Modern psychologists now believe that the bullfight may not be what it has always appeared to be – a primal, man-against-beast ceremonial battle of grace against brawn. At least not to the bull. The bullfight, theorists argue - from the bull’s point of view, is really a torrid sexual coming-out for the bull, an experience, I suppose, that is akin to our junior prom.

The “best bulls,” they explain, are bred specifically for sure-footedness and power – essentials in the ring. And these bulls are never allowed to mate with the cows. I don’t know about “best bulls.” But I suspect that the “smartest” bulls are those shuffling along like bad drunks, tripping over everything, even catching their horns in the bougainvillea and bringing the whole thing down on top of themselves.) Now, not only are the “best bulls” undergoing forced abstinence (something invented by the Catholics in the 12th Century), but the bulls are deliberately teased into a libidinous frenzy by having the best-looking cows right across the fence from them, smelling great and sashaying about the pasture (looking, I would guess, to a bull, like Paris Hiltons and sounding just as articulate) – the sole purpose of which would be to further enrage the bulls, who by this time, have to be wondering about this “best bull” thing and the wisdom of their career choice.

So you have the bull, a frustrated virgin, going into the ring, without a spritz of cologne or even a gift-corsage, to meet the torero who, from the bull’s point of view, is just a “female symbol,” a flashy pole dancer in effect. As such, the entire corrida ritual starts off as some kind of weird sexual consummation for the bull and ends up nothing more than a really bad blind date. (Make up your own “Olay” joke here, but please don’t repeat it.)

My own hypothesis then is that our beloved Papa (Hemingway, not the Pope) knew all along about this scandalous carnal display, and it disgusted him. In his famous novella, Death in the Afternoon, he covered up the whole sexual context and chose to describe the event in more socially acceptable terms, detailing only the goring, gouging, lancing, and blood-letting (all the stuff we could read to settle us down at bedtime). 

I have taken it upon myself to try to recreate what Hemingway would have written about the bullfight if he were truly interested in the truth:

Once I remember Gertrude Stein talking of bullfights. She said they were operatic, monumental, explosive even titillating, and that was just her description of the matador’s pants. 

My first visit to the corrida occurred to fill a lazy afternoon and empty a busy flask. I saw the bull rush through the puerta del toro and gouge his hoofs into the coarse dirt like a true ganada bravo (best bull) as if to say, “Flap your flirty little cape if you want, senorita, but it will do you no good. I’m a big, irresistible macho male, so don’t fool with me!” (Hemingway often projected himself into his characterizations.) The bull’s announcement served only to cue the torero into a balletic swirl behind his sweeping red muleta, a turn the beast saw as nothing more than another fickle female maybe/maybe-not seduction (Bull? Hemingway? Who knows?). The torero then scoffed further at the bull by snapping his hips forward and jamming his soft zapatillas provocatively into the earth just beneath the bull’s snarling muzzle. This caused the bull’s blood to rush back and forth between his horns and his hoofs, turning them bright red, and causing the effect of an emergency alert, which the torero ignored with a pout and a leer. The bull then snorted out several heated breaths and narrowed his eyes - declaring he was now certain the little torero wanted his baby.

The bull then charged once again at his beloved, only to have the torero leap into a mocking pas de chat, deliberately flashing his breathtaking pink stockings from behind his Salome-like, fluttering cape, driving the bull mercilessly mad with lust, and exclaiming disdainfully that there could never be anything between him and the bull – except possibly as a couple on Dancing With the Stars.  It appeared that the bull was getting weary and frustrated, and could have been persuaded to settle for a simple, private lap dance.  The crowds, those who hadn’t already fainted, were beside themselves, and the policia had to called in to calm them with firehoses.

You can see from such an analysis that this bullfighting business is no simple matter, no matter how you look at it. It continues to challenge our ideas about our moral values, that is, is it right for us to inflict such inhumane torture on a skinny little boy dressed up in an ill-fitting, provocative costume and a funny hat – in the name of sport?