After I wrote a column questioning why guys pay to see increasingly dumb and dumber movies, a female coworker said if I published it, I’d likely never date again.

She’ll need a better threat than that, since I wouldn’t remember what a date looked like if one arrived at my door with flowers, chocolates and a nametag that read, “Hi, I’m your date.” (Besides, I always have trouble reading when someone is holding chocolate in front of me).

A male coworker said the column was “a little harsh” and maybe it would work better in a women’s magazine (i.e., stick it where no male would ever see it). Then he added, “I’m not saying what you wrote isn’t true.”

I figure guys are smart enough (see, I’m giving the idio...er, guys, some credit) to decide if what I write applies to them, and if it doesn’t, to not get their Hanes in a twist.

What I pondered in the column is this: Why would a perfectly normal-seeming man waste 102 minutes and a $10 box of popcorn on a movie called “Balls of Fury” (substitute “Dodgeball” or “Ace Ventura: Pet Detective”)?

The answer, as I discovered during New Year’s week when my dad was staying at our typically girls-only house, is that men’s brains have been numbed by the drivel sportscasters impart on television. After many years of viewing sporting events, their judgment is permanently impaired.

Over the course of eight college football bowl games – which is about, I’d say, eight more than my daughter Shannon and I would typically watch – I heard many comments that tested the theory that sportscasters are smarter than your average sweaty locker room towel, including, “Does that Astroturf look like it needs mowing to you?” and “Speaking from the point of view of an ex-lineman who was hit in the head many, many times, I’d have to say: the team that gets the most points will win this game tonight.”

Minds suitably numbed from the stimulating analysis – enough to hold until baseball season – men could now watch movies featuring scenes of heavy cleavage, bodily function humor and other men being hit in the crotch with a variety of blunt instruments (or sometimes by their on-screen love interests).

It’s a genre of films I like to call Stupid Guy Movies Featuring Heavy Cleavage, Bodily Function Humor and Crotch Shots.

Researchers discovered after a test that likely involved sitting through a 24-hour marathon of “Dumb and Dumber” that men like slapstick, while women are emotionally fulfilled by films featuring intelligent humor (Some men refer to these as “chick flicks.” I call them movies in which you won’t find a former stand-up comedian playing all the characters, including those of a large black woman and the leading stud).

Say it with me now, girls: “duh-huh.”

This is why you don’t see women driving cars with bumper stickers that say “I (heart) passing gas” and forming fan clubs for The Three Stooges.

One researcher found that slapstick is popular among men because 1) they are competitive and therefore feel better about themselves when others seem stupider than they are, and 2) they don’t mind seeing others in pain, while women avoid displays of physical discomfort.

I know what you’re thinking: There are those women who like nothing better than watching another woman’s pain, otherwise how would you explain the popularity of shows like “Bridezilla,” or the whole can’t-get-enough-of-the-train-wreck-that-is-Britney’s-life phenomenon?

And the gender lines may continue to blur. Recently, two women in the newsroom visited a Web site called farts.com and proceeded to laugh until they were making questionable noises themselves.