Notes on the mystique of ‘Old Guy’ aging

WARNING: In accordance with California Governor Gravel Noisome’s recent edict mandating overt statements of intent (that should be obvious to any fully functioning adult person), the following has been written with THUNG FIRMLY IN SHEEK. That is to say, SATIRE has been liberally employed herein! This is akin to saying “Hot coffee can burn” and “Misuse of automobiles can kill” but we must keep the liberal radical progressives placated, mustn’t we?

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I am sitting here thoughtfully masticating in front of my desktop. Masticating cookies, I probably should hasten to add, lest any covertly monitoring feminists reach out for the Jeffrey Epstein ‘Red Alert’, toxic masculinity button. The cookies are the product of my frightfully clever and skillful live-in domestic and sex-slave. She’s not just adept at almost everything (and I DO mean everything), she also bakes a mean Cumquat cookie and is equipped with a nice hot little oven to keep her buns warm in, although the supply of buns in it have long ceased to exist.

Normally, she’d probably resent being characterized as the above but since I am her live-in domestic (and sex-slave), she has no wiggle room for complaint. Besides, her Cumquat cookies are simply to die-for. I may be technically an ‘old guy’ by the popular literature definition but I’m actually still in pretty damn good condition for a man who’s about to cross over the 8th Decade line of chronological demarcation.

As for me, I got ears like a bat, my feet ain’t flat and my asthma’s not getting’ worse (as folk singer Phil Ochs might have otherwise worded his 60s hit, ‘The Draft Dodger Rag’), had he smoked too many funny cigarettes before writing that brilliant war-protest song in 1965.

Besides that, my pecs don’t sag and my belly’s flat, my ‘six-pack’ is on my abdomen and not in the fridge, my hearin’s endearin’ and on last count my Free Testosterone titer was off the charts. In short, despite my age, I’m the very model of a well-preserved chauvinist pig (albeit one with an intellect to match everything else) who makes no apologies for loving the sybaritic comforts and pleasures of the fair sex (and by that, for the benefit of any physiologically confused young progressive whatevers, I mean ‘wimmin’...or at least those born as biological females).

Despite a life-long artiste’s love affair with Rhone Valley wines, I gave up all tippling some years ago, save for a very occasional AHA (that’s American Heart Association to you, bunky) prescribed 6 fluid ounces of that luscious red pressed-grape stuff. Sadly, my former days of sitting on the summit of the SF Bay Area’s Mount Tamalpais, guzzling Mountain Red, while surrounded by a fog bank stretching to the horizon (that you could fantasise getting up and walking out to sea on), are all in my past.

So, my point here is that despite the accumulation of years, I’m not quite ready yet to join the dark-robed Grim Reaper for endless brunch at his Burning Bush Saloon (where Lucifer plays a mean honky-tonk piano, with his Siberian Husky dog, named "Jebus", at his cloven feet).

OK. Jes sayin’. Thought I’d lay that all out just to provide some sort of esoteric context to what I am about to say…which deals with the aging process in your ‘average’ older male.

I have a good friend, a fellow pote (that’s an alternative spelling of ‘poet’) the same way pome is an alternate spelling of ‘PO-em’), who is about my age; let’s call him ‘Liam’. He wears a trademark Greatful Dead/SF Giants ball-cap most of the time and not to hide any reverse hirsutism traits but just due to a sense of stylish self-aware hipness. He’s a former school teacher, author, editor and academic, among other things, and is also married to a life-long partner (female). He has a clever, creative mind, doesn’t hoard or covet material possessions and absolutely doesn’t understand Porsches or the slavish adulation of quirky German sports cars (such as I am afflicted with). Jolly good for him, I say! He also doesn’t have a computer, doesn’t surf the internet, uses his ‘dumbphone’ only for emergencies and every once in a while, flies off to the misty Irish hills of Tara to stimulate and recharge his brain cells over draughts of good Irish whiskey.

However, as good as my friend is and as much as I admire his exemplary neo-Luddite life proclivities and anti-Capitalist sanity, Liam shows his age. Increasingly. He has developed quite a prodigious pot-belly and that provoked me to speculate a bit on some of the myriad mysteries of the ‘older male’ aging process. Mysteries such as (to cite but one teensy-tint example): Why do men still get a toilet seat all wet when they fail to lift the lid before urinating, DESPITE taking great pains to "aim" carefully at that central gaping hole of a target orifice on the toilet?

