On the loops and chats where I participate as an author, I notice reference to female erotica. I know what is erotic to a man. Watch a porn flick and you get the idea. But what is erotic to a woman? And is the reading of erotica for the same purpose men watch porn? I’ve often wondered, given I keep hearing women are not visually oriented when it comes to sex, how does female erotica affect them. It’s clear with a man why we watch and how we respond, but what about a woman. Is it to read something she would never attempt but is curious about? Is it for physical stimulus and arousal like porn to a man? Is it just a fantasy thing that fulfills some mental need to fantasize but not to execute; what is the reason? I can’t even fathom a guess on this one so I’ll allow Candace or some other lady to give her take on it.

Big Mike (Davisstories.com)
Author of the year, 4/09

I take exception to this because not every woman has a dragon that needs to be slain. There are many of us who are perfectly self-sufficient. For many years, I lived in a very rural setting all by myself and got along just fine; other years I lived in the big city by myself and never felt threatened there, either.

While I can understand Big Mike’s take on the “male role”, it just doesn’t always apply.

There are many things a woman can do to keep herself protected. She can learn self defense, she can buy a gun or a taser, she can own a big dog, and she can get a home security installed for ultimate peace of mind. In fact, Home Security Family offers home security systems for free when signing up for an ADT security monitoring system; if you sign up today at their ADT Security website, you receive a $100 rebate. What could be simpler?

None of these things requires a man in her life. Yeah, men are good for a few things, but they don’t always have to function as our protector. Some of us can take care of ourselves just fine, thank you.

And BTW, we don’t all worry about our butt looking too big…

Women are composed of circles and men are composed of squares. A simple concept we can explore a bit further.

A woman’s life is comprised of a myriad of different roles – wife, mother, the maintainer of the household, an employee (or boss), a creative type, and all the other things we women do and are. Some of us enjoy working on crafts; others like to go hunting. Some love cooking; others love yard work. Whatever the woman’s interests and strengths, she is usually expected to be the one in the household who takes care of lots of different things – paying bills, making sure everyone in the family is fed, taking care of kids and pets, etc.

The center circle is the woman herself. Around her, and overlapping that central circle, are additional circles where she places each of her responsibilities. One circle represents employment, one is children, one is personal time, one is for relationships with friends, one is the family mediator, etc. All of them overlap. So, when a woman comes home at the end of a long, hard day at work, this circle of work is still influencing the other areas, such as family and children. She can’t push one circle outside the arrangement; instead it influences everything else.

Men, on the other hand, are represented by a square. Their additional squares of SEX, employment, hobbies, family, kids, whatever, are all lined up outside that center square. When the man comes home after a hard day at work, he can jump from that square and into the square that represents his family life or sitting comfortably on the couch to TV. Gone are thoughts of the job square, or anything else that doesn’t have immediate significance.

That is why men and women think differently. It’s why women have been so often attributed the old line about, “not tonight, dear, I have a headache”. It’s because we can’t keep those other circles from affecting our mood. Have you ever broken up with a man only to have him ask you for sex one last time? That’s his square personality at work. The sex square is the largest and most powerful and the one he jumps into most often, regardless of what other emotions he just experienced!

So thanks, Sheryl, for explaining it in a way that makes sense.

I had never voiced that trait of the female mind that way, but I had to agree with his observation. I’ve talked to other men who have come to the same conclusion: women have self imposed demons that tug at their spirit, chastise them, make them belittle the wonderful creatures they are. “I’m too fat”, “My fingernails are ugly”, “Was I to slutty last night”, “Was I too reserved”, “Am I a good wife”, “Am I a good mother”, and the list goes on and on. The only voice we guys have is “Is my little buddy sufficient to please her”, and “Did I last long enough”, (you’ll notice they’re both sexual demons, but what would you expect from rutting animals). Everything else, we give ourselves the benefit of the doubt, except if we lose our job or the woman we love, then we beat ourselves up like crazy.

