The unfair sex

The news of a Nepali winning the International Bodybuilding Award in Bangkok last week warmed our cockles this winter, and brought good cheer at the start of the holiday season when most of the news about Nepal has been gloom and doom.

However, the Thais being monarchists, apparently played the royal ‘Sri Man Gambhir’ anthem at Mahesh Maharjan’s medal ceremony. But he didn’t seem to mind, and no one noticed, least of all the Ministry of Foreigner Affairs – probably because it is hard to tell whether Nepal is an absolute monarchy or federal republic these days.

This reminded the Ass about the Kazakh shooting gold medalist in Kuwait, who was surprised to hear the satirical national anthem of her country from the film Borat playing at her award ceremony.

Unlike Nepal, Kazakhstan lodged a strong complaint about Borat’s lyrics which went: ‘Kazakhstan, greatest country in the world / The number one exporter of potassium / Kazakhstan, Kazakhstan, you very nice place / Friend of all except Uzbekistan’. Or words to that effect.

Although the Bodybuilding Award warmed our aforementioned cockles, we as a nation are aghast at this crass commercialisation of the male body. Being myself the proud owner of a male body, the Ass takes umbrage at men being treated as little more than sex objects and not valued for the contributions we can make to society-at-large through voluntary men-only activities like, let’s say, attending to the call of nature, in full view of passersby, to water trees that line Tundikhel.

Imagine what it must feel like to be a man on the street going about your own business to irrigate the undergrowth whereupon every passing female thinks it is her god-given right to look you over, pass complimentary remarks about your proboscis, blow wolf-whistles and (if you are lucky) even say something obscene.

Think of the humiliation, the mortification, the ignominy that we men have to put up with such demeaning objectification. This adam-teasing has got to stop.

The only way those of us proud to call ourselves members of the unfair sex can fight back is to stage our own all-male beauty pageants and bodybuilding contests to show off our muscles, so that we can hold our heads high again, and go boldly forth where no hunk has gone before to freeze our asses off in the A-front Round of the Mr Universe Contest.