In Search Of An Impotent Man

As odd as it sounds, the above is the title of a book I read a few years ago by Gaby Hauptmann. It’s a translation that I read first in English and then attempted in the original German (although that went an awful lot slower let me tell you). It’s centred on the main character, Carmen Legg, who is an attractive woman in her late twenties. She is also a woman who has finally had enough of boyfriends who cheat, clients who believe her body should be provided as one of her company’s services and sleazy men in general. So she decides to take action.

Carmen figures that most of her grievances with men stem from sex and concludes that the only way around this is to take it wholly out of the equation. She feels lonely and wants a partner but believes that only a specific sort of man might fill the void. So she places an ad for a companion who is charming, attractive, considerate…and impotent. Of course from this point on, things appear to go well, turn out disastrously wrong and then finally work out in the end. As all chick lit seems to do.

Along the way, Carmen realises that she is not comfortable with being unable to physically fulfil her partner in every respect. She also learns that she cannot always manipulate things to be as she would wish. Due to this, she occasionally comes across as what some would term TSTL (a romantic heroine term that affectionately refers to those that are Too Stupid To Live) but I choose to ignore some of the glaring inconsistencies in the character of one reputed to be both intelligent and mature. I instead am entertained by the premise of the story.

As much as I’m sure that it would never solve all your problems in the romance department, there are times when I definitely think the idea has some merit. And I don’t mean that in a vindictive way either. I think. I do feel though that just as there are some women who give the rest of us a bad name by being callous and bitchy, there are guys who definitely turn women off by being chauvinistic and only after one thing. So if that one thing wasn’t a viable option for them, maybe we might be able to see another side to some of the men out there. I’m sure they must have them.

And having said that, I’m sure some of you might argue that this is just another case of a woman wanting to have her cake and eat it too. Another example of a female wanting to dictate how people around her act and react. One could also say that the whole idea wasn’t very well thought out at all and if that’s the case, so be it. I know a handful of guys who have expressed the desire to have a remote control that worked on women and I don’t think the ‘Stepford Wives’ approach to controlling behaviour is a plausible solution either.