Polar Wives, a working definition.

It dawned on me today when a Google search of "Polar Wife" brought up only the Craigslist ad I posted last week (below) among other material about bi-polar wives like "Bi-polar wife rips off man's penis-Ouch!", that perhaps I needed to further expound on the basic characteristics of said polar wife-- her derivations, her dreams, her sorted men, and her cold and unconventional lifestyle. I love women with unconventional lifestyles.

It's not that a polar wife couldn't rip off a man's penis-- it's just that there would be no "Ouch!"-- for these fur-clad vixens live in the very land their name gives away: The South Pole. I first learned about their existence from one of my college besties/hotties/roomies Dave who gets whisked away to all sorts of no-man's lands because of the potency of his scientific mind. He first went to The South Pole for two months during our senior year and has been back 2 or 3 times since for up to 6 months at a time. This is Dave in a tent in the South Pole, he's obviously practicing "science." That dude behind him is really amused and most likely thinking "I wonder if I can make this guy my polar wife?"



Though to be fair, as far as I've heard all polar wives are women. The Pole was once a bastion of dicks, but now the small population of 250 peeps is around 1/3 female. Men are born selfish, but in times of need they learn to share. Thus as Dave related he witnessed many scientists take a "polar wife" for the 6 winter months they were in Antartica. Not just any random woman, but the same woman year after year until they had something akin to a bonafide marriage. Not that they didn't have bonafide marriages back at home, they did. The Artic, though, is a different kind of puppy. It's so removed from the "real world" that real world rules don't apply. I get the impression that the philosophy behind it is pretty similar to 19th century European silk merchants taking exotic lovers in Japan, whilst their French wives, all played by Keira Knightley, are left with looks of stricken sadness and mad anorexia. If the world was just, they would have at least left their Western wives with some hamburgers.

My sympathies lie with the polar wives though, and ever since I heard of them I've had a small, but persistent thought that maybe someday I'd like to pack my bags and go join their ranks. To me, the "mistress" has always been the far more interesting role-- and 6 months of intense intimacy, near death hypothermic situations, constant cuddly sex, all under the exciting aura of scientific discovery, followed by six months off to order nightly takeout, write, pick boogers in the privacy of your own igloo, watch Murphy Brown reruns, and get back together occasionally with your boring Artic fill-in boyfriend, sounds like a wonderfully complex existence.


Also, someone needs to write a novel entitled "The Polar Wife" like right now, because that is an Oprah's Book Club title waiting to happen.