Don’t Kick Boys in the Balls! A Mom’s Story… – YouTube

This is a short youtube video by a mom, talking about an incident where her daughter kicked her son in the groin. The son is obviously in severe pain; his face is red, he can’t talk, he’s crying, he’s rolling back and forth on the floor.  The mother is comforting the daughter and laughing at her son; then she tells her daughter that she shouldn’t hit boys there. She is laughing the whole time she’s telling the story, and it sounds like she’s saying she was laughing the whole time her son was on the floor; her only interaction with him (according to her story) was that she asked him what happened to him; she says when she asked it was already obvious what had happened (again, laughing; implying that her asking at all was for the purpose of mocking him), and that he tried to answer but couldn’t speak very well (which she also found hilarious).

Her interactions are focused on her daughter; first comforting her, then making sure she learned something from what happened. If you’ve been reading my blog, this may seem familiar. In the reddit thread, none of the commenters asked how the boy was doing emotionally, none of them suggested therapy for him, none of them speculated about the psychological effects of the kind of assault he endured…but they did speculate about the psychological health and circumstances of the girl, wondering if she had been taught to do what she did, wondering if she had abuse going on at home, etc. In the narratives and cinematography in Orange is the New Black and Skins, we saw that the male literally disappeared from view and from the story after getting assaulted, and we are immediately swept back into the story of a female after the assault. The assault takes up just enough space in the story and on the screen to show us the strength or anger of the female. The assault itself has no consequences, at least none we are allowed to see.

All of the symptoms of extreme physiological distress were funny to the mother; his rolling around on the ground, red face, “full on crying,” inability to speak. Each of these makes her laugh. This aspect is familiar from the youtube questionaire videos, where the girls in the videos think all of the physical consequences of the assault are hilarious; extreme pain, potential lasting injury, dehumanization and so forth.

Some aspects of this story feel extra horrible; sexual assault by a sibling, the mother laughing (apparently the whole time) at her son, offering him no comfort or interaction other than the laughing (besides when she asked him what happened), the fact that the son is essentially alone and without help. 

I’m not convinced that this story is real (at least one of the comments speculates that it isn’t real). If it is spontaneous speech, it’s very well composed and well read. I wouldn’t say that it is clearly fake, I just have a feeling that it’s fake. The story is worth commenting on either way, I think, and either way it feels like it’s following rules for how we experience and react to mga.

HOWEVER, the main reason I’m writing about this clip isn’t the story itself, but the comments on the video. Many, I think most, of the comments are critical, some of them viciously and even gruesomely critical.

–several observe that the mother’s attention and care are exclusively for her daughter

–more than one speculates that this kind of parenting is how serial killers are made

–some appear to be deeply triggered

–many express special hatred because it’s his mother, presumably because a parent ought to care about their child

–the commenters take as a given that mga is sexual assault (as we saw in the reddit article)

Comments from the video and my analysis of the comments below:

[This is another thing the men’s rights movement needs to get on top of. Your son should be taken from you for his own (psychological, if nothing else) protection.]

I would say this more or less counts as an assertion that this woman’s story and her tone are more eggregious because she is the boy’s mother.

[For some reason many people don’t really take it seriously when a guy is hit in the groin (or other places) by a girl. I don’t have balls, but I know that I don’t want any other boy to feel the kind of pain my little brother felt What matters is the damage that’s done to the victim, not the sex of either the victim or the attacker. Most people don’t seem to get that. My brother had to get surgery, but he’s fine.  ]

I’ll do what I think is some pretty safe reading into the “what matters is the damage done to the victim” sentence: this commenter assumes that we have a bias against seeing boys as victims, especially victims of females. This is also clear when she says “…people…don’t take it seriously when a guy is hit in the groin…by a girl.” 

As I pasted the comments in the order they appeared in the youtube feed, you’ll have to read further to see the beginning of this commenter’s story. Part of what is interesting in these comments that we didn’t see in the reddit thread is readers bringing up their personal experiences of mga, in this case a woman talking about her brother.

[If I see a fellow male getting kicked in the balls I want tackle the girl (OR boy) and legit make them to be scared for life]

This is how we might expect someone to feel and/or react if they witnessed a sexual assault of any kind.

