Sick of hearing it. Next time I hear someone yelping about “real manhood” I’m about half ready to pull out my trusty two-by-four and commence to opening up a size-ten can of whoopass. Bloody twits wouldn’t know a real man if they got their ankles chewed to the bone by one.Have you ever noticed, gents, how when someone starts talking about how “A real man would” it’s generally followed by you giving something? Rights, money, surrendering your career, your integrity, or your soul? Belly up to the bar, men, it’s time to shed some more of that expendable Y-chromosome blood. Bend over. Here it comes again.Bah.Okay, let’s talk about the “Real Man.” The real man of myth keeps those rugged good looks, square jaw, and five O’clock shadow. He grays gracefully, has those solid abs, and dresses to the nines. He never, ever, smells of sweat. He of course does this without being a “Metrosexual.”The real man is ambition and has purpose, but somehow always finds a way to put his family first. But he keeps his well-paying job and moves ahead despite an insistence on going home early, passing on overtime (mandatory or not), and not working weekends.Even if it is in a job he hates, and is killing him by inches, the Real Man keeps a stiff upper lip and puts his nose to the grindstone because they Need The Money. He never does anything risky like change careers, apply for the job he always wanted to do, or go into business for himself. To do that would be Selfish and put his needs ahead of the Good Of The Family. Things might become tight for a while, and that might stress her out.The real man’s woman doesn’t have to work, does so only if she wants to, and keeps her money. His money is “ours” and her money is “hers.”Even if the missus doesn’t work, the real man comes home and commences with the housework, working side by side with his wife until it is all done. He never forgets to throw his socks straight into the hamper, and if you would go into the bathroom you would swear he sat to pee.Mrs. Realman is not a baby machine! She has her 2.2 children, and the decision to have any more or less is hers, and hers alone, because it’s her body. The real man knows his place to stand by and support her, whatever her decision. And if she leaves him, he sucks it up, because he obviously failed to be a real man. As penance he pays any child support she requests, and butts out of “interfering” with her choices on how to raise the children, backing her to the hilt. And if it turns out that Mr. Realman is not the father of the children, he sucks it up there too, even if Mrs. Exrealman takes up with the children’s natural father, and his child support and alimony is supporting both of them.The real man is sensitive. After a hard day of brokering deals, being responsible for millions of dollars of goods and/or equipment, he lets Her talk first, because the neighborhood gossip and the same soap opera she talks with her girlfriends all the time is much more important than anything he might have to say. His day, after all, is only that of the draft horse putting a roof over the family’s head and paying the bills.The real man is a sexual dynamo. He is ready at a moments notice to service his real woman’s needs. He is not premature. He is never impotent. He’s not too tired, or stressed. Even if the real woman has become so fat that they can only have sex in one or two positions, he’s like a rutting goat, as he sees her inner beauty only. Look at another woman? Perish the thought! He of course understands that she likes to look, but would never regard that as disrespect because it’s different. Ever sensitive though, he never allows her to feel pressured into sex, because his needs, being mere male needs, are selfish, animal, and base.When that promotion is offered which means almost a doubling of salary, Mr. Realman is careful about it! Mrs. Realman might not want to move, because she’d be away from friends who she feuds with on and off, and a mother she never goes to see but talks on the phone with for two hours a night even though they live a few scant blocks away. Somehow he finds away to land that extra green without making Mrs. Realman leave her comfort zone.The real man never expresses annoyance, irritation, or God Forbid, anger. Such things disturb and scare the missus because he’s so big and strong and might hurt her. As a woman, her kind has been the victim of men for millennia, and even though she’s always been treated like a princess by all the men in her life, he doesn’t want to become an Insensitive Boor™.When something upsets Mrs. Realman, Mr. Realman dashes for the phone booth, changes into his tights and cape, and Does Something. Since making a mess or engaging in a confrontation would upset Mrs. Realman further, and give Mrs. Noseybitch next door fodder for the gossip-mill, Mr. Realman uses his He-Man Super Powers with Mountain Fresh Scent™ to make everything right. Huzzah! Once more he saves the day!Our Real Man is the paragon of Chivalry. He is always deferential to the Woman because, well, because she’s the woman. He does this even when, nay, especially when she is wrong, and doesn’t let a snarl of “I can