Carnivorous Cow

"Can you believe it!" the Cow shrilled at the hapless Gramsci. "Some woman would rather have chocolate than sex!"

"Well, she is an academic," Gramsci pointed out. "And American to boot!"

"Which is probably why she thought the rest of the world would be interested in what did - or didn't - go on in her bedroom." The Cow rolled her eyes dramatically and sighed. "Well, she's certainly gotten her fifteen minutes of fame."

Gramsci chuckled. "You did notice," he mentioned wryly, "that the story was picked up by The Observer? A UK newspaper? And two days later, in local media, appears a story that finds that chocolate is better than kissing - according to a UK study!"

"Ah, but," the Cow pointed out, "the study involved only twelve people - volunteers - who first had the tantalising sensation of chocolate melting on their tongue, not eating it. Stopping to savour the sensation - that would register off the Richter scale for most people!

"And then they were asked to kiss their partners. Now, bearing in mind they were English, and kissing in public is not something the English espouse, you can imagine they were a little inhibited. Also, these were people in their 20s - who wants to kiss a 20something?"

Or an American academic, thought Gramsci, as the Cow scuttled off to the chocolate machine.

The Cow shook her head forcefully. "No," she insisted, "male academic dress style varies between cultivated dishevelment and midlife chic. Female academics on the other hand dress to deny their sex. As if, in order for their minds to be taken seriously, they have to distance themselves from their bodies. And so they put on their gardening clothes, swap their wellies for Birkenstocks, and seek the mute approval of the Andrea Dworkin in their heads."

Gramsci sighed. The conversation had started innocently enough about the transformation of women aspiring to Higher Office - Hillary, Ségolène, GodZille. But all too soon the focus moved closer to home, to academic leaderettes washing the grey right out of their hair and trading tents for Truworths - a refashioning (so to speak) that some felt was not peculiar to women rising through the ranks.

But the men, someone argued, merely had leather patches sewed onto the threadbare elbows of their corduroy jackets. They seldom swapped their chinos for carducci, cut their comb-overs or lost the Ackermans socks. They didn't need to.

"Of course," observed the Cow, "if female academics had the remotest intention of shaking the foundations as they claim, instead of merely pulling up the ladder behind them, they'd take a lesson or two from the students."

"Oh?" asked Gramsci. "Like what?"

The Cow chuckled, with pictures of Prof Ritalin flashing across her memory. "Never underestimate the destabilising potential of a toned tummy!"

The Cow came across a piece of paper tucked inside an old envelope and pulled it out warily. These things had a habit of metamorphosing into unpaid bills or traffic fines before one's eyes, and caution was always advised.

This, however, was a handwritten list. The source was not stated, though the content suggest the trite superficiality of Cosmo or Men's Health.

"What do you think?" she asked Gramsci, passing him the list (below).

"Well," Gramsci paused. "Several of these are reducible into others, and conventional wisdom would challenge some of the rankings."

"Yep," agreed the Cow. "I'm also not sure if the heading is correct. It speaks of sexual attractiveness, but goes on to list factors pertaining to physical attractiveness. The two are not necessarily synonymous."

Gramsci snorted. "If we're going to deconstruct the methodology, how about starting with the assumption that 'men' are straight, and are sexually attracted to women in the first place. If that was a criterion for participation, why is that not stated - 'what straight men find sexually attractive about women' - or else one would expect one of the answers to be 'nothing', given the alleged proportion of gay men estimated at 10%."

"True," admitted the Cow. "And of course, with the women, in addition to that, there'd be the added factor of the impact of hormonal location. Women with PMS are reportedly fonder of male facial features that display an axe wedged firmly in the temple."

Gramsci shuffled away nervously. "Perhaps," he muttered, "that accounts for the favoured 'athletic body shape'? The guys most adept at navigating this heterosexual jungle are those best equipped to flee when appropriate?"

"What is it about technology," sighed the Cow dramatically, "that surfaces lunacy in such a dramatic way?"

Gramsci looked up, bemused, the full moon in his eight simple eyes. He had his own theories, but suspected that airing them at this point might provoke some of the Cow's own lunacy in return.

"And blogs, it seems, seem to attract nutjobs more than any other medium. As bloggers and as readers!"

Gramsci edged a little closer to the safety of the keyboard, just in case. "You mean the first years?" he asked timidly.

"Not only," shrugged the Cow. There had been a recent rash of posts that had had editorial control exerted over them because of dubious content - revealing attitudes more than a single dumpy short of a sixpack - but those were not uppermost on her mind.

"Some fruitloop who'd once lapped at the Butler's heels decided to air the fragility of her mental health on this very blog," she sighed. "Posted some pretty whack comments. When confronted with proof that it was her, finally confessed and whimpered into a corner, but expect to see the suicide video on YouTube pretty soon!"

Gramsci leered. Given the content of the loon's last comment - excised for its sexually explicit nature - he thought it could be something that might finally wean him of all those tiresome Paris Hilton videos. Assuming, of course, there was enough bandwidth to download it.

But the Cow was less upbeat. "The same thing happened on another blog where the mention of Ingrid Jonker unleashed some wobbliness in a reader, who seemed overly attracted to her suicide."

Gramsci recalled the concerned passage discussions that provoked at the time. What was the blogger's responsibility - if any - towards their readership? Should they refer on the patently ill, or quietly delete the comments and trust karmic process?

He shrugged. "Perhaps one of our colleagues can be persuaded to resuscitate his blog," he suggested. "There seems to be a real need for an injection of mental health?"

The Cow wasn't sure if it was an April Fool's joke or not, when she heard that uMalume was suing the Sunday Slimes for R6Million, following a couple of Dave Bullard columns wherein he allegedly alleged that uMalume was "stupid" and "dishonest". But, it appeared, the date of the report was coincidental. uMalume apparently needed the cash to bankroll his presidential campaign.

The Cow was just a little confused. "Surely the issue of his dishonesty was still sub judice, given that the corruption trial had yet to resume, at that point?" she asked Gramsci. "Despite all the prima facie evidence Bulelani Ncuka and others claim to have in their possession?"

Gramsci sighed. "Innocent until proven guilty" meant different things to different people, in his experience.

"But on the 'stupidity' allegation, there, surely, there can be no doubt?" the Cow continued. "After all, this is a man who believed a shower could protect him from HIV infection after unprotected sex with someone he knew to be HIV+, someone whose views on rape could most charitably be described as medieval, someone whose idea of good sex was 15 minutes with an inert, resistant partner..."

"But," Gramsci interjected, "Defamation has only tangentially to do with truth, and rather more to do with reputation. If his 'status, good name or reputation' have been adversely affected, he has a case!"

The Cow thought long and hard. "Surely," she asked, tentatively, "his actions rather than the reporting on them would have caused the damage? And an opinion piece - purporting to be opinion, rather than fact - could not be seen as detrimental to his 'status, good name or reputation', given that this would by that stage have been in tatters anyway?"

"Ah yes," chuckled Gramsci, "but it's not as sinister as you think! Dave Bullard asked uMalume to sue him, and uMalume simply obliged. Currying favour with potential voters, I reckon."

The Cow wasn't so sure. Perhaps a little bird had tipped uMalume off that he'd need the money after all, given that the Courts had OK'd the request for the contentious Mauritian documents. The taxpayer might finally get tired of forking out for all those legal fees, after all.