MARK P L I MSOLL, LLC

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LOCKER-ROOM BEHAVIOR

1. The female equivalent of Locker room talk among men comes later in life than the pubescent male experience. While men brag and try to achieve social status through lies and obvious debasement of women to ensure that they embody the "male" characteristics of hardened and free from feelings or entanglements, willing to victimize, the women who survive these kinds of men and their attitudes equally relish the delicious revenge of telling other female listeners in the beauty parlors how badly that miserable bottom-dwelling scum of a ( especially those of Mediterranean or Arabic cultures) husband-boyfriend treated her, and how she extracted a sweet revenge, which she might relate blow by blow as graphically as any man and repeats when necessary to her husband, a story that springs to mind every time she looks at her blond son.

2. Many other kinds of discussions operate, like the male human's locker room talk, as a sort of "prophylactic against feeling" although I'm not convinced that this phrase adequately describes the phenomenon. People in social settings in general, don't have the time, nor do they really want, to engage in the intimacy required to listen to someone who wants to share feelings with another, and thus feel the responsibility and debt to offer the obligatory support or free therapy.
So humans greet each other with small talk; talk about sports, weather, shopping, news, each other's appearance or possessions, etc. The role of social clubs also gives people a safe, non-intimate fulfillment of social needs where they can group and talk shop.
When my wife and I go to Church, we greet the others with little nods and waves when our eyes meet. Then the programs consist of a speech by the pastor, within which we may politely interject questions or observations, and afterwards we often discuss the chosen subjects, among us chosen subjects, but I cannot think of a time when someone shared how they felt (except some daughters who tearfully railed agaisnt their cruel fighting-cock farmer father who abandoned the family and keeps in contact to insult his ex), as distinct from getting angry at another's position or opinion.