“Give me a thousand words on the Senators’ open letter to Iran; give me a thousand words on the Justice Department’s investigation of the Ferguson Police Department; give me a thousand words on the racist University of Oklahoma fraternity; give me a thousand words on Boko Haram pledging allegiance to ISIS; give me a thousand words on…” That’s what the editor in my head’s been repeating the past few days. I wish I wanted to oblige; ‘wish I felt more outrage. “Don’t you even care?” Maybe, maybe not, probably not.
Boys will be boys. It’s not an excuse; it’s the embarrassing truth. When boys gather into a group (meaning more than one) and are left to their own devices, they do stupid things. They may stumble on intelligent things, but they will inevitably do stupid things. These things may be cruel, dangerous, ignorant, or simply foolish, the shared characteristic being stupid. Street gangs, police departments, labor unions, army battalions, religious extremists, college fraternities, politicians, fantasy football leagues. Lions and tigers and bears, oh my! Sure, groups of women can be sadistic, but they never achieve the epic folly of their male counterparts. Boys will be boys. Add ideology and stir.
Why so bitter? Why grind this axe? I don’t know. Possibly because I have never felt at ease among men; possibly because I am ashamed of this; possibly because I wish to justify a hermitic life; possibly because I envy what I perceive as the comfort many men feel around their friends, close or casual. I joined a men’s group once, hoping for some brotherhood. It felt good for a few months, felt like I was a part of. Eventually I began blaming it for my failing mental health, my failing career, my failing marriage. I blamed many other things: doctors, bosses, family, most of all my own short circuiting brain. But I imagined a special ring in hell for gatherings of men, one in which everyone sits around doing needlepoint while watching The Notebook for all eternity. Al Qaeda and the NYPD together on the same couch. “Osama, would you pass me a tissue?”
I doest protest too much, I know. To rationalize loneliness is to condemn camaraderie. But fuck it; if it helps me survive, so be it. And, in the end, isn’t that what all this stupidity is about? Survival? An instinctual, virile response to a threat? It’s a cliché to say men think with their dicks, yet it’s crude but true. The instinct to piss or fuck is much stronger than the instinct to have a nuanced thought. It’s science! And don’t get me started on the fear that someone else’s penis is longer, thicker, stronger. Giggle, giggle, right? Stop laughing. The penis is a useful but very stupid organ. Trust me; I would know. Perhaps that is why none of the news stories of men behaving badly shocks me into outrage. Racism, partisanship, zealotry, they all come down to men thinking with, playing with, and measuring their dicks. You may say, “what about the hatred? The prejudice? The disrespect?” Sure, all those things are there, but men act on those because of their dicks. Yep, when Senators Cotton, McConnell, Graham, et al put their dicks together end to end, they might just be a smidgeon bigger than Obama’s. Those idiot frat boys at Oklahoma are so terrified of the size of some black star football player from some big city that they won’t let any into the brotherhood. Yeah, whiteboy. ‘Wouldn’t want to lose your girlfriend to a n!@#**, would you? And then there is the endless parade of virgins awaiting the martyrs of the war against the infidels, all for striking a small blow against the swinging-to-the-knees Great Satan. Shit, boys. I realize for evolution’s sake you got to whip it out, but really? Armadillos in our trousers… sheesh! ‘Think I’ll keep it in my pants for a while, brotherhood be damned.
giantmooserocks 