Busted!

Gina: You might as well have been explaining the rules for icing the puck. No, you missed the headline. It was in the fine print. The scientists also discovered that the more highly sexed a man is, the more susceptible he will be to the bikini effect.

Gene: Stands to reason.

Gina: I'm not finished. What's really interesting is how the scientists measured which man was more highly sexed than the other. They did it by comparing the length of each man's pointer finger to the length of his ring finger.

Gene: What?

Gina: Apparently, this is valid science! A male with a comparatively longer ring finger was exposed to less estrogen in the womb, so, as an adult, he is more of a ticking testosterone bomb. These are the guys who most often lose their business acumen when confronted with a coquettishly elevated thigh.

Gene: My ring finger is a lot longer than my pointer.

Gina: I'm not surprised. I have personally observed your behavior in the presence of visible panty lines. My point is that the only reason this finger-ratio disclosure was not on Page 1 of The Washington Post and did not lead the nightly news on every network is that the media are still run by men. No one understood the raw power this information delivers to women. Or they understood it quite well and wished to withhold it.

Gene: What do you mean?

Gina: We're now armed with critical information! In a bar, men will think we're scoping out whether they're wearing wedding rings, but instead we'll be figuring out which of them can be most quickly induced to buy us a house.

Gene: I feel like a traitor to my sex.

Gina: You're thinking like a man. You should start thinking strategically, like a woman. Have you seen the bikinis-running-through-the-jungle video that they used in the experiment?

Gene: No.