Monday, February 11, 2008

Desperation

From Desperate Housewives Season Two, Episode 12 "We Will Be All Right":

Lynette: "Hey."
Tom: "Hey."
Lynette:You're not limping. Did everything go okay?"
Tom: "I couldn't do it."
Lynette: "What happened?"
Tom: "I don't know. I got there, I, I put on the paper gown and I, uh, I just couldn't do it."
Lynette: "Why not?"
Tom: "It felt like I was being emasculated."
Lynette: "Oh, please."
Tom: "I'm serious, Lynette. I don't make the money around here anymore. I don't provide for you and the kids. And I wasn't gonna let them snip out the last thing that makes me a man."
Lynette: "Staying home and taking care of the kids doesn't make you less of a man. That's crazy."
Tom: "You expect me to calm your irrational fears. I expect you to calm mine."
Lynette: "Are you saying you're unhappy?"
Tom: "A little bit, yeah."
Lynette: "Well, what we gonna do about that?"
Tom: "I don't know."
Lynette: "Well, can’t we just-?"
Tom: "No, Lynette. I don't know."


The world today is moving fast. Gender roles are being exchanged. Women are more prominent in the workplace. Men are house husbands. These changes among others are creating new complications in once old-fashioned, conventional relationships.

Throw in requiring a vasectomy, or the equivalent for a female, and this makes matters even harder to disentangle. Undergoing a surgery is serious and expensive, thus it is a long term commitment. Square and Circle are making a major decision and it can be quite traumatizing, as seen by Tom Scavo's refusal from Desperate Housewives.

2 comments:

christo said...

yeah.. i don't know though... as a guy I really don't think I would feel any less like a man if i had a vasectomy.. especially if i already had kids. Sure, I would have a major problem getting a vasectomy before having any kids because that's what we're here for.. to spread our genes. But after I already had kids I don't think it'd be that big of a deal... i mean it's not like you can't have sex anymore.. in fact you'd probably be having more sex... I don't know though maybe its just one of those things you have to experience first hand to really see how it feels

Mike said...

I bet that Square and Circle had a very similar conversation in the past regarding the vasectomy. From a guy's point of view, a vasectomy is essentially like neutering an animal. It's probably for the best in the long run but somehow its just not the same. It's not the way things are naturally supposed to be.