I’m not sure why the difference exists, but it does. Read the magazines tuned to the ladies, or watch the shows like Oprah, Dr. Phil, etc. Many of the topics they discuss deal with the voices that haunt women. In our novel Veil of Deception, I actually had the hero struggling to understand this pain women endure and try to help the heroine stop whacking herself. This is not in anyway a dig on women, just the contrary. I came to the recognition of this reality late in my marriage (about ten years ago) and decided to do everything I could to help the woman I love vanquish her hovering demons. Several times a day, I tell my mate how much I love her, how damn good she looks, how her butt turns me on, what a great job she did or whatever, and the truth is, all those statements are true, but women need to hear them. Now, I don’t do this in the hopes of getting a little more lovin’ (wouldn’t work anyway). I do it, and have mentored my son’s to follow suit, in order to help my wife, my grand daughter, my sister, all the terrific ladies I care about to understand what a gift they are too us men.

I’m not sure why all those voices exist; maybe its upbringing, perhaps hormones, perhaps because of past years of struggling for equality. What ever the cause, I believe as men we have to recognize its not an attempt on our ladies part to confuse us or drive us nuts. It’s just another reason we have to love them all the more and help swat away those demons when ever we can.

See ya soon

Michael Davis (Davisstories.com)

Author of the year, 2008

After three decades of marriage, I’ve concluded that men suffer from what I call “Moth to the flame” syndrome. Even though we’ve been burned by the fire, we always come back again What do I mean? I have been sent out on a hundred assignments by my boss, and every single time I screw up, but instead of just saying, “Oh, no, there’s no way you’re going to get me this time”, I do it over and over again. And it’s not only me. All my buds suffer from the same sad condition.

Case in point. My wife wanted a new floor mat for the front door and assigned me the job of running down to the store and getting it (the old one was too ugly and we had company coming in from out of town). Now, in my defense, I did ask, “What color?”, “Doesn’t matter,” What shape?”, “doesn’t matter”, “What size?” “Doesn’t matter.” Well you get the idea. The kicker is that I ran through the same series of probing questions every time before, but I still always got the wrong thing, and like a moth to the flame, I always raced back into the fire again and again.

As I pondered carefully at the store over a four-dollar purchase, a young man saw me struggling and came over to help the old man examining every single floor mat in the display over and over.

“Can I help you, Sir?”

“Afraid not, Son.”

“Well, I’d like to try.”

“All right. My wife sent me to the store to find…” I didn’t have to finish my thought. With a sad expression and an understanding tone, he slowly shook his head. “I hear you brother.”

“Then you know…”

“Yes, I know. No matter what you do, it will be wrong.”

We both synchronized with lamenting head nods while the young man shared his own experience.

“Two weeks ago, I asked my newlywed wife, ‘Babe, what’d say we drive up the Blue Ridge and afterward stop for lunch. This will be your day, what ever you want.’ You see, I thought I was doing a good thing. I even asked, ‘What time do you want to stop for lunch’ and she said, ‘Oh, I don’t care you decide’ So around 1100 we were passing peaks of otter (a local restaurant) and she mentioned, ‘Isn’t that a cute little place over there?’ I nodded in agreement and kept driving. After another fifteen minutes I noticed the car had become strangely quiet. She was no longer humming or chatting about this and that. All the morning cheer had been replaced by a frown. ‘What’s the matter, Babe?’ I asked. She looked out the window and announced, ‘You don’t really love me anymore, do you?’ Man, I swear, I almost ran off the road. ‘What? Well of course I love you. You mean everything to me.’ ,‘Then why didn’t you stop when I asked you to? I thought you said this trip was about me?’”

I could see moisture forming in the poor boy’s eyes. “I swear man. I never knew when she said that ‘cute little place’ she meant…”

I firmly patted his shoulder and suggested, “I know son. Don’t try to figure it out. Just accept the inevitable. You will always be wrong. As the years go by, you’ll grow to accept your destiny, grasshopper.”

