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Jewish World Review April 11, 2005 / 2 Nisan, 5765 Reading this over my shoulder? Hi. By Lenore Skenazy
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
Female commuters in Tokyo now have their own single-sex train cars. At least, that's what one private Japanese rail company started providing last week. But as my twentysomething colleague Kate pointed out, that totally ruins the game.
Which game?
"Well, if everyone in the outside world were to die," she says, "who on this subway car would I continue the human race with?"
That's the game. She and her girlfriends check out all the guys on the train and choose the one they'd want to mate with in the aftermath of a nuclear apocalypse.
Guys, I hear, play this same game, only without the nuclear-apocalypse angle. Or the save-the-human-race angle. Or any angle, come to think of it.
"I usually look for the cutest one and then try to sit somewhere near them," says the friend I'm calling Herbie, because he is too embarrassed to reveal his real name and sexual proclivities in the paper. If the No. 1 cutest person gets off the car, Herbie adds, No. 2 immediately gets bumped up to No. 1 — until someone even cuter gets on.
I guess until I started asking around, I just hadn't realized how many fantasies play out every day on the subway — and how these would change, shrivel or, in some cases, explode if the sexes were segregated.
"I always think about who would save me in a terrorist attack," says my sister-in-law Carmela. As she scans the male passengers for hero material, she immediately discounts anyone who looks too rich or snobby — "They're only out for themselves." Instead, she hunts for someone "with a kind face. A family man, working-class, who would care about the rest of us." Muscle tone counts — but not gym-rat, vain muscle tone.
Kate, the one ready to save the human race with a hot stranger if duty calls, also looks for muscles: "The kind that could chop down a tree." As if there'd be any trees still standing. She also nixes any hunk with suspiciously great hair. "Those guys aren't worrying about surviving. They're worried about looking good."
So, clearly, if subway cars were segregated by sex, women immediately would lose their knight-in-shining-armor daydreams. Men, on the other hand, would start building entire new wings on their fantasy worlds.
"Most men would be drooling to get inside," said a typical guy. "Gives a whole new meaning to the 'L' train."
Which is amazing because when I fantasize about an all-female car, I imagine doing such sizzling things as being able to find a seat.
In any event, the MTA says it has zero plans for single-sex cars, and that is for the best. Because if there's ever a nuclear apocalypse and I need some strong man...
Oh, wait. That's Kate's fantasy. Let's just say co-ed cars are great if you ever forget to bring a book.
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