Chapter Two:
PIMPOLOGY
THE SULTAN IN THE HUMAN TESTICLES,
In the heart of every man lives an undying conflict:
To Pimp or Not To Pimp?
Whether ‘tis nobler to love one woman with all mind, body, and soul, or to love all the earth’s three billion women with all mind, body, and soul.
King Solomon was the wisest man on earth. He had 700 wives and 400 concubines.
1100/365 = 3.01.
He was the wisest man on earth.
Three is a holy number: Breakfast, lunch, dinner. All-you-can eat.
Solomon had 1100 wives, and none compared to Sheba.
Back in the day, when Clinton was still President, I saw this man, and he was permed and pretty, wearing this very suit I’m wearing now, and I was so entranced by its rich texture, its lustrous sheen, by the unstoppable coordination of blue with pink pinstripes, I ran up and told him, “that suit’s pimp to death.”
I didn’t see it coming, but his hand soon grabbed me by the throat, and his long manicured nails were asphyxiating my esophagus, when he said, “A pimp! There is nothing more despicable than a pimp!”
If you’ve seen American Pimp, or Pimpz Up, Hoez Down, Vol 1-7, you’ll agree.
- The lover uses money to get women.
- The pimp uses women to get money.
- If you are heartbroken and broke as a muthafucka, better take your ass to Wendy's: nine items, ninety-nine cent.
Nine items, ninety-nine cents. 9.7 million ways (9,765,625) to spend five dollars. That's like the harem of King Solomon: diversity, choice, flexibility.
The other night, I had only had two dollars, so it was Double Stacks, ordered two Double Stacks, only in America can you get 31 grams of protein for ninety-nine cents.
One bite and there appeared Solomon’s splendor:
The song of songs, which is Solomon's.
Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth: for thy love is better than wine.
Because of the savour of thy good ointments thy name is as ointment poured forth, therefore do the virgins love thee.
Solomon feasted. Solomon feasted indeed. But Solomon’s feast is the short man’s famine. For if Solomon had 1100 women, there would be 1099 men without a single woman, assuming everything’s equal.
Just then these two dudes walked in and began to thank Jesus for the extra-value menu. “Everything is 99 cents!” The taller dude grabbed his friend by the shoulders: “Baked Potato, Biggie Fries, Frosty, Chili, Caesar Salad, Chicken nuggets, Double Stack—God bless America!”
“That’s right!” The shorter dude nodded. “Eat Great, even late.” He too could see them, the scent of all nationalities, with some Wendy’s chili, all up in his beard.
“When we get money, we’ll have all kinds of ladies. Leather couches, plasma TV, jacuzzi—”
“We’ll be the coldest pimps on earth.”
Shorty then held his toothpick up to the light, was beholding its mint green aura, when he turned and asked me for a quarter.
It’s when you can’t afford a Double Stack that you start thinking about turning Wendy out.
Pimping’s big business, and it’s been going on since the beginning of time.
LADIES CHOICE
It is clear that Pimpology, if it is to be a science at all, must be a mathematical science.
Once again, it is the size and number of the sex cells that distinguish men from women. Women have 400 ova per lifetime, men 300 million sperm per ejaculation (450 million if you have three testicles). While The Colonel can conceive three children a day, his wife
Claudia can conceive no more than once, maybe twice, a year.
And since sperm are ubiquitious and eggs are limited, women have a right to be choosy.
During 15 minutes of intercourse, The Colonel burns 90 calories (not even a drumstick). During a nine-month pregnacy, Claudia will need an additional 90,000 (245 breasts). If the sex was a quickie, then The Colonel burned only 30 calories (a bite of a biscuit). In eighteen years of life, his child will burn 13,000,000. Because Claudia’s investment is much greater, she is much more selective.
For life to continue, The Colonel needs eggs and Claudia needs drumsticks. And so The Colonel competes amongst his competitors for chicken (Church’s, Popeye’s, Bojangle’s), and Claudia chooses the bird. Biologists call these two principles Male Competition and Female Choice.
These principles are behind every story, every form of art.
Male Competition: the Greeks and the Trojans went to war.
Female Choice: because Aphrodite “gave” Helen to Paris.
I say “gave” because Helen’s husband obviously wasn’t fulfilling his duties. (Your booty, my duty). Fifteen percent of women commit affairs, and so if you don’t take care of your woman, there might be a war.
