What Do Men Want?

Written By: Dennis Prager  |  Posted: Wednesday, January 5th, 2011

                It is said that the one question about men and women that even the great Sigmund Freud, father of psychoanalysis, could not answer was: What do women want?
Whether or not Freud actually said that is irrelevant. The very popularity of the anecdote testifies to one incontrovertible fact: A lot of men don't know the answer.
It is probably fair to say that a lot of women also don't know the answer. If they did, all they would have to do is tell men. That would solve the riddle - and make most men and women very happy.

               So, to the extent that this is a great riddle, it is so because most members of both sexes seem not to know the answer.
              Adding support to the widespread belief that what women want is close to unknowable is the underlying presumption that just about everybody knows what men want.
The number of truly funny Internet jokes that describe what women want as complex and what men want as simple is a testament to how widespread these assumptions about the two sexes are.
One example shows a box divided into two parts.
Under the part labeled "Women" are 40 dials and knobs.
Under the part labeled "Men" is one switch, marked "On-Off."
As with most generalizations, there is much truth to this.

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