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DESIGNER GENES

An Immodest Proposal for Sexual Realignment

Dave Barry

Dave Barry is a Pulitzer Prize-winning newspaper columnist for the Miami Harald and author of a number of humorous books. His column ‘’America’s

Barryland,’’ is syndicate in over 200 newspapers nationwide. His books includeBabies and Other Hazards of sex (1984) Stay Fit and Healthy Until Your Dead (1985), Bad Habits (1987), and Dave Barry’s Greatest Hits (1989)among others. In the following essay, written for a special September 1985 Ms. Magazine issue focusing on men. Barry brings his usual wit and irreverent humor to the subject of sex, offering “an immodest proposal” for correcting the “terrible error” Mother Nature made in human creating human sexuality.

What I think happened is, Mother Nature made some kind of terrible error. I am talking about human sexuality.

When you look at other species, you notice they have everything worked out. Take squid. I haven’t bothered to research this, but I’m willing to bet you that when two squids want to have sex, they know exactly how to go about it. Probably the male wave his tentacle in a certain way, and the female emits some kind of noxious chemical compound, and the next thing you know they have their suckers all over each other.

Now contrast the effortless suavity of the squid with the sexual behavior of human beings, such as the former hairdresser of my friend Mary Anne. Mary Anne is a television producer who swears that that this is absolutely anecdote:

This hairdresser, whom I will call Jacques, was leaving the area after having done Mary Anne’s hair successfully for several years, and he invited her to his house for one last permanent. It was the old “one last permanent” line, and Mary Anne fell for it.

Things were fine until Jacque put the traditional foul-smelling permanent chemical on her hair. As you probably know, the next step is to wait for about 20 minutes, during which you’re supposed to pick a up Glamour Magazine and read an article entitled “12 common Mistakes Involving Eyeliner.” But instead, almost immediately as his concept of sexual advance.

“Jacques,” she said. “This a bad idea.”

“Submit to me,” Jacque replied,” or there will be no neutralizer.”

Really, he said that. And it was no idle threat. Jacque claimed that unless he neutralized the permanent chemical. Mary Anne would go bald, which could of course be a real disadvantage to a person working in television, a visual medium. Nevertheless, Mary Anne shoved him off her lap and made it clear by word and gesture that he was being jerk. Eventually, he apologized and went on with the permanent, and accordingto Mary Anne it came out very nice.

The point, obviously, is that this is would never, ever, have happened elsewhere in the animal kingdom. But this is only one among billions of bizarre activities we human beings engage in because Mother Nature failed to give us a simple, universal, squid like ritual to perform when we wish to have sex.

What is worse, she made men and women so profoundly different that even if two people do manage somehow to agree that they wish to have sex, they will quickly discover that their purely physical needs differ greatly, in the sense that the amount of time the woman would like to spend foreplay and lovemaking is roughly equivalent to the amount of time a man would allocate to foreplay, lovemaking, and building a garage. And what is worst of all, even if a man and a woman agree that they want to have sex manage to become comfortable physically, the odds are they will have totally different psychological motivations.

Those of you who hate generalization should leave the room at this time, because I am going to explain briefly how, as I see it, men and women differ in their attitudes towards sex.

Women want sex to be part of a deeper relationship involving commitment, sensitivity to the other’s needs, understanding, tenderness, compassion, concern, sharing, and—above all—love.

Men want sex.

‘’Wait a minute,’’ I hear you women saying. ‘’Not all men are like that. What about Paul Newman? What about the Pope? What about Phil Donahue?’’

Okay. I will give you those three, and a few others, including of course your Significant Others. But this leaves an awful lot of men who basically attach as much emotional significance to the actual sex act as they do to flossing their teeth. Less, in fact, as we are learning more and more every day about the dangers of gum disease.

The vast psychological difference between men and women is the most trouble-some of all, because it tends to make women think that men have the moral standards of restroom bacteria. Talk to a single woman, and she will tell about how usually when she dates a male for the first time, he makes a little speech wherein he says that at this point in his life he really does not wish to get involved in a relationship in which he is expected to live with the other person or date the other person exclusively or even necessarily remember the other person’s name, but he is nevertheless willing to have sex. Single women call this the speech, and often when they describe it they stick their fingers partway down their throats to indicate how it makes the feel.

And of course they are right. This truly is repulsive behavior. From their perspective. But that is exactly the problem: their perspective is that of what might as well be a different species altogether. It is as if the blue whale, which mates for life, were criticizing the sexual habits of the dragonfly, which goes through the whole process—meeting, courting. Doing It,and breaking up—without even bothering to land.

Clearly something must be done. The human race has stumbled along for too many thousands of years under the present system, and it has resulted in too many misunderstandings, heartbreaks, divorces, homicides, and totally unnecessary hairdresserattacks.

What can be done, you ask? No doubt you have read how biologists are manipulating genes. The problem is, they’re always doing this to life forms that already work just fine, such as cows. As far as I know, there are no major sexual problem with cows. It is people who need who a major redesign.

So I am proposing that we create a committee of reputable biologist, from both sexes, and ask them to see if they can’t up a sexually compatible version of the human race. We could have a panel prominent citizensadvising the biologist on moral issues, taking care to avoid citizens who had a particular sexual ax to grind, such as Hugh Hefner or Phyllis Schlafly, because you could end up with a very kinky version of the human race that, for example wanted to have sex all the time, but only with Republicans.

Assuming we take reasonable precautions I think genetic manipulation is the way to go. I can think of no greater gift to give to future generations than to put both sexes on exactly the same sexual wavelength, so that everybody could tell instantly who wanted to have sex with whom, and it would always last the perfect length of time and be absolutely terrific for both of them. Or all six of them, depending on what the biologists work out. I Thing we should keep an open mind about this.