It is just girls adapting

Image via

When I was about 11 years old my dad opened a video library. He and my mom named it after my little sister who had just been born and named after my late grand ma but I thought that naming the business after her was super lame, only because it was so uncreative. Twelve years later mom and dad went into the tents and deco business and after they named the company Pelo Tents after the first two letters of their first names, I realised I had no chance in dragging them out of predictability.

When Wambi video library was opened, dad wanted it to be different. Started right in the heart of the booming bootleg era, my dad decided that he would only rent out original tapes (yeah, it was before the DVD). And so the tapes would be delivered at our house in a big box from somewhere abroad where they would be labelled and numbered before being taken to the library. That meant that we could watch all these movies for free before they left the house. It was this exposure that gave me an obsession with the film and entertainment industry.

It was also around this time that I used to read tonnes of trashy romance novels-you know, the ones they used to sell on sale at the stationery section in the tiny neighbourhood supermarkets. Because of these books, loaded with steamy, unrealistic, mostly native American or rebel Pirate romance stories I conceived a deeply rooted belief that you could only truly love one person in life and that was your soul mate-no one else. One day, when I was old enough to help with the labelling and numbering of the tapes, I came across this movie “Bridges of Madison County” by Clint Eastwood and my at the time soon to become favourite actress Meryl Streep.

In the movie, a legal immigrant wife and mother settles with her stereotype farmer and bread winner husband in Ohio where she lives a simple and predictable life. And then comes along this photographer (Eastwood) who humbly and unexpectedly sweeps her off her feet in this sweet but sinful romance. After the film I was so mad that Meryl Streep didn’t open the damn door of her husband’s truck and ran into the arms of Clint Eastwood-whose truck roared with plea behind the married pair’s. That rear view mirror scene had me crying a river. Anyways. After that I realised that I was rooting for her infidelity to her husband. But it felt so right. I was confused.

As we were talking very intensely about women and infidelity at the most boring art and something festival with my friend the other day I remembered the bridges of Madison county and the Ohio wife cheating on her tedious, plain and hardly-noticing-his-wife husband. We agreed that yes, for men, it’s almost normal for them to cheat. That it is probably coded within their DNA. That even a scientific study recently showed that male species with the biggest scrotums, or balls had a higher number of female sexual partners than the species with smaller balls. And because the male human species’ scrotum is in the middle of this range of big to small balls, then you had a 50% chance of your man cheating on you. Gives a whole new meaning to ‘that’s a man with balls’. In short really, cheating men is such a phenomenon, even though common, that studies have been done about it. But when a woman cheats, there’s a pause. Could she be a wh*re? Where was she brought up? Was she drugged?

You see, I do not think that cheating comes as naturally to women as it does to men. I actually think that it its abnormal, shoot me. Why? Well, for one I am a woman. Secondly, I use history and experience as a teacher and history whilst definitely exposing many ‘records’ of cheating wives/girlfriends, it doesn’t come close to the quadrupling numbers of their male counterparts. Women are also hugely adaptive to their changing environments. When husbands left wives to raise families on their own, the wives dropped their mops and went to work. When husbands and boyfriends cheated, wives and girlfriends grew their own share of middle range scrotums and allowed themselves to stray.

And so I asked a couple of ladies why they cheated and their responses were
“I was just tipsy”
“I don’t know”
“It was an accident”
I rephrased the question. “What came to your mind just before you cheated that made you say ‘I’m doing this’?”
“The text I read on his phone”
“He said he wanted to have a platonic lunch with this other girl. She was his ex”
“He doesn’t call to check on me or text me just to say goodnight. I’m not sure he loves me”
“Him apologizing for cheating on me”

Yes, we have a coupla whores, but that’s a whole other issue brought about by still an abandoning male father figure or rapist uncle or what have you, but; when you see a level headed woman WHO IS IN LOVE WITH HER MAN, cheating on him, there is an issue that has been brought about by the man. It could be that he’s not treating her right, that he’s not giving it to her right, that he’s also cheating or that he’s simply being unappreciative of her but, in my opinion, it all sprouts out of a failed responsibility of the man.

Now, I have gotten a lot of backlash about this stand but it’s true. You see, even though women now are stronger and bolder than they were 60 years ago, we are still built to follow men. Yes. When they go to school, we want to go to school. When they start to build houses, we want to build houses. Go through any marketing research data and you will discover that even for advertisers, there is a reluctance to advertise clearly female-stereotyped products (that are unisex) as ‘women’s’ because the men will never get on to them. But if you advertise it as a male product, women will still be sure to come around. Which is fine, let the men lead. It’s attractive. Love a woman and she will return this with Respect. Cheat, and they will cheat. Fortunately, women just find a way of doing it better…you know. Madea said “the reason why a woman won’t get caught is cause them things is sleek…”

All I am saying can be summed up by this; this so called new wave of cheating women is out rightly a manifestation of the man’s negligence.

I am still bitter about the ending of that film.

Yeah, I said it!

Peace & Love
Julia Love