Noooo, not the women and children!

I'm sure you've heard about the recent killings of journalists in Pakistan. Actually, I'm not sure about that at all. You probably haven't, in fact.

Well, just think about any event in which a lot of innocent people died. Civilian casualties in war, for example.

Think about how the news is often reported in the media;

"FORTY KILLED, INCLUDING WOMEN AND CHILDREN"

"FOUR MURDERED, A WOMAN AMONG THEM"

"TWENTY KILLED IN EXPLOSION, THREE CHILDREN DEAD"

I don't know about you.. but innocent women and children dying don't fill me with more horror than innocent men dying. I don't particularly see any reason why it should.

I can't imagine anybody going, "Did you hear about that mass killing?! Lots of people died! Some of them were small, and others had vaginas!"

It's a little ridiculous. Yet, that's what people are essentially saying when they see fit to specify the gender or age of victims.

Why does the media assume that civilian men are less innocent than civilian women and children?! I wonder if men are miffed by this, or if they notice it at all.

Men and balls.

Every time the world cup, or AFL/NFL games (finals? I don't follow them enough to know what they're called) roll around, my facebook page is inundated with testosterony men babbling about how Ronaldo was a disappointment, or how the refs were blind, or else crowing, "GO THE DRAGONS!11" in what can only be compared to lusty glee.

It's not becoming, gentlemen.

There is nothing 'manly' about dozens of sweaty men gathering in a small room, watching other sweaty men in short shorts wrestle and grope each other in muddy fields, screaming at regular intervals and getting drunk. The way you react, you'd think what you were seeing was this;

Of course, that's not what you're seeing.

What you are actually seeing, is this:

Yes, that is a man, sticking his finger up another man's no-no place.

Yet, you seem just as excited about the latter, as the former. I think this says something about you. The whole damn lot of you, for all your collective views about 'masculinity', seem happy enough to suspend them for the duration of the footy season! Strange.

That's just the philosophical side of things. Practically, you'd be nuts to go out into the city centre, or anywhere, really, during football/rugby season. Giggly groups of men will approach you and demand to know what 'team you go for'. If you look puzzled, you are met with jeers and snorts of derision. If you say you don't follow the game, you are met with audible gasps of shock and they sneer as they hastily depart, as though disinterest in their game is contagious, leaving you there to look alone and abandoned.

But if you've been terribly unwise and tried to pick a side, there can be no saving you. If you've picked well, they will howl in triumph, clap you altogether too hard on the back, and insist you join them for three rounds of shitty beer, politely leaving out that you will probably be gang-raped later. Declination of their overenthusiastic offer will be taken as a grave insult, so you'd better have some mace handy.

If you've been unfortunate and picked badly, you could reasonably expect a punch in the face, depending on how drunk the gaggle currently is.

Apart from the haranguing, we all know what happens to men when they coalesce in groups, especially when they've been drinking. It gets ugly. It gets undignified, it gets piteous and sometimes it gets dangerous. So of course, they fall upon the footy season with unreserved glee!

It's absolutely nuts. Akin to the teenage-girl hype regarding Twilight, except this insanity has been going on for much longer.

I laugh and point as the same men who snigger contemptuously at twilight fans turn into rabid, foaming-at-the-mouth crazies the moment football season is upon us.