open my own door, I’m not helpless!” deter him from doing it the next time, because she might change her mind, or that occasion might be “different.”Despite a hundred and two degree temperature and spitting blood, the Real Man doesn’t complain, and still does the dishes because his missus has a cut on her finger and it stings. To complain would be whining and the Real Man is NEVER a whiner! Despite a case of the trots that leaves him running to the john every ten minutes, he gets up and makes his own tea and crackers because, as we all know, men are such babies.He always asks for directions, even when he knows the route, because Mrs. Realman is out of her comfort zone, off the route she takes, and they are therefore lost.The Real Man never turns off Oprah, but pulls up a seat and watches it with his missus, manfully choking back a tear. He has that delicate balance down to a science, of getting those red rimmed eyes and the faintest hint of a lip quiver, but never actually cries about anything. That would be sissified. He also never watches sports or news which might bore or upset the missus.Ever the romantic, the Real man always manages to Find A Way to bring the missus a dozen long stemmed roses because He Loves Her. He does this spontaneously, but no less than once every two weeks. Even if the flower shop is half an hour out of the way, he still manages to go there without leaving early and Losing His Job but never gets home late and makes her worry. Despite bills being tight, new glasses for the son, new braces for the daughter, the variable rate going up on the mortgage, utility rates rising, and repairing the engine on Her Car, he manages to find the sixty to a hundred simoleans to do this.A Real Man understands that traditionally women have been silenced, and therefore refrains for even mentioning something which might challenge her dearly held opinions, because such things are obviously personal attacks on her. Whatever she says, it is met with a smile and a grave nod, as if it were an utterance by God.Daily he exercises from his portfolio of He-Man Super Powers with Mountain Fresh Scent™ the abilities of telepathy to know what is wrong with her (Because if he loved her he’d know!) and clairvoyance to omnisciently know every petty chore that needs to be done, and does them without asking. After all, she constantly beams these things to him so he’s been told a hundred times. Honestly. Men! Any idiot can see that the blender he never uses is leaking!And finally, when the feces has hit the fan, he proudly straps on his gun and dons his uniform to go be splattered on the landscape of some god-forsaken beach, desert, or jungle somewhere, to save civilization from the Baby Eating Foreign Devils. He’s the first to run into a burning building to haul out kittens, brave the dangers of the highway accident, and right all wrongs with manful use of his He-Man Super Powers with Mountain Fresh Scent™.And for all this, the Real woman does….(sound of crickets)Anyone? Hello? Beuller? Beuller?Cleans the house? No, that’d be to turn her into a drudge.Makes dinner? No, that’s patriarchal and oppressive.Bears his children? No, she’s not a brood mare.Manages the household finance? Oh, what was I thinking? Does she have to do everything?Shops? No, because if she has to go to the store, he’s coming too. Unless of course she’s spending her hard earned money (or her half of his) for something nice for her because she never has anything for herself. But that’s different.Hey, I know! She’s pleasant and loving and …no, wait. She’d have to repress her true self, and that’s *HIS* job.Gives up her career to – wait, that’s not right either.She stays loyal and faithful to him? No, there I go again. Expecting women to just trudge along in the old “Stand By Your Man” routine even when he doesn’t meet her needs and she feels unfulfilled, and isn’t swooning with romantic feelings 24-7? Hmph. I must remember though, that men stray because they are pigs, and women stray because men are pigs.Takes care of the kids? Well, duh! That’s *ALWAYS* been the chore of women, EVERYONE knows that NO MAN has EVER changed a diaper, took kids to school, doctor’s appointments, practices, sleepovers. Jeez, might as well have married a babysitter!Keep herself fit, sexy, and attractive? YOU ANIMAL! Even if she does, she does it for herself, and not for you, you sex-obsessed PIG!!!Refrains from correcting or berating him in pub – EXCUSE ME?!?! Are we living in a fascist state now where she’s got to watch her mouth, and play June Cleaver to his Ward all the time?Well, it doesn’t matter. The Real Man does all this without expecting anything for it, because that’s what a real man would do. So, guys, join up today! Become a Real Man™ and dedicate yourself to serving femininity, because otherwise you’ll be a Meninist™, and you don’t want to get stuck with that label, do you? WHOTTA DEAL!!!!Hm. How’s this again?On second thought, maybe the next time some whiney female pundit asks “Where are the Real Men at?” I’ll answer “Hanging out with the Real Women. And if they aren’t hanging out with you, you obviously aren’t one of those, are ya, toots?”