We both shook hands and departed with a profound appreciation for a man’s suffering and willingness to continually return to the flame. Oh, and I did get the wrong floor mat, but you knew that was coming didn’t you?

Michael Davis (Davisstories.com)
Author of the year, 2008

His question was, “Why do you like having a man in your life? What does a man provide for you, outside of physical and sexual needs, that a woman can’t?”

Well, I thought I had it all figured out. But as I tried to explain, I soon realized that nothing I was saying really made sense. “You men are different than us women. You’re physically stronger. You’re built differently. If we were all alike, then we’d all be gay.”

As Big Mike pointed out, these are all physical characteristics. So they don’t qualify. He asked me to think about it and get back to him. Here’s what I’ve come up with:

Men think differently. They try to solve problems, rather than just relate. This can be a great way to find a new approach to a problem, or give me an alternate insight.

Men are bigger and stronger (yeah, that’s physical again). *sigh* Just like Big Mike said in an earlier post about women being smaller and more delicate, men are bigger and stronger. There, I said it again. And it still holds true. I don’t need my man to be a dragon slayer, but I like touching the hair on his chest and the muscles in his arms when we lay together at night.

His strengths are different than mine. He is more outgoing and more social-oriented. He can build anything. I don’t NEED him to do these things, but the fact that he can works well with my weaknesses. I do the maintenance on our vehicles, am not bothered by spiders, and can certainly take out the trash. But it’s nice to have someone who can build a chicken coop or fix a leaking roof.

And if it were up to him to feed us, we’d be eating at Jack in the Box every night. I’m better at cooking and cleaning, as stereotypical as that sounds. But someone’s got to do it.

He sees things in black and white. I’m more of a gray area type of person. He’s more tactically oriented while I rely on cerebral insights.

My husband is a conservative Republican. I’ve always been a liberal Democrat. Since marrying him, I’ve come around to his way of thinking, for the most part. It just makes sense. We go to church together, and I’ve found a closer relationship with God. Another good thing.

Could a woman do the same things for me? Most likely, yes. But it’s neat to have my man do it instead. I can feel what I want to say, but for once, I’m having a hard time verbalizing it or even putting it down in words.

What do y’all think? Help a fellow female out here, would ya?

Is there anyone out in web world past the age of 25 that hasn’t recognized men and women communicate differently? In the early days of interactions with my life mate, I actually thought my main squeeze did her confusing way of communication to drive me crazy. After about ten years, it finally hit me. She just communicates in a different language, one I was never indoctrinated to in school. Need an example? Check this one out. When we go to the grocery store, if the boss says, “I’ll only be ten minutes,” I now know via my man-woman translator that she means, “come back in an hour or so.” Well, to help expedite the process, I ask for my own list that I can rush around, pick up, and toss into the basket.

About a month ago, I asked, “are we done yet, are we done yet”, and she handed me the dairy part of the page. The only items there were cream, butter, and OJ. I did as directed, got em, ran back, dumped the items in the cart and looked around but she was gone. I pushed the basket around until I found her and yelled, “meet ya at the check out counter”, and ran off. When we got home, after she unpacked all the groceries, she inquired, “Hey, you forgot the sour cream and cottage cheese? “ Now, I felt secure I was safe because I still had my copy of the diary list she had handed me. I extended the list and smiled, knowing I would be vindicated, “Check the list, woman. There’s no mention of sour cream OR cottage cheese.” She frowned. “I didn’t write them down because I know that every time I get in the dairy department to get cream, I always get cottage cheese and sour cream also. So where is it?” I was dumbfounded. “You mean to tell me that I was supposed to read you mind and …” Now get this, then she had the fortitude to inform me, “If you can’t do the job, then don’t offer to help.” Again, even thought I was technically right, I was gender blind when I read her grocery list and did not enact the gender translator. Oh, well. At least it makes life interesting.

