As any honest man will admit, when it comes to women and sex, many of us fellas have a tendency to go hog wild. Actually, the unrestrained animal we`re more often compared to is the dog. Some of us even acknowledge the resemblance.
Funk musician George Clinton once mused about male habits, likening women to felines and men to canines. ”Why must I be like that? Why must I chase the cat? Gotta be the dog in me. Woof, bow wow, yippie yo, yippie yeah, bow wow.” But even dogs driven by surging testosterone levels can tell the difference between right and wrong. Sometimes.
There doesn`t seem to be any doubt, however, regarding the affair between the middle-aged Woody Allen and the young Soon-Yi Farrow Previn. Men aren`t out there in locker rooms and bars high-fiving one another, sharing vicariously in the 56-year-old filmmaker`s latest conquest, the 21-year old adopted daughter of Mia Farrow, Allen`s former long-time companion. At least, not the men I know.
Instead, they`re giving this particular New York story thumbs down all around. And men, who usually envy other men who have won the love of beautiful young women, don`t want to be in Allen`s shoes. Rather, most men view him as having gone beyond the pale.
”There are lines that should never be crossed,” said a male colleague.
”Scoutmasters shouldn`t (sleep with) Scouts, teachers shouldn`t (sleep with) students, pastors shouldn`t (sleep with) their flock,” he said, only in much earthier language. ”What he`s doing is in that category.” Allen, he said, ”should have taken a cold shower, as many as necessary.”
The issues that bother women about Allen`s affair trouble men. It feels like incest. Then he`s so much older. It`s true he isn`t legally the young woman`s father, biologically or adoptive. So what? Neither was Misha, the character played by Rod Steiger in the movie ”Dr. Zhivago” who slept with a mom, then her daughter.
But Misha was a lowlife. Allen now appears to be one as well. He was no doubt something of a father figure for Farrow`s children. He probably took them on outings in the Hamptons and to Central Park sandboxes. Which raises the creepy question of when was he first sexually attracted to the young woman?
That leads to the massive age difference. Allen is more than three decades older than the Soon-Yi Farrow Previn, who`s still in college. When he was nearly halfway through his 30s, she hadn`t even been born.
It may seem to women that most men want pretty young things, or PYTs, complete with firm bodies and no wrinkles. It`s true that at 35 I can be thrown into a reverie by the sight of a gorgeous high schooler or coed; she makes me wish I were in school again. Not that I`d be any luckier than I was the first time around.
Some men desire nubile, young women because they`re pliant and unjaded, putty in the hands. But a PYT can seem like so much Silly Putty and many men who know this would never think of having a romantic relationship with one.
”When I heard about Allen I thought about `Hey 19` by Steeley Dan,” said a photojournalist, referring to the song about an older man involved with a woman, age 19. ”What could you possibly talk about?” he said. ”Unless the woman`s very smart, not much. And even then, she wouldn`t have gone through the same era.”
When Allen said in his statement that Farrow Previn was a ”lovely, intelligent, sensitive woman who has and continues to turn my life around in a wonderfully positive way,” many of us read that as meaning the sex has been great.
Which returns us to the heart of the matter. Let`s face it, men are arguably the weaker gender when it comes to sex. Men, studies have shown, think about sex about as often as we blink. Women, on the other hand, generally seem not to be so obsessed. ”It`s a curse we men have,” said the photojournalist. ”Like the brontosaurus, we have two brains.” He seemed to believe that is what contributed to that dinosaur`s extinction.
I`m not sure about his science, but I know what he meant. Put another way, some people say men have two heads, one that can prevent the trouble that the other seems hellbent on causing. If there`s a lesson in the Allen story, it`s that even a man so clearly as smart as the filmmaker can wind up looking like an idiot, or worse, if the wrong head prevails.
