Viva La Difference

OK This is the night we explore those fascinating differences between the species. Of course who could ever support this as a task? Considering this activity is the major force in all our lives, from the early teens until our dotage. I can’t see my interest ever waning, so… let’s get right down to it. I’m Stefan Sojka.

Although we live in an essentially three dimensional physical world, as far as we can tell, we also live in a bipolar universe – a universe of opposites. Black / white, on / off, yin / yang, left / right, positive / negative, matter / antimatter, micro / macro, in / out, man / woman. Yes, in the infinite creative capacity contained within our existence, it has evolved that the best way for 99.9% of all living organisms to procreate and survive is that there be two distinct genders. Besides having different physical attributes, each gender has subtle biological, emotional and mental differences in order to follow the choreography of the delicate dance of the life within which we all find ourselves unwitting partners, thanks to each and every one of our male and female parents dancing their own horizontal mambo, all those years ago.

I’d like you to take a moment now and contemplate your sexuality. If you like, you can pull down your pants and show the class, have a good play around with your bits and pieces… get to know them, introduce them to the people around the room. Go on, give them a good prod… have a poke around your fellow classmates as well, have a good old fiddle and discover just how amazing it is to be human. Male or female we all have amazing plumbing. Truly fascinating stuff. And if we played around for long enough, we would find that the male, and the female fit together perfectly. Not only that, but we are designed so as to all fit together, extremity by extremity, cavity by cavity, the human species is an engineering marvel, and with the help of a bit of good old ingenuity, even the parts that shouldn’t really plug in to each other… can.

Physical attributes aside, males and females possess amazing complimentary capacities that work together in perfect harmony to provide the ideal environment to nurture their young. A woman can suffer sleep deprivation whilst raising a new born baby, getting up throughout the night for months on end, while the man sleeps soundly and deeply, preparing his body for the important task of waking up at 4.35am to watch the world cup.

A woman’s keen sense of smell and her diligent nature is important in providing a safe and clean environment for young ones by ensuring that the man’s underpants and socks are out of harms way as well as ensuring all kitchen and bathroom surfaces are bacteria free, so the man can concentrate on hunting and gathering important information that could benefit the family, by channel surfing with the remote control and flipping through trashy girlie magazines. Yes, the complementary skill sets are amazingly designed to create the perfect home life.

A woman’s ability to nag incessantly for year after year knowing full well that it will make no difference whatsoever to the man’s behaviour is a finely sharpened skill that is designed to send the man out of the house for extended periods of time, leaving the children unaffected by any negative influences the man may impose upon them. By the time the man returns, stinking of whiskey and cheap perfume, the children are sound asleep. Once the man goes to work the following day, the woman uses her keen sense of emotion to tune into the complex dialogue and drama that unfolds each day on The Young and The Restless, discovering more and more inadequacies in her own life, fuelling the next nagging session, and driving the man out of the home, and out of harm’s way again. So are the days of our lives.

In recent times some people have begun arguing that males and females are actually equal and should be treated that way – sure there are a few hermaphrodites, dykes, fags and assorted weirdos who don’t know if they are Arthur or Martha, and I respect them for their particular perspective, but equality is an absolute impossibility.

Until more women start cruising up and down William Street looking for anonymous sex with male prostitutes, more women in general start paying for sex and frequenting rub and tug shops, there will always be a rift between the sexes. We need to see more men going into toilets together to freshen up, and more women going into public toilets to give each other oral sex. More men going into lingerie stores to buy clothes for themselves, and more women subscribing to Canberra mail order video catalogues. More women driving Porsches, and more men driving Corollas – oh, that’s right, Ken Willis already does. Good on ya, Ken!

Viva la Difference – that’s what I say. There are good points and bad points of both sexes. Men might dominate business and politics, but they die much sooner, women have a much more intimate relationship with their children, but they get all the blame when the kids grow up. Men might be obsessed with sex all the time, but when they finally get it, it’s pretty darned pathetic compared to the capacity for a woman to experience a full body multiple-orgasmic rush of volcanic pleasure. Men might always leave the toilet lid up, but women always leave it down.

Perhaps we really are totally different creatures, from different planets, as the book says. Perhaps we will never get to understand each other because to be male or female simply makes it impossible to ever know what it would be like to be the opposite. Perhaps we have to accept that no matter how frustrating it is to be stuck with our gender differences, that is the way it is supposed to be. Maybe in doing so we might go with the flow a bit more, and instead of fighting and misunderstanding each other, we might actually celebrate our differences, let them be, be proud of who we are. Maybe men can stand tall and admit our incessant urge for sex, and women can own up to exactly how pleasurable it is for them to breastfeed, or simply to be a mother – something a man can never know. No wonder we are different, our fundamental sexuality is poles apart, one to impregnate and one to give birth. We can both experience many things the same, but our physiology precludes our basic experience of life from being anything but totally different. And that, I think, is a wonderful thing!

I’ll bet you have never looked at things in that light before, or maybe you have. Now it’s time to pull your pants back up, and get ready for the next show. Thanks for joining me in this fascinating journey to explore the ever-challenging issue of the difference between men and women.

Coming up next week…

Whenever you choose a movie, you reject some. If you sort an outfit to wear to a party or choose which place to rage on the weekend, you choose between your perception of good or bad, nice or unpleasant. I hope you choose my free form, as required viewing next week, here on channel three. Until lesson number 24, this is Stefan Sojka saying “goodnight”.