Tell next time

Big Mike (Davisstories.com)
Author of the year, 2008

The other day I came up with a great topic for gender difference, you know, the central topic of our blog. Then I was forced to eat crow.You see, as most men will confirm, woman have a tendency to forget the little things. Oh no, they’ll remember that you forgot their birthday 22 years ago. Those issues are important. But when it comes to the trivial stuff like where did they put their car keys or their cell phone, … well you get the idea. I know when ever I hear the words, “Where are my keys,” they will be followed by, “Michael!!!!!, what did you do with my keys.” That phrase is never followed by, “Oh, silly me, I forgot I left them in the car.” Or “My fault, they were in my pocketbook all along.” Even though that’s where she finds them, I still never heard, “Sorry, sweetie. It wasn’t you after all.”

Don’t worry. We men are experienced at taking the blame for things we did not do. We figure it’s why you married us, you need someone to blame because as we all know, ladies are perfect. But lately, it’s been getting worse, I mean, well here’s an example. Now that we’ve passed the fifties milestone, she’s become severely afflicted by forgetitus. I’m accustomed to going behind my wife and shutting the fridge door, or closing the outside door she leaves open in the winter, or cutting the stove off (yeah, that one scares me), or charging her cell phone and replacing it in her purse so it will work when she needs it, just those little things. Sadly, over the past 3 months, I’ve become afflicted myself.

The most serious case was this morning when I hear her high pitched scream from the bathroom. When we travel, I always cut off the water heater. It saves electricity and if the bottom of the vessel busts (it’s happened), then the elements inside won’t burn down the house. Only this time I forgot to switch it back on when we got home the night before. Actually, I love the image of a woman running around in the buff, but not when she is chasing me with daggers in her eyes yelling “I’ve only got thirty minutes till they pick me up for the garden club meeting.” Problem is, I’ve done this three times in as many months. No, it’s not some cruel attempt at payback (that’s a different post). I’ve just become contaminated by forgetitus. So, guess I’ll eat crow on this post since the idea boomeranged on me.

See ya in a few weeks.

Big Mike
Davisstories.com

I know that’s a strange question to ask one’s self. Most would say, “Who cares.” Ah, but that’s not me. I always analyze every facet, ever premise in my existence, I’m just weird like that. Some would consider me AR, and perhaps they’re right, but I am what I am. Damn, I digest again (do that a lot lately). Anyway. As I was writing the passage, I was seated next to my wife on the couch, only as usual, she was sawing a cord of wood next to me (e.g. asleep).

I stared at her for several minutes and pondered why I love this woman, why do I need her presence in my day, why is it when we’re apart, I feel less than whole?

Now hold on to your socks because you may disagreement, but for me I reached an epiphany. It wasn’t all the years we had spent together. I’ve always loved her. It wasn’t the physical. I would still love her even if that were gone (though I would be an unhappy camper). So what the hell was it? Then it hit me in the heart like the radiant heat of a warm fireplace. It was all the things that differentiated her from me as a woman. Truth is I feel warm emotions toward most feminine women because of how they differ from me. Their tiny hands, their small feet, their constant sparkling eyes, the tone of their voice, the fact they can only lift 1/5 of what I can, there soft skin, the crazy confusing way they communicate, their need to be protected from the scum and demons in our world, their fragile emotions, everything that makes them different from me makes me love them all the more.

Maybe its an evolutionary thing. We men have evolved to relate specifically to all the differences. In that way, we glue our existence to that of a woman in order to form and foster the family unit and thereby perpetual the species. That behavior, in term, makes us more attracted toward the examples we see in the other gender that are more different and thereby the difference expands.

Of course there are women out there that have lost the concept of what being feminine really means, like those nasty bossy ones in congress. But romance stories aren’t about them and I don’t sense that warm fuzziness for them anyway.

