Chocolate, Milk, and Sex Maniacs

Three years ago, in response to a disastrous Facebook conversation where I tried to explain that men’s feelings about sex are more nuanced than many women seem to think, and in which one of the women involved said, “Not all women are sex maniacs” (thereby implying that all men are), I wrote the blog piece Sex and the Third Rail.

Funny thing is, though, that I never really got the chance to explain how nuanced guys’ feelings about sex are. I simply wrote about the experience that led up to the blow up.

I’m going to try to do that now, using the example of chocolate milk.

Really…chocolate milk.

But before I start, let’s remember that all analogies are faulty in one way or another, so I don’t want you to start picking this apart. Just look at it as a chance to go, “Oh…I never thought of it that way before.”

OK, now that we’ve got that settled, let me ask you this question: Is chocolate milk all chocolate, all milk, or some combination of both?

OK, assuming that you’re not either stupid or trolling me, you answered that it’s some combination of both. Well, using the standard formula for making a glass of chocolate milk at home, I’ve figured that it’s 84% milk and 16% chocolate. That still means that it’s mostly milk…in fact, it’s overwhelmingly milk…but that little bit of chocolate you add, which is spread out all through the milk now, has a huge effect on the color and flavor. And…unless you have a centrifuge, it’s pretty much impossible to separate the chocolate from the milk.

Now let’s do a little substitution here, and say that the milk represents emotions and the chocolate represents sexual desire. If we do that, then I think we can say that guys are pretty much represented by chocolate milk. By pre-packaged chocolate milk. Sex isn’t the only thing we think about, we are emotional creatures, we are very emotional creatures; but sexual desire, like the chocolate in the milk, is all wound up in the emotions, and can’t easily be separated out.

It’s not all we think of, but it’s in everything we think about. And even then, it’s only a small part of what’s in what we’re thinking about. But it’s inseparable from the rest.

And we not only love chocolate milk, but we have a warehouse of it to give.

Now let’s consider women. Women seem to be more like a gallon of plain milk sitting next to a bottle of Hershey’s syrup. They can pour themselves out plain, and then add some chocolate to themselves if they wish. But the chocolate’s not there all the time, it’s not an intrinsic part of their makeup…it’s just an option that’s available to them should they want it.

And women have a warehouse that stores a lot of plain milk and some Hershey’s syrup.

The problem is that when a woman asks for a glass of milk, and keeps being presented with chocolate milk by her guy, he looks like a “sex maniac.” Similarly, when the guy asks for a glass of milk, and gets plain 2%, he’s wondering why it’s so bland, why there can’t be a little chocolate to it, and why she gets so mad when he tries to go get the bottle of Hershey’s syrup.

But…he’s not 100% chocolate syrup. That’s the definition of a sex maniac here…a person who wants to drink an entire 8-ounce glass of that stuff all the time. And I don’t think anyone could do that.

Although…there does seem to be a stereotype about women loving chocolate.