I'm a conscientious objector in the war on women. With me it's all about the women; my whole life it has been.  Purportedly, "a man thinks about sex every 20 seconds."  That sounds like the ravings of a gender studies professor who used it to demean all the chauvinistic animals that oppressed Women.

More accurately a man thinks about women every 20 seconds.  It's more than sex.  It began when we began.  It was her face that smiled down on us as we lay helpless in the crib, her smile, her warm embraces.  She was the first tickle that made us laugh uncontrollably.  We learned the world through women's eyes and it was beautiful and filled with the first love we would ever know.

As we grew there were sisters, and friends of sisters and girls who lived on our block.  Having not yet been stricken with hormones they were just like the other boys, but not really.  They understood inherently things that would never be admitted to a guy friend or to your Dad.  If I was afraid or disappointed in myself, they let me know that it was OK.  Even at that age they possessed the most endearing quality of women, nurture.  I have lived through the largest battles of the Great Gender War so I understand that some women will consider that a derogatory phrase.  It's not meant to be.  Men are not looking for a mother, (there can only be one).  Men are looking for something like that first love that shaped the world we grew up in.

Later the raging hormone surge complicated things.  Confusion set in, but we figured it out together. No man ever forgets his first love.  We were awkward in our innocence and lost in our awakening.  We discovered that Love could be physical and ethereal.

I enjoyed living in the Garden of Youth in the arms of my true love, but about then Eve took another bite of the apple. Love became political.  Without warning the Great Gender War began.

It started rationally enough.  "Equal pay for equal work"  Who can be against that?  If Rosie the riveter could build airplanes in wartime, she could and should do it in peace time. She could be a doctor or lawyer or president or anything else she desires and has the talent to do. I was all on board.  When I became a lawyer, I filed lawsuits against medical schools and police departments and the electric company for denying women opportunities to prove what they could do. I felt that I owed that to the gender that taught me love.

Then things took a nasty turn.  Without ever knowing why, I became the enemy.  I first noticed it when I held the door open for a female.  Instead of a nice "Thank-you," I received a glaring response, "I can open the door myself".  If I complimented someone on her appearance, I was told that I was a sexist.  Maybe they were right, but I was still fascinated by the gender and my raging hormones were still surging. 

I knew I had to adjust.  I learned political correctness and did my best imitation of Phil Donahue.  I got in touch with my inner female.  I was chauvinist no more. 

That didn't work. 

I was accepted by the gender but as a second class entity that was tolerated so long as I toed the line.  Bras were burned, Birkenstock shoes were worn.  Enticing clothing was replaced with army fatigues.  Makeup was banned.  The garden was a relic of the past.

Then the war took a more acceptable turn, the Sexual Revolution. Hey nurture was out, but sex was a damn good substitute, at least before the climax. There were no more double standards. Women could hook up and make out totally without guilt. Once again I had to adjust.  The sensitive guy always became a friend, the Bad Boy got laid.

This is where the confession comes in.  I became the man they speak of.  I declared a war on women.  I didn't do it out of disrespect or anger or ignorance, I did it to get laid.  Women may not always know what they want, but they still have hormones just like me. 

If they wanted to be liberated, they were welcome in my bed, at least for that night.  I wouldn't call in the morning or pass up any other opportunities. I was a liberated male living in the Garden of Sex and taking advantage of all 72 of my technical virgins.  I thought I was happy.  Who wouldn't be with all that pleasure, no responsibility? But happy I wasn't.  

Things changed. One day I watched a no make up, baggily dressed, feminist poster child walk past a front desk full of flowers in vases with the names of the intended recipients on red cards.  It was Valentines Day. As she goose-stepped her way past the desk, I noticed her eyes secretly reading each name.  Her face showed the faintest sign of anticipation followed by a shadow of disappointment.  I saw the face of my childhood friend flash across the angry face of the feminist. That's when I knew.  Love wasn't lost.  It was being suppressed.  Somehow the movement had convinced Women that they just didn't need it.  "What's love got to do with it, ...It's nothing but a second hand emotion."                                                                                   

It was time to leave the Garden.  This time however, I was not kicked out. I left voluntarily.  What's love got to do with it?  Everything.  The love of my grandmother, mother, sister, colleagues and friends kept me from enjoying using and abusing the gender and leaving them in the wet spot. 

I was lucky enough to meet a woman who showed me that beautiful world of inherent understanding filled with innocence of first love.  Intimacy was an expression of it, not an act in itself.  Nurture is natural to her.  We have been married for 35 years. 

I don't feel anger when I hear the vitriol of the Feminist, only sadness. Men and women have walked this world together for tens of thousands of years and have raised every generation that ever existed.  They carved this nation out of the wilderness.  They struggled, they starved, they danced and laughed and mourned and always they endured together.

So excuse me if I sit this war out.  I believe we should make love, not war.  And no Sandra Fluke I'm not referring to sex.