Now I know that sounds corny, and I’m committed to only one woman in my soul, but I adore most feminine women for that very reason, because they’re so damn different. I don’t feel that way about guys, only women. I like guys as buds, but my linkage with them is different. The question that remains is, “Do women feel positively for men for the same reason?” Do they get a warm response inside when they deal with men other than their spouses because they are so different from them as a woman? And is that part of the equation that attracts them to their soul mate; namely the difference? I don’t know, but it was enlightening for me as a man, and helped better express the hero’s emotions toward the heroine. And why would the way I feel be relevant to writing about the hero? Because, in my stories, in some form or shape, there’s a little of me in all my heroes, except for the six pack abs and curly hair. Those days have disappeared.

Till next time
Big Mike
Davisstories.com

1.    When it comes to sex, woman control the game. Given the female drive is significantly lower than the male, and the fact that ladies are the key master to the gate way of pleasure, the male hunger for sex is never fully quenched. Need proof? If a woman were to walk into a bar and announce, “Raise you hand if you’d like to get lucky with me tonight,” now just what percentage of unattached males do you think would respond? You bet, most of them, and no one would complain. Imagine a guy walking into a bar and he did the same. I doubt he’d get any takers, and most likely would be tossed out. Advantage women.

2.    When a woman gives birth, she is 100% absolute that baby came from her genes. The same cannot be said for men. Unless there is a DNA test (which has only been recently possibly), there is always doubt, always a possibility. Advantage women.

3.    When a man approaches a woman to check her interest, he is the only one risking shut down. Advantage women.

4.    Women know explicitly when a man is interested. There is no confusion. With women, it’s always an ambiguous guessing game, “Did she just smile at me?”, “Does that hair toss mean something?” Advantage women.

5.    In cases of child custody, except if there is physical abuse or the woman runs away (which has happened to four of my friends), the courts err on the site of the woman getting prime custodial. There is a shift in the wind, but custodial cases still go generally toward the female. Advantage women.

6.    When it comes to which maneuvers (e.g. taboos) are authorized beneath the sheets, the majority of men are opened to everything. Women, on the other hand are more restrictive, and what they say goes. Advantage women.

7.    In terms of life choices, a woman has more options. For example, a married woman can choice to stay home permanently; or have a child, place it in day care, and go back to work;  or have a child and stay home; or not have a child and have a full time career. The man? Well, he can work, period. Yes, I know there are anomalies where the guy is a house mom, but that’s rare for two reasons: most guys don’t have the patience and most women don’t want to support the man. Never heard a man state, “I would never support a woman to stay home while I go out to work.” Advantage women.

8.    The defender role is a bear to be stuck with. What does that mean? If a woman makes a sensual statement to an attached male in front of his mate, or pats his butt, he’ll smile or announce, “cool it” and it’s over. If a jerk male does the same to a wife or girlfriend, insults her, touches her, the man is bound to defend her honor, unless he’s a metro male, of course. In that case, it’s the woman’s role to step in since he has no pair to keep him company. That responsibility carries a lot of bruises and black eyes. Advantage women.

9.    The male is the dragon slayer, always has been, always will be. We guys will always defend, protect, throw ourselves in the path of the bullet, just our way. Advantage women.

There are many more down sides to the existence of men, but you get my point. Truth is, there are just as many downsides to being a woman. It’s the nature of a two-gender role society. Point is, even with the disadvantages, would you really want to give up what you are? I know that there are people that get gender confused, try to switch, cross dress, etc, but I think that’s a small percentage. Personally, I have never wanted to be a girl, and it’s not because there wouldn’t be advantages to it. I just can’t stay the idea of giving up my attraction for women. I adore the ladies, the way they stimulate me, their beauty, their scent, the way they brighten my world. Even with all their confusing ways, the tendency to male bash, and as a man, being the scapegoat for all the problems in the world, I love all the ladies (well most of them), and I can’t imagine giving up that attraction. Besides, I’d be awfully damn lonely cause I could never be interested in males. Uh, just the thought makes me queasy.

Big Mike
Davisstories.com