If you are female and haven’t been initiated into some of the more mysterious rituals of male behavioral functioning, there’s a very simple explanation for this ever-irritating phenomenon that ‘sitters’ should be aware of (as opposed to us ‘pointers’, ladies).

“Oh?” you say. That’s right. You see, the male pudendum has, at the distal end of its length, a slit from which the urethra expels urine. That slitted orifice (technically called the ‘urethral opening’ on the glans meatus) is not a symmetrically uniform, flattened ellipse, however, due to the result of circumcisional surgery (which permanently stretches the urethral opening in the meatus slightly downwards after the Jewish ''Mohel'' puts his ritual B''rit milah scalpel back in its case).

It is estimated that since roughly 35% of the world’s male population have undergone circumcisional surgery, you ladies are subject to a probability of 35% or so of getting wet when you sit down on the john…but only if the men who use your facilities are Christians or Jews. Uncircumcised males pose another somewhat different challenge to proper urinary aiming challenges, depending upon their ‘laziness’ factor, but we won’t go into that here.

Now, pardon the technical delving into this problem but I am trying to illustrate the fact that despite the best efforts of most men to ‘aim’ properly, there are three factors that influence the deposition of those infuriating drops on the toilet seat that has half the world’s feminist adherents of Feminist Patron Saint Emmeline Pankhurst in a constant, continuing and unending frenzy to eradicate all maledom from this mortal Earth (or at least to force them to raise the toilet seat and then lower it again, after the job is done. But dream-on wimmin!).

These three factors are 1) the shape of that male distal urethral orifice, 2) that unforgiving, all-encompassing, all-underlying and still completely misunderstood physics phenomenon known as GRAVITY, and 3) simple fluid/flowrate dynamics that govern the behavior of pressurised fluids in a variably-restricted, tubular conduit.

“And how is that, you (are probably NOT) asking yourself?” Simple enough. Not only does the slight downward deflection of the distal male urethral orifice direct urine downwards, as the pressure in the bladder subsides, the flow rate of urine through the urethra also gradually diminishes as the bladder empties itself fully, causing the stream to gradually drop. [Of course, in older men there is a somewhat complicating factor to be considered if the said individual has what we delicately refer to as a ‘prostate problem’.]

Be all that as it may, enough of the chalk-boarding here. Suffice it to say that wimmin are doomed to a lifetime of unrelenting contact with toilet-seat moisture due to all of the above. Now whooda thunkit was as complicated as all that, eh? But this, as I remarked earlier, is simply a small example of the myriad mysteries of the ‘older male’ aging process.

There are a great many other mysteries, both related and unrelated to the inevitable disintegration of the male physiological condition that is consequent with age, that would behoove wimmin to be aware of before opening up and whacking hubby on the head with the nearest blunt (or sharp) object when he unknowingly transgresses the bounds of female propriety.

Some of these I long wondered about myself, given that my own abdomen is flat and hard (probably the result of a lifetime’s regimen of physical conditioning and working out) and unlike most those found on men over the age of 60 or so.

You may have noticed that most men in that 60–and-above age group ALSO tend to have a prominent ‘pot belly’ that protrudes and droops downwards, more or less above the beltline (the Aussies whimsically refer to this as "the balcony over the toyshop", LoL). At the same time, a great number of these same men tend to wear pants that ride somewhat lower in the rear than those of much younger men.

Much of the pot-belly syndrome is rather easily explained by the fondness so many men have for beer, a beverage HIGH in excess carbs and a great source of much accumulation of belly-fat (either that or to just pure overindulgence in ETOH consumption).

Without much doubt, in today’s American middle-class, obesity has become a very serious national problem. QED the following statistics, taken from a recent national study: “Rates of obesity are higher for Hispanic men (43.1 percent) compared to White men (37.9 percent) and Black men (36.9 percent). Obesity rates for Asian women (14.8 percent) and men (10.1 percent) are much lower than the rates for the other racial-ethnic groups.”

