for 30 May 2001. Updated every WEEKDAY.

Tim Cavanaugh
Special Guest Editor

Terry Colon
Art Director

Heather Havrilesky
Senior Editor

Joey Anuff
Publisher

you said:

You may not be 38 or live with your mother, but it's clear that you feel powerless in your interactions with women. You think of women as possessing something precious that they selfishly refuse to share with you, out of raw stubbornness or ill intent. You see women as menacing and cruel.

could you explain why he is wrong in thinking this? i mean, could you explain to me why, in the context of your flamboyantly secular belief system, why there is ever any good reason *not* to respond to another person's sexual attentions?

for a female who has no moral center, the only basis on which they could "choose" not to have sex would have to be frigidity or vanity. if a man points out to such a woman that she IS a slut, and then concludes that she's being selfish or stubborn (hey don't stop there: or a lesbian, or frigid, or diseased) by not having sex with him, the worst you could accuse him of is boorish behavior, in the sense that telling the truth to the elaborately self-delusional is considered "impolite".

from my point of view, a slatternly woman *deserves* to be punished for her behavior, because it is morally, socially, and self- destructive. but from the high-fucking horse of militant reflexive feminism that you and most of your ilk have been diligently internalizing for the past serveral hundred years, it doesn't really have any moral weight to accuse a woman of doing *anything* wrong in her relations with the opposite sex, does it?

if you read the poor fellow's letter insightfully, you'd see that the overall intent of his "humour" is to mock loose women, the kind who "go on dates" and have sex in cars. he's obviously NOT cut from the mold that is going to allow him to "score" anytime soon and from the P.O.V. of the degenerate culture he lives in he would appear to be quite woefully inexperienced and undesirable. but what do you do? you ignore all that, that whole side to the equation, and reflexively zero-in on his guilt-by-biology — insofar as no healthy man could hope not to instinctively relish the humourously posited notion of molesting and degrading some girl.

Demmy Rooster
<demmy@mikpos.dyndns.org>

Hi Demmy.

I'm not sure you noticed that I was working with the assumption that whoever wrote that letter made it up. I was picking apart the problems of the person who made up the fake letter, not assaulting some poor hapless make-believe man looking for helpful tips on how to get a woman's clothes off.

You see, Demmy, you can tell a lot about a person from how they "pretend" — and from how they engage in a heated debate, for that matter! Sometimes a person's emotional damage is far more apparent in these cases than it would be if you asked them to talk about themselves and their problems directly.

Given the magnitude of your emotional issues, I think it's safe to say that it would be morally, socially, and self-destructive for me to attempt to address your utterly unglued logic.

But let's work backwords instead, and create a fun little quiz out of your letter! Shall we?

1. I often have sex with other men, but I choose not to have sex with you. This is because I am:

a. selfish
b. stubborn
c. a lesbian
d. frigid
e. diseased

But you forgot one answer:

f. physically repulsed by the mere thought of you

Best wishes,

Tiny Little Penis

I'm guessing from your competent, level-headed and well-thought out advice that there's no possible way you could be a man. Does "Tiny Little Penis" actually refer to the clitoris?

Sincerely,

Chilly Summers

I'm a penis, damn it! A tiny, little penis! A cute, cuddly, dear little penis!

I'm here, I'm dear, get used to it!

Furthermore, I am not level-headed. My head has a lovely dome-like shape.

Biologically guilty,

Tiny Little Penis

Polly —

Ack! I'm royally screwed, as I am still young enough to naively believe that there would be a woman who would be fascinated by all the minor details of my life and would only not want to hear them because she wanted to sexually satisfy me. Now I guess I'm going to have to settle for someone who would actually feign interest in my mediocre life and who feels that I warrant the occasional sympathy screw. How reassuring. Better take advantage of the ideal college dating scene while I still can.

But I suppose that debunking the notion of "The One" has its purpose. By getting rid of this ideal, we will finally have no reason to fear commitment with the realistic One because we know that there is nothing better out there. In short, this Mr. Flinchy will cease to be flinchy because now I know that my flinchiness is based on unrealistic assumptions, hopes, and dreams.

Colin

Well, you know, things are a little more black and white in cartoons than they are in real life. They're not really that funny otherwise. I mean, just look at how unfunny real life is.

No one is really quite fascinated enough, frankly, but that doesn't mean they all melt down to sympathy screws. You men get so confused about sexuality. No subtley at all — everything boils down to whether or not someone really wants to fuck you.

But hey, far be it from me to criticize reductive thought. Besides, I'm not here to give advice. Go ask the penis.

"Go tell it to the penis!" (To the tune of "Go tell it on the mountain!")

Helpful as ever,

Polly

Dear Magua:

Congratulations. You are completely wrong. It is no small thing to be completely wrong since, by definition, it is exactly as hard as being completely right. Anyway...

