I used to like being told how I was “different from other guys” by the girls who wouldn’t have sex with me in high school just before they ran off to copulate with a genetic throwback named Skeeter fresh from the joint, swinging his wallet chain, telling them they had a nice rack in the parking lot of Foodland while smoking a dooby on the hood of his Duster.

Skeeter had been in for statutory rape, but only because society didn’t understand his love. At least, that’s what my friend Linda told me when Skeeter knocked her up. Guys like that get all the chicks. C’est la vie!

I would have been better off listening to my inner bastard more often. It never escaped my notice that being bad worked. Women will tell you they like nice guys over the phone, but then they have to go because Chad is on the other line and he gets mad if he’s kept waiting.

Raised by a bitter divorcee in a time when women were coming into their own, I felt more than a little guilty when my mother would say I was just like my father because I fell asleep on the couch or forgot to flush the toilet.

I grew up getting mixed messages via the media and my own role models. Like most guys these days, I got an earful about bad male behavior on one side and gentle caution against that talk on the other side. Much was made about being sensitive. “Women like a man who is sensitive,” women would say. “So fake it,” men would say.

Unfortunately, I WAS sensitive and found myself listening in earnest. I didn’t just nod my head and say “uh-huh” every now and then.

The path of “sensitive listener” leads to sexual frustration. It is not surprising the majority of men fake it or ignore the problem altogether. I handled it by overcompensating and to this day I am the only man who can walk into a strip club with a 20 in my hand and have a stripper sit down and start telling me her troubles. They really do, I have witnesses.

I know I am not alone in all of this. I see backlash everywhere. It is most harsh in music. Women were doing great in rock two years ago, now they are knocked off the radio by hardcore cockrockers thrusting their penises proudly at their audiences and singing about bitches left and right. Even those lighter-than-air pseudo punks Blink 182 got away with throwing a “bitch” into “What’s My Age Again?”

Rap doesn’t even try to excuse its misogynistic bad boys. Eminem’s first album could have been back to back raps about snuff films, and the real Slim Shady would have still raked in the dough on his sophomore effort.

The backlash is more pervasive on television. What happens in music can be extreme. Radio singles won’t offend much, but they get the album sold and keep a guy going. But television has to soft peddle everything, doesn’t it? The backlash isn’t just in the form of misogyny; it’s all about guys doing everything in their power to be as stereotypically “male” as possible, and misogyny is just a large part of that. Not the outright hatred kind, but the slightly more subtle objectification variety.

In spite of my past, no one likes to go for a dip in the testosterone-soaked tide once in awhile like I do. Give me a Clint Eastwood marathon, a sausage/onion pizza with a good bottle of bourbon to wash it down and you can call it a Christmas.

Testosterone has become something of the latest fad on TV. Shows are dripping with it. Sitcoms like “Titus” have always been a hit on Fox. This show features a second-rate comedian who explains to his audience through the fourth wall about the inner workings of a guy’s mind.

The show I have in mind is “The X Show.” Have you seen this gem? It featured Mark “Studs” DeCarlo in a prominent hosting role up until mid-June if that is any indication of quality.

It is a show that proclaims to be for men and the women who put up with them. In the background is an exercise tape in case viewers get board with the conversation. If watching women stretch is your bag, you shouldn’t get board with features like “Women in Men’s Underwear/Office Equipment/On Lawnmowers,” “Gettin’ It,” “The Nude Spokesmodel Showdown” and much, much more.

It’s like my mother used to say, “I’m laughing, but I’m not amused.” Some things we laugh at aren’t really funny, like fart jokes or when someone stubs their toe so bad it bleeds. You laugh almost in defense.

The show would be hilarious if it were done with a sense of irony or parody, but there isn’t anything like that.

When they do a segment on how to get that female friend of yours into bed, you have to watch. It’s like a car accident. You know you should turn away, but there is just something compelling about advice like “don’t remove sexual tension from your relationship” or “be nice anyway to get to her friends.”

It’s not all bad behavior and rude comments. They go over the rules of various sports, show off the latest in universal remotes and tell you what you should look for in a good scotch. The ladies might even approve of the occasional segment on how to properly perform cunnilingus or how to be an attentive, generous date.

There is an element of honesty to the show. I will give them credit for that; they aren’t hiding an agenda. They suggest that men have to give in to their base nature once in awhile, and I don’t reject that premise while seeing “Gladiator” for the third time or smelling my T-shirt before I put it on.

What lies at the heart of this show is an unwitting response to feminist criticism of masculinity. It is not a calculated response, just a gut reaction that goes too far in the opposite direction.

For centuries, men did their thing and when women began to assert themselves more stridently, a great deal of mockery was made of men and their ways. It’s natural, and I don’t balk. But this leads to a natural and almost zealous response from men who now not only roll around in their own muck, but do so on television.

Men love to sell themselves short, but the truth is we are more complex than we like to admit. Mozart was a guy. Mark Twain was a guy. Lord Byron was definitely a guy. Look at what they did with it.

Being a real guy means being able to balance your base nature with your higher functions. It means spending part of every day concentrating on the sublime and part of it reveling in the profane. It means taking as much joy in reaching for the stars as it does playing in the dirt.

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Greg Jerrett is a graduate student in English from Council Bluffs. He is opinion editor of the Daily.