The Greeks and the Trojans went to war over Helen of Troy. The Americans and the Iraqis also fought over a woman: Pamela Anderson. Your Uncle Sam wanted those titties in his Hummer, bouncing up and down, slapping against each other. Baywatch is the world’s most watched show, and Saddam and Sons didn’t want their women getting any ideas. The titties are fine, bouncing up and down and slapping against each other. It’s the ideas. And so as the oil fields burn, we set bombs and mortars over the nature and purpose of women.
But in this war, there’s only one winner: The Colonel. When Pamela criticized KFC for inhumane treatment, the People thought of Kid Rock and Tommy Lee, Hepatitis C, and said girl, you ain’t finger lickin.
PHYLOGENY RECAPITULATES PIMPOLOGY
Hogamus higamus,
Man is polygamous.
Higamous hogamus,
Woman monogamous.
Of the 1231 cultures on record, 84% have been polygamous.16Pimpology is the evolutionary norm.
Hogamus higamus,
Man is polygamous.
Higamous hogamus,
Woman monogamous.
Such was the jingle that William James recorded in the early 1900s. He knew that Phylogeny recapitulated Pimpology, the Sultan in the human testicles.
Several decades earlier, in 1866, biologist Ernest Haeckel developed the theory that ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny, that the embryo, in its nine-months of gestatation, goes through all 4.6 billion years of biological evolution. But if we look under the microscope we’ll also find that phylogeny recapitulates pimpology. The evolutionary history of the species recapitulates the evolutionary history of the pimp.
LADIES FIRST
Two hundred cows, one bull. Over history there have been many more mothers than fathers.17 Phylogeny recapitualates pimpology, the sultan in the human testicles.
We get our mitochondria from our mothers. The mitochondrion makes protein, of which each ejaculation contains 3 grams, the same as a Wendy’s chicken nugget. (One and a half nuggets, or 4.5 grams, if you have three testicles).
And while nuts are big—300 million sperm per ejaculation—sperm are small, too small to retain a mitochondrion.
Our mothers then give us our mitochondria, and in them we’ll find our maternal ancestry. And so if we compare maternal mitochrondrial DNA with paternal Y-Chromosome DNA, we’ll find much greater diversity within mitochrondria. Over history there have been many more mothers than fathers. Two hundred cows, one bull.
Genghis Khan’s Y Chromosome can be found in 1/200th of the world’s population.18
And while men will kill each other, they seek to keep the female sex alive.
And Pharoah charged all his people, saying, Every son that is born shall be cast into the river, and every daughter ye shall save alive (Exodus 1:22).
When the ship goes down, women and children first. And yet, since ninety-nine percent of human cultures are patriarchal, males are often favored.
WHO'S YOUR DADDY?
“Maternity is always a matter of fact, paternity one of mere inference. Upon the chastity of women all property in the world depends”(Samuel Johnson). It is for this reason that we take the last name of our fathers.
Sultans solve this uncertainty by stocking the harem with eunuchs, castrated males. Now eunuchs have the same life expectancy as females, which means that your testicles take seven years off your life. (10.5 years if you have three testicles).
There is a potential sultan inside of every male’s testicles, dying to get out. And these would-be-sultans compete amongst themselves for the right to spread their seed. The bigger males are usually victorious, which explains why men are bigger than women, a phenomenon biologists call sexual dimorphism.
And so, the more sexually dimorphous a species, the larger the harem. A silverback gorilla weighs 500 pounds, a female 250, and King Kong has 6-8 wives. The bigger you are, the better it gets. A female sea lion weighs 700 pounds, a male 3000 (1000 of which he loses during the mating season when he is too busy to eat). How many wives? 35-40.
And then there’s Wilt Chamberlain, 7’2”, 275 pounds, on his belt, 20,000 women.
In 1992, when Wilt’s autobiography, A View from Above, was published, a journalist said, “Come on, Wilt, that’s impossible. 20,000? That’s two a day from age fifteen.”
Wilt’s reply: “I know.”
Twenty-thousand women, two-a-day from age fifteen. But on second thought these numbers are believable. Phylogeny recapitulates Pimpology. According to anthropologist Laura Betzig, "In almost every case, power predicts the size of a man's harem. One hundred women for a small king, 1,000 for a great one."19
And so, "for all the women he slept with," says Mistermaxxx, a reviewer on Amazon.com, "was he any worse than JFK or Bill Clinton?"
