Guilty Pleasures
Author: Jayne26 Sep
Why do only women have guilty pleasures*, like watching Grey’s Anatomy or eating a cup full of peanuts with chocolate sauce poured over it, having sex with the UPS guy, spitefully viewing America’s Next Top Model?
Is it that men don’t feel guilty about pleasure?
Or am I wrong about the gender difference?
So what’s your guilty pleasure? What fun, food, cheap fiction or flight of fancy do you like to indulge in? (God, I love alliteration. Sorry about that.)
Me? I like to go into the kitchen and sneak marshmallows from the cabinet and pop one in my mouth when I’m passing through. I suppose what does it for me is the sneaky secretiveness and the eating something that has absolutely no nutritional value, real or imagined.
*I did a google search for “guilty pleasures” and found that a lot of people, by the way, are very close to mentally ill and I don’t think, technically, that being obsessed with weighing your own poop is a guilty pleasure. I was going to link to the place I found that, but on second thought… umm… no, I won’t. I tell ya… google is a scary place sometimes.
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Dairy Queen blizzards. If I go anywhere near a Dairy queen I have to get one.
Yeah, um, the only reason I use the stationery bike at the gym is so I can read the tabloid magazines. I get on there and I am totally BFF with Brangelina. I like to think it’s making my ass cuter at the same time but I really just care about who was seen at Starbuck with who.
I used to watch Big Brother After Dark. It was like spying on people. And laughing at them. Hard.
Dishonest response: My guilty pleasure is a long, hot bath with a slightly chilled glass of Sauternes and a recent issue of Foreign Affairs magazine!
Honest response: I tell my friends and my husband that I’m going to pick up some clothes at the cleaners across the river and I go directly to the casino, put a $20 in “Mystic Mermaid” and lose it.
Cheeseburgers….big juicy cheeseburgers.
Reality TV. I desperately try not to get sucked in, but fail miserably!
Checking out People Magazines at the library because I’m too cheap to buy them and I like to have them on hand when I’m headed for a crash. But I know most of the women who work at the library and I’m always slightly embarrassed to be reading them. It goes back to a teenage addiction to Rona Barrett. I can even complete the crossword puzzles.
Ice cream of any kind and chocolate!
Hmmmm well I am Catholic so guilt I can do…. with or without the pleasure… though in my weaker moments Bailey’s on the rocks, a big bag of movie butter popcorn with melted real butter on top and a totally mindnumbing, useless to the migratory pattern of the birds or the turning of the Earth type chickflick is my idea of heaven just at the moment…better go get on that…shhhhh don’t rat me out.
Guilty pleasure and your question on the male lack of guilt seem closely related to a story in today’s NY Times- summarizing two studies that show women are losing ground on the happiness index. I covered this in my blog today, ended up asking Freakonomics to take on the converse of your question-not why don’t men feel guilty, but why do women. For the link and a funny slant on the Times story please visit
http://michaeljamesh.blogspot.com/2007/09/economics-rules-world.html
Guilty Pleasure - mine is being alone in the house all day long. In fact, just being alone is my guilty pleasure.
From my anecdotal experience, I agree that men don’t feel guilt the way women do, especially over parenting. You never hear a dad say, “Wow, I feel guilty I had to work today and couldn’t spend time with the kids.”
Me? The usual: candy, shopping, sex with the UPS guy…
I don’t think I have any guilty pleasures.
I have many pleasures, mind you, but I don’t feel guilty about any of them. If I like doing something then screw you I’m gonna do it! If you think it’s wierd or naughty then YOU can feel guilty about that, not me.
Speaking as a man, I would like to reply. But first, I need to know the definition of that weird word you used, “guilty.”
capital letters and quotation marks
I’m sure at least some men have guilty pleasures - I know I do. I’m assuming a guilty pleasure is a craving for something “bad” (in quotations because in this context, “bad” can be a subjective term).
I’ll also argue that some women probably do not suffer from “guilty pleasures: they either consciously or unconsciously experience this cravings without guilt or remorse.
I don’t think these concepts of “guilty pleasures” are entirely driven by gender. I think they are driven more by our mental or emotional conditioning, where gender can play a factor, but it is not the sole determining factor.
Also, I’m a layman and I have no idea if this is fact, it’s my opinion.