Men in Cages: To Hit, or Not To Hit

So, I’m going to let you all in on a secret desire of mine.  Don’t worry; it’s not the sort of secret desire that, once revealed, will make you blush awkwardly and shy away from future interaction with me.  It doesn’t involve anal beads or nipple clamps or anything like that.  My secret desire isn't nearly so licentious.

I just really want to hit someone.

I’ve privately fantasized about the idea of getting into a fight for quite some time.  The notion of crushing my fist into someone else’s face?  I can’t even begin to imagine what a rush that would be. 

Assumedly, there’s a real power to be derived from physically dominating another person.  Just thinking about it (slo-mo boxing highlight reel style, of course) gets me pretty psyched up.  Beads of sweat flying off someone’s forehead as they tumble to the ground thinking, “I never shoulda messed with Tori” . . . Man, that’s exciting stuff!

But the thing is, as much as I really, deeply desire to hit someone, I can assert with near-certainty that if a potentially violent situation presented itself to me, I wouldn’t throw any punches.  I’d run the fuck away.

This is, of course, because I am a woman.  Humans are wired such that threatening situations evoke what’s known as the “fight or flight” response.  We’re psychologically incapable of responding to imminent danger in a ho-hum manner; we either go hard or go home.  However, I have to imagine that for most women, danger doesn’t invoke a true “fight or flight” response.  Instead, it invokes a “don’t you dare fight – you are too small and weak; just run – run far away . . . or better yet, curl up in a little ball and start crying” response.  In spite of the fact that many women probably share my desire to physically dominate another person, they probably also share my overwhelming urge not to die (and not to break a nail) and thus avoid physical confrontation at all costs. 

I’ve only been really, truly physically confronted once.  And I’ve gotta say, I certainly did not respond in a powerful, dominant manner.  See, when I was in 10th grade, one of my classmates wrote me a letter in which she suggested that maybe the two of us should experiment with girl-on-girl action.  Being the super-mature, together 15 year-old that I was, I immediately ran and told some friends that – ew – I’d received a letter from a lesbian.  Of course, word got back to the letter’s author that I’d been outing her all over town and man, she was pissed.  So yeah, I was eating lunch one day and I saw her storming down the hallway with this, “I’m going break your kneecaps” look on her face.  I attempted to run away, but she caught up with me and threw me up against some lockers.  This was obviously a golden opportunity for me to throw some punches and feel the rush of being in a fight, but I opted instead in favor of crying and letting this chick put me in a choke hold.  She whispered some threatening things in my ear, generally made me feel like a terrible person, and then – it was over.  My one and only fight.  And I didn’t dominate shit.    

Ever since then, I've always wished I could go back and relive that moment . . . and could whip out some Street Fighter moves in the reliving. 

Actually, that's a total lie.  I mean, the story's true, but I don't want to go back and relive it.  That was a really upsetting time in my life, to be honest.  I was a total bitch to that girl and deserved to be thrown up against some lockers.  And, had I actually gotten violent with her, not only would I have gotten the snot knocked out of me, I also probably would have gotten suspended from school for a few days.  This would have inevitably rendered me unworthy to attend an elitist university and I never would have forgiven myself for throwing my life down the crapper just for the thrill of hitting someone who didn't even really deserve to be hit . . .

But anyway, though that moment in high school taught me that I was hardly an ultimate fighting champion, my desire to be in a fight never subsided.  In college, I would often travel to see the hockey team’s away games with Cornell’s pep band.  Not unexpectedly, the band engendered a lot of heckling and taunting from opposing fans.  I always secretly hoped that some drunk fan would cross the line, physically attack someone in the band, and start a full-out brawl.  Sometimes I would actively encourage my friend Mike to instigate fights.  Mike’s a pretty good fight-starter (plus, he always carries a knife on him, so I knew that if things got really out of hand, he’d be able to protect me).  But alas, Mike kept his cool on all those hockey road trips and we never got in any rumbles. 

