Reviewers have not been kind to Desmond Morris on the publication of his new book Naked Men, which examines males from top to toe in the name of pop-science.
Female critics have complained about his simplistic gender generalisations that paint women as the more practical and sensible sex while he suggests that men are more playful and prone to taking risks. Male critics, on the other hand, have slated his musings that heterosexual men who display "overgroomed and narcissistic tendencies" will be automatically mistaken for homosexuals. David Beckham is okay, apparently, because he's a well-known hetero, but all you civilian metrosexuals out there are emitting ambiguous sexuality signals, according to Morris. Take my advice. Move away from the moisturiser.
I haven't read the book but the following quote seems as good a reason as any not to buy the thing. "Greatness seems to demand the sort of stubborn perversity that is a predominantly male quality. It has often been argued that this has been a matter of opportunity - that women were not allowed to develop their true potential. But in practical terms, this simply means that women were not great enough to demand that their greatness be recognised."
It's hard to think much of him after an annoying statement like that. You don't have to be a genius to figure out that it was impossible for female greatness to be recognised when for centuries women were treated as second-class citizens. It was also tricky to demand recognition of female greatness when women couldn't even vote or when they had to leave their jobs because they got married or when . . . look we'd be here all day but you know what I mean, Des, and maybe you should just have a word with Hillary Clinton about greatness.
He gives good radio, does Desmond. Speaking on Today with Pat Kenny last week he rattled through his risible gay theory. Apparently, homosexuals are just boys and girls who never grew out of the boys-only-liking-boys and girls-only-liking-girls phase enough to want to breed or something. It's all about arrested development. Sigh.
But he also said something which actually struck a chord. He was talking about noses, and about how modern male pin-ups such as Brad Pitt and Johnny Depp have more boyish faces than the heavy-jowled, strong-nosed blokes that would have been all the rage in past centuries. "Women do seem to like to find more juvenile-faced men more attractive," he said. "It's part of the explanation as to why we shave. Every morning I get up and remove a male signal from my face . . . it makes us look more juvenile because little boys don't have beards, and so by taking off the beard we look less threatening and this makes us more appealing to the female."
I've always wondered why I fancy the kind of men I do. I knew I liked non-threatening-looking guys, as opposed to macho, cavemen types, but never understood why. Now, thanks to Desmond, I think I do. It turns out that back in primeval times when women were of equal importance to the tribe we had enough self confidence to fancy the brutish types. Men were the ones who went off to the hunting grounds, says Morris, but women were at the centre of society, practically running the whole show, leaving them free to pursue more masculine, powerful-looking mates.
Skip a few thousand years ahead, if you will, to urbanisation. According to Morris, city life favoured the males. Suddenly the urban centre was a hunting ground with men making a killing in the city, only instead of his bow and arrow he had his briefcase. Now he was the centre of society and women, who once had a vital role in the tribe, were pushed outside and we have been fighting back ever since. While Pat Kenny was keen at this point to talk about the size of a man's nose and how urban myth suggests it reflects the size of their genitalia, Morris did manage to drive his point home.
Apparently one of the ways we women are fighting back is that we are finding "less assertive" and "less aggressive" men increasingly attractive. And as much as I'd like to scoff at this, I think he may have a point. Just have a look at the partners of your more assertive female friends. These men might not exactly be Brad Pitt, but are they boyish, or juvenile-looking and unlikely to play a dominant role in the relationship? With bra-burning now passé, this natural selection might just be part of a new, infinitely more subtle, feminist master plan. Whether you believe it or not, the best thing about this theory is that any women caught lusting over juvenile Johnny or boyish Brad can ogle away safe in the knowledge that they are this century's equivalent of Emily Pankhurst. Thanks, Desmond.