PRESIDENTIAL
The White House is open to the public, but PRIVATE TOURS are available. My father was minister at the senator's daughter's wedding, and after a letter or two, a SPECIAL TOUR was arranged, at six at night, just after the White House closed.
It was Christmas time and I was looking good (corduroy suit) and feeling good (forty-six chicken wings). Thank goodness, for the tour guide was this sexy little number. God had indeed blessed America (Clinton was still the President). Her body was shaped a double helix, with rollercoaster curves and the smallest nose you have ever seen. Thick black hair and giant blue eyes and skin whiter than a brand new pair of Reeboks.
Her name was Naomi, and between us was a good vibration. She also knew that George Washington used to hoop it up, tore down many a peach basket.
“Look at his calves,” she said, admiring his full length portrait in the East Room, “they’re enormous. I think the calf is the most elegant muscle in the human body.”
“Yours are very nice,” I said. “I like how you can see both little muscles.”
“The gastrocnemius and the soleus,” she said.
“You’re pretty smart, Naomi.”
“Why do you think I’m working in the White House?”
I rubbed my temple. “You have incredulous credentials. When you’re an old lady, your legs will be very sexy.”
“Thank you,” she said.
She led me through the map room, where Roosevelt and Churchill planned their attacks over bourbon. We saw the Red Room (graced by Dolley Madison) and the Green Room (redecorated by Jackie Kennedy) and then Blue room (done in a peacock blue with light gold wallpaper). “What’s your favorite room, Naomi?”
“The Blue Room,” Naomi said. “It reminds me of peacocks and peacocks are my favorite animal.”
“They are?”
“Because the peacock knows who he is, he shows no shame. He never even looks at the peahen, but all 200 eyes in his train—on their every move.”
“The Pride of the Peacock is the Glory of God” (William Blake). Naomi smiled and said, “The sight of a feather in a peacock’s train, whenever I gaze at it, makes me sick” (Charles Darwin).
“But Darwin was bald and sickly,” I said. “He couldn’t understand the peacock, the survival of the prettiest where only the prettiest survive.”
Naomi shook her head. “Darwin was right,” she said. “Of all the birds, the peacock is the most needy. He needs us the most.”
Calves went numb and knees buckled and I fell backwards to the floor. Naomi’s little hands helped me up, but refused to let me stand. Her blue eyes were oceanic, contained all 540 million years of my aquatic ancestry, and so I did a few dives and crawls through her pre-Cambrian caves before tightening up on my backstroke.
“Can I get you anything?” she asked.
“Chicken legs. Do you have any chicken legs?”
At that she pushed me to the floor, crossed her arms over her chest. “You remind me of him.”
“Who?”
“I can’t stand him anymore.”
“Tell me.”
She shook her head, bit down on her swollen lower lip. “He’s such an a—hole.”
I stood up and put my hand on her shoulder. Her breath was sweet and citrus, like a tangerine peel. I gave her shoulder a soft squeeze.
“You remind me of him,” she said.
“Yeah? Is that good?”
“Not so good.”
“Alright, then, that’s understandable. I bet you have a lot of unresolved feelings.”
Naomi tapped her foot. “No, I know what I feel.”
“He’s not here now, is he?”
“No, he’s in Russia.”
“Well, if everybody’s gone and you’re still upset, then why don’t you show me something I’m not supposed to see?”
We took an elevator to the basement, an oval study with bookshelves from floor to ceiling. Naomi walked over and pulled the King James Bible and then one of the shelves pulled back to reveal a silver circular staircase. She walked slow and I followed close behind, enjoying the creamy scent of her conditioner. Her waist was so narrow and her hips and bosom so full that if you took a ride, you might slide off the edge of the world—plunging, drowning in the sands of her hourglass. Through her conditioner, I caught a whiff of collard greens, cooked for hours in fatback, and mashed potatoes and gravy—the juices that exude from meat especially when seasoned for use as sauce.
“Where are we going?”
“The White House says there are 132 rooms, but there are really 133.”
“I think I smell biscuits.”
She led me by the hand, when at the bottom of the stairs the smell was unmistakable, the same 11 herbs and spices that as a little boy had once taught me the true meaning of Christmas. Facing us were two silver doors with a twenty-digit keypad. “Now before I enter the code,” Naomi said. “Let me tell you the story. It was an eleventh hour deal that Newt Gingrich brokered back in 1995 just before the balanced budget bill was to appear before the White House. Bill was going to sign it anyway, but he knew that Gingrich was from Marietta, Georgia and that he had connections with—”
“The Big Chicken.”