[This is how women hating serial killers are created. Ed kemper was forced to sleep in the cellar by his mum at just 8 years old…. and 10 lasses later died brutally such was his anger at his mum (who was 1 of em). Don’t take your hatred of men out on ya son, u may regret it big time. If a girl needs to defend herself though, it’s fare play.  ]

This is a whole category of thought that always seemed obvious and available to me, and I’ve always wondered why this hasn’t motivated attention of some kind to mga. Are victims of mga statistically likely to be more violent after the assault? Are they more likely to be sexual assault perpetrators, or mass shooters, etc.

[Those girls were old enough to understand and yes should have been expelled. I agree with you 100% on this topic of discussion. Yes girls should realize it should only be done in self defense that is not a game of play area and serious injury can take place. I am sorry your brother had to have surgery but I am glad he’s okay. It was nice to talk with you.]

This feels like the reddit article comments…the girls are wrong, should be punished. Concern for the boy is restricted to his medical well being.

Again, as I felt about the reddit article writers, I don’t necessarily believe that this commenter only cares about the medical well being of the boy; we don’t have the language or habits to communicate any other kind of concern about boys and mga.

[I absolutely agree with you! It should not be accepted or tolerated. When I was younger a girl kneed me there because she saw it on America’s funniest videos and decided it would be fun! Well she sadly found out it’s not good to do that and felt bad. But we both learned from that experience, I never have received any real hard hit after that. The girls should have been suspended for sure! How old were they? That makes all the difference in some cases. ] 

Another account of a personal experience, in this case a male talking about his experience as a victim.

I feel like I see a fair amount of this as I do my research…this kind of video prompting commenters to talk about their personal experiences. That might not seem that noteworthy on the surface…if you’re looking at vacuum cleaner reviews, you might see commenters talk about their own experiences with vacuum cleaners. But I think it is absolutely noteworthy in the case of mga, a category of sexual assault with basically no official or even public acknowledgement. I imagine it might be both cathartic and scary (embarrassing, shameful maybe) for these commenters to say what they’re saying.

[It’s pretty sad that you’d laugh at your son’s pain. Parent of the Year award goes to you.  ]

[noone should be laughing when a male gets kicked it hurts ALOT]

[Your son in extreme pain (you have no idea how much pain he is in) and yet you said you could not help but laughing. In addition, too many women do not realize that the damage can be permanent. So glad your son in pain provided you with so much joy.  ]

[But that doesn’t mean we should just accept it if a person comes up to a guy and decides to kick him in the balls. I’m not a guy, but I have a little brother who a few months ago was cornered by girls and they repeatedly kicked him in the groin, and he had to be taken to the hospital because his testies had been fractured So it really pisses me off when people really just shrug it off like it’s nothing! Do you know what happened to the girls? They were SUSPENDED. Not even expelled. Fuck!]

[Sad that you are laughing at your sons pain.  ]

[Hey…mother of the year…. If you knew what went down why were you comforting her? If your laughing this much about it now i can only imagine how much you laughed at him then. One of these days you will want him to ask your advice or tell you whats going down in his life and he’ll talk to a teacher or friend instead. When he does you’ll whine about him not confiding in mom. You’ll be looking for sympathy from everyone.]

“one of these days…” another example of a commenter speculating about psychological harm.

[Who told the little girl to do that to begin with? This was a set-up. It was intentional. The little girl is not the one who needed any comfort. This whole event is sick. Of course, since they’re just lowly balls they can be abused. This is psycho- sexual abuse at the least. It will also adversely affect society later on. Anything to pollute and drag down society is just fine it looks like. This is the lowest most insidious form of mind control. ]

“psycho-sexual abuse at the least…” I read this to imply both that the commenter is concerned about psychological harm to the boy AND that they are opening up the possibility that the mother’s motivations in behaving this way aren’t random and meaningless, but hurtful in a deeper, more meaningful way, that she is taking the opportunity to intentionally (whether consciously or otherwise) inflict emotional harm on her son.

“…adversely affect society…” It’s unclear what this sentence means, but this isn’t the fault of the commenter; we don’t know how mga affects society. Maybe some number of boys become violent offenders of one sort or another because of mga; maybe some number of boys are simply damaged and less effective members of society because of it, etc.

