The Mind of the Married Man now on HBO is supposed to be a sort of Sex in the City for the feller with a ring on his finger. Developed by Mike Binder, the series features three work colleagues and friends: one a rogueish adulterer, the second a meek nice guy, and the main character, Micky Barnes, a Kinsey 3, ethically speaking. Micky is guilt-stricken but sex-addled,
promotion
constantly tempted by the fruits of various others, and angsted out by the presence of his first child, not to mention his grouchy-yet-hot-yet-frigid blond British wife.
Hooksexup gathered together a few married guys to see what they thought of the show. They wanted to be anonymous because, you know, they're chickens. So we gave them all funny names. Emily Nussbaum
Diego: Married, One Kid Lemuel: Married, No Kids Samson: Gay, Married to a Man Bartlett: Newlywed Malachi: Divorcing
How realistic is the show?
Diego: There are elements that are realistic, but the main character is such a dweeb!
Samson: He's a wimp.
Bartlett: Let me just say, as a man who has only been married for eleven months, I am already the pansy you mock. I am already the meek, sheepish schmuck. I sort of follow orders. I shaved my beard and cut my hair because I was being denied sexual access.
Lemuel: One thing that I thought was totally off was that scene where the men talked about each other's wives. I mean, with my male colleagues, we would never say, "Hey, wouldn't it be funny if your wife and my wife went down on one another and then we filmed it?'
Diego: I can identify with the power struggles over when to have sex when you have children. But the "big dick/small dick mentality" thing they keep talking about is just ridiculous.
Malachi: I'm in the midst of getting a divorce, and I hope the show will get past the symptoms and deal with the causes of that kind of thing. My marriage didn't fail because of wanting to have sex with other people. The symptoms they're showing are simple unhappiness, desire for sex with other people but there is not a lot of dimensionality. They don't seem like real people yet.
Do men talk as openly as these guys do about wanting to cheat?
Lemuel: I've never sat with my male colleagues and dogged a hot girl together that way. It's more complicated. Someone says, "You know so and so?," then someone else says, "Yeah, she's attractive" and then you deflect that by saying "Oh, she's dumb as a post" or something. I have never heard anyone say, "I'm thinking of cheating." Instead, you talk about the other guy harboring a secret thing. "Did you see how he was flirting with her?'
Diego: I did have a friend who was a chronic cheat, and would brag about the sex. But he wasn't married he had a steady girlfriend and I don't think he even thought of it as cheating. I do wonder whether he cheats on his wife. I don't really know.
Bartlett: I have a lot of married friends who've been together a long time and I've never had one of them confess to having an affair.
Lemuel: I mean, isn't that part of the excitement of the affair? The illicit secrets? The most unlikely character on the show is the friend who is openly cheating.
Samson: And if you were going to have these serial affairs, would you really do it at the office, for God's sake?
Malachi: I don't know about that. I know one editor of a magazine who was having an affair with another editor, not when he was married but when he was engaged a month before the wedding. There were only thirty people in the office, and all this electricity in the air. Everyone knew. But I don't know if it ever got back to his fiancée.
Did people disapprove of it?
Malachi: I think they were appalled and titillated.
Bartlett: I've had discussions with my co-workers about who we fantasize about, ranking them in amount of fantasies.
Malachi: Unfortunately, I now work alone.
Bartlett: You're missing out.
What do you think of the conversations between the married friends and the single guy, the one who is always bragging about chasing pussy?
Bartlett: You know, I do find it that every time I have a frank sexual discussion, the only people revealing something are the ones who aren't married. My married friends still think there is some sort of sanctity, which is probably naïve.
Lemuel: It's just a little bit disturbing talking about your sex life when you might say something that turns one of your friends on and they are picturing your wife. Like if I said, "Last night when my wife went down on me and did that" they are picturing that.
Samson: The thing is, the single guy says, "There is all this wild pussy out there." Well, there is a lot of boring pussy, as well. It is not like all the single girls out there are hot and know what they are doing.
Bartlett: Yeah, but the point is you put up with the boring pussy for one night and move on to the next one.