“Right, the KFC with the 150 foot tall sign. You gotta see it to believe it.” Just like you, baby. I wanted to pull her into my arms, sink my teeth into her healthy hip, but the Colonel inside said thighs and drumsticks before you sop her up. “It was Newt’s idea. Well really, Bill had me plant the seed and then convince Newt that it was his idea. Newt was always self-conscious about his weight, that’s why he always got a big kick out of Bill’s love for chicken.” Naomi turned away and chuckled.
“What is it?”
“Once we had a contest. And he ate 125 chicken wings.”
“Impossible.”
“No, it’s true.”
“How many did you eat?”
“Fifty.”
The thought of Naomi’s watermelon-painted fingernails, now covered in hot sauce, and I began to feel warm and fuzzy. I took one step forward, towards the keypad, and should have stepped aside, but The Colonel told me to stay put, and as she stepped forward, her perfume was fresher than a stick of celery, and there was salt in the bead of sweat than ran down her neck, collecting in the pool of her clavicle, her chest heaving as her watermelon-painted nails entered the code. When she finished, the codepad played the guitar opening to Al Green’s “Love and Happiness,” and when the silver gates opened, for the second time that evening, I fainted to the floor.
Her touch was cleansing, like a moist toillette, as she led me past the wading pool, up the stairs to the inner chapel. The floor was a red porphyry marble, but immediately your eyes looked upwards to the fresco on the ceiling, a band of birthday-suited angels supporting the Colonel himself, finger outstretched as the gift of spice is given to a birthday-suited William Jefferson Clinton.
“He calls it the Colonel’s Chapel, and when it was completed his first words were ‘I have outdone you, Michelangelo!’”
“I never knew Clinton had three testicles,” I said.
“Gennifer Flowers used to call it ‘Williard’ because it’s longer than William.”
“They used to call mine ‘Billy-Billy-Oh-Oh-Billy cause mine’s also longer than William.” In the west transept there was a large painting of what appeared to be the Black Madonna of Montserrat holding a gold-lamé suited Colonel.
That’s ‘the Black Madonna and Colonel,’ Naomi said. “Bill painted it himself. Thinks he captured ‘in both their eyes the perfect mixture of two parts adoration and one part bewilderment.’”
“I think he pulled it off.”
Naomi nodded.
“It’s absolutely silent in here.”
“Bill’s under a lot of pressure, you know. And so he wanted a quiet place, somewhere where he could come and feel himself.”
“How often does he use it?”
“We come here about twice a day. We’d come three times a day if he had his druthers. Don’t laugh,” she said. “The room has to remain secret, but the world should sleep easier knowing it exists.”
“With the Colonel’s chapel,” I said, “Clinton can get his chicken 24-7-365.”
For a moment Naomi looked serious, then gazed up at the Colonel and at Clinton. “This place once taught me the true meaning of Christmas,” she said.
Out of respect I remained silent.
“On several occasions, The Colonel has saved the world.”
I murmured.
“In the oval office, Clinton has a phone with two buttons, one red, one blue. The blue button is ‘bomb Russia’, the red one ‘call The Colonel.’ Sometimes we all gotta push a button, and so it’s good that Bill can always call The Colonel.”
“Bill’s in Russia now,” I said.
“And so the choice is yours.” Naomi smiled, her teeth big and healthy, could leave a nice bruise. She then took down her luxurious black mane and then loosened the top button of her blouse. “You remind me of him, and I can’t stand him anymore.”
“He’s such an a—hole,” I said.
When she unbuttoned my pants, I closed my eyes, when there, in my hands, was the phone with the red and blue buttons.
Sometimes we all gotta push a button, and if that button was blue, she was mine for all eternity. Her erudition—passionate love of history; her appetite—a chicken wing eating contest every night; her curves—if I truly rode her, I would slide off the edge of the world; her thick black mane; her skin whiter than a brand new pair of Reeboks. It was going to be a blue Christmas without Bill and Russia, but then biscuits and gravy set in and The Colonel was called.
“There, there. Don’t be sad.” Naomi handed me a drumstick. “The tail (me) is smarter than the dog. The phone is rigged. Both buttons call The Colonel.”
