Romance: Burros Are Smarter Than Humans
For three days, I’ve been reading women’s fashion magazines, researching romance for this Valentine’s column. I have learned so much. For example, I found out from several sources that “Skintimate Shave Cream Will Drench Your Legs in Moisture.” (What it didn’t say was how difficult it is to wash Skintimate Shave Cream Out of Your Winter Bunny Boots.)
But I did come across a very interesting article titled “Your Sexual Peak Is Now!” This leads me to believe that the author was not in my high school buddy’s 1967 Pontiac Catalina when I was 16.
At least, I hope he wasn’t. Wink-wink.
Anyway, the article is about the moods, feelings, and emotions that lead to romance. Surprisingly to me—and I’m sure to all of you out there—not a single expert in this field believes the process should involve the phrase: “How about right here in the kitchen?”
The first sentence of the article states: “Unlike lower orders of mammals, women aren’t enslaved by their sexual hormones.”
Another key difference, one the author somehow failed to point out, is that among lower orders of mammals—let’s use the burro as an example—the male seldom has to sleep on the couch. (Perhaps because when the female burro is, let’s say, trying on new jeans, the male burro knows better than to say, “Whoa! That’s like trying to squeeze a refrigerator into a shoe box!”)
The article quotes many experts at a famous national research facility. (As you know, nothing says “romance” quite like Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.)
Humans feel romantic, the experts said, according to cycles. In the case of my ex-husband, the cycle was a 2,200cc Harley-Davidson owned by a heavyset slut who went by the name Crazy Biting Betty.
Anyway, we are all in luck, because in the next few weeks, the magazine says, “These romantic cycles are due to peak. Think of it as the harmonic convergence of your libido—your body’s version of the moment when the planets align.”
It surprises me to learn that men have these cycles, too. For example, men tend to think about sex a lot when “Pluto is in the seventh sky.” Quite frankly, they also think about sex a lot when “Pluto is having his picture taken with a family from Des Moines.”
Really, though, according to researchers, “Men’s testosterone levels peak during the fall and early winter.” In laymen’s terms, the football season. Additional studies have further narrowed the time frame in which men’s testosterone levels reach their zenith, a period experts now refer to as “halftime.”
The story goes on to say that women’s desire for romance is followed by “the need for nurturing, considerations of winning and keeping a lover, balancing the mood of the moment against the mood of tomorrow.”
Men, scientists know, are remarkably similar in nature, except that the desire for romance lasts only a few minutes, and then, they go to sleep.
But the article saves the best stuff for the end.
“Sex hormones also seem to surge in response to danger,” we are told by Rutgers researcher Helen Fisher. “I was in Los Angeles right after the 1994 earthquake, when three men came to me, and asked ‘Why is my girlfriend being so intensely sexual?’”
(Here I would summon the famous passage from a beer commercial: “Why ask why?”)
Of course, in the hours after the earthquake, some folks did not find themselves in the mood for sex. Experts say this can be blamed on factors such as emotional upheaval; great feelings of sadness; and, of course, the bed floating in the swimming pool.
But Fisher goes on to say this: “I think the earthquake provided a feeling of danger. And in time of danger, we want to strengthen the pair bond by having sex.”
Well, that’s about it. I’ve got to run now. Consider the source here, but I have the sudden urge to run out, and create some Valentine’s danger.
So, watch out!
Bye for now.
Kiss, kiss.
