Punishment for Eye Gouging?

A bit of controversy erupted following a recent college football game because one player supposedly stuck his hand inside his opponent’s helmet and gouged his eyes during a pile-up.  You can check out the video of the incident — watch #63 laying on top of an opposing player in a white jersey insert his right hand inside the fallen man’s face mask.

I’ve heard that this sort of dirty play happens all the time in football when the guys pile up and struggle for the ball.  They are always grabbing scrotums or biting a finger.  In fact, if you watch the above video closely, you can see the player on the bottom whose eyes were allegedly gouged reaching over in an attempt to gouge another player’s eyes!

When dirty tactics like this occur in football, some commentators will compare the behavior to a pro wrestling match, where the good old Eye Gouge is used all the time.  I love it when mainstream culture references the wild, primal violence of pro wrestling — proving that everyone gets into it at some time in their life.

Maybe these football players grew up watching pro wrestling.  Maybe they saw their favorite villain of yore dominating his opponent by blinding him, and that’s where they got the idea that this is an easy shortcut for gaining the upper hand.

What I find interesting about seeing the Eye Gouge when watching wrestling is the pure cruelty of it — to potentially take away a man’s sight, to blind him for life.  It’s such a permanent and deplorable condition, so any man who uses this vicious tactic is dangerous and ought to be respected and feared.

After you pull your thumb out, he is unable to see for several minutes, so he is as helpless as a kitten, totally vulnerable to your attack.  His power and his potency have been stripped away without his vision.

I mentioned in a recent blog how the Eye Gouge is similar to a Low Blow in the way it emasculates the victim, and this is what makes Eye Gouges so exciting to witness.

In the end, the football player received no punishment because the officials couldn’t really see if he gouged the eyes or not (and we wrestling fans know you can’t call what you can’t see.)

Also, boys will be brutes after all, and it seems everybody gouges the eyes in the pile-up, so why make an example of this poor bad boy?

Similar to the Heels in pro wrestling, the athlete is permitted to cheat and get away with it.  There is no punishment for his cruel actions.  Even if the rule violation is pretty obvious, there are allowances in the rules and complacency by the officials to let the savagery continue.  Because the fans love it.

Pro wrestling and football are similar because they’re both deliberately designed and intended to be violent.  Pro wrestling and football are meant to demonstrate the Masculine Ideal in our patriarchal, male-dominant society.  A Real Man is violent, aggressive, punishing, and ruthless.

A Real Man will not bitch and complain about the rules if his eyes are gouged — he will either fight to defend himself or he will take his beating “like a Man.”  If you want to get in the ring or on the gridiron and test your mettle, then don’t cry like a baby if the other guys play too rough.  Don’t be a woman — just nut up and shut up.

So pro wrestling and football both must allow Eye Gouging to continue — in fact they secretly condone it.  It provides the level of violence the fans are craving, and it allows Alpha Males to continue their domination of the society thanks to the ever-present threat of swift and blinding violence that football and pro wrestling demonstrate to the masses.