State Sponsored Sexual Assault

A good friend of mine who studies psychology heralded an interesting fact the other day. Supposedly, men are far more likely than women to avoid a visit to the doctor for a test or health check because they would rather not know that something is wrong with them.

This was anecdotally confirmed at breakfast on Sunday morning. When questioned as to why he didn't enjoy medical tests, my mate responded "They don't do anything. You wait for ages to go into this room, where they stick something into your throat, ask you to cough..."

At this point, I interrupted him with a memory that had clearly been repressed for a very long time.

"... and they grab your balls to check they're both there."

This was met with a stunned response from my breakfast companions.

My male companion looked as though he'd just been slapped with a serve of smoked salmon, because clearly he too had been repressing this memory since the age of 7. My female companion sat staring with her jaw dropped (and not because she was eating roast chickpeas).

Obviously, this was a traumatic experience that I'd kept bottled for many years. I must say, Sunday breakfast marked the first time in a while I'm managed to feel some form of closure.

The details are sketchy, but this is roughly what I remember.

Childhood was carefree. School involved a lot of running around, tennis balls, marbles, footy cards, monkey bars, forts, swings, see-saws, merry-go-rounds.

And then one day, we were lining up outside the nurse's room.

At first, playground rules applied. Single file was a very loose single file. There was a rush to get to the front. Once in line, the 'frontage-backage' technique was employed to get all your friends standing around you.

And then, the first boy walked in. 2 minutes later, he walked out... completely white.

"What happened? What did you do?" were the inevitable questions from those about to go in.

"They ... they grabbed my balls"

The rumour spread through the line in record time.

"What's going on?"

"They grabbed Mark's* balls."

(* name changed to protect innocent young boy who had his balls grabbed)

"Really? Are they grabbing everyone's balls?"

As is the nature of 'Chinese Whispers', any message passed down a line will be distorted by the time it gets to the back, sometimes to incomprehension. This, coupled with a general distrust in anything said by a school child, left a bunch of shaking, green schoolchildren, hands over pants.

The next boy walks in, shaking. Walks out 2 minutes later, white as a ghost.

"Did they grab your balls?"

"Yep. They grabbed my balls."

The rumours increasingly confirmed, my memory was of being towards the back of the line and becoming increasingly traumatised by the number of confirmed ball-grabs, possibly hoping that the nurse would forget. The nurse didn't forget.

Didn't even buy me a drink.

And the worst part of it all? I don't remember the nurse. At all. Name. Face. Gender. Not a thing.

I've completely shoved it out of my memory.

After all, how many early memories do you have?

The earliest memory I have is of throwing some kid's shovel over a cliff when I was 4 years old. Of course the shovel was a tiny plastic spade and the cliff was 1 metre high.

Anyways, the only reason I remember this is because I copped the belting of a lifetime from my mother. Literally. I don't remember ever having been hit harder.

Fast forward to my next memory. Some faceless nurse with their hands on my private parts, saying "Cough".

I'm pretty sure that this day marked a change in my daily response to the question "How was school?", from an excited and descriptive:

"It was great!! I learnt times tables and grammar and I played handball and tip in the schoolyard"

to a rushed one word response:

"Fine."

But, back to breakfast...

"I can't believe this!!," my female companion started. "Does this happen to everyone? Why don't I remember these medicals?"

Gee, I wonder. What would they have been looking for?

But, it does beg the question. What were these medical examinations really about? Are they even legitimate medical examinations? How long have they been going on for? Does the general public even know about them? Parents? Are you aware that you are sending your children to school so they can have their balls manhandled?

Independent research (performed by myself) suggests that every child across Australia was subject to one of these tests in school. Surely, therefore, there would be some form of government policy on this issue, accessible by all and sundry over the internet.

A Google search of the words "medical examination doctor grab testicles cough" results in a lot of medical jokes.

Similarly useless was the expression "state sponsored medical exam grab balls school childhood trauma"

Lastly, the search "sick weirdo school nurse grab children's balls" turned up some interesting sites, but none useful for the purpose of this article.

Whatever the answer is, it's a secret. And, as everyone knows, behind every secret is a government conspiracy.

Why would any government would want to grab the male child population by the balls at such a psychologically crucial age?

(So they know what it feels like to pay taxes? Boom boom, tssss)

But there is truth to every (poor) joke. The government has an inherent interest in controlling its citizenry and what better way to control your citizens than by traumatising them from a young age. Who's the boss? The government. Who do you listen to? The government. Who can get to you no matter where you hide? The government. Who's got you by the balls? The government.

No wonder my mate refuses to get a medical examination.

Naturally, there are social repercussions of this flagrant attempt to brainwash society.

For starters, let's talk about the inability of males to commit. I mean, every male has had their balls grabbed by a stranger, without explanation, at the age of 8. No wonder we find it hard to open up to people, to let ourselves get close and intimate.

Furthermore, I am extremely wary of letting this knowledge hit the public forum, on account of the potential for exploitation.

For example, say there is a girl who has been maligned by her male partner, who has cheated on her with by sleeping with her best friend. She wants revenge in a hurry. So, the next time she's intimate with her partner, she grabs his balls and tells him to cough, psychologically screwing him for life and guaranteeing his inability to sleep with anyone ever again.

It's a dangerous game.

And I for one, need closure.

Revenge will be twofold for me.

1. I need to find the 'nurse' who grabbed me. And grab them back.

2. I want to know the name of the minister who legislated this violation of my basic personal rights. And I want his balls on a platter.

More on snobs

Apparently, my last post on snobs touched a chord with some people. It seems that everyone has been snobbed off at least once in their life.

