Shinie Antony: Headache is the war cry of the under-sexed

Headaches are synonymous with low libidos. ‘I have a headache’ is the war cry of the under-sexed. It is less about migraines and more about fizzled out chemistry. The gentlemanly thing to do for anyone who does not want to tango is to go ahem, er, huh, and hope your partner will take the hint and manfully get the headache before you do.

In an ideal world, we’d all be equals, both in and out of bed. A headache would be just a headache, something that disappears with Dispirin. But headaches have gained themselves such notoriety in the world of nookies. They are what women who don’t put out have.

Surveys say men are more randy than women, that women think it impolite to want, that in bedrooms everywhere men are shaking all over with lust while women are shaking only their heads. Once upon a time long, long ago, shaking head so much gave Eve an idea. Instead of shaking it right to left and left to right, she decided it best to blame it head-on. ‘I have a headache,’ she said tentatively and Adam slept on the couch. Post-Aspirin, she upgraded the mild headache to migraine.

But if a man has a headache, call a curfew — for this is the real thing. Not decoy, not excuse, not alibi, not a political stand against heavy breathing; his skull means business. He wants Aspirin, isolation and all world leaders to maintain silence for the duration of the throb. His head aches because it is heavy with brain! It is nothing to do with other body parts; it is a macho matter of the head and head alone. Because, and biology bears this out, if he doesn’t want, he simply can’t. Matter over. Issue settled. No gray there.

A woman’s want is pliable, flexible, negotiable, open to talks. Her ‘no’ is iffy, maybe, hmmm and therefore a doubtful, even delightful, thing. A man’s ‘no’, on the other hand, is no. He doesn’t need a headache to cover it with frills.

Even if headaches are what women have when they don’t want company, wishful thinking often turns true and they retire to bed with a cold compress in a blaze of eucalyptus. And sometimes — surprise, surprise — the headache has nothing to do with the opposite sex at all, or for that matter with anyone!

She would rather run out and haggle over silly knick-knacks, listen to music or flirt with the cute guy who has just moved in next-door, but damn, here comes pain, blinding, beheading, ballistic pain. A nuisance, really. Especially when heaving a real headache means you can’t have a mythical one for some time.

If it is not imaginary, doesn’t sugarcoat rejection, it’s not that time of the month, not to do with anything but pure unadulterated genuine, bona fide, 24-carat, 100% pain, then who wants it? No woman craves a migraine. To lie groaning and moaning with a blindfold in debilitating darkness as little shards slice her scalp with every breath she takes.

And this is the headache men really don’t want to know.