Men's Group

... Most kids today, quite understandably, have no earthly idea what that means. ) ... oh, what the ... let me start over.

At the risk of sounding like a one-issue guy, I've been on a bodybuilding program not because of the sports culture and the mandatory boys' P.E. of my youth, but in spite of it. The noxious culture of school sports says the only way to get into shape is by participating in a sport. If you're a nonathletic guy, you're supposed to stay sedentary because, after all, you're just a wimp, a "feminized male."

I have nothing but contempt for a physical education establishment that never showed any concern about the bullying of nonathletic boys in mandatory P.E. classes -- classes that not only didn't provide any exercise programs for the physically unfit, but often didn't provide any instruction in the sports themselves. Classes that were often "taught" by men who viewed nonathletic boys with either complete indifference or outright contempt. Classes in which nonathletic boys learned absolutely nothing about exercise programs of any sort, but did learn to fear (and resent) coaches and athlete classmates. When I first began to endure the misery of mandatory "sports only" P.E. as a fourth grader, I was weak and scrawny. By the time my last P.E. class had mercifully come to an end when I was in the eighth grade, I was (you guessed it) still weak and scrawny.

There's now this big outcry how P.E. should be mandatory K/12 because so many kids are fat. The hypocrisy is so astounding, it almost makes me puke. (That's strange. We've always had mandatory P.E.; but we still managed to end up with fat kids, anyway. Could it be that the increased frequency of obesity among children has been caused by something other than * gasp * playing video games?) But do these same people support any genuine fitness programs that would actually help these kids? Do any of these people object to the bullying of fat kids (as well as others)? Nooooooooooooo! Really their only concern is sports. They believe in forcing sports on all nonathletic kids, no exceptions. If the kids are bullied in mandatory P.E., who gives a flying (expletive deleted)?!

So, I'm eccentric ... I'm not proud. Consider me the online equivalent of the small town crank.