So, I've tried to come up with a definition for 'snob'. The best I could do was in quoting Mac, an American friend of mine who's cynicism for life exceeds my own.
http://halmustdie.blogspot.com/

"A snob behaves characteristically because of a deep seated desire to other exclude members of its species in order to inflate its own ego. You see, where most animals aquire energy (food) in order for its body to survive, snobs cultivate ego in order for its self-worth to survive."

But, surely snobs need to get laid, right? How do they partake in 'relations' whilst socially excluding their species?

Underlying psychology enables us to understand the complex mating rituals of the snob.

The snob doesn't require the same features in a partner as the rest of the population. Where most people look for a sense of humour, fun, or just a nice smile, the snob is merely seeking to fertilise their ego. The only way to do this is to go out with an even bigger snob. Scientists have labelled this theory 'Survival of the snobbiest', which suggests that over time, our society will evolve a race of super-snobs.

But the more I thought about it, the more I realised that it is a massive generalisation to define a 'snob'. I don't believe there is any such thing as a pure snob, but rather snobbery as a concept can be categorised. In doing so, I also realised I was a bit more of a snob than I first thought.

1. The fashion snob.

Due to the phenomenon of metrosexuality, this type of snob is easily recognised by matching features that cross gender boundaries.

These include tell tale "von Dutch" headgear, tight $500 jeans specially designed to look like they have been worn in, perfectly straight ironed hair and Havaianas thongs (no other brand will suffice).

The essence of the fashion snob is to spend hundreds of dollars and man hours on sculpting a look that makes it look like absolutely no effort has been put into the look. Whilst, of course, at the same time ignoring everyone around them who is not at least equally as snobby as themselves.

2. The music snob.

These are the people who are always listening to an artist that you've never heard of, or the obscure album from the artist you have heard of, or the obscure B-side track from the album you have heard of.

Every now and then an artist comes out of nowhere and becomes extremely popular. Of course, the music snob was listening to them 2 years before. "Yeah, I've listened to some of that guy - he used to be cool - you know, when he was doing all that old-school shit with Dr Dre before he sold out".

Someone else liking an artist is just one more excuse for the music snob to dislike the album. By the time the artist is 'discovered', the music snob must have moved on.

But, there are clearly some artists out there that even the music snob must respect. Examples include the Beatles, Jimi Hendrix, Pink Floyd, etc. How does the music snob justify listening to these classics when so many other people do as well?

To justify this, the music snob keeps a running formula in their head - a matrix that compares the talent, musical and historical contribution of the artist with the volume of people listening to the artist. Clearly, the Beatles have made such a contribution, that the size of their audience would never reach saturation point for the musical snob to call the Beatles overrated.

And not enough that the music snob won't listen to albums or artists that they deem to be lacking in musical integrity. A music snob is only satisfied when they have completely denigrated an artist or album to the point, where someone who does enjoy listening to the artist or album feels inferior for the experience.

3. The Job Snob

Ever been out at a bar/pub/club and been asked "What do you do?"

Even better, ever been out at a bar/pub/club where the last question you got asked was "What do you do?"

It's a loaded question.

Q: "What do you do?"
A: "Well, I'm a school teacher."
Q: "Hey, that's great. Good for you."

Best answer: Don't answer it. Deflect the question.

Ever since "Princess" Mary raised the bar for gold diggers worldwide, if you don't answer "Well actually, I'm a prince", then the answer is wrong.

I mean, you don't honestly believe that someone asks you that question because they're interested in your personality?

The very nature of the question is artifical, designed to shoe box you into an income (and therefore, social) bracket.

The question should be re-worded, "What is your future income potential?"

4. The coffee snob

"Do they make good coffee? Because I only drink good coffee."

A coffee snob is probably as concerned with the quality of their coffee as a skydiver is in ensuring his parachute is packed correctly.

It's a cup of coffee. Beans. Hot water. Milk. Get over it.

5. The travel snob

Preoccupied with a primeval need to find the 'authentic travelling experience', the travel snob refuses to accept that they are not a local of the country they are visiting.

I always understood backpacking to have very few rules, being more an expression of free spirit in a foreign environment. Thus, backpacking requires respect for everything around you - geography and people.

Inherent in this is the conclusion that backpackers are tolerant for the circumstances of all other travellers.

The travel snob shirks this conclusion, insisting that their form of travel is correct, implying that anyone who travels in a manner different to their's is merely wrong.

I recently had the fortune to meet a travel snob in Cambodia - in this instance, a Swiss girl riding around Cambodia via motorcycle.

She seemed to have issues with my format of travel that were summed up as follows.

1. It is wrong to sit on a beach in a tropical beach location and to not know where the local town is. This is especially true if you choose to eat a $2 meal at a restaurant on the sand, instead of hiking up the hill to the rat infested markets.

2. Travelling for a period of 3 weeks is inherently wrong, because it suggests that routine and normalcy are your definining characteristics, instead of intransiency. This is especially true if you need to return to a job, because that means you have sold out to capitalism and The Man.

Apparently, if you don't travel with the locals (at a tropical beach location) and eat with the locals (at a tropical beach location), and rough it with the locals (at a tropical beach location), then you just aren't travelling properly.

Question: How far does this principle extend?

Well, it happens to be a fact that medical care in Cambodia is poor. In fact, I would go so far as to say that the average Cambodian would never have had a Typhoid vaccination.

Apply the above principle.

Needless to say, the Swiss girl contracted Typhoid.

I mean, I'm all for freedom of spirit.

But when such 'freedom' leads to the decision between contracting a highly contagious, yet easily preventible disease and the pursuit of an authentic travelling experience ... do I even need to finish this thought?

Conclusion

I'm too good for all you snobs.