(For the record, Mike got in many a rumble on the homefront (but I never got involved).  Most notably, a few years ago, Mike (model citizen that he is) slept with the girlfriend of this guy Mud.  Mud was understandably pissed.  But Mud didn't want to just rush on in to a fight with Mike.  As I said, Mike's a tough guy.  He carries a knife.  You've gotta be prepared to take him on.  So Mud searched the internet for fighting tips.  (Oh man, Cornell is such a good place.)  Anyway, Mud read somewhere that if you put powder on your hand before you smack someone, it hurts more.  Somehow, he extrapolated from this that the best way to go about attacking Mike was to dump a bag of flour on his face and then just start hitting.  So yeah, Mud entered a crowded party with a bag of flour and started the greatest fight I've ever had the privilege to witness.  The actual fight was broken up fairly quickly, but it was still extremely awesome.  Especially because everyone spent the rest of the party brushing flour off of their clothing.)

But back to my urges, I guess I could always start a fight myself.  I didn't need to wait for Mike to start something.  I probably could have instigated an off-ice hockey brawl (or any other type of skirmish) all by my lonesome.  And if what's holding me back is fear of dying, I could, of course, start a fight with someone much smaller and weaker than me.  I do have options available to me.  Maybe the problem is that I just don't have fighter's emotions.

What I mean to say here is that perhaps it's not just that, as a woman, I'm enormously afraid of getting hurt.  Perhaps it's also that, as a woman, I lack the testosterone/aggressive engery/bad-ass spirit that compels men to fight.  In theory, I want to beat someone up.  But, in practice, I don't know that I've ever actually felt an overpowering desire to like, actually beat a specific individual.  I've thought, "I wish someone would beat him up," but definitely not, "I am having trouble holding myself back from punching him right now."  Does that make sense?  I often feel the emotions "It would be awesome to know I could kick someone's ass" and "It would be awesome if someone kicked that person's ass," but I do not often feel the emotion, "This person has left me no recourse other than to kick their ass."

I think that's an important divide between men and women.  The whole actually-feeling-compelled-to-hurt-someone-else thing.  Like, in the Mike-Mud scenario, Mike slept with Mud's girlfriend, ergo, Mud tried to kill Mike.  Mike wasn't at all surprised by this reaction.  In fact, shortly before this fight broke out, he said to me, "Yeah, if I was him, I'd probably try to kill me tonight." 

But like, I certainly wouldn't have responded in that way if Mike had slept with my girlfirend.  I wouldn't have thrown flour on anybody; I probably just would have cried a lot.  (And eventually I would have engaged in some drawn-out discussions with the girlfriend.)  I can certainly imagine all sorts of hypothetical scenarios that would make me angry or jealous or otherwise pissed, but I really can't imagine myself actually getting violent over any of them.  I really just imagine a lot of crying. 

So anyway, point of the story, my feelings regarding hitting are a bit mixed up.  I want to hit and yet, I don't want to hit.  And, since this column is supposed to loosely relate to the topic of gender, I've opted to attribute my mixed-up hitting-related feelings to my gender.  I'd be curious to hear others weigh in, however.  Perhaps there are plenty of pansy-ass boys out there who also run away from fights and would mostly just cry if some dude slept with their ladyfriend.  Or perhaps all that testosterone bubbling within your system prevents you from behaving in any such way.  Please, share truth with me.  Help me to better understands the ways of the world.  Because, if you don't, I might just hit you.

Men in Cages" runs Friday afternoons.  You can read more about Tori here. 

Comments

[Lauren]

One time I planned to get in a fight with someone for months, then when I saw him outside Wawa I ran up and kicked him in the shin and ran away. It was awesome.

[D.C.]

Would that be a Division 1 ACC basketball player, by chance?

[The Notorious H.A.M.]

Once in college this girl that I had a crush on invited me over to her house after the bar and I was thrilled about it. However, my friend Cat had stumbled onto a sense of responsibility that night and decided I was NOT going to drive to that girl's house no matter what. She enlisted the help of this guy she was dating and hid my keys, blocked the door, physically restrained me, and all that kind of shit. We finally had a break in the action and she went to pee. Sitting there stewing on it, I finally got so pissed off about it that I busted into the bathroom, walked right up to where she was sitting on the toilet, and clocked her full-on in the face. The guy pulled me away from her and basically collapsed on top of me to keep us apart - BUT, I summoned some superhuman, superdrunken strength and physically stood up with his dead weight on my back. He was impressed enough that he left me alone and told Cat she was on her own at that point. I never made it to that girl's house, but laying my knuckles to the bare cheek of a girl on the toilet (pun intended) was one of the most awesome feelings I can imagine.

The difference between men and women? I still feel kind of ashamed of what I did, while most men would still be telling this story over pints.