the “metrosexual male” – the sensitive, fashion-forward guy who, gay or straight, presents an image that runs counter to the rugged and bellicose sensibility of organized team sports, particularly football.

As NFL cornerback turned sportswriter Alan Grant noted in an essay some years back for ESPN.com, “the athletic world – that realm of all things male, musky and aggressive – is the final frontier of masculinity,” which is why it’s so frequently a cesspool for, as he put it, “crude, old-fashioned, sophomoric statements about sexuality.” Like Whitlock’s. And Martin’s.

Whether they intended to or not – and even if they’re oblivious to the fact – with their comments, Whitlock and Martin injected themselves into a much larger conversation of what it means to be a “real man” in an era where manhood is constantly perceived to be “under attack.”

But maybe the particular male archetype that Whitlock, Martin and many others have held up as a benchmark is one that deserves to be under attack.

It celebrates physical parameters that few men can reach – certainly not Whitlock or Martin, or me, for that matter: Big, burly, massively muscled, inhumanly endowed. It reinforces the notion that manhood is best expressed through violence – giving women “pain,” per Whitlock, or “slapping the ish” out of someone, per Martin.

It is, quite frequently, accompanied by words and actions that are deeply misogynist or nastily homophobic, or both.

It presents manhood as the fruit of harsh treatment and abuse – as exemplified by the viral video of the so-called “Eagle Dad,” Chinese businessman He Liesheng, forcing his four-year-old son to run around Central Park in the snow in his underwear to make him more manly: “When the old eagle teaches its young, it takes the young eagles to the cliffside, beats them, and pushes them to teach them to use their wings,” explained He.

One of the things that’s most incredible about the Jeremy Lin phenomenon isn’t just that he’s had so much success, but that he’s done so without relying on or embracing the tenets of raw, rugged, roughneck notions of manhood…

Drop off the keys, Lee…And get yourself free!

Well, it appears that the increasingly popular Internet Dating has spawned a new Internet Industry…

Internet Dumping.

What was that Jhonnie Taylor line in the immortal “It’s Cheaper to Keep Her”?

“You didn’t pay but $2 to bring that little girl home. Now you gonna pay $2,000 to leave her alone!”

Cost you $50 a month to find her (him) on popular sites like eHarmony and Match…

$10 to get rid of her (him) on IDUMP4U!

Skip the pain, Jane!

Time to Break Up? Online Service Can Do the Dumping

There are few things more awkward than having the “It’s not you, it’s me” conversation. For those too nervous, chicken, or lazy to break up with their partner themselves, there’s iDUMP4U, a website that does the dirty work for you—for a mere $10. For said fee, the man behind the site, Bradley Laborman, will make the breakup call … and record it, should you want to post it on YouTube, reports Time.

He’ll even handle messier cases: Pay him $25 and he’ll call it quits on your engagement; $50 will get the wheels turning on your divorce. Though he started it as a joke in September 2009, he’s logged 200 breakups to date. And the holidays are his busy time: “Last year I had a lot of Turkey Dumps,” he says. “I also had people who didn’t want to buy a Christmas present [for their partner]. This time of year is the busiest.”

 

 

 

The Price of Male Pride

All of us guys have heard it from our significant others… “You’re Lost!”

Finally someone has put a price on that male “I know where I’m going” thing…$3,000!

Good reason to get a GPS. You KNOW you are going to hear about this from you significant other – front seat copilot!

Left...Right...Right...Where'd That road go?

Labor Day Traffic Jams: Lost Male Drivers Waste $3,000 in Gas

Men waste more than $3,000 in fuel costs because they refuse to ask for directions when lost, according to a British study released as motorists across the U.S. prepare to load up their cars for the long Labor Day weekend.

The research, commissioned by British insurance company Sheila’s Wheels, revealed that male drivers travel 276 unnecessary miles each year because they stubbornly reject help when lost.

In what might not be shocking news for female passengers, the survey found that more than a quarter of men polled said they would wait at least half an hour before asking for directions when lost.

One in 10 male drivers refuses to ask a stranger for help at all, the survey found.

The survey suggested that “lost drive time could cost as much as 2,000 pounds [just over $3,000 at current exchange rates]” in gas in a driver’s lifetime.

The survey results also found that three-quarters of women polled had no problem with asking for directions.

“Men aren’t quite as confident behind the wheel as they make out when it comes to navigation,” said Jacky Brown, a Sheila’s Wheels representative. In the U.S., the American Automobile Association has predicted 34.4 million vacationing travelers will take to the road this long weekend — almost 10 percent more than for the same holiday in 2009.

On Labor Day weekend in the U.S., 91 percent of travelers, or 31.4 million people, will reach their destination by car, according to AAA. AAA predicts gas prices will average $2.65 to $2.75 a gallon over the weekend, “barring any major tropical storm activity in the Gulf Coast region.” Average driving distance on the 2010 Labor Day weekend, based on AAA’s survey of traveler intentions, is expected to be 635 miles. The auto association said median spending over the weekend was forecast at $697 — nearly $50 more than last year, indicating a slight improvement in the economy. While that’s good news for a rebounding national travel industry, AAA predicted Gulf Coast tourism would be affected by some travelers avoiding the region because of the recent BP oil spill.

The most popular reason for traveling over the Labor Day weekend? To “visit with friends/relatives,” according to AAA.

There were no figures for drivers expecting to get lost.

Celery Axe…Not Ask…

OK young fellas – time to give that “Axe” stuff a break!

To Attract Women, Eat Celery

According to Judy Gaman, Dr. Walter Gaman and Dr. Mark Anderson, authors of the new book “Stay Young: Ten Proven Steps to Ultimate Health,” eating celery actually increases the pheromone levels in men’s sweat, making them more attractive to women…

So how does celery get chopped into this?

Well, androstenone is a steroid that is found in human sweat. It gives off a scent, or sex pheromone, that makes men more attractive. Because the cytoplasm of celery contains androstenone, eating it can actually increase the human levels of the steroid and the pheromone-secretion level.

The effects of eating celery are almost immediate, but you don’t need to go overboard. “We recommend that a guy work out, have a nice warm shower, chomp on a few sticks of celery, brush his teeth and then head out the door smelling good,” says Gaman.

For an added bonus, if you get the girl, celery also increases sex drive and ups the amount of ejaculatory fluids making climax stronger.

The Downside of Melanin…

Are Blacks More Likely to Get Addicted to Smoking?

There’s some bad news for Black folks who like to puff.  A surprising new study suggests that darker-skinned people have a stronger propensity for becoming addicted to tobacco.

The Prez Lights Up

“We have found that the concentration of melanin is directly related to the number of cigarettes smoked daily, levels of nicotine dependence, and nicotine exposure among African Americans,” said Gary King, professor of biobehavioral health, Penn State. He said that higher concentrations of melanin – the color pigment in skin and hair – may be placing darker pigmented smokers at increased susceptibility to nicotine dependence and tobacco-related carcinogens than lighter skinned smokers, according to scientists.

Early studies also show that nicotine has a “biochemical affinity for melanin,” he said, suggesting that the connection could mean there’s an accumulation of the addictive agent in melanin-containing tissues of smokers with greater amounts of skin pigmentation.