Filters: Sex and Other Misconceptions 169
Just as the human skeleton dictates movement, the reproduc-
tive system plays its part in human behaviors and movements as
well. This is never more visible than in children in the throes of
puberty. A perfectly sane male child at 12 has lost his mind by 16.
Suddenly, his brain has become more decidedly male and, as part of
the process, is being outvoted two to one.
On November 1, 1986, when I was still with the Old Guard, our
commander decided to bring a young female Marine who taught
aerobics into our unit. The reason I remember the actual date is
that most of us had been in the Georgetown section of Washing-
ton, D.C. for Halloween and a night of hard drinking. Aside from
the fact she was very attractive and dressed in spandex, she had no
value to the infantry unit. Testosterone filled the air as we scoffed
at doing aerobics. Then the commander informed us that we could
add old bowling pins to our routine, because he’d acquired them from
the newly rehabbed alley. “Oh, great!” we muttered to each other.
“Now we can look gay and dorky.” This macho attitude lasted for
about 10 minutes until this ultra-fit tiny blonde woman worked our
asses into the ground. She told us in the beginning to use only one pin,
but, of course, we were men. In the end, we hit total muscle failure.
I use this story to illustrate one thing: men and women move very
differently. While we were making very large square movements in
order to remain masculine, the instructor and the men who didn’t care
about being macho were making soft sweeping movements that used
the energy of the swinging pins, instead of trying to control it.
The very nature of male movement is reflected in every part of
our body language. When a man acts more like a woman, you will