In french: Un mouchoir dans la poche
One morning, the professor enters the lecture hall, which is particularly noisy that day. He approaches the group making the most noise.
- “You’re all pigs!”
- “You can’t put us all in the same basket!”
- “Yes, you’re all disgusting animals!”
The professor interrupts the argument: “What’s happening here?”
A student standing back: “Yesterday, a girl was raped on campus. It was a gang of drunk and drugged guys who did it.”
The professor: “All of you, please sit down. I think it’s important to understand something. Let me show you something.”
All students calm down and sit in the lecture hall, attentive to the professor.
The professor then takes out a pack of paper tissues from his coat pocket. He takes two and unfolds them on the desk in front of him.
“This, my dear students, is the simplified representation of two individuals’ propensity for sexual relations, or in simpler terms, their sexual appetites.
Yes, we are all different, yes, we shouldn’t make generalizations. However, to understand the world around us a bit better, let’s accept some simplifications for now.
Here’s our ‘male’.” The professor holds up high the tissue he’s holding by two corners.
“He’s quite basic. He is, so to speak, always ready for sexual relations. Of course, we’ll omit the phase of his life where his sex isn’t really usable. Let’s say before 14 and after 80 or death. So this tissue symbolizes a daily desire for sex for 66 years. For the curious ones, let’s say roughly 24,000 desires. We agree that this varies with age and individuals. Some might have 30,000 desires and others 10,000. We’re staying within the rough outline of our model.”
The students are now all attentive, even Charles, who couldn’t care less about psychology class. The professor continues:
“Now, let’s take ‘Madam’.” The professor places the first tissue on the table, taking care not to fold it.
“For ‘Madam’, well, it’s very different. First, I must specify that I’m now going to talk about a more mature lady and not a young maiden roaming the streets in search of her ‘male’. But we’ll come back to young lovebirds later. And here again, I’m going to make big simplifications and caricatures. So don’t react to the approximations.
First, ‘Madam’ will be less willing during her period week. It’s more about technical problems of leaks, irritations, or pain than just a lack of desire. And I know that at the beginning and for some couples even after, this doesn’t stop them. But in general, one week out of four it’s ‘Nyet, nada, no way’. So…”
The professor tears off a quarter of the tissue and continues in front of the students who are beginning to understand where he’s going with this.
“Now, still omitting the first months of romantic passion, we arrive at routine. And there, of course, it’s also the fault of men who are no longer the gentlemen of yesteryear. Still, if we arrive at relations once a week, I’m not certain of the proportion of times when ‘Madam’ wants to be nice to her ‘male’. So let’s settle on one-seventh.”
The professor folds the tissue in seven then tears it to keep only the smallest part.
“Then, life. ‘Madam’ has conditions, expectations which, if not met, will send her libido down to her socks. What proportion? It’s very complicated, but we need to see this in the perspective of comparing our tissues. Let’s take minor illnesses. That’s about the same for a woman and a man. But the ‘male’ is much less particular. If ‘Madam’ has a cold, ‘so what?’. The reverse isn’t quite true. Then come all the arguments, children, mother-in-law, and finally and most importantly, the male’s stupid behavior. This last category is perhaps the most important.
For my part, I think that all of this combined, we’re going to reduce our tissue again to keep a quarter.”
After tearing the tissue one last time, which he holds high with one hand, he places it next to the large unfolded tissue that remained on the desk.
“So here’s the very approximate representation of ‘Madam’ and ‘Sir’s’ propensity for sexual relations in their life. Let’s leave these tissues on the table for two minutes.
A certain number of years ago, researchers conducted an experiment on rats. They took a rat and put it in a cage with a kind of button. For experiment 1, when the rat presses the button, a defined and constant ration of food falls into the cage. In this case, the rat continues its life normally. Now, the researchers changed the setup and this time the button is connected to a random food distribution system. So, sometimes it will get food and sometimes not. This random dimension resulted in the rat constantly pressing the button and especially eating to become obese. This experiment is used in many works to explain addiction problems or is even used in certain industries, like video games, to create addiction.
Now, let’s go back to our two tissues. Even if the proportions aren’t exact and in some cases might be less, it’s important to know that in many other cases they will be even worse. So you have a ‘male’ with his tissue sticking out everywhere, the rat, and ‘Madam’ from whom really not much sticks out, the food.”
“To you, ‘ladies’. You feel that for millennia you’ve been prey or mere pieces of meat? This isn’t likely to change unless we change human nature or our society. You must continue to fight to ensure that the animal, the rat, which is in many men, doesn’t have the right or opportunity to come out and gorge itself.
To you, ‘males’. You are all very different but you all have a tissue sticking out in your pants. Some will easily manage to fold it so that it’s not bigger than your partner’s small piece of paper. But others will suffer because the tissue is too big and no one can fold a paper more than 7 or 8 times. It’s a physical law. Consequently, you’ll have to find other solutions or get help.
This exercise is all the more complicated because you’ll have periods of great emptiness in your life. The most obvious will be all those moments when you’ll be alone and you’ll fill this void by using pornography to excess, even beyond your tissue reserve. Another is more painful: young lovebirds often at the beginning will have the impression, due to the number of occasions or the power of passion, that they have similar tissues and everything will be fine. But time will move forward and savage reality will take back its rights.
So you’re right, we have a strong propensity to be big pigs. But society, morality, reason, and education have managed to contain this frustration.”
Francais: Je sais que je ne sais pas
JoyB Draws & Dessine 