1. Tuxedos are immensely practical. They match whatever your lady is wearing or not wearing and require absolutely no thought to choose in the closet. While she is agonizing, or shopping yet again, you wear the same thing year in and year out.

2. Tuxedos make men look good. That cummerbund (or vest, if you prefer) covers up a range of midsection problems. You get to pick a collar that makes your face look good as well.

3. Tuxedos provide just enough freedom of choice to let a man think he's doing something show-offy without being any trouble. You can choose the color of your vest/cummerbund. You can choose your studs and cufflinks, or not use them at all. You can wear patent leather or be wild and crazy and wear cowboy boots...the sillier and more expensive the better.

4. Tuxedos are egalitarian. Mostly they look alike. Looking good is usually a matter of less is more. What's more, you don't ever wear a watch with one, and you avoid tacky-looking giant diamond studs, so you're actually walking around with less money visible than the typical Rolex-wearing yuppie.

5. The bowtie provides both a romantic and a usefully touching moment in a relationship. Since no real man can actually tie a bowtie himself (and a clip-on bowtie is an abomination), you let your lady tie it and twitch it around and generally adjust it. Not only does she enjoy this, it keeps her from trying to organize the rest of your evening and your life.

6. A tuxedo is comfortable. It fits loosely, and the interfaces are covered with cummerbunds or vests. The belief that a tuxedo is uncomfortable is caused by wearing rented clothing. All rented clothing is uncomfortable---it is made to be sturdy, not relaxing, and doesn't fit right. If you rented chinos and a polo shirt, they would be uncomfortable. Break down and buy one. A vintage tux can be bought very cheaply...just spend a few bucks having it altered to fit.

Which brings me to my tuxedo story. Austrian friends have invited us to stay with them in their vacation home near Vienna, and we've decided to meet at Salzberg to go to the opera. The opera festival in Salzberg is a very big deal indeed and people dress up. What the hell. I buy a used white dinner jacket down in the Village for 20 bucks and throw it into the suitcase along with my black pants and a shirt. My friend is wearing HIS white dinner jacket, which he's inherited from his father. We go to the opera. Everyone else is wearing THEIR dinner jackets (half white, half black); their fraus are dressed to the nines; everyone has come in their Mercedes and BMWs; after the opera there is a stampede for the little places nearby for a bit of supper and champagne. You would not BELIEVE what tickets cost.

Punch line: the opera is Brecht/Weill: Mahogonny.---The City of Nets. Their extremely nasty send up of the evils of capitalism. The audience loved it.

Go ahead. You're not 20 any more. Dressing up can be fun, if it's your idea and not something your mommy made you do. Buy a tux. Wear it everywhere. You'll like it.

Alan
<akornhis@optonline.net>

As always, Alan, you make many fine points. And as for your "Wear it everywhere" suggestion, I'll agree that it would be better if the tux were society's mainstay apparel rather than, say, a gray necktie with a white shortsleeved shirt. But when you bring in the Viennese you give away the game. Because my real beef with the tux is that it always makes me stop feeling like a svelte and dashing new media wiseacre and start feeling like a 300-pound German industrialist seeing Die Fledermaus in Hitler's personal box, sipping tawny port and listening to the Fuhrer rant about Von Runstedt's incompetence during the Entr'acte.

yr pal,

Magua

Are you crazy? What the fuck are you talking about, dude? I don't understand what yer saying with all this shit about ties, man.

-Ci$co
<ciscov@avaya.com>

I'm saying bowties are justly feared and reviled for making men look like incredible dorks.

yr pal,

Magua

Hmm, not much going on the world right now, Tim? For some reason, I find it hard to get all het up about men's clothes and the social commentary behind them. I was always under the impression that straight men don't care about clothes (note: you'll be hard pressed to find a gay man wearing a boring old standard tux), so the basic penguin suit was a kind of favor for those attending formal events. Oh, and cummerbunds are passé; it's all about vests now, so the portly needn't feel so oppressed.

There must have been some recent tuxedo sighting that triggered your own traumatic formal-wear memories, so I don't want to mock too much. Besides, if Terry's illustrations are any indication, you don't seem to feel the need to dress up very often, anyway. Of course, you could always pair the ball cap and tux for something -really — avant garde!

Gently teasing,

Alexia Henke
<ahenke@downtownny.com>

No way, the baseball cap and tux is truly an abomination. At this very moment, frat boys, yahoos and rockers of all stripes are wearing this very getup at depressing keggers all over the land. Rock on!

bently wheezing,

Magua

If only you had followed the link in your text to the article about "woody," you would have noticed that the wooden penis is wearing a standard tie, not a bow tie.