Four hundred ova per lifetime, 300 million sperm per ejaculation. These numbers explain why, for the last 10,000 years, men have ruled the world, why women have ruled men, and perhaps, in an age of nuclear proliferation and environmental devastation, why women should rule the world. (See Aristophanes Lysistrata, 411 B.C., also Prince, “Pussy Control,” 1996).20
THE MACK
Pimpology is the art and science of pimping. It’s etymology is [pimp+logos]. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with Pimp, and the Word was Pimp.
I’m going to be the coldest pimp ever. People are going to be talking about Goldie like they was talking about Jesus (The Mack).
Anthropologists tell us that the two things that separate humans from animals are the ability to use language and the ability to use tools. A pimp’s tools are obvious: pinky rings, party-packs of popcorn chicken, burning hot oils. But the pimp’s words need investigation. Thankfully there’s the Pimptionary.
a noun
“He got game” (Spike Lee).
“What mattered was the game. The two main characters made their stately progress towards the bedsheets” (Graham Greene).
1. the flesh of any wild animal or bird.
The meat of young GAME is generally easily digested. Small birds, usually eaten within a short time after the kill, are considered to be as digestible as poultry. Meat from older GAME, or from an animal exhausted in the chase, is less desirable, but it can be improved by marinating it for several hours, usually in a mixture of wine, vinegar, and spices (Enclyclopedia Brittanica).
2. one’s strategy for success in the doggy-dogg/kitty-kat world of
competition and courtship; the never ending negotiations between Aries and Aphrodite.
(I shouldn’t tell y’all this, but Aries never got her. Aphrodite, the goddess of love, ended up marrying Hesphaestus, the richest of the gods, but also the most ugly).
Upon inspection it appears that the Game is none other than Sexual Selection (Darwin’s theory as applied to Mars and Venus), and in 1860, one year after the publication of The Origin of Species, a lithographer named Milton Bradley printed up several copies of The Checkered Game of Life, a boardgame as Darwinian as it gets: the first are first, the lucky usually win, and the victors are those with the most money. But don’t hate the game. We’re all players. And you can be a winner at the Game of Life. You get in your car, and spin the wheel, then College (Harvard, hopefully); Career (doctor, hopefully); Wife (big ass, hopefully); Husband (three testicles); then Kids, Insurance, College, Grandkids . . . until the Day of Reckoning.
Conceived in 1860, the Game is certainly indebted to Darwin, and yet would not exist without Grace Bedell, an eleven-year-old girl from Westfield, New York. On October 15th, 1860, her father went to the county fair and brought home a portrait of a clean-shaven Abraham Lincoln. Miss Bedell, however, was dissatisfied with Lincoln’s looks and decided to write the Republican Nominee:
Dear Sir . . . I have got 4 brother’s and part of them will vote for you any way [sic] and if you let your whiskers grow I will try and get the rest of them to vote for you you would look a great deal better for your face is so thin. All the ladies like whiskers and they would tease their husbands to vote for you and then you would be President.
Lincoln long wanted a stronger game (his own wife was crazy as hell) and so he took Miss Bedell’s advice and grew out his beard. Now the portrait of Lincoln that Miss Bedell saw was taken by none other than Milton Bradley. As soon as Lincoln grew his beard, Bradley’s portrait stopped selling. Nobody wanted to look at ole thin-faced Abe. Bradley was struggling. Bill collectors harassing his wife, multiple eviction notices —if you’ve ever had the eviction notice staplegunned to the apartment door, you know what Bradley was going through. If he didn’t get his game tight, Bradley would lose everything, his house, his job, and, most importantly, his wife.
The Game of Life exists because an eleven-year-old girl told Abraham Lincoln to grow out his beard. The Game of Life is nothing more than Ladies’ Choice, for as much as we were made in His image, we were equally made in Hers.21 All the ladies like whiskers, and thus all players comply: Abraham Lincoln, Wilt Chamberlain, Elvis, Teddy Pendergrass, and, of course, The Colonel. 
“But he hated to shave. It was hard to shave around the mustache and goatee, and I think it hurt his arthritic hands, so he would try to get away with shaving every other day. He was very proud of his masculinity; he didn’t mind having it known that he had an eye for a pretty girl, and sometimes when he started telling stories about the old days, he’d hint that he’d had his days—or nights—with the women.” John Ed Pearce. 1982. The Colonel.
BLACULA
In the American imagination the Pimp is historically black, the go-between the master and the slave woman. It was going to happen anyway, why not turn it into a fish sandwich or two? Because of these affairs/rapes, 22% of African Americans’ DNA is from Europe.22 “I make the white man feel his guilt,” Malcolm X says. “When he looks at this mariny face of mine, he knows what he did to my grandmother.”
