"How many of those bulls do you think will die today?" I asked the Mexican man standing next to me.

We were looking down into a pen with four large black bulls standing still. He looked at me quizzically, as if I had asked at a basketball game, "How many quarters will they play today?"

"Of course all will die,” he said, "there will be very much blood."



Having never been to a bullfight, I was wearing my ignorance on my sleeve last Wednesday at a bullring in a mid-sized city in Mexico that I can't name here. I had just arrived from Los Angeles, and because we are considering buying the bullring and knocking it down to build affordable housing for local people on the site (which is why I can’t say the name of the city), it was strongly suggested that I attend a bullfight with the owner of the property, who happens to be a big bullfighting fan. 



The event began with pomp and circumstance. There was a band playing lively, happy music. There were three matadors, cocky, preening for the crowd. One of the matadors was a woman, which is highly unusual.

So began the torture of the bulls, in this oddly misnamed barbaric activity that I won't dignify from this point on by calling a "fight" or even a "sport." If aficionados were candid, they would admit the truth--it's definitely not like the ballet, as some have claimed (last I checked, ballerinas are not tortured and stabbed to death during the performance). Instead, it's a highly ritualized torture of an animal--if there was any truth in labeling, it should be re-named "Bull Torture."



I could have walked out, but it would have been professionally very awkward, and more importantly, I ultimately decided I wanted to see it once with my own eyes so I can speak about the activity from first-hand experience.

 I saw enough to haunt me for a lifetime; probably every time I see a bull from now until the day I die, I will think about what I saw on Wednesday afternoon.

Permanently etched in my mind is the image of the blood spurting from the bull's back, after the initial ceremonial wound, with a second wound caused by festive barbed rods being jammed into the bull; the baiting and the torment and the manipulation of the bull after the initial wounds; the steely eyes of the young matador as she thrust her sharpened sword into the bull, towards its beating heart...but the sword only went halfway in and stuck out of the bull at an angle...she had clearly missed her mark. She then had to try again on the wounded bull. 

Her second attempt found the bull's heart and/or aorta and ripped them wide open; that became obvious as the bull staggered around for a few moments after the final thrust, and finally crumpled onto the ground, in its death throes. The crowd then began some tepid applause; the fact that the matador missed the first time meant that the performance was barely applause-worthy. I watched in stunned silence with a lump in my throat.
 I made it clear that I had no interest in seeing the other three bulls get tortured, and we left.

I have heard the lectures before on the problems of cultural imposition--the issues connected to trying to impose our cultural values on others. But sometimes there are things that are sick, evil, barbaric and wrong no matter where you live. Genital mutilation of children. Torture of innocent animals.



What is it about these pageants of animal torture that creates hard-core followers, who watch the events with fanatical devotion? The bright colors, the music, the festive costumes, the ritualized procedures, and the practiced grace and elegance of the matadors all combine to create a veneer of respectability for the event. But ultimately, inexorably, it’s all about the blood and the suffering. Would anyone even go if the bull did not suffer and bleed?

It would be as if Michael Vick had put on a festive costume and pranced gracefully around his dog-fighting ring and doing so had conferred legitimacy and respectability on his evil activities. But those of us with a modicum of common sense know the truth: a dogfight is a dogfight is a dogfight. Torturing a bull is torturing a bull, no matter how festive your costume, no matter how graceful your movements, no matter how dramatically you move around the bull, no matter how loud the cheers, no matter if the country you're in sanctions it and calls it legal.

Perhaps someday, this barbaric show for people drunk with passion to see blood and suffering will be called by all of the civilized world what it really is: A promenade of torment. A spectacle of madness. A fiesta of blood lust. Until then, we can weep for the bulls.