Matthew Krouse Down the tube
Across the world the myth about men is the same – apparently we’re out to get laid all the time. Well, yes and no.
Yes, we’d like to be engaged in some form of sexual play our whole lives. But no, we don’t fall apart at the seams if it doesn’t come our way. We’re somewhat like cows. If our udders get too full, we just milk ourselves dry, then get on with the day.
A fair portion of our lives is devoted to daydreaming about what we’d like to do to people we fancy. But most of the time we’re too lazy to follow through on the big dramas we invent. It may sound sad but many nights we fall asleep in front of the television, spilling beer out of a can in the hand.
Being a blanket tele-viewer isn’t a major problem if you’re dead inside. What does a living corpse care if a programme is about something it can’t relate to? However, there are people out there who’d pay good money to find out how to raise the dead, enough for them to change channels.
Paul Zwick directs Mainly for Men that plays on Monday nights at 10pm on e.tv. In order to get the programme going he had to “stand in line with 300 other proposals and 200 other directors. What we did,” says Zwick, “is have a look across the channel to see how we could improve on what it already had – we didn’t just want to do a programme about cars or do- it-yourself.
“We found out that the only magazine that had a fast-growing readership was Men’s Health, that at least addresses needs of men across the spectrum.”
So Zwick went hunting for things to invigorate the deceased, particularly ones with buying power. Here is the list he’s come up with so far:
Firstly, and least mysteriously, men want to know anything and everything about sex. As a result, Zwick’s put a number of suspect women on his show, most engaged in the kind of complex display of affection that men actually desire. This is what it involves: the man sits upright in a chair. A woman with large breasts takes off her top and approaches him. Shoving her goods into his face she tries as hard as she can to suffocate him to death.
In the country’s lounges the corpses stir, beer spills and the dead finally rise. Just in time to get a load of vox pops about what makes city strippers tick.
The second subject closest to men is our bodies. After all the hunting and all the rejection we turn to ourselves and ask: “What’s wrong with me?”
Last week’s insert on health concerned pregnant-looking men. Or, in other words, the great South African beer boep. There were men proudly looking about 12 months pregnant, with triplets. It was revolting. I thought: “If it doesn’t take 20 people to carry your coffins, it’s going to take three nurses to wheel your chair around after you’ve had your strokes.”
Exercises followed in the studio – little things you can do in your lounge to put the six-pack back where it belongs. There was a plain- looking personal trainer in the studio but, unfortunately for us queers, that nice chap Hakeem Kae-Kazim didn’t take off his shirt.
Part of the programme, according to Zwick, is to cure men of the myths of their own invincibility. What he’s discovered in the course of his work is that more than 50% of the male population is affected by some sort of impotence. In the coming weeks, expect features on erectile dysfunction and premature ejaculation (apparently they’ve already done penis push-ups on air).
Next up is motoring. And here the South African male is a connoisseur. Of course by now everybody knows the system: If you haven’t got one, steal one. If you’re too scared to steal one then get a really expensive one on hire-purchase. Why feed the kids if you can have a nice car?
The last two items are actually girls’ issues – namely clothing and cookery. While the South African man (of African descent in particular) has always been a fastidious dresser, it is the local male interest in cooking that presents the millennial surprise.
This week expect Hugh Masekela, an item on gay marriages and, more intriguingly, one on boxercise, the latest stress relief workout for office beefs. Perhaps next week they’ll have boxercise classes for gay brides.