Book review: 'What Men Think About Sex' by Mark Mason

This was a pretty bold title to review as part of my creative writing elective at Xavier's Institute of Communications way back in 2004. But i still managed to get a grade - and a decent one at that! 

Published in June of 2002, this wasn't a book that stood out from the crowd for its literary merits. In fact, i hadn't even heard of it until i saw it at a bookstore in Singapore. 

A momentary glance at the book’s title might suggest that it is on the lines of ‘Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus’ sort of non-fiction, written by an American who believes that a better approach to bridging the gap between the sexes is to do away with all subtlety.

But a detailed read through its 340-odd pages reveals that Mark Mason is actually a Londoner who has decided to shed the age-old ‘stiff-upper-lip’ tag. Nevertheless, the supposition about his nationality and the fact that the book is actually fictional are the only two presumptions that prove to be wrong. Mason, in this first person narrative, explains to its readers via anecdotes how preoccupied men are with sex and to what lengths they would go to, to get a piece of the action.

This is not to say that women don't. Think about sex, that is. 

‘What Men Think About Sex’ is set in London. It revolves around two colleagues - Tim and Rob - who work in an IT firm and their race to bed Clare Jordon from the company’s American office who is their common object of desire. According to the rules of this ‘race’, they have to sleep with five other unsuspecting women before the winner can ask Clare out.

The story unfolds through the eyes of 28-year old Rob. It is interesting to note that both men are a stark contrast to each other. While Tim is a heartless smooth talker who scores with women as easily as he forgets them, Rob is an emotional, levelheaded bloke with a sense of morality - not a strong one, but its there. 

He becomes the mouthpiece of Mason, who spends the first half of the novel telling us how shallow the darker sex really is. But he simultaneously comes to their rescue and defends their case by blaming their obsession with sex on their genetic and psychological make-up. Mason seems to have either misinterpreted Germaine Greere or has tried to boldly express his disapproval of feminism.

Mark Mason

Despite the fact that this topic has been written about and discussed time and again, Mason expands it further to include intricacies of the masculine brain and the things that appeal to such a temperament. For instance, he explains why paying for sex isn't such a turn-on and that sleeping with an ex isn't really a big deal for men. Of course, this calls for a lot of generalisations on Mason’s part, which he clearly states at the outset. Certainly, such liberties are excusable only if it is undertaken by a member of the same sex.

Like most first novels, this too has a tinge of autobiography. Mason tells us (through Rob, of course) that the entries that make up this 21st century pulp fiction novel are “scribblings”. And he’s right. At times, his writing does come across as amateurish and frivolous with some amount of repetition. But it also has spurts of humour interspersed with glimpses of profound reasoning as to why men behave the way they do. 

But the peg of the story - the Clare Jordon Five and Three-Quarter Feet Handicap Stakes race - is too far-fetched. And if men are really capable of devising such a contest then its better that it remain between the covers of personal diaries.

Although this novel’s perceived intention was to delve deeper into the male psyche of how men perceive sex and - in the process - how they perceive women, the end product might come across as a disappointment to its female readers. For one, in the process of explaining how men really think, Mason has objectified women as someone with whom men can only go to bed. And despite the fact that the book’s title forces Mason to stick to its main topic, which is obviously sex, he tends to overdo it in more than a few places. At every step, the reader is party to how Tim and Rob desperately attempt to bed women. This makes the entire act appear mechanical. In fact, their promiscuity eventually becomes so emphatic that love seems like an outdated idea. Thankfully, Mason spares his readers of the details of acts that follow on various occasions and allows their imagination to take over. 

Perhaps, what Tolstoy said about a woman’s beauty is true even for sex: its best description is by understatement.

Although Rob’s participation in this race pricks his conscience now and then, he gives it up only towards the end of the story when he stumbles upon the truth - what he is really seeking is a soul mate, which he finds in his ex-girlfriend, Hannah. Therefore, Mason does veer towards sentimentality and love eventually, proving that the old-fashioned and under-rated emotion isn't a completely extinct concept. In the end Rob says, “As I sat there, listening to my recorded voice and Hannah’s, ‘Purple Rain’ soaking everything we said in the perfection of a thousand memories and a million hopes, life told me that Hannah was the one.”

‘What Men…’ obviously isn't a manual on man-woman relationships. But it is fairly successful in raising and answering many of the questions that plague the minds of most women who have tried to understand the male psyche. In that sense, the book can prove to be informative and fun with its easy language and style. British humour never fails to produce the laughs, even when it comes with a title as crude as this.