[If your son was the one in pain why were you trying to comfort her. mother of the century]

1. drawing attention to the the mother’s focus on the girl

2. a mother laughing is especially eggregious

[I hope there was a room full of people laughing at her when she was giving birth! And why would you comfort your daughter and not your son who was actually in pain! Move over Casey Anthony, and Kate Goslin, worst mother of the year goes to this girl!]

There are two comments of this sort, wishing pain and/or mockery for genital injury to the mother.

I don’t approve of the wishing of harm or mockery; however, the COMPARISON, one kind of genital hurt to another, and the idea that this could be subjected to shaming, mockery, disregard, etc, is a match, and a correct application of “if the roles were reversed.” I just think, if the roles WERE reversed, I hope that this commenter wouldn’t actually wish pain or mockery on this mother, even if she herself had done the exact same kind of wrong.

[what a psychopath, to sit there and see your son rolling around with a red face and laugh. The idea that mothers are naturally empatheitc is a lie, they can easily disregard any pain if it serves them. For this woman its the desire to see men emasculated, which she is happy to see through her withering son. Men have to realize that their are many bad women just like we already admit there are bad men.]

[I hope he tore u up in child birth and never wants anything to do with you in his teen years and the rest of his life.

T3sticles are organs outside the body. Imagine someone hitting you in the ovaries or the liver. Now imagine theres no fat or muscle to absorb the shock. It’s the equivalent of pulling out your organs and kicking them or kneeing them. That’s what you were laughing at and probably raised your daughter to laugh at even while its happening in real time. Its s3xual assault that media teaches us to laugh at then say females are the victim of s3xual assault 99% of the time. It’s satanic really, what you did and probably did countless other times in his life to embarrass him. Then what do you do? Comfort the girl and pretend its funny and not that big a deal. I hope he had a father that loved him more than you did.] [@missangela111 maturity is not it. imagine if a father laughed at his daughter that was withing on the floor in pain. i dont trust a parent who is capable of that.]

This is an interesting and subtle point, one that I think is important. We expect (in my observations of interactions between men and women anyway) that men should be MORE respectful, deferential, etc. of anatomical problems that women have (menstrual pain and inconvenience, childbirth and so on) BECAUSE they don’t have those experiences. Men have no right to laugh, or dismiss, or downplay the physical experience of women, because they can’t relate. So this commenter is applying this same logic in a “if the roles were reversed” sense to this mother. She should show MORE care to her son’s experience of MGA BECAUSE she is female.

Interestingly, we saw the youtube questionnaire girls often apply the opposite logic; since they aren’t boys, it’s perfectly ok for them to laugh at, dismiss, have contempt for the physical experience of boys. This is essentially a double-double standard: 1) males should be extra sensitive and respectful of the special problems of females, because they can’t possibly understand what those problems are like 2) females have similar responsibility to males 3) in fact, females should actively disregard and disrespect the special problems that males have, basically because they can.

[this is so messed up] [Fuck society is fucked up. I really wish I wasn’t born seriously. We have mothers laughing about their own Sons being damaged in their reproductive organs. We have another video on youtube of two girls kicking their little brother half their age in the nuts. And for some reason they are allowed to do this and its not a crime. Makes me sick. Knowing such violence towards Men is laughed at.]

[I absolutely agree with you! It should not be accepted or tolerated. When I was younger a girl kneed me there because she saw it on America’s funniest videos and decided it would be fun! Well she sadly found out it’s not good to do that and felt bad. But we both learned from that experience, I never have received any real hard hit after that. The girls should have been suspended for sure! How old were they? That makes all the difference in some cases.]

[That is not funny . not even a little. and by laughing and giggling you are teaching you little girl that it is. hopefully she doesn’t come to enjoy inflicting pain on males. Hopefully when she grows up she won’t laugh at her own son’s pain.]

Again we see commenters taking the opportunity to relate their personal experiences. It is interesting that we see this kind of thing in semi-anonymous comments, but not in public discourse. An obvious conclusion is that these people need to talk about mga (and so they make comments), but are not comfortable talking about it (so they only speak up when they have at least partial anonymity). I will discuss this more in an upcoming article.