Essay: Do men and women need each other?

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Do men and women need each other?

From the book: Chum for Thought: Throwing Ideas into Dangerous Waters by David Satterlee

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Gender relations

#Feminism #LGBT

Chum For Thought:
Throwing Ideas into Dangerous Waters

Do men and women need each other?

My personal experience is that masculinity and femininity complement each other very nicely. I become exceptionally moody and morose without the company of women. In a mixed gathering, I prefer to be in the kitchen, behaving myself like a mouse in the corner, instead of with the men watching sports in the family room. And, I know that I really like being married and having a feminine woman as my best friend.

Further, while lurking near widows and divorced women, I have heard them confess that they “simply like having a man around.” It sounded as if, like me, the simple presence of someone of the other gender satisfied a palpably felt deficit.

The feminist Gloria Steinem famously asserted that, “A woman without a man is like a fish without a bicycle." OMG! Didn’t Dr. Seuss put a fish riding a bicycle in

Essay: How a Republican lawyer helped me meet my liberal wife

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How a Republican lawyer helped me meet my liberal wife

From the book: Chum for Thought: Throwing Ideas into Dangerous Waters by David Satterlee

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Chum For Thought:
Throwing Ideas into Dangerous Waters

How a Republican lawyer helped me meet my liberal wife

My sweet wife and I were sitting on the front porch swing, reading the Sunday paper and enjoying the cool breeze of the early morning. It still amazes me how many things we don’t know about each other, even after all these years. She was reading the obituaries. I knew something was up when she lowered the paper into her lap and just stared off into the distance. Eventually she explained, “I almost married a Republican lawyer.”

Being my usual smart-ass self, I quipped, “Yeah, that would have been tough. Lawyers like to argue, and they especially like to win arguments. And, you can’t argue rationally with a Republican.” Fortunately, my beloved knows that, once I get the smart-ass out of my system, it’s safe to move on as if nothing had happened. She finished her story.

“Someone I dated in high school died. I might have married him. It turns out he became a lawyer.” I put my arm across her shoulder. “We were actually pretty serious for a while, and then I called it off.” She leaned her head back and rolled it toward my shoulder. “You know what a liberal hippie chick I was back then, with protest marches and folk songs. Well, he invited me to go with him to a Young Republicans Club meeting. So, we started comparing ideas and, pretty soon that was it.”

Well, that’s about it here too. When you’re been married for a long time, some of the best things are the quiet, delicate, unexpected joys that land on you, like the cool flutter of a butterfly, for just a moment. I kissed her gently on the head and told her that I loved her. And then I just stared off into the distance for a while, surprised that I would find myself so suddenly grateful to a Republican lawyer.

Story: Lust in the Morning

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Lust in the Morning

from the book: Life Will Get You in the End:
Short stories by David Satterlee

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Life Will Get You in the End:
Short Stories by David Satterlee

The tensions between happily married couples can boil over. Sometimes, you just have to ask, "Did I really say that out loud?" 

Lust in the Morning

A Fergus Johnson story of gender relations

It was a lazy, quiet Saturday morning. Fergus and Dorothy were sitting together on the living room couch. Dappled sunlight streamed through the large front window, promising a bright, crisp day full of vigor and potential… perhaps after lunch. He was reading the daily newspaper and she was thoroughly inspecting a small collection of pre-Christmas glossy color catalogs featuring top-of-the-line, premium merchandise.

Fergus, having just spent a few moments admiring the models in a lingerie ad on page 17, looked over fondly at Dorothy. He loved her so much. She was a good wife, a good mother, a good friend… and a good cook. He closed his eyes and indulged in