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 Entertainment | April 2005 
What's Down There?
 Fred Reed - fredoneverything.net
| | Fred in 1917 photo while riding with Pancho Villa. |
Living as I do in Mexico, I get mail from guys saying “Hey, what’s the deal on women? I hear things are pretty good. Come on, spill it. What’s down there?”
OK, I’ll give it the old fifty-words-a-minute-and-forty-errors shot, ‘cause I got stuff to do this afternoon. I’ve written about some of this before, but since people keep asking, I’ll babble a bit.
A lot of males think that Mexico and Thailand and so on are sexual candy stores. They talk dreamingly about LBFMs, Little Brown Fucking Machines. Well, yeah, if you never get beyond the whorehouse districts. If this describes you, you probably need to go somewhere else. If you are like lots of guys and want to get married, or at least find something nice for the long term, things are different. Some thoughts on Third World women:
Stay away from bar girls. They’re not bad people, or no worse than anyone else, but they don’t work well as wives. I’ve known exceptions, but not many. This is not easy advice to take for the inexperienced because the girls know how to be appealing. Don’t do it anyway.
Now, what are Mexicanas like? Or Thais? What do they want?
Materially, not much. Though Americans have a hard time grasping the idea, most Mexicans do not have much interest in consumerism. Shopping does not give meaning to their lives. They do not concern themselves with jewelry, SUVs, McMansions, or the competitive acquisition of expensive clothes. They have had to work hard enough for what they have to know what matters. Designer shoes don’t.
Nor do they want to go to the United States. Here also is something else that gringos do not always understand. Mexicans flood across the border for one reason: money. Often they plan to come back after making a bundle, and often they do come back. They maintain their Mexican identity, at least for a generation. On festival days here you see signs honoring the “Hijos Ausentes,” the absent sons across the border. They go to the States, but it’s all about money.
Your typical Mexicana likes her country, feels at home in her culture, wants to be near her family, and sees no reason at all to leave. She is likely to see the US as emotionally cold, as lacking in the sense of community that Latinos like, as valuing career over family, as materialistic, and alien to a Catholic sensibility.
She does want a decent home, security, a man who doesn’t hit her and who loves her. In Mexico men are regularly unfaithful, regarding adultery as a right, and may go out drinking with their buddies and come in at three in the morning with no explanation. The women hate it, but can’t do much about it.
Unless they marry gringos, who treat women much better. They understand this.
How do you find a good woman here? Take your time. It helps to learn Spanish, though few Americans do. Remember that it isn’t a one-way street. Just as many American men would like to meet Mexican women, many Mexican women would like to meet American men. Hang out. Wait. If you are not a jerk or a drunk, and don’t have running sores, you’ll find her.
She’s likely to have children. This happens in the United States too, but is more probable here. Mexicanas too get divorced, their husbands abandon them, or they find themselves pregnant and very young and decide to have it instead of kill it. She’s a package deal. If you like her kids, as a lot of men do, fine. But she is not going to throw them out for you.
All of this means that in decency you have to commit yourself to living where she is. Mexicans don’t move about as much as Americans. It isn’t fair to become Daddy to the children and then go away. Most of the gringos I know here have no intention of leaving, so it works. However if you are in mid-career or don’t have a way of supporting yourself here, you probably ought to look for a big-city woman who is willing to move.
You are going to pay most of the bills. In most of the couples I know, the woman works. Mexican wages being what they are, she can’t possibly bring in the bucks that most Americans here have. Deal with it.
Often in these pairings the man is considerably older than the woman, which leads to charges that she is a gold-digger and that he is purchasing sex. Some of the charges of lechery and gold-digging come from resentful gringas who have lost out to the local talent. On the other hand, it is true that women in most places generally don’t live with men who are twenty years older than they are.
What really is the psychology of all of this? My best explanation: Most of our behavior, especially reproductive behavior, is heavily influenced by human nature (or, equivalently, by instinct). A man’s instinct is to take care of a woman—to protect her, feed her, and so on. A woman’s instinct is to be taken care of while she looks after the children. She looks for men who can do these things. It doesn’t work in reverse. Note that a man will pay for dates, that nowadays a woman will often split the costs of dates, but the woman will almost never pay, and will almost never support a man financially.
It is common experience that men are attracted to young and pretty, women to rich and powerful. (Bill Gates got married, didn’t he?) A woman by her wiring is capable of loving a man ten or twenty years older than she is, while a man with few exceptions seeks a younger mate. It is built in. A man of forty does not date a woman of sixty. The gringo here is by definition powerful and able to care for his family. It works. The couples I see here seem happy. Both apparently are getting what they want.
I don’t suggest that women in the Third World (whatever exactly that means) are flawless gems. Ain’t none of us that good. You can find rotten apples in any barrel, regardless of country or sex.
What you will find, though, is that Mexicanas do not resent you for being male. They can get cranky, as most of us can, but it will be about what you did, not what you are. They are women, not sexual halflings in search of slights as pretexts for being disagreeable. It is this, not nice legs, that constitutes their greatest appeal. As wives, provided that you understand their strengths and limitations, they are just plain fine.
Fred Reed,columnist for The Washington Times, former Marine, streety police writer, occasional terrified war correspondent,and afficionado of raffish bars, offers weekly his unique, often satirical and arguably opinionated views on ...everything. You'll grind your teeth. (He denies that he gets a kickback from the dental lobby, though no one believes him.) But you'll think. "I'm an equal-opportunity irritant," says Fred democratically. fredoneverything.net |
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