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The Column

To Write A Wrong
2/39/04

Last week, I wrote about watching the Super Bowl: something stereotypically male. This week, I'm writing about drawing on your passed out friends: something proprietarily male.

Women draw on people just as often, but not when the art project is drunk. Because a woman can draw on a guy whenever she wants. In Bull Durham, Susan Sarandon said that a guy will do anything if he thinks it's foreplay. And for some ridiculous reason, guys think that if a girl is paying attention to them in any form at all, he'll score.

After a show at a school in North Carolina, I went back to my host's suite, where I saw a guy wearing a sharpie. He was covered with demeaning pictures and phrases, but smiling the whole time. Smiling because there was a woman at the other end of the marker. But when a woman draws pictures of male genitals on a guy, she doesn't care much for his.

Girls don't usually write on each other – but if a girl wants to prevent her friend from getting any, she will "help" with her makeup. When this happens, the girl emerges looking like Jackson Pollack after a hard day at the office.

Men, however, only have one opportunity to write on people – and it's when a guy is passed out. Men don't write on women when they're passed out. The men try, but when a woman passes out drunk, her friends actually look out for her. Crazy, I know.

The most common things a man writes on another man include a picture of male genitals (obviously an old standard) and a phrase doubting his heterosexuality. Which makes me wonder if drunk gay guys do this, only with pictures of boobs and phrases such as, "I like women."

Without caring about their sexual orientation or the possible consequences, men draw on each other constantly. The possible consequences include ink poisoning and next-day butt-kickings. But there is a third, less obvious consequence that most men do not realize. You may not know this, but paramedics also write on people.

That's when it gets dangerous. Sometimes a passed out friend is sicker than you originally think, and has to be rushed to the hospital to get his stomach pumped. Imagine the look of confusion on the doctor's face when he's told that your friend's blood pressure is 90 over I Like Men.

"Well then," he'll say. "We'll just make the incision right here at the picture of the male genitals.

Thanks to the advent of digital cameras, writing on drunk guys has become more common. But I'm pretty sure it has been going on as long as men have had access to writing implements and drunk guys. I bet when Og had a little too much grog, he awoke the next morning with a terrible headache, covered in hieroglyphic pictures of male genitals. The headache was not from his hangover, rather that the writing implements were a stone and chisel.

And don't think that anyone is too high class for this practice – every group of friends has had someone written on at least once. Even someone like Shakespeare wasn't immune. There was one Saturday night in, say, 1599, when Will had a few too many hearty libations, and drifted off as his friends ran for the quill pen.

"Alas, poor Yorick, I like men."

"Who wrote this?" Shakespeare bellowed the next morning. "Say, that first part is kind of good."

He didn't say that exactly - keep in mind this is translated from the original English. The original quote was, "Say, yon kinsman, that first part is kind of good."

And writing is not the only problem. Guys occasionally step it up a notch and go from drawing pictures of genitals to taking pictures of genitals. Genitals that are conveniently hanging over the face of the guy who is passed out.

While all of this could be racked up as assault, I've never heard of a guy filing charges. Mainly because no one wants those types of pictures to be publicized. But there are other less legal and more funny ways of getting back at your assailant.

Like getting a hot girl to write on them. Or having a sharpie handy for personal retribution. Not me though. When someone writes on me, marking them up in return would be childish and immature.

I prefer a stone and chisel.

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