Title: Women On Men, Men On Women Author: Edited by Barb Karg Publisher: Adams Media Publish Date: 2007 Pages: 256 Genres:: Humor, Non-Fiction Reviewer: SexHerald Staff

Rating:

It’s the penises versus the vaginas again. Men on Women, Women On Men is a compilation of quotes that’s part tribute, part grievance, and part poking fun at the respective opposite sex from observers both living and not. The book is a handy notepad size you can pull out of your bag whenever you need a lift, a laugh or a reality check. You might find yourself alternately laughing, scoffing and seething as you read the thoughts expressed by musicians, politicians, entertainers and writers, no matter what type of genital equipment rests in your undergarments. Bill Maher weighs in on male fidelity with the following: “Men are only as loyal as their options,” while Sophia Loren gives her thoughts on how to appear most seductive: “A woman’s dress should be like a barbed-wire fence, serving its purpose without obstructing the view.”

Just shy of 300 pages, this collection offers a dizzying array of perspectives. As a woman reading the men’s section, I almost had to duck to evade the verbal hail of double messages that ultimately fuse to reveal a single truth: Men and women alternately worship, admire, revile, and detest their opposite depending on whom you ask and what time of day it is. From Stanley Baldwin’s “I would rather trust a woman’s instinct than a man’s reason” to “Marriage is a bribe to make a housekeeper think she’s a householder,” by Thornton Wilder, the full spectrum of honor to disgust is invoked. Heartbreak also gets its share of commentary as said by Mickey Rooney “I buy women shoes and they use them to walk away from me.” Bitterness about dividing of the assets makes a hilarious appearance as well, i.e. “I don’t think I’ll get married again—I’ll just find a woman I don’t like and give her a house” as humorist Lewis Grizzard phrased it.

The ladies give as good as they get with Mae West’s “Don’t let a man put anything over on you except an umbrella” to the knockout “Men like war: they do not hold much sway over birth, so they make up for it with death. Unlike women, men menstruate by shedding other people’s blood”- Lucy Ellman. And then there’s the tenderness of a sentiment like “The best smell in the world is that man you love”- Jennifer Anniston. It seems not only would we be lost without each other, we’d also be lost without each other to talk about. Nobody’s shut up for centuries. Forget a thin line between love and hate. It doesn’t even qualify as a thread of a thread.

Bitching and moaning born of painful experiences, observation and just plain nitpicky crankiness abound here. “He is every other inch a gentleman” Rebecca West observed. Rodney Dangerfield is found here with “I haven’t spoken to my wife in years, I didn’t want to interrupt her.”

Men on Women, Women On Men is a kind of Cliff notes for the war between the sexes, and the battle is more than funny.