I Call Bull

This weekend is Fiestas de Quito, which celebrates the founding of the city of Quito on the 6^th of December. As part of Quito’s Spanish influence, the holiday involves parties, parades, flamenco dancing, and bull fighting. I am morally opposed to bull fighting, just as I am to cock fighting or dog fighting or any other “sport” where animals are made to fight against their will and ultimately to their demise. And while I realize this may be considered a cultural experience, let’s break it down to what it really is: a bull is tortured and terrorized until it is in a frantic state. It is then trapped in a pen where it cannot escape. The bull then endures up to 30 minutes of agony as it is repeatedly stabbed and taunted. A particularly “macho” matador may even cut off its ears or its tail while it’s still alive – what a feat of bravery! Finally able to defend itself no more, to barely raise its own head (because its neck muscles have been paralyzed by multiple spears) it is killed – all to the chorus of cheering and singing fans. Horrific. By no means did I intend on participating in any of the local bull fights, even though that is “the thing to do” during Quito days. This is why I was flabbergasted to hear so many of my friends were trying to get tickets to a bull fight. These are cultured, educated, professional people, and yet – the lure of seeing one of these bull fights was irresistible to them.

I was saddened by this, but what really enraged me were the excuses that I heard them making. Such idiotic justifications: “Well, I know it’s pretty horrible, but I feel like it’s a cultural experience that I just need to see.” Or “Oh I know I’m probably going to regret seeing it, and be scarred forever, but I just really have to see it one time. It’s cultural, you know?” BULLSHIT. Don’t try to make it some cultural obligation that you owe it yourself to be a spectator at this most barbaric, gruesome and cruel ritual. You know what else is “cultural”? Beheadings. Public stoning deaths. Child brides. Honor killings. Animal sacrifices. Genital mutilation. Gladiator fights. You could say the same thing about any one of these – these are rituals and traditions that are ingrained in a culture and have been going on for hundreds of years. They all have aspects of what is perceived to be honor and sacred custom.  It doesn’t make them artistic or beautiful or enlightening.  And it sure as hell doesn’t make them a “cultural experience” that you “just have to see” when you get the chance. One friend even drew this outlandish analogy – she likened watching a bullfight to watching a “ping pong show” in Thailand: You wouldn’t go to Thailand without seeing a ping pong show, so how can you go to Ecuador without watching a bullfight, she reasoned. How is watching a woman doing things with ping pong balls anything close to watching the slow, excruciating slaughter of an animal? Absurd.

Do you know what they do to a bull prior to making it fight to its death? They file down its horns so it’s less dangerous to the matador. They hang heavy sandbags on its back to weaken it. The beat the bulls testicles and kidneys. They feed it sulfates to cause diarrhea and weakness. They lock the bull up in total darkness for 24 hours leading up to the fight to make it mad with terror. They slice cuts into the bull’s legs and rub turpentine into them. They plug its nostrils to make breathing difficult. They rub Vaseline into the bull’s eyes so that it is nearly blind. Does this sound like a fair fight to you? And I’m supposed to be awed by the bullfighters’ “courage”?? By his splendid bravery and masculinity? Are you freaking joking me? That is torture, plain as day. And torture is not culture.

And while I realize I may be coming off a little self-righteous here, I don’t care. That’s what blogs are for, right? I find anyone who derives entertainment out of the pain and suffering of a living creature to be a little disturbing. And I can’t say I’m not more than a little disappointed in some of my friends for doing just that.