I wouldn’t blame anyone who accused me of sour grapes if they heard that I am happy I couldn’t go on the Axe jet, despite accepting the invitation.
But, think what you will, the Axe jet’s so-called fantasy is an affront to reasonable men. In its unapologetic objectification of women’s bodies, the maker of Axe says men are so easy to please: just flash a pair of tits and you have their full attention. You can get a man to do anything after that — like buy a particular deodorant that will “ensure” he gets laid.
No longer need men be smart and resourceful. Romantic and sensitive belong to a Mills & Boon novel. Just spray and your life, as defined by the sexual relations you enter into with women, will never be the same again.
Unsatisfied with the exploitative tendencies of the penis enlargement industry, the marketers now target the armpit as the new site of true masculine identity.
Unfortunately, men believe the hype. They believe that such is their nature that they cannot help but be transfixed by the glare of the butt. They believe that it is their nature to be bamboozled by the female anatomy and a different reaction would cast doubt on their prized heterosexuality.
Finally, the arbitrary nature of patriarchal arrangements has come back to haunt those who have bene-fited most from them. It was only a matter of time before this social arrangement, which dispenses power and influence on the basis of whether you stand or sit when you pee, started exploiting all under its dominion, despite their preferred toilet position.
The men’s movement in our country is too narrowly focused on ensuring that we don’t rape women and children. Of course, such a campaign is valuable, but there is more to men than a stock of “thou shalt nots”. Even if a potential rapist changes his ways after hearing the message, there should be a plan about how best to live the rest of his life.
As the men’s movement has discovered, men have been systematically dehumanised. We have allowed our masculinity and virility to be measured in proportion to the length of a woman’s kanga or bra size.
As a result, the Axe jet is able to bill itself as every man’s fantasy flight. Getting a seat on the jet is the veritable straight man’s dream come true. No wonder a gay colleague remarked on hearing that I was pencilled for the trip: “You are so lucky you are heterosexual.”
So, as a reward for being “fortunate” enough to be straight, we win ourselves an exclusive view of women’s tits and, in the process, suspend our values and, more importantly (at least for the black men I hang around with), the respect we think we deserve from our partners, who tend to see us as either handymen or ATMs.
It is time to bury the stereotype. Men want more from their partners than tits and arse.
It would be silly to think that there aren’t men whose dream it is to be on a 12-hour flight in which the on-board entertainment consists of “girls” wearing enough to cover those parts of their anatomy that, if exposed, could cause them to be arrested for violating public decency laws.
We all have our fetishes and fantasies, but to portray some as universal is to make men a monolithic bloc of non-thinkers. And to market such a disposition as standard male behaviour is disturbing.
To accept it unquestionably is frightening. Men must be the only market segment that allows marketers to paint a distorted picture of them without as much as a whimper of protest.
We are consistently portrayed as bumbling dads who cannot as much as change a nappy, beer-guzzling idiots who cannot keep time, who sometimes get whisked away by a street parade despite our better judgement.
Men can take a leaf (in a manner of speaking) from the women’s movement: demand a fairer representation in popular media. We should tell marketers that the conventional wisdom that our brains are around our crotch area is badly misinformed, if for no other reason than to ensure that our sons grow up with a sense of manhood not defined by those whose sole desire is to part us from our cash.