Dumb Men and the Women Who Love Them

Lynne Perras teaches communication arts at the University of Calgary.

Peter Taylor’s latest book, the title of which mocks the current
abundance of self-help books on the market, is a collection of 109 brief
newspaper items detailing “guy things”—male behavior that often
causes embarrassment, is sometimes against the law, and always amusingly
defies logic.

Culled from newspapers from around the world, these stories of
inexplicably silly antics originate in Canada, the United States,
Mexico, all parts of Europe, Delhi, Tokyo, and even Zimbabwe. This
diversity help to support Taylor’s contention that in all men,
regardless of their nationality, there is “a genetic quirk which
occasionally prompts them to think, not with the left or right—but
with the backsides of their brains.” Examples of sexual escapades
include a man who wants to be buried with his sex doll, a retired priest
who succumbs to a heart attack while visiting a strip club, and a
professor who is caught watching pornography on his computer while his
students write an exam. Numerous bungled robberies (often committed in
the name of love or lust), financial deals gone bad, and wedding
disasters in which the grooms end up looking ridiculous are also
recounted. Who loves these men?: their beleaguered, long-suffering, and
usually smarter girlfriends, wives, and ex-wives.

Dumb Men and the Women Who Love Them provides some chuckles, although
the humor wears a little thin when the book is read at one sitting.
Browsing is recommended.