Men are from Right Guard, Women Are from Secret

If there is one point on which the Church and the modern world continually seem to clash, it is this: the observation that men are women are different.* As Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict XVI) wrote in his 2004 Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church on the Collaboration of Men and Women in the Church and in the World:

“‘Sexuality characterizes man and woman not only on the physical level, but also on the psychological and spiritual, making its mark on each of their expressions’.11 It cannot be reduced to a pure and insignificant biological fact, but rather ‘is a fundamental component of personality, one of its modes of being, of manifestation, of communicating with others, of feeling, of expressing and of living human love’.12”

But one need not take the Church’s word for it that God made men and women different. For that, you need only open my medicine cabinet.

There, you will see a lovely, powder-blue container, decorated with flowers. The name of this product, spelled out in a dainty cursive font, is “Secret,” suggesting quiet, subtlety, intimacy. Its scent, we are told, is “powder fresh,” giving rise to maternal notions of a newborn baby. This is, suffice it to say, my wife’s deodorant.

Then, look over, and you will see mine: a double-barreled dose of testosterone in manly black casing. The name of this product, displayed in a font straight out of Robocop, isn’t just “Right Guard,” which suggests righteous protection, but “Right Guard Xtreme!” So extreme that it’s misspelled! Why, just using this stuff is the hygienic equivalent of bungy-jumping off the Grand Canyon. It’s so powerful, in fact, that its power is confined to a single, trademarked “power stripe,” lest anyone get hurt. Further, it offers the “ultimate in time-released protection,” meaning that it’s the best of the best — and it’s punctual, to boot. Even the scent, “arctic refresh,” is a testament to Xtreme manliness: People would wear this stuff in the Arctic, if they sweated there.

Now the world might claim that the Church is wrong on this whole “man and women He created them” business, that there really is no difference between men and women and how they perceive reality and interact with one another. But Madison Avenue knows better. And deep in our own medicine cabinets, we all do.

So when you run this weekend, sweat like a man, or sweat like a woman, in whatever way He created you!

* Note, stating that men and women are different in no way detracts from their equality or dignity. To quote Cardinal Ratzinger again: “Above all, the fact that human beings are persons needs to be underscored: ‘Man is a person, man and woman equally so, since both were created in the image and likeness of the personal God’.10 Their equal dignity as persons is realized as physical, psychological and ontological complementarity, giving rise to a harmonious relationship of ‘uni-duality’, which only sin and ‘the structures of sin’ inscribed in culture render potentially conflictual.”