Tom Dewhurst
<tdewhurst@dksa.com>

If there's an attentive reader out there who reads plenty of comics, I'd appreciate the name of that woman who used to draw the "Peter Makes the Scene" comics, which featured the adventures of a single woman and her pet penis, in which the detached cock always wore a bowtie, male-stripper-style. The comic was pretty funny, and even funnier was that I heard the cartoonist later found Jesus, and now spends her time repudiating the immorality of her earlier work.

forgetfully,

Magua

Magua, thank you for debunking the horrible piece of "formalwear" we call the tux and its equally old fart bow tie. The only time in recent memory that I've worn a tux is for my prom, and I wore a long tie instead of that dog-eared POS. The tux leaves so little room for personal choice in fashion aside from the shirt, tie, and cummerbund/vest choice, especially in this fashion-conscious society. I mean, women's formal wear changes every fucking year (just look at the Oscars for proof) and we males are stuck with the same old stodgy crap.

However, I do wonder why you wrote on this subject. Is it because you happen to look bad in a tux too? If so, welcome to the club.

Choking from the tie's stranglehold,

Colin Seiler
<seiler@grinnell.edu>

I got married in a tux, Colin, and I can tell you I looked smashing! Still, when I saw how lovely my bride looked, I was heap big jealous! This was back when Dennis Rodman was only famous for his tattoos. Oh sure, they told me I couldn't wear white because I wasn't a virgin, but I know all about these outmoded gender roles!

yr pal,

Magua

Nobody looks cool in rented clothes. So don't blame the tuxedo. Blame the misguided attempt to make a high school prom into a "formal" event. When you vomit Jagermeister all over the roof of your limo, you really don't need a tux. They should give each senior a Tyvek jumpsuit that repels stains and liquids, and imprint it with the school's logo for easy recovery of the unconscious drunken carcass from the Denny's parking lot.

Mullets go best with a powder-blue tux and a frilly shirt with navy blue piping.

A real tux, tailored to fit, costs maybe 4-5 rentals worth. It looks good even on portly guys (I'm not portly, I'm just husky. Yeah, that's it) and lasts for decades. Which means I'm glad it doesn't go out of style! Best of all, it doesn't smell of someone else's vomit, unless you wear it to a hockey game.

If you want a really snazzy formal outfit, join the Navy as an officer. The dress whites, with the high collar and gold trim, look like Captain America meets Michael (the Archangel, not the singer or the basketball player). I'm not talking the "dinner dress whites" which are just tails with epaulets. I mean the class-1 Dress Whites. Ah, those were the days. Not only did I have snazzy formalwear, but every day someone told me exactly how to dress.

Paul Canniff
<paul@flyinglab.com>

Among the many sins of Bay and Bruckheimer's Pearl Harbor is the costume change they've done to the real-life pilot on whom Affleck's character was, according to the production notes, "very loosely based." That pilot spoke at my school one time, and made it clear that he was wearing a tux during his dogfight, having just staggered in from some Saturday night black tie bender. The movie had him wearing a Hawaiian shirt — yet another specimen of Bruckheimer's determination to drain our culture of any possible hint of style or elan.

yr pal,

Magua

I don't want to be that lone dork who just doesn't get the irony, but you know that the whole Cambridge thing about the castration was just a joke, right?

No, really.

Matthew Leader
<ml269@cam.ac.uk>

If it's on the World Wide Web, it must be true. Don't they teach you anything at Cambridge, Matthew?

yr pal,

Magua

Magua--

You mention the Prince of Wales twice in your piece on tuxes. However, one is lead to believe by your text that the Prince of Wales who supposedly invented the tux is the same Prince of Wales mentioned by Esquire Magazine. Not so. The Prince of Wales mentioned by Esquire later was crowned Edward VIII. His grandfather was Edward VII.

Regards,

Steve Cook
<stephenc@sixtycg.com>

As I took pains to mention the current Prince of Wales in the article, I think it was clear that I was referring to the POW as a position which various twits have held, not to an individual person. In any event, I'd doubt many readers had the interest or inclination to believe that Esquire was referring to feckless mama's boy Edward VII, who at the time would have been a stylish 95 years old, had he still been alive. Thanks for the clarification.

yr pal,

Magua

The story I recall is that the Tux was invented in Tuxedo, NY when a drunken reveler stood up on a table and declared, "Why do we always have to wear these dreadful tails on our jackets?" He then cut them off, leaving the modern tuxedo jacket. It seems that this is a romanticized version of the true story, as the man in question would have had to shell out for the $8 damage insurance.

I'll bring the straw
<jorg@stanford.edu>

The story I heard was that the drunken reveler stood on a table and declared, "Damn the Mugwumps, and let the Halfbreed-Stalwart quarrel go hang!" And then he dumped a Brandy Alexander on the head of his servingman Hodge. The rest is history.

yr pal,

Magua