Needing Men

The concept of “needing a man” is considered outdated and ridiculous to most modern women today. We go through school, get jobs, buy property, develop political views and basically can live our lives just as men do. Women no longer need men to do odd jobs around the house as we can Google or YouTube any how-to manual/ video we might need at the click of a button… or pay a professional.

Societal constraints dropping away by means of the sexual revolution have allowed women to approach sex separated from an obligatory relationship as well. Considered completely capable, in most cases, women are free in all ways to support and protect themselves. Select technology has also made them free to please themselves…

So, we thoroughly modern Millie’s don’t need men as much as we may want men. We want to share our lives, confide in another living person about what matters to us and feel that we are cared about. But is that really a want… or is it a new kind of need? Dr. Gray, Men are from Mars Women are from Venus, believes so. And after my most recent stint in reading fiction I may believe so too.

In most books I have read recently, there seems to be a hero and a heroine. They have their differences, even rail against one another for some time before an event has them crashing together. Most of all, there is some need that binds them. This magnet rope wraps them in a state of need becoming an electric desire that makes them want each other so fiercely they end up falling in the depths of the deepest love. Whenever the moment comes where the heroine dips her head in futility and succumbs to admittance of her need for the hero I find myself shaking my head.

Why? I ask. Why couldn’t she just suck it up and do it herself? Because he needed her to need him. In fixing her problem he felt he won her respect, if not her heart. Now, while we all can’t be saved by pirates, it is nice to imagine telling a man you need help and enjoying his pride at doing the simplest thing for you.

Needing a man to help you take out the trash is insulting. Right? Are you not strong enough to take the trash out on your own? Are you not aware enough of your surroundings to make it to the dumpster safely and back inside? Are you not capable enough to do the job without making a mess, and if you do make a mess, won’t you clean up after yourself?

Women have learned over the past 50 years to take offence when a man would do for her what she knows she can do for herself. The difference is that today men know that we are capable creatures, where as 50 years ago there were still some serious doubts.

So, I’ll go back in time and say Yes! I need a man to take the trash out! Not because I can’t, but because I don’t like doing it and it needs to go out sometime. Like now… but it is too cold and late at night for little ole me to venture out of doors unescorted….

Dr. Gray further believes that we women sabotage our relationships by not needing men. Everybody’s got to screw it up somehow.