The fairer but less-funny sex

A friend sent me an interesting link the other day for an article in Vanity Fair about how women are not funny.

When she told me about the article, I was initially outraged. Of course women are funny. Most of the women I know are very funny. I can be pretty funny myself.

The article is actually pretty interesting -- and funny --- itself. The writer's argument is that women are so many other things, that they don't need to be funny. While men, on the other hand, need funny to survive.

The chief task in life that a man has to perform is that of impressing the opposite sex, and Mother Nature (as we laughingly call her) is not so kind to men. In fact, she equips many fellows with very little armament for the struggle. An average man has just one, outside chance: he had better be able to make the lady laugh. Making them laugh has been one of the crucial preoccupations of my life. If you can stimulate her to laughter—I am talking about that real, out-loud, head-back, mouth-open-to-expose-the-full-horseshoe-of-lovely-teeth, involuntary, full, and deep-throated mirth; the kind that is accompanied by a shocked surprise and a slight (no, make that a loud) peal of delight—well, then, you have at least caused her to loosen up and to change her expression.

It is a very delicately written article that presents the argument that women truly hold most of the cards, including the mommy card, without which civilization itself would cease to exist. And in that light, we can do men a favor and allow them to continue to believe that they are really the only ones who are funny.

I can go along with this, especially when some of them look like Dane Cook. Damn, that boy is funny, hot and downright nasty -- everything I like in a man.