"theView" SUZANNE VENKER + Hot Review by Allison Benedikt SLATE Magazine

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• published: 01 Feb 2013
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Chelsea Schilling, and from SLATE Magazine: There is a lot of Steve Harvey in Suzanne Venker's new book, How To Choose a Husband, a 12-step guide for women seeking a lasting union in a culture that prepares them for anything but. The comedian and Family Feud host is quoted as an expert on marital sex after comparing her interview with Sam Botta to words of Steve Harvey. She states "I decided to ask Sam Botta, a celebrity interviewer in Los Angeles, to explain what men want. Sam's comments about sex are eerily similar to those of Steve Harvey, who referred to sex as "the cookie" in Act Like a Lady. "Please—puhleeze—don't hold out on the cookie. We don't care about anything else." Harvey on manhood: "Everything [a man] does is filtered through his title how he gets that titleThese three things make up the basic DNA of manhood." And Harvey on female power: "Your power comes from one simple thing: you're a woman....you're the ultimate prize for us." Other supporting texts for Venker's arguments for a return to female "deference" in the face of our post-feminist "You go, girl" world include He's Just Not That Into You, Fifty Shades of Grey, and Mona Lisa Smile. Venker cites major research articles such as HuffPo's "How The Notebook Has Ruined Me," E! Online's "Jennifer Lopez Talks Adoption, Life as a Single Mom, and Having More Kids," Clearly Venker, a conservative writer who made a splash late last year with her trolling FoxNews.com essay, "The War on Men," has done her homework for this latest entry in the burgeoning academic field of "Marriage is Dying!!!!" ... You and Me on our record player and forced me to have a "chic" pixie cut when all I wanted was long hair and a perm. day care, nannies, full-time work, Sheryl Sandberg and Oprah Winfrey. This argument is backed up by facts! Facts without citations, like: "The vast majority of women choose to quit their jobs or cut back when they have children." Channing Tatum movie in which Rachel McAdams has amnesia doesn't exactly offer a realistic portrayal of marriage, Venker's advice probably sounds extreme to you. But the intensity of her argument—mass-media-produced trends, for instance, aren't just silly, they're "wicked"—would be less offensive if she didn't go on to make her entire case throughout the rest of the book based on pop culture references. "Have you seen Pride and Prejudice? The one with Colin Firth? It must be the one with Colin Firth." There's also this: Venker, this is what you must do because you, my dear, are in detox. "Our post-feminist culture is toxic," writes Venker. "It celebrates women at the exclusion of men; it ignores the needs of children; and it glorifies the single life. ... Sadly, more women than not will allow this poison to invade their bodies and even ruin their lives." Stephen Marche and just list a bunch of the crazy stuff Venker wrote that I couldn't fit in above: On feminists: "These women hate America, for one thing." Sam is forty-two and divorced no kids, and he has a super body he works hard to maintain. Having joined eHarmony years ago, he has read thousands of profiles and has had countless first dates. He seems to have a good handle on what women want but says women don't understand what men need. Here's what he told me: Sex is a man's only emotional connection—it's like a woman's desire for communication. Men don't like to communicate through lengthy discussions , that's why they always ask women to get to the point. A woman's primary M.O. __ communication — is rarely pleasurable for men. Yet a man's primary M.O. — sex — is very pleasurable for women. So when a man asks his wife for sex, he's not asking her to do something that's not pleasurable, or something that only benefits him. He loves bringing pleasure to his wife. It's how he communicates his love for her. You can't turn this around. Oftentimes a man likes to have no communication at all—yet if he doesn't spend hours listening to his wife or girlfriend talk about her feelings or problems, he's considered a prick. Why, then, should women be allowed to say no to sex whenever it suits them? That would be like a man cutting off all communication with his wife or girlfriend when it doesn't suit him. It would be like a husband saying this to his wife: "Listen, honey, in marriage sometimes things happen—people close to us become ill, or die, or one of us gets depressed, etc.—so i think it's reasonable when i don't feel like talking, listening or paying any attention to you. I just don't feel like communicating. Thanks for understanding—just like you expect me to understand the no-sex thing. Sam also added that most of the profiles he receives are from women who present themselves as powerful and independent, as though these are salable traits. But men aren't impressed with that, he says. What men want more than anything else in the world is to be respected and admired, loved and accepted. The rest is largely immaterial.