The Birds and Bees and Diversities

The biblical story of creation was beautiful in its simplicity. God created man and woman and set them up in the Garden of Eden. Therein, except for the importunity of a persuasive reptile, they might have dwelt forever in a primeval Disney World, one blessedly without long waiting lines and confiscatory admittance charges.

Somewhere along the early way, sex came upon the scene; - we're not told either when, where or how (might have been something that snake put into the apple).

One might properly conclude that this was the inevitable result of Mr. & Mrs. Adam having been fashioned with attractively complementary accoutrements; also, perhaps, it was because they were unhampered by such distractions as television, cocktail parties, politics, children and the need to generate a pay check.

In the beginning, it was just one male and one female, who presumably celebrated their physical differences in much the same way as do the majority of their descendants, unto this very day.

Fast-forward, though, to the present and you are confronted with a pas de deux of sexual identity that has morphedinto a mish-mash mambo of variations, including heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual and transsexual "lifestyles."

Relax, gentle reader, I am not going to explore the entire spectrum of human and huwoman reproductive, non-productive and counterproductive behavior in bar, boudoir and back-of-the-car.

Should you wish to embark on a tour of those areas, I direct you to the numerous sitcoms, sadcoms and soap operas on TV, the pop-up ads intruding on your Internet interludes, the prurient pages of Penthouse, www.google.com, the raunchy Doctor Ruth, if she's still around, the pubic (sorry, make that 'public') library, and/or your friendly neighborhood shrink.

I touch on this sensitive subject strictly from my viewpoint as a humble wordworker, rather than as a learned behaviorist, and I do so only to introduce a new term which is growing in usage, but doesn't appear in my 2,139-page American Heritage Dictionary (as neither, by the way, does the "butthead" epithet favored by some of my grandsons).

The new word is "metrosexual," and its commonly accepted definition is "an urban male with a strong aesthetic sense who spends a great deal of time and money on his appearance and lifestyle" - positioning him somewhere between an extreme alpha male and a flaming fop.

The term is useful, in that it recognizes that there can be (and is) a kinder, gentler, softer (yea, feminine) side of the male Homo Sapiens which does not necessarily detract from his masculinity.

Metrosexuality suggests that testosterone can co-exist with good taste, compassion, nurturing, domesticity and etiquette, without the taint of beta maleness.

That said, some are inclined to question the need for yet another label to define the subtle shades of difference between the he-world and she-world in which we live. There is, matter of fact, another extradictionarial term floating about -"pomosexual" - which is a contraction of post-modern and sexual, coined by author Carol Queen (no, I did NOT contrive that name!). Ms. Queen defines it as a person who shuns all such in-between designations, but I'm not going there, either.

I come down in support of any and all new words that provide lexicological cocoons into which people can snuggle comfortably.

Metrosexuality allows the macho man to be tough as a 50-cent steak inside, but softer on the edges, making him notonly more acceptable in polite society, but also more contributory to peace on earth and good will toward its other inhabitants.

I think, furthermore, that there's room in our vocabulary for even more distinctive labels to describe the myriad variations of hupersonity.

Possible examples might include: petrosexuality (an innocent fondness for domestic animals); jetrosexuality (mild addiction to air travel); betrosexuality (subject to arousal at poker tables); necrosexuality (habitual viewing of "Six Feet Under"); netro-, letro- or setrosexuality (a side effect of overindulgence in tennis).

I jest, of course - this being one of the opinion columnist's occasional diversions - but not without a valid motive.

It strikes me as ludicrous that we modern mortals are so preoccupied with identity tags that we've created cubbyholes into which we simplistically stuff our friends, foes, relatives, neighbors, politicians, idols, selves and remote public figures who are no more familiar to us than the lunexual man-or-woman on the moon.

If we know who and what we are, let's just celebrate ourselves, both privately and within the circle of like-minded others - being ever wary of those apple-selling serpents!