I could never think why I would want to kiss my own elbow, but I was afraid I might one day do so inadvertently. Most men have no desire to cut off their male membership and are extremely reluctant to give up their good standing in the Boys Club with all the rights, privileges and duties thereunto appertaining.
Obviously every person, and every couple, must deal with sexual nature and sexual roles. I was reasonably certain I would never get pregnant and be involved in “the pleasing punishment that women bear” (Comedy of Errors, I.1.47). On the other hand, I could handle a number of domestic chores with considerable competence. Once our very young son, seeing a magazine picture of a woman washing dishes, asked in astonishment, “Doesn’t her have a husband?” Some family responsibilities can be shared and others not.
I always thought that being pretty was an assignment given to the female sex. Even when I looked more Byronic than now, I assumed women were supposed to be fair and men to be brave in order that joy might be unconfined (Childe Harold 3.21-2). Only a few men are strikingly and disgustingly handsome. Alcibiades comes to mind and, as you would expect, he turned out badly (cf. Plutarch’s Lives). The rest of us are just ordinary guys whose qualities, if any, must be searched for. On the distaff side very few woman are naturally ugly. According to Henry James, George Eliot (Mary Anne Evans) was “Magnificently ugly — deliciously hideous” (Nancy Etcoff, Survival of the Prettiest, p. 245). However, none of the ugly women are Presbyterian. Therefore, it never seemed to me much of a burden to expect of women a slight and entirely charming effort in the direction of beauty.
Due to an odd concatenation of events, in a short period of time I have read six books by or about women. Since I am afraid of all women — with the barely possible exception of my lady wife — I am more comfortable reading about ladies than actually talking to them. For that reason these books put me in perfect touch with my feminine side. The evidence is a new necktie with a very discreet but definitely pink stripe. Of course Mary Pipher’s Reviving Ophelia is no joking matter, nor is Christina Hoff Sommers’ The War Against Boys. I always knew it was tough to be a boy, but now I realize that being a girl is not all peaches and cream either, no matter what the complexion might be.
Among young lovers (and old) the battle of the sexes is often wonderfully playful and life affirming, but sometimes it is terrible and death dealing. Realities of this magnitude and seriousness have a tremendous impact on the church. That sexuality is a huge and divisive issue among Presbyterians is only to be expected.
On a much smaller side of this big issue my recent intensive reading has caused me for the first time to resent the fact that, while men and boys are variously identified, female persons (those “phantoms of delight” but what’s a word’s worth?) are relentlessly and unfairly described in terms of physical beauty or its absence. With all due modesty, I have been proud of owning an infallible eye for feminine pulchritude. However, being newly and powerfully sensitized, I am resolved to advance the cause of gender equity by never again noticing whether a woman is pretty. I think this resolution will be easier to keep in some instances than in others.
Charles Partee
Presbyterian Outlook
January 2002
