I was sitting around the pool yesterday, doing a little bit of exercise to alleviate the pressure in my lower back.

A bearded guy walks into the gated pool area—he’s in his early to mid-30s.

All of a sudden from one corner of the pool you hear a man chirp up and say, “Almost 5:00pm, he’s alive!”

Another guy shouts, “That is the latest walk of shame I’ve ever seen!”

They start laughing. Man talk follows.

Then, as bearded guy walks closer, they start clapping and shouting to him.

“Man of the hour!”

“The walk of shame!”

“How was she?!”

Then they start clapping some more.  Now the whole pool starts clapping and everybody gets a good laugh out of it.

He goes and sits down.  He’s congratulated.

“A gentleman won’t tell,” he says.  His friends look at him with admiration.  He’s the hero.  He’s actually playing a role for all.  He actually loves the validation.

He felt good.  He was milking the moment.  He was enjoying being the center of attention.  He was like the quarterback on a high school football team.

If that was a woman walking in like that, nobody would say a word—not one person.  She’d quickly go talk to her friend and share all the details with them.  The whole pool wouldn’t validate the fact that she got laid.

That’s a guy thing.  It’s okay for the man to go and bang some girl—he’s validated.  The whole pool clapped.  Everybody knew what he did last night. He was the stud.

His coworkers loved it, that’s why they love having him on this corporate vacation, because they know he’ll create a story.  The story he just created in Maui will then go back to the office, probably right away via e-mail.

He’ll be validated.  He’ll retell that story probably 70 times when he’s back at work.  Each guy will congratulate him even more.

A legend was born here. Or maybe his legend was just cemented because he already had that notoriety. But this experience will live on and through the corporate world—the buddy-buddy system of the corporate world.

This could actually get him a raise down the road, because somebody will want to be around him and have it rub off.

Apparently, it’s a good career move doing the walk of shame at 5:00pm in the afternoon.

For a man.

. . .

So how do you feel about this double standard?

How come a woman walking into the pool area isn’t congratulated by other women saying “Alright Betty, four orgasms last night, good job!”

How do you feel about that?