K. A. Bareki - Sex & Intimacy 101

(4) Emotion

Emotion is the part we all probably know about men and women. Men tend to be reserved and will deal with emotions privately while women burst out and reveal their emotional issues to those closer to them. But men view bursting out emotionally as a sign of weakness, and will generally go into a time of lone ranging in their cave until they are clear about the problem and how to solve it.

The crisis in relationships is that women tend to want to treat men like other women and want them to open up, and this for what I know, is as irritating as having a fly trapped in your underwear . Women a great deal of times want men to share their problems with them and open up. But men, don’t quiet appreciate that any more than they recognize that as being bothered. Imagine me for example. I am a man. Not only a man but one who has written profound books that affect thousands and thousands of people. But even after all such achievements I am no superman. I still go into my cave when I am depressed. I don’t agree with those who think society has taught men not to cry out loud about their problems. The way men approach problems is not driven by socialization more than it is driven by nature. Men are naturally not women and we don’t have to blame their society for not teaching them to expresses their grievances instead of caving in. Men are men and it matters less as to whether they are from France,Vietnam or Monterey Peninsula.

Men love to be appreciated for mowing the lawn, providing for the family, driving to Capetown safely and sexing the hell out of their wives. But women seldom do realize that men appreciate and need such praise. And it feels childish (I suppose) for a man to ask his woman to praise him. So, he will never directly ask for it. And even if he is praised sometimes he might find it childish to show that he is happy about it. As much as a woman loves to be admired for looking beautiful, men equally love to be admired for having great sex. He loves the prostitute for making him feel like a real man and engaging him sexually. His wife on the contrary just lies there like the log of a dead oak tree. You just try admiring your guy for giving it to you the way he should and he will love you for that. Men generally view respect and praise as love. And I think Paul must be appreciated for noting that ‘‘ husbands ought to love their own wives ...’’,(Ephesians 5:28). I have sat with many couples who were going through emotional unrest and the problem was in most cases that the man no longer showed love to his lady. Women a great deal of the time demand to be loved and men demand to be revered and respected. Paul suggested, ‘‘So husbands ought to love their own wives as their own bodies; he who loves his wife loves himself ’’,(Ephesians 5:28). To cheat your wife is to her a lack of love for her. But men say that a woman who cheats on them not only lacks love but lacks respect. A woman will get hurt by a man who criticizes the way she looks, but a man gets hurt when you tell him that his penis is smaller hence not pleasant enough or that he drives worse than his son drives his toys. That just wrecks a man’s life if not his entire self-esteem, which seems to be rooted in his penis. Men fantasize about sex more than the average woman thinks. It is almost obvious that this book will end in the hands of more men than women. Why?:—Because men love sex and sexing, and not even Christianity is going to alter that. Women no doubt want love from men but men want respect or submission and most of all sex. Paul says ‘‘ the wife see that she respects her husband’’,(Ephesians 5:33). But this respect lesson for women is not as new as Paul the apostle. It is as old as Sarah because she often called her husband Abraham my ‘‘lord’’ (1 Peter 3:6).Why aren’t women of today wise enough to ‘‘fool’’ their men by lavishing them with respect and sex?

Now, women heal their hurts by talking (so-called venting out), by crying and doing all sorts of emotional things. While writing this book, I was called by a couple in conflict. They wanted advice on what to do about their unending brawls. The woman felt that the man’s love for her fell short and she cried:—How typical of women... The man sat there, looking distant, unfazed and wore the serious look of a bulldog while he expressed how this woman would not respect him and sometimes returned to her ex-lover despite their relationship’s existence. The woman cried, the man was just angry ( Perhaps too angry to cry). Men become angry and know very little about grieving, shedding tears and being sad the feminine way. That’s why men easily commit suicide compared to women. There is that aggression in men which if not guided is catastrophic. It has nothing to do with abuse but with nature. Concerning health issues, a doctor was addressing a certain men’s sector meeting in which I was present and did enquire as to why men do not seem to take medical issues seriously to the point of neglecting health checks. He pointed out how shocking it is to consider that women can hardly see their private parts well since the vagina is exactly down there (underneath, so to speak). But compared to men, women take care of their private parts well. Men on the other hand are fortunate to have private organs that protrude and can be well seen and inspected, yet men easily die of prostate cancer when they can so easily inspect their sexual organs and report to the hospital in due season. Instead of going to the clinic for medical attention, a typical man would rather ask his friend at the bar what to do with his itchy penis. To which his drunken friend might prescribe an ointment. But how do you get prescription from a drunk man?

When a man goes to clinic to see a doctor, he has probably received prescriptions from the bar, football pitch,golf course and all kinds of male hangouts. The fact that he is in a queue at the hospital probably means that if his penis was itchy, this time it is ‘‘rotten ’’, extremely painful or so loose that its about to fall off. When a man gets to clinic, he refuses to say the problem to a male doctor who by the way should be well able to understand him. If you are doctor, you probably can relate to this. A guy walks into to the consultancy room. He claims he doesn’t know the problem but claims there is a problem. You start doing vital signs and expect to find the problem yourself coz he won’t open up to a man like him. To your shock, his ass is wounded. He has probably had gay sex, is bleeding and torn. You ask him how his ass ended up like that and he says he doesn’t know and just ‘‘found’’ it like that. Probably there is never a time you feel annoyed about a patient’s denial like this moment. Men are not just shy about such matters but even being sick of anything ranging from such innocent issues as flu to issues as bad as defaulting on STI treatment. A woman when she is afraid can dare walk in to a pharmacy crying and says ‘‘yesterday I had unprotected sex with a stranger, do you guys have any pills to help me block the virus, I am scared’’. That ability to open up has saved a lot of women.

So this doctor friend I mentioned earlier on was wondering why men would rather die than act promptly about sickness. Why won’t they be open to someone with a penis like them? I must admit that as he asked, I felt that men were just being silly; to me there was simply no excuse for such risky behavior. But an old man seated unnoticeably at the back of the crowd which the doctor was facilitating lifted his hand, was allowed to speak and said, ‘‘we were taught not to be afraid and that real man don’t cry or fall sick. I remember as a little boy, I hurt myself and had a painful wound. Grandma told me not to cry or go to clinic. She told me to rub cattle dung on it, walk tall and that a man must never show signs of weakness. ’’