I was at the beach recently with Tony and we were just sitting and relaxing when all of a sudden I heard some loud screams and yells coming from the water. It was accompanied by violent splashing, so I looked up from my reading.
There was a group of guys (maybe five) playing with a soccer ball in the water, throwing it back and forth...but the screams were the result of one guy throwing the soccer ball at another guy. The ball hit him hard.
This scene repeated a few times about twenty feet in front of us. Then, it ended when one guy missed and the ball rolled far off down the shore coming to rest near a little girl making her way into the ocean. Luckily, the ball didn't hit anyone because he threw it with ferocious force
These guys were playing around, obviously--but why does their play have to involve violence and pain? How fun can that be? I don't want friends that try to hit me or attack me with soccer balls at the beach.
Anyways...this got me thinking...and I just came across a video on YouTube which disturbs me for much of the same reasons why watching those "friends" at the beach abuse each other with a soccer ball disturbs me.
Obviously, the guys in the video think what they are doing is funny, that they aren't hurting anyone, and even most of the comments on the video agree with the hilarity of the subject matter. But, any time I see violence (in any form) associated with fun or something funny--it just turns my stomach.
And to those that say that men are wired that way--pick up a copy of Violence: Reflections on a National Epidemic by James Gilligan--it's more of a social/cultural problem than just a biological one.
