Oprah helped me through this

Yesterday, I saw part of a stupid Oprah episode (okay, pretty much EVERY Oprah episode is stupid, but this one was especially so) addressing such hard-hitting questions as "Why do men look at porno?", "Why do men cheat?", and "Why do men like to play golf?" The panel of experts set up to answer these questions consisted of Jay Leno, Brian McKnight, some Sports Illustrated writer, and a dude who wrote a book on how a woman can change a man. This seems to be pretty typical for Oprah, who apparently had Leonardo DiCaprio on to talk about global warming, and Ricky Martin to talk about child sex slaves. I guess those four guys were supposed to represent the entire male gender. Leno kept making all these really stupid comparisons, like how women read romance novels instead of looking at porn, and the equivalent of a man getting lazy and not picking up after himself is a woman getting fat. (That last one is offensive on so many different levels that I don't even know where to begin.) I also learned such useful tidbits about gender differences as:

• Men like to play golf because they all enjoy competing and keeping score.
  
• Women are more emotionally connected, and after sex, they think about the future of the relationship, and whether the kids will be cute. Men, on the other hand, think about how well they did.
  
• Men think of everything in military terms.
  
• A man can't touch a woman without wanting sex.
  

I also noticed that a lot of the couples on the show seemed to have kids they didn't want. I realize that this is an assumption on my part, but they all talked as if the kids were a burden, rather than a blessing. As you could probably guess, this issue wasn't addressed at all.

While I won't go so far as to say that there are no differences between genders, I'm bothered by such attempts to concentrate on how men and women are different. Not only are they based on sexist stereotypes ("All men are sports-obsessed porno addicts who don't clean up after themselves, and leave the toilet seat up! All women are neat freaks who want to get married and crank out as many kids as possible!"), but they also disregard the notion of individuality. I mean, if two people in a relationship aren't on the same page, and you insist it's due to gender differences, then how has ANY heterosexual relationship ever worked out? Maybe it's not due to the members being two different GENDERS, but rather to their being two different PEOPLE?

And now, to switch to a completely different subject, one question I'd like to pose to my readers, and then answer myself, is: Why do you keep an online journal? The same question can apply to other online activity as well. Why maintain a web page, or post to a newsgroup, or whatever? I guess the question particularly applies the page isn't really of any practical use to the world, which is how I feel about my own journal.

For me, I think a lot of it is about validation. In many ways, I fit the stereotype of the pathetic nerd who can't wait to post my opinion of the latest Simpsons episode, as if it would have any impact on anything. I realize that my opinions are totally insignificant in the grand scheme of things, so I like the idea of a sort of microcosm where my opinions DO matter, where my knowledge of the events in Oz books and Simpsons episodes is an asset rather than a waste of valuable brain cells, and where people actually care what I had for dinner. That's one reason why I'm obsessed with getting and leaving comments. If someone cares enough to offer a comment on something I wrote, it makes me feel as if I've done something at least slightly worthwhile. I'm wondering whether other people see the Internet, and their contributions to it, in the same way.

Finally, some of these comics are pretty amusing. I especially like this one.