In his Autobiography, Malcolm also says:
I never saw a white prostitute touched by a white man. White girls were in some of the various Harlem specialty places. They would participate in customers most frequent exhibition requests—a sleek, black Negro male having a white woman. Was this the white man wanting to witness his deepest sexual fear?
The American Dream, the American Nightmare. After the Civil War, many black folks crossed the color line, and because of these passings, 5% of White peoples’ DNA is from Africa.23
Everybody
move
to the back
of the bus.
TO KEEP YOU SATISFIED
I’m sure many of y’all have mounted deer on your walls (the bucks, of course). Men love to hunt. An old man of the Guayaki tribe in Southern Paraguay said, “when one is a great hunter, one can have many women, and feed them all.”
According to anthropologist A.R. Holmberg, among the Siriono of Eastern Bolivia, “food is one of the best lures for obtaining extramarital sex partners, and a man often uses game as a means of seducing a potential wife.”24
Fortunately, things are much simpler these days: with Wendy’s Gift Certificates.
“Look, girl. Wendy’s. I hear their nuggets are pretty good.”
She sticks her finger down her throat. Part of the logic of Female Choice is that the female can choose the restaurant.
“Three grams of protein per nugget.”
She acts like she is sniffing glue and then points to you.
“All right, then.” You turn away. “Hey, look, The Colonel. I hear their nuggets are pretty good.”
It’s always a good idea to have several gifts on hand, because women love presents. They want to feel cherished, adored, special. Now while you can’t always take a woman to Wendy’s, you can always give her a gift: a Wendy’s Gift Certificate, and when she uses it, she’ll take you along. (Don’t forget to write something romantic on the back.)
A Double Stack costs 99 cents, and if you ask nicely, they’ll add lettuce and tomato. And since the buns are soft, they work really well with candles.
If you want to learn the true value of money, make the Double Stack your unit of currency. So you’re in HiFi Buys and you see one of those new High Definition Plasma TV’s. Price: $2200. But the resolution is so fine you can see Pamela’s pores (among other things). And it’s got the picture-in-picture so you can watch Wrestling and the Game. The Colonel himself never faced a greater dilemma. Do you buy the TV? Or do you take 1100 women to Wendy’s?
TO PIMP OR NOT TO PIMP?
Among the Siriono, “the wife supervises the distribution of meat, so that if any part of her husband’s catch is missing, she suspects him of carrying on an affair on the outside, which is grounds for dispute.”25 Another good thing about Wendy’s or KFC gift certificates is that when your woman is searching through your pockets, she won’t find a receipt.
After some conversation and companionship, Wendy’s gift certificates are always a nice way of saying thank-you. “A man may send some animal or piece of game to the woman through an intermediary and thus reward her for the favors he has already received or expects to receive in the future.”26
To Pimp or Not To Pimp? A $2200 TV? Or 1100 women to Wendy’s?
There is always the third option of taking the same woman to Wendy’s 1100 times, and if a woman will go with you to Wendy’s 1100 times, you might want to hold on to her.
1. The lover uses money to get women.
2. The pimp uses women to get money.
3. If you are heartbroken and broke
as a muthafucka, better take yo ass to Wendy's: nine items, ninety-nine cents.
PEACOCK'S CHOICE
1956 was the first year in which the majority of American workers did not work in manual labor. The economy has become increasingly mental and service-based, and men are falling behind. Today, like most colleges, the University of Georgia is over sixty percent female. In her book Stiffed: The Betrayal of the American Male, Pulitzer Prize winning author Susan Faludi argues that men no longer feel relevant in a postmodern society.
The male praying mantis also does not feel relevant after copulation, when the female bites his head off. Men have always been somewhat expendable biologically. Two hundred cows, one bull. It is these biological facts combined with an increasingly abstract economy that has given the Invisible Hand its four-finger ring.
In the year 2000 the average CEO made 531 times that of the average worker. The CEOs of Enron and Worldcom walked free. In the face of all this pimpery, we then gloried the pimp for two reasons: 1) we like to see ourselves as the mack, Bishop Don Juan and 2) “with nothing left [we] would have to cling to that which robbed [us], as people will” (William Faulkner).
Meanwhile, as work has become less physical, style has become more androgynous. Remember CK1, the cologne for both men and women who want to smell like an open sewer?
