“Poofter” Becomes “Man” Through Sport and Other Forms of Male Bondage.
Shelford. Meads. Fitzpatrick. Cairns. Mehrtens. Lomu. Hadlee. They're the males that sit keenly atop the canon of New Zealand's historical masculine elite. It should come of no surprise that when considering what it is to be a man in New Zealand, you'll be walking hand-in-hand with sporting prowess. With this in mind, Joseph Harper found himself a masculinity mentor, and manned up.
I’d been given my marching orders. My girlfriend was sick of me and my whimsical ways. Too many Friday nights spent sitting cross-legged (the girly way, knee over knee, not calf atop knee), pouring over Ginsberg. Too many Smiths albums and Belle and Sebastian posters. Too wide a vernacular, and far too many cans of Pepsi Maxx. She was ashamed that I wore her size eight Levis better than her. She was embarrassed to be seen cheering me on at the indoor netball court (WD). “You're too fruity!” she told me. “You're a poofter!” she told me. “Man up or we're over.” Now, I'm no Casanova. I've never been much of a lady slayer. When I somehow manage to crack onto a good thing (god only knows how), I tend to sink my claws in like a cat and grip for dear life. In other words, become completely pussy-whipped; bending eagerly to every whim no matter the detriment to my self-esteem. So, when told to man up, I did the logical thing. I did some pseudo mathematics, and strangled out my best course of action. Polo shirt = cool man. Butch = manly man. Butch + polo shirt = rugby jersey. Rugby = (cool + manly) man. Rugby = sport. Therefore: Sport = highway to the kingdom of manliness. I realised, as countless generations of kiwi males must've realised before me; sport will be my salvation, so I needed a tutor, someone to train me (intensively) in the ways of the sporting world. A friend would be a preferred teacher, as I don't care for strangers. So I turned to Chris Neels, the burliest, and manliest of all the young men I knew. He had a slightly hairy chest and played for the MacLeans College first fifteen, in the forwards no less. It was clear he was my man. I gave him a man's incentive (slab of Double Brown - henceforth “DoBro”), and he agreed to show me everything he knew, quickly too, as I only had a week to write this. We started early, at breakfast I reached for my all-bran. Chris slapped my wrist. “But my system needs the fibre!” I said. Chris was not amused. He gave me my options; Nutrigrain (Hamish Carter is a man right?) or Weet-Bix. I did the Weet-Bix, four of them which is more that Ma'a Nonu. They were of course drowned in blue milk. Not green. Not lite-blue. Not yellow. BLUE. Breakfast done, it was time to dress for success. Apparently my Jans Lekman t-shirt wouldn't cut it, so off it came; neither would my black stove-pipes, so off they came too. How extraordinarily manly I was feeling, standing with a big boy in my fitted cotton boxers. Luckily I came prepared for this. I assumed a sporting jersey would be in order, so I sms-ed my mother back home and got her to courier up my number ten Canterbury Crusaders (MEHRTENS! ) jersey from when I was 13. It still fitted, the joys of being boyish, and when coupled with a pair of shorts I have to say that I cut quite the figure. I daresay I could've passed at Harlequins in Pt. Chev as a regular. I suspect I could've asked Sharon for “the regular” and received a swappa crate. Okay. So aesthetically, I achieved my goal pretty easily. Next we aimed to add depth. Chris and I first pierced a DoBro each, then sat down to watch a genuine rugby game (“Match.” said Chris). I learned to limit my words. Why say spectacular, stunning/glorious/when a simple “stoked” covers almost any situation. Every try scored in a game can be a “good try”, and so can any close shaves. “Save the fancy stuff for the commentators,” Chris told me. “Just sip your beer and grunt a bit.” Another beer and we had to move off the couch. I was learning to apply sports-fan methodologies to a relative cornucopia of different contexts: namely, he taught me to throw a bottle, and how to really yell the word “faggot” like I mean it. Who knew questioning the sexuality of unknowns could be so self-fulfilling? There surely is something addictive about lowering the self-esteem of others. Apparently my shrimpiness was impairing the butchification ability, so Chris decided to sit me down and begin to work on me from the inside out. There is no animal more stoic than the mighty cow. So I believe the theory was that injecting enough beef in me would somehow have a kind of meiotic effect and the cows steadfast, stone-faced, manliness (weird considering most cows are female) would transfer over to me. Needless to say; steak was on the menu. Legend has it, legendary All Black captain Taine Randall would eat a kilo of big, good, bloody steak every night, served with a side order of beer batter fries or scallop potatoes. So I was instructed to sink my teeth deep into a sizable t-bone, and a raw potato soaked in Double Brown. What I felt was a drowning sensation. I was drowning in a sea of testosterone (that and bloatedness) and I didn’t have a life jacket. It felt good. Sort of. Sick, but in a good way. Perhaps Taine’s diet takes time to become accustomed to. Needless to say I was talking the talk impeccably. However I feared walking the walk may prove more difficult. It was time to head to a park of some description. Chris had called in some mates, and we were about to participate in that holiest of man-making rituals; Bull-rush. Maybe it was the DoBros, or maybe it was some kind of personal affinity I was feeling in my newfound masculine grit, but for some reason, I felt extremely confident when Chris's flatmate Brad called my name. I strode out without a moment's hesitation, and for a full ten seconds I was fearlessly charging forth. Then I hit Brad. Big boy he was. And he took me down like a cat would a mouse. It was all fun and games for him, but I was all cracked ribs and internal bleeding. I blacked out momentarily, and when I did, I swear to god I saw the luminal figure of Todd Blackadder stride out, ruffle my hair, and tell me I'll “be right”. That was enough of the manification for me. Unfortunately it wasn't enough for my girl. Dumped me cold. “But I watched rugby for you!” I pleaded. “Yes. But you watched it in a very superficial way. I doubt you really meant it,” she replied, and left me for good. It hurt. But at least I could now happily console myself in a cold Double Brown, and cry into my Crusaders jersey. Those jerseys don't stain easy. Not with grief anyway. And who needs a girlfriend anyway, when you have the constant companionship of a pair of bruised testicles?