Let’s cut to the chase. The reason “men’s health initiatives” exist in order to “raise awareness” about prostate cancer isn’t because of the “discomfort” men feel when undergoing the examination. The easiest way to check a prostate is for a doctor to stick their finger up your bum.
And that is gay.
(If you are against such blunt language, you are against research into, and “raising awareness” about, prostate cancer.)
For many years, this blunt reality was ignored, denied, or socially engineered away. As a result, many “men’s health initiatives” regarding prostate cancer sucked. One particularly awful one in the early 2000’s featured various people (a sports star or two featured, but the most emotive were the women and the children) looking earnestly, pathetically, into the camera, urging men to “be a man,” and get the check for prostate cancer.
The subtext was thus:
If you do not, effectively, submit yourself to anal rape by your doctor, the women in your life will suffer. You are a horrible person, and you have no right to be happy, because you are letting your innate homophobia, (i.e., your patriarchal heteronormativity) hinder you from serving other people’s needs before your own.
This “men’s health initiative” really sucked.
But then in 2004, two lads from Melbourne had the brilliant idea of growing moustaches to raise funds for research into, and “raise awareness” about, prostate cancer. It was brilliant because it tackled the afore-mentioned subtext head on, revealed it for the blatant misandry that it was, and did it in a catchy, mainstream way, which very quickly spread across the globe.
The subtext of Movember is thus:
We know it is gay to get your prostate checked. But so is wearing a mo. Seriously, who wears a mo? Homosexuals and hipsters… that’s who. So wear a mo, which is gay, to remind you to do something even gayer.
But the subtext goes even (for want of a better expression) deeper:
It is ok to be homophobic. Actually, what people are telling you is homophobia, isn’t actually homophobia. Of course you are uncomfortable about having your butt examined. You are a heterosexual man. To suggest that this discomfort is homophobia, is actually heterophobia, because it denies what you actually are, and attempts to invalidate your feelings and needs.
And finally, the simple genius of Movember is revealed:
Movember allows heterosexual men to reclaim the mo, and reclaim their masculinity. The moustache harkens back to a time when men were men – i.e., the late 1980’s. Whether it was cleaning the pool or terrifying the West Indian top order, the mo represents the novel concept that masculine gender is a thing, and males identify with it.
Which is why idiots associated with gender studies hate it.
Finally, in the realm of personal relationships, Movember works as follows:
Girlfriend: “I find that moustache disgusting.”
Boyfriend: “This moustache is raising funds for research into, and ‘raising awareness’ about, prostate cancer and male depression. Your argument is invalid.”
Girlfriend: “You’re repulsive.”
Boyfriend: “What are you gonna do, not have sex with me?”
Girlfriend: “… no …”
So that’s it. Now all we need is a similarly catchy, light-hearted campaign to highlight the plight of male victims of female-initiated domestic violence in the mainstream media, and we’ll be set.
This article was originally published on November 4, 2015.
Photo by the euskadi 11 