But pimps have always been feminine. Obsessed with clothes, shoes, hair, manicures and jewelry. Pimps are permed and pretty, but the wrong word, and I’ll put my foot in your ass and mash the gas.
In her book, Culture and Commitment, Margaret Mead claims, “In Modern Society where polygamy is no longer sanctioned and women are no longer cloistered, there is a new problem to meet, the competition of females for males. Here we have a problem that is almost entirely socially created, a product of civilization itself imposed on an older biological one.”27
Culture has changed the evolutionary choice. Though Feminism blessed women, it also blessed men. Where there was once a shortage of eggs, there is now a shortage of sperm. Female Competition, Peacock’s Choice.
Should then we return to Polygamy? To the paradise of “Two girls for every boy.”
Sounds great, but what if you can't sing like Brian Wilson?
In the majority of countries, the sex ratio is one to one. But in many Islamic countries there are almost two boys for every girl.28
- Bahrain (1.28/1)
- Kuwait (1.52/1)
- Qutar (1.9/1)
- UAE (1.47/1)
In these countries, twelve percent of the marriages are polygamous, further tipping the balance. And so it is no wonder that suicide bombers (single males) are promised seventy virgins. In Arabic the H is pronounced, for the Muslim God is truly named Hefner.
The wise man, in the choice between 1100 women and Sheba, chooses Sheba and holds fast to what is good.
And the wise woman knows she must treat herself as Sheba, for though Double Stacks are delicious, they are not feast for queen.
WORKS CITED
16. Murdock, G. 1998. Ethnographic Atlas Codebook.
17. Wade, M.J. and S. Shuster. 2005. “Estimating the Stength of Sexual Selection from Y-Chromosome and Mitochrondrial DNA Diversity.” Evolution: Vol. 58, No. 7, pp. 1613-1616.
18. http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2003/02/0214_030214_genghis.html. 2/14/06.
19. Betzig, L.L. 1986. Despotism and Differential Reproduction. New York: Aldine. Betzig has an interesting theory to explain why industrial democracies have outlawed polygamy: “As industrialization has given rise to specialization, it may also have brought on reproductive concessions . . . inventors may have become as important as successful warriors.”
20. Is patriarchy a human universal or a recent historical phenomenon? To this question, we must again turn to the calories. In hunter-gatherer times, there was more relative equality because women provided two-thirds of the calories. The best hunters, however, had the most women. Along came agriculture, which could feed more people, but also permitted a greater concentration of wealth. Genesis 47:14: “And Joseph gathered up all the money that was found in the land of Egypt, and in the land of Canaan, for the corn which they bought . . .” Darwinian logic says that if people can, they will. Joseph, however, is unusual. As the only character in Genesis to resist sexual temptation, Joseph receives, from his sublimation, both material wealth and spiritual insight, the ability to interpret dreams. See also Eller, Cynthia. 2000. The Myth of Matriarchal Prehistory: Why an Invented Past Won’t Give Women a Future. Boston: Beacon Press.
21. Sexual Selection theory says that both sexes are made in the ideal image of each other (an interesting explanation for the relative ginormity of the male penis and female breasts). In his excellent book, The Mating Mind: How Sexual Choice Shaped the Evolution of Human Nature, Geoffrey Miller argues that the human brain is also an object of sexual selection. Our gray matter is as colorful as a peacock’s train.
22. Dr. Rick Kittles, professor of genetics at Howard University and founder of African Ancestry www.africanancestry.com, has calculated a European origin for 30 percent of African Americans’ Y Chromosomal DNA. In contrast, less than five percent of African Americans’ mitochrondrial DNA is from Europe.
23. Shriver, M, et all. 2003. Human Genetics, vol. 112, pp. 387-399. Though self-described as white, Shriver himself discovered he had 11% West African Ancestry. “For most people it is consistent with what they thought,” he says. “How the west African DNA got into my family line was never explained to me.”
24-27. Symons. 1979. (Clearly, you must buy this great book).
28. From the CIA World Factbook. http://www.umsl.edu/services/govdocs/wofact2003/fields/2018.html. On a similar note, Thomas Friedman, in his essay, “The First Law of Petropolitics” notes that in oil-rich nations, “The price of oil and the pace of freedom always move in opposite directions.” http://www.foreignpolicy.com. (These countries also have few women in the workforce, and where women work, there is always wealth).
Billy Currell
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