My doctor is a woman. My dentist is a woman. My lawyer, well, he used to be a woman, but that clinic in Switzerland took care of that. My barber, my dermatologist, my optometrist, they're all women. If my normally glass-smooth butt needed to be exfoliated, the person who got the job would be a woman.

Why this bias towards the opposite sex when it comes to taking care of my personal appearance or medical or legal needs?

Because most men don’t give a damn about my health or making me look good. Most men would prefer that I were in another country, in some other dimension, or even dead. I don’t take it personally because most guys feel the same about all men.

That may be a bit harsh, but it’s no secret that men are extremely competitive with each other. The root of that competitiveness–at least if you’re a strict Freudian man–is sex. It’s embedded in our subconscious like the sapphire in Christina Aguilar’s cute little belly button. All you penis-endowed humans out there are potential rivals for the worldwide Pussy Powerball lottery.

Don’t you see? If there were no other sexually able men around, all the women in the world would be there for the taking...all yours, every last one of them. A good two thirds of them would probably go lesbo rather than mate with you, but hell, that still leaves a few hundred million fertile females around! Even Wilt the Stilt wouldn’t sneeze at those numbers.

Darwin assumed that the concept of natural male beauty arose through competition between males to attract a sexual partner, hence the plumage on male birds, a mane on a male lion, or even antlers on a stag. While human males weren’t naturally gifted with any special ornamentation, primitive man got around it by wearing beads or the feathers of birds. Modern man? Well, he puts on a nice pair of Dockers and a shirt from Abercrombie. Of course, what is weight lifting but an attempt to add some ornamentation in the form of muscle?

But the problem with humans–if it’s indeed a problem–is that unlike a lot of animals, we can mate any time, even if it’s during dental surgery, thermonuclear war, or during commercials for The Apprentice. As such, we’re constantly in contention with other men. Ever notice how two male dogs size each other up? Their hackles are raised, their tails erect, and they’ll posture, chuff, and growl until one’s body language acknowledges the other’s dominance. Afterwards, they’ll usually get along fine. However, if neither is willing to back down, a fight will usually settle the matter.

Human males, despite all our pretenses that we’re civilized and evolved, do pretty much the same thing. The next time you see two men meet for the first time, take note of their body language. In most cases eye contact will establish dominance, the one who momentarily averts his gaze deferring to the other, more dominant male. If that doesn’t work, one or both will stand up straight and stick their chest out to appear more imposing. Physical dominance might be further implied by a bone-crushing handshake or stepping into the other’s personal space.

If the dominant male is lacking in physicality and instead considers himself intellectually dominant, he may try to establish dominance through his vocabulary, his position in society, or his wealth. He can do this by flashing a Rolex, flashing around the keys to his Benz, or using words like pusillanimous or sesquipedalian. Of course, if there are T-mag readers within earshot of words like those, they may jam the keys to the Benz up his nostril so that when he sneezes all the car doors unlock and the trunk pops open.

You see this kind of one-upsmanship all the time in the office where men will go to great lengths to show who’s alpha male and who’s beta male. Take the Biotest office, for example. Every morning at 9 AM, Tim Patterson comes into my office, unzips his pants, and practices his "urine calligraphy" by writing his name onto my carpet. In turn, I go into Chris Shugart’s office and blast the ferns off his desk. Then, Chris goes into Cy Willson’s office and turns his guppy bowl into a fancy commode. Cy then marks his own foot because there’s really no one lower on the totem pole. The whole thing is a ruthless, never ending display of dominance.

Given all that, it’s probably not hard to understand why I seek professional services from women. After all, what possible good can come from making another man more desirable to the opposite sex? Sure, they’re all professionals who take pride in their work, but if I don’t have breasts, or by making me look and perform better, can somehow compete with them for access to someone with lovely breasts, they’re not compelled to give me their best work.

Ever get a haircut from a guy who wasn’t gay? Hell, you’re lucky to walk out of there with a ‘do that looks better than the one Saddam was wearing when they pulled him out of the spider hole.

Ever talk to a male doctor who didn’t treat you as if you were a piece of banged up luggage? If in the past I wanted to get adequate treatment from a male doctor, I had to hang my pants and my testicles on the hook behind the door. I quickly sat down as to not intimidate them with my height or size, didn’t meet their eyes for more than a second, and smiled and chuckled like the world’s biggest toady.

The last male doctor I had wouldn’t even give me a prostate exam during a physical. He literally turned the faucet on partway and said, "After you go to the bathroom, does it shut off immediately or does it trickle out like this?’

"Oh, then you’re fine."

Despite his obvious gift as a diagnostician, I now go to Dr. Sheila Blasingame. She cheerfully checks my prostate and, while I may be mistaken, I think she even looks forward to it. Yep, I like to think there’s a little love riding sidesaddle on that nimble, impetuous little finger.

While some professional men are able to put aside the innate sense of competitiveness and treat all patients or customers equally, it’s the exception rather than the rule. Even friendships are plagued by sexual competitiveness. It’s usually not overt, but it’s there. Male friends take pleasure in your good fortune, as long as you make a little less money than they do and as long as your girlfriend or wife is a little less pretty than theirs.

Having more money and a juicier sex partner tells him, subconsciously, that you’re more desirable to women than he is; lets him know you’re winning the genetic Stanley Cup, slapping tumescent puck after tumescent puck between the open legs of female goalies. Your very existence decreases the chances that he’ll get to procreate with the girl who works at the Dairy Queen around the corner. And while your friend probably wouldn’t nail your wife or girlfriend, he thinks about it; he thinks about it a lot. Yep, in his fantasies, she’s wearing your Minnesota Golden Gophers sweatshirt and nothing else while he makes passionate love to her right on your favorite Lazy Boy lounger while you’re in the garage building a birdhouse or polishing up your collection of license plates.

As evidence of just how deeply rooted in our psyche this stuff is, research even suggests that the volume of male ejaculate is subconsciously controlled by the male, larger amounts being produced when the male is uncertain about the likelihood of another male having sex with his mate. More sperm and more ejaculate increases the chance of pregnancy, thereby knocking other men out of the procreative picture.

This is presumably what happened to Tim Pattersons’s first wife, Jasmine. Her infidelities caused him to experience profound insecurities and when they made love for the very last time, she was literally hosed away and the milky white deluge carried her into the waters off the Florida Keys. Her body was never found.

I suppose there’s a positive side to this competition for sex. It’s probably largely responsible for most advances in human history. Power, accomplishment, status, at the root of all of that lies sex. Without at least a remote promise of sex—somehow, somewhere–we wouldn’t even get out of bed in the morning.

Unfortunately, this competition is also responsible for most of the really bad shit too. If women ran the world, the place would probably be a lot happier and everything would probably run very efficiently. However, I doubt there’d be much impetus to conquer new vistas. Men want to conquer new vistas because there might be some really juicy women on top of that new vista, or news of his new-vista conquering talents might earn them the favors of new-vista groupies.

I’ve probably made the competition between men sound much worse than it is. Do I really believe men hate each other? No. Do I believe all male relationships–both professional and personal–are tainted by competition for sex? No. Well, unless there are some really gorgeous women in the office or sitting next to us at the ballgame.

In that case, I’m going to do my damndest to let her know I’m the alpha male and you’re the beta.

"I’ll take the one on the left...no, the one on the right! Screw it, I want both of them!"