Male initiation rituals: For most young men in the United States, male initiation happens in a handstand over a keg of beer. Some inner-city initiates, described by Michael Gurian in his book The Wonder of Boys, are taken by their fathers to visit prostitutes. Despite being respectively vomit inducing and a little sleazy, these rituals are pretty light. They don’t particularly separate the wheat from the chaff, the men from the boys, the cajones from the lower abdomen.
But certain coming-of-age ceremonies from around the world are fascinatingly brutal. Compared to beating back a lion with a stick, pounding cheap beer or sleeping with an escort seems like literal child’s play. In these foreign cultures, the attitude towards becoming a man is much less whimsical; it is a serious transition that often happens much younger than you’d expect and where sometimes childhood is erased altogether.
There are also various women’s initiation rituals, but those are often uncomfortable things done for a queer beauty standard, not acts of bravery or downright masochism. (Not to say that women wouldn’t be capable, they just aren’t compelled by the town elders, like boys are.)
If you’re curious to find out how much more pampered we are than some other boys on earth, stick around, and see for yourself the 10 most brutal male initiations from around the world.
10. Mandan Torture
via swabhava.wordpress.com
The Mandan tribe of North Dakota had a religious ceremony called the Okipa where it celebrates the creation of the Earth. At the ceremony, the eight year old boys are tortured to mark their entry into manhood (logical, since when a woman says she wants a “real man” she’s thinking of a freshly minted 9 year old…) These third graders are forced to fast for several days, after which they are suspended by ropes with skewers inserted into cuts all over their bodies. Those who endure with the least whinging are made into Mandan leaders (personally, we would trust Obama a lot more if he had been suspended and tortured in elementary school like WHAT THE HELL.)
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