We are not ourselves,

When nature being oppress’d

Commands the mind

To suffer with the body.

— Shakespeare, King Lear, II, 4

Body and mind, working in tandem to make us feel either pleasure or pain. However, sometimes the mind is willing but the body is weak. Nature being oppressed, commands the mind to suffer with the body, and we are not ourselves. What is true is that it all starts with the mind, which then commands the body what to do. What a beautiful thing Mother Nature is, as she provides us with the five main senses of sight, hearing, smell, touch, and taste.

How infinitely and sublimely wonderful, as each sense provides us with not only the ability to see beauty, but to also hear sweet sounds, smell aromatic fragrances, touch soft textures and taste great things.

But these senses also enable us to see awful things too, hear terrible news, smell unbearable stenches, feel awful surfaces and taste bitter gall. They are there to give us pleasure as well as warn us of danger.

These senses also make us aware of women, and either attract us to them or make us be repelled. Mind and body, working together as one. When working together, these senses provide us with the ability to assess almost any woman and make us know whether to approach or flee.

That’s where we’ll delve today, in the senses that affect our ability to assess women, right after these responses to ‘Think like a woman’.

Dear Tony,

You sometimes tend to trivialise the thoughts, feelings and actions of women. Were you making fun of women when you said that men should think like us? I hope not. A woman’s mind works in a logical, pragmatic, objective way, while men are impulsive beings who usually leap before they look. No wonder a young pretty face will affect a man so easily.

Clearly, women make better managers than men, and also manage families, households and money better than men. The world would be better off if more men thought like women.

Sandra

Hi Tony,

Want to think and act like a woman? When the situation arises, think what you would say or do as a man, then do exactly the opposite. Mission accomplished. And do not underestimate women. Try coming home and start doing household chores before flopping down on the couch to watch TV, and she will not only wonder, but loudly, aggressively and suspiciously ask what the heck you are up to. You had better make sure that couch is comfortable to sleep on too when you backchat her or give her the silent treatment. She is woman, hear her roar!

Dwayne

Let me make this abundantly clear: Any thoughts, actions, deeds or even a hint of chauvinism fly out the window the day a man gets married. Married men can’t be chauvinists. I say that to set the tone and nullify any accusations that may be hurled my way because of what I’m about to say about the five senses and how they impact women.

By no means am I objectifying the fairer sex, treating them like commodities to be acquired, but merely to point out that men utilise their five senses whenever they seek out a woman.

In contrast, I have been told that many women use only one sense when they’re looking for a permanent mate, and that’s the good sense to know that he has more dollars than cents. Women don’t care how a man looks, how he smells, what he sounds like, even if he’s filthy (filthy rich) as long as he has the golden touch and touches her with gold. Oops, is that latent chauvinism creeping back in, or merely the whispering muted truth of a trillion male souls who feel that way? Whatever.

Men use all five senses when they seek a woman, and that’s an irrefutable fact. The first and perhaps most important is sight. Men are visual creatures and are bowled over, mystified, intrigued and smitten by a beautiful woman. That’s the first sense that draws him to her.

The first thing a man asks is, “How she look, she look good, she pretty?” Or he’ll spot her in a crowd of a thousand and make a beeline towards her, thinking “Who is that, what a beauty, I must meet her.”

This sense is so dominant that it often overrides the others and clouds men’s judgement. So much so that some men will be with a woman simply because she looks good, even attaching the moniker of ‘arm candy’ or ‘trophy wife’ to her.

Then there is the sense of hearing. This sense doesn’t so much as attract a man to a woman, but it can certainly repel him if he doesn’t like what he hears. How often have we seen a woman, beautiful and demure, until she opens her mouth… then you have to run away faster than a bat fleeing from a banshee.

Even Shakespeare’s King Lear said, “Her voice was ever soft, gentle and low, an excellent thing in a woman.” Nothing turns off a man more than a loud, boisterous, cantankerous, nagging woman. And I dare you to tell me of any man alive who loves those damning decibel ear-piercing traits in a woman.

I have known men who have turned off their hearing aids just to get some peace. So you see how important the sense of hearing is.

Then we come to the sense of smell. Smell is perhaps the most important sense in nature, and wild animals survive mostly by it. Bears can smell prey from many miles away, and elephants can smell water from as far away as 60 miles. A blind rat will still survive as long as it can smell. Many male animals in sexual heat can smell females from miles away before they make their approach.

Man is no different, even though he may not be aware of it. This sense is so important to men, and as a result the world’s perfume industry is worth billions of dollars. Don’t ever think that women wear perfume just to please themselves.

A sweet-smelling woman can bring a man to his knees. Not overbearingly sweet, but just enough to make his heart rate quicken and his pulse race. It’s so subtle he doesn’t even know what hit him. Resistance is futile. “OMG lady, what perfume you wearing?”

“Catchman No 5, by Chanel.”

So now we come to the sense of touch. This is a sense that has got more men in trouble than the other four senses. Some men use this sense before they use the others, and put their hands where they should not go. “I beg your pardon, what is your hand doing there?”

Now, I’m understating, for no self-respecting Jamaican woman is going to say that to any man who has wandering hands. Instead, it’s usually, “Tek yuh whatsit whatsit #%^*&+* hands off me.” Remember Josephine Baker’s song, Please don’t touch my tomato. She wasn’t working in the produce department at the supermarket either.

And now we come to the all-important sense of taste. Well, you have taste in women and you have taste… in women. Combine the sense of smell and the sense of taste and you have a winning combination. In fact, my medical research revealed the fact that you cannot taste if you have no sense of smell, and in fact I have a friend who lost his sense of smell in an accident and cannot taste food at all. He has to pour copious amounts of salt on his meals just to get a little taste out of them.

So first you smell her, then you taste her. A fragrant aroma followed by the sweet taste of a woman’s lips can be heaven. Ambrosia, nectar of the gods. And that’s why I never ever got romantically involved with any woman who smoked. My sense of smell and taste would go into shock. It’s akin to smelling and kissing an ashtray.

Now, if you want to smell and taste her from her mouth to as far down as possible, that’s fine. And if you want to smell and taste her from her toes up to as far as possible, that’s fine too. But if you want to stop at possible, then that’s entirely up to you.

Our five senses for assessing women, what a joy, mind and body working in harmony. But don’t forget your sixth sense — instinct.

More time.

seido1@hotmail.com