mwirth: Please Note: don't be offended by the gender stereotypes. This cartoon is mostly not about people like us- it is about normal people.

samira: I can explain the reason for towel turbans--long hair. it is the best way to wind up the towel and the hair so that you can wander around with the towel separating you from your wet hair. It simply works best for that.

sprice: spitting: Happens here, too, if you ride public transit. In fact, I've seen guys hock inside stations and inside buses.

sprice: I love the use of "choice" in the first panel. It's a great place & use for an adjective like that.

tasha: BTW, there _is_ a female Viagra equivalent, but it's herbal. So, okay, not official, but ya know. Women are enticed by the pretty clothes in those damn fashion magazines (I'm guilty of this too) - then they are bombarded by the skinny-ness of it all. There used to be a super-cool mainy-plus-size-but-all-body-type positive magazine called Mode, but that was axed early this year (subscribers were supposed to have it replaced with Women's Day. I was _not_ amused.)

alecia: Speaking of male birth control pills: I heard recently that one was close to the test phase of development in Europe (I think it's progestin-based, but I'm not sure). In the middle of last summer, my doctor told me that there's all sorts of new things close to FDA approval, including that, and a female pill that extends the menstrual cycle to 3-4 months. Of course, that might only increase the pregnancy panic-reflex...

gabriel: Panel 1: I do this because it's just easier than bringing along a towel or finding a paper one. (It'd probably help if Swarthmore's weight room weren't always around 50 degrees warmer than the outside air.) And yes, men are definitely aware of being observed. (Well, I am, anyhow.) Panel 2: The male version is reaching over the shoulders and pulling forward. Both make sense to me (it's simple: the shirt turns inside out), but I certainly can't draw either. :^> Panel 7 (lower left, if I miscounted): Beats me, and it's bugged me before. Has something, I think, to do with the (plausibly correct) presumption that men's sexuality is ultimately more simple.

tasha: Whup - I just heard that the "female Viagra" will be "ready in three years" in the U.S. on the radio.

mwirth: Re: spitting in buses: gross! Re: men lifting up shirts in gym: sure, doing it to wipe sweat off you is logical. I meant when they just do it for no apparent reason, except perhaps to show off.

xanthi: re spitting, in china this practice is not only even more common, but also gender indiscriminant. :-/

samira: I like the brief dip into a specific scientific research related complaint, before launching back into regular old commonly percieved gender differences. It isn't funny, it is a said with sardonic irony, but it fits with the lighter funny.

tasha: From what I've heard, women started shaving their legs because the whores that their men were dallying with started doing it (!). I do fine with my booooobs, thankyouverymuch (D/DD). I may not be able to go around comfortably without some sort of support, but they're mine and I love them. And I have plenty of problems getting a date (maybe it's the "overweight, short-haired, glasses-wearing, low-maintenance, stitch'n'bitchin', welding [recent addition], sarcastic" thing. Or, ya know, the 60/40 ratio on campus [yes, more girls than boys].)

gabriel: Hair: I did, at one point in my life, also shave my armpits. Had something vaguely to do with swimming/water polo, though it didn't lead to shaving much else regularly. (I think the legs were enough hassle to only be worth it for big meets/matches, while the armpits were significantly added hassle and pain if not kept pruned regularly.) Oh, and there's a segment of the male population that keeps smooth skin most of the time: porn "actors". (Actually, I think porn's where this aversion to hair really gets reinforced.) Qualifications: That's so right on it hurts. Incidentally, I really like the way you work the charicature of yourself into this panel (and the expression she's wearing). Insecurities: I don't know that men are so much unaware of them as they are sure that other men haven't got them and, thus, afraid of showing them. (Yes, this is a vicious circle.) There's backlash from this too: it's really easy for men to come off as whiny.

samira: Re: circumcision: According to Tim SW and my mother, it also reduces the risks of cervical cancer in their sexual partners, which still doesn't answer the, "Why not in Europe?" question.

mwirth: Rumor has it that originally one of the purposes of across-the-board circumcision was to help prevent masturbation. Anyhow, generally America seems to like cutting things as a medical strategy more than Europe. We do more hysterectomies and stuff, too. Hard to say who's right.

alecia: Interesting point. I wonder if it has something to do with the difference between socialized health care and whatever you want to call the USA's system. The presence of socialized care *does* impact medical research & development (far less r&d happens in Europe because they spend more of their resources actually caring for everyone), so why not common not-necessarily-needed operations, too? Is there less of a cosmetic surgery industry in Europe?

samira: I think that cosmetic surgery is less common in Europe, but I am largely basingg rates of US cosmetic surgery on all the recent coverage, what with Botox and all, as well as on things like European stars, who seem to be allowed to age more that American ones are...

gabriel: Panel one: Ouch. Circumcision: I understand circumcised men enjoy greater sensation for pretty much all their lives (not that I'd know) whereas circumcised men don't so much. It stands to reason: constant rubbing against the inside of the ol' Jockeys becomes numbing. Time: I haven't a clue where the averages come from. No reality I live in. Maybe this all comes later in life than any of us are, though? Diamonds: her thought bubble is a really great counter to this dude's smug goateed face. :^> Last panel: Fourteen's quite a count. (Are those black eyes--scary!--or just spirals?) It's not impossible for men to get at least a couple off of one... er, encounter, though. Samira, I think aging's allowed for US male celebrities (see Kevin Costner, Harrison Ford--though he's always been sort of an old man, Sean Connery), but not so very much for women. Not that that makes the situation any less confusing.

mwirth: Difference in sensation for uncircumcised men: Don't worry, I've seen no evidence for it. Last panel: Yep, supposed to be spirals for eyes- but it was drawn over white-out (originally her eyes were normal) so it didn't turn up well in the scan. Fourteen: maybe slightly better than par for the course.. but not outside the realm of possibility..