[As an interjected aside to the above: The lower rates of obesity among those individuals of Asian extraction are simply another good reason why I like my wimmin to be of that ethnicity. I’ve never cared for the disfiguring appearance of extra body weight and no matter how much ‘Overweight Lives Matter’ progressive propaganda we are subjected to by the radical left, I will forever be biased against excess weight (unless it is the result of a GENUINE medical condition, but I’d need to see some actual proof of that too-often rationalised excuse, thanguew furry moosh!) But before you call the SPLC hot-line to report more gross male toxicity here, consider that this is my personal bias and one that I am constitutionally entitled to, in these Disunited States of America.]

Getting back to pot-bellies in men, there are two main types of abdominal fat: adipose (fat) carried under the skin (as in the stomach region) and adipose stored internally, around the vital organs of the abdomen.The latter is much more dangerous to cardiac health.

If a person who exercises regularly tends to have a bit of a ‘stomach’ it is probably due to the former (subcutaneous belly fat deposits), which is more easily burned off than the internal type. Since America has been conditioned that ‘MORE IS BETTER’ and since commercial propaganda (read ‘marketing’) wants us to consume more of everything, Americans today eat far more food (and much bigger portions) than their poor, over-burdened bodies actually need or want. The result is the sort of corpulent, waddling shuffle that passes for walking, these days.

And remember, when it comes to wimmin, that as the old saying puts it, “A pig with lipstick is still a pig”, when you stuff those extra pounds into the sort of skinny ‘leggins’ that are so popular among wimmin of average mentality, the overall effect still comes across like a length of Polish sausage subjected to extreme duress, leggins or not!

All right, now that we’ve briefly taken a look at male pot bellies, consider the other characteristic of so many men, these days. The curious fact that their pants tend to ride low in the back…rather drastically in so many cases. Why is this?

I myself wondered about this for years as I aged until I finally experienced an ‘AHA!’ moment one morning in the changing room of my local gym. The reason for this is simple enough to deduce: lack of adequate bodily conditioning (read: exercise).

The human Gluteus Maximus (yer BUTT) is, after all, simply a prominent cluster of large muscles that are attached to the human frame for the purpose of aiding in movement of the lower extremities (as in bipedal ambulation). Note that I said ‘muscles’...muscles just like all other muscles in the human body that require regular exercise to perform their intended function. The unregarded awareness lost on so many is that the butt has another equally important function in adult males: to help hold the pants up and hide that gluteal crevasse!

The fact is, that as most men age, they lose that cute little firm butt that women find so attractive under tight levis on young dudes. That formerly well-shaped butt begins to turn into a slack mass of flacid tissue that actually starts to sag volubly with continued disuse, as age progresses. When a man sits too much of the time, this has an even more deleterious effect on the male derriere, naturally.

So picture if you can, the average older male with 1) a pot belly comprised of BOTH stored subcutaneous AND internal belly fat, and 2) an out-of-shape, sagging butt. [Yer honor, we present defense exhibit A+. Let it be so marked by the court of common sense.]

The result is a pair of pants that droop in the front due to the belly fat overhang and also sag rather profoundly in the rear, since a belt has nothing substantial (except the bony pelvis) to hitch itself onto.

When you are young (and both brainless and immature, as is the norm in rebellious juvenile mammals of the human persuasion), there is a tendency to think that excessively baggy pants are ultra-cool. The reason for that is that youthful rebels (teens) emulate outlaw role models, and in Level 5 prisons they take away a prisoner’s belt so that he has to hold his pants up to get around. Having ‘done time’ is thereby an immature milestone mark of being a hard-core rebel and thus that grossly baggy-pants look so often seen on high-school age kids in poor areas is considered an essential affect for imitating bad-boy behavior among their teen peers. The look also has firm associations with US gangs and gang-activities…something else that too many lower class young men regard as a super-cool status symbol.

Old men, by comparison, are long past that stage of early developmental brain-farting and know that keeping one’s pants up, instead of appearing cool (albeit a downright pain in the ass), is a practical functional necessity. Back in the old Wild West, men used suspenders to assist in this process; today, we use belts (or don’t). No belt=pants disability!

My learned friend Liam suffers from what I call this slack-ass/pot-belly stomach syndrome, unfortunately. But it’s his life to do with as he wishes with it and all I can do is smugly comment on this character failing on the sidelines, since it is strictly his business and NOT mine.

One last thing. Ever wonder why so many older men have a slight but lingering smell of urine about them? The answer to this is that due to a failing bladder/urethral sphincter, urine flow doesn’t always come to a screeching halt after a session on the john. A small amount of urine continues to be released (about 5 or so ccs) and of course it gets on underware and/or pants. Since older men tend to not change their shorts and pants as much as good daily hygiene recommends (who are they trying to impress/court, after all?), this results in that slight but noticeable odor of stale urine associated with old guys.

So, ladies, next time you see a male critter above a certain age with a pot belly and/or a saggy pair of pants, you are now much wiser and better able to understand the curious dynamics of this phase of the male aging process! Remember to be gentle with him, considerate and never forget that at some point in his distant past he was probably that chiseled hunk that all young men aspire to be in today’s Vanity Fair world!

Oh yes, speaking of youthful ''hunkiness'', I am reminded that (NOTE: young women can plug their ears here and loudly yell "Lah-lah-lah-I-can''t-hear-you", if they wish) one thing that never diminishes a whit with age in men is sexual desire.

Whereas most women reach a point co-incident with menopause whereupon they lose almost ALL interest in coital ecstacy (much to male dismay). Come menopause and most women switch off the ''rabbit in heat'' circuit, whereas men are invariably always ready for some coital action (that''s assuming that both individuals have made a conscious effort to retain a modicum of their physical aesthetics over the years...no one gets hot about hopping into the sack with an overweight bag of potatoes that looks like last week''s wilted vegetables...). But herein lies an important point to take note of, ladies.

Whereas women are sexually arroused in a far more subtle, biochemically complex and convoluted manner, men are characteristically and chiefly stimulated visually. That means that a crucial part of a woman''s ''job'' in any successful male/female coital interactions is to help provide that visual stimulation that gets the going going towards the physical end product of it.

ED malfunctioning notwithstanding, the ''angle of the dangle'' in coitus has far more to do with visually stimulating physicality and behavioral encouragement than most women realise. Unfortunately, those that do possess this awareness often use it as an ''on/off'' switch to discourage unwanted coital attention. Que tragedioso!

Of course, since it takes a willing (female) partner to encourage or initiate sex, assuming it has been deemed mutually desirable, once widowed, divorced or otherwise single again, a man has few choices to satisfy this undying libidinous impulse other than to reach back into that sack full of fond memories of what it was like when he was young, lustful and still desirable to his female peers.

But that''s life, isn''t it? Bonne chance, les Amis!

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PS: For the benefit of all who either don’t remember Phil Ochs’ famous Anti-Vietnam protest song (The Draft Dodger Rag), here’re the lyrics:

Oh, I''m just a typical American boy
From a typical American town
I believe in God and Senator Dodd
And a-keepin'' old Castro down

And when it came my time to serve
I knew, "Better dead than red"
But when I got to my old draft board, buddy
This is what I said

"Sarge, I''m only eighteen, I got a ruptured spleen
And I always carry a purse
I''ve got eyes like a bat and my feet are flat
My asthma''s getting worse"

"Yes, think of my career, my sweetheart dear
And my poor old invalid aunt
Besides, I ain''t no fool, I''m a-goin'' to school
And I''m working in a defense plant"

"I''ve got a dislocated disc and a wracked-up back
I''m allergic to flowers and bugs
And when the bombshell hits, I get epileptic fits
And I''m addicted to a thousand drugs"

"I got the weakness woes, I can''t touch my toes
I can hardly reach my knees
And if the enemy ever came close to me
I''d probably start to sneeze"

"I''m only eighteen,
I got a ruptured spleen
And I always carry a purse
I''ve got eyes like a bat and my feet are flat
My asthma''s getting worse"

"Yes, think of my career, my sweetheart dear
And my poor old invalid aunt
Besides, I ain''t no fool, I''m a-goin'' to school
And I''m working in a defense plant"

"Ooh, I hate Chou En Lai and I hope he dies
But one thing you gotta see
That someone''s gotta go over there
And that someone isn''t me"

"So I wish you well, sarge, give ''em hell
Kill me a thousand or so
And if you ever get a war without blood and gore
I''ll be the first to go"

"Yes, I''m only eighteen, I got a ruptured spleen
And I always carry a purse
I''ve got eyes like a bat and my feet are flat
My asthma''s getting worse"

"Yes, think of my career, my sweetheart dear
And my poor old invalid aunt
Besides, I ain''t no fool, I''m a-goin'' to school
And I''m working in a defense plant"

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Here’s more on folk singer PHIL OCHS And yet more: