Why Do Men Love Bacon So Much?

If you’re anything like me, you’ve got two questions in life:  One, Joaquin Phoenix. Two, what’s up with all this man stuff? You can’t flip on the Interwebs today without a man flaunting his manhood in your face, sometimes literally, if you frequent the same sites I do.

But just because you’re wielding an ax in one hand and a bacon-stuffed bacon burger in the other doesn’t necessarily mean the ladies will be dropping panties the minute you walk into a room. But you know that already, don’t you? Of course you do. But you do it anyway. Why? Because guys love bacon. And axes. I’m not sure why anyone would enter a room swinging an ax like a lasso, but I think I’ve got a good grip on why you fellas love the bacon.

In the Beginning

One day we woke up and bacon was in all the places it wasn’t supposed to be. On bras and shoes, in ice cream and martinis, even on At-Ats. Especially on At-Ats.

The whole world unanimously decided the back meat of pigs was the greatest thing since ever, which was kind of baffling. Have you ever been around pigs? They’re horrifying. They squeal like this: “SKREEEEEEEEEAHHHHH SKREEAAAAAHHHHH” like someone is stabbing them all the time, and they smell like port-a-potty. Being around pigs is like having your ears and nose raped by awful at the same time. And to top it off, pigs have this beady eyed, sinister little snouty grin going on, like they’re looking into your head, reading your thoughts.

Spending more than 30 seconds with bacon bags wallowing in their own poop is a guaranteed one-way ticket to Vomitville. When it comes down to it, pigs are filthy animals.

Not only are pigs nasty little things, but bacon is a very, very bad food. It makes you fat, clogs your arteries and maybe gives you cancer, no lie. So why did the world go bananas for bacon? Because…

You’re Sick of People Telling You What You Should and Shouldn’t Put in Your Mouth-Hole

Eating this terribly bad but terribly tasty food is like hoisting up the Rebel flag, strapping guns onto your waist and full on daring Yankee cholesterol to invade your arteries. You know you’re asking for it. You know it’s foolhardy. You know it will all end with you and your buddies dying face down in the muck of a Georgia cotton field while Yankee cholesterol steals your mama’s best ruby earbobs out of the family safe, but you do it anyway, because what good ever came out of healthy living? Other than extended life, of course. What are you, a man or a monk? And don’t say both, because you’re on the wrong website if you are, my friend.

You’re a man. And you’re sick of people telling you what you should and shouldn’t put in your mouth-hole.  Fair enough, hombre.  One time I rebelled against American beauty expectations by not tweezing my eyebrows for a week and a half.  It was the most liberating, ugly statement I ever made in my adult life.  So I get it.

Bacon Makes you Strong Like a Pig

It’s greasy, salty and crunchy, all qualities you like to see in pirates, potato chips and men who stopped giving a damn long, long ago.  Girls may like bacon, but they don’t glory in it like ravenous wolves who just stumbled upon a handicapable deer.  And PS – women have been in on the bacon thing all along.  Ask your Nana; she was serving up bacon 16 times a week back in the day.  Bacon with a side of lard and olive-filled Jello salad.

It’s almost like the men of the world have been in some sort of Sleeping Beautyesque coma, then suddenly were awakened by a kiss from Prince Baconface, and now all they can think of is their new bacony lover. Besides the fact that I just gay-married the male population to a prince made of bacon, there’s something overly masculine about eating the meat off of a pig’s back. It’s like you’re deliberately ingesting the pig’s badness to make you stronger. Kind of like when cannibals used to eat the innards of their enemies to gain their strength, you’re eating the pig’s disregard for niceties, its smirky grin, its raucous bone-chilling squeal, even its willingness to wallow in its own poop and the poop of others, all of that. And then you’re stronger! PIG STRONG!

Or maybe I’m reading too much into that part. Whatever.

While You’re In There, Make Me a Sandwich, Cupcake

No matter how liberated the woman in your life is, there’s an excellent chance that your wife/girlfriend/mom is the one getting meals on the table day in and day out. So if you’re a man who’s sporting bacon strips where your eyes should be and you’ve decided you need pig flesh at every meal, there’s an even better chance that the cook of the house is going to let you go to town in the kitchen. She’ll probably let you serve people meat while you’re at it, if it means you’re helping out. I know I would. People meat is gooood.

JUST KIDDING!  It’s awful.

So this bacon meme has given men an incentive to cook. Awesome. And since everything tastes better with bacon, dinner just got a lot better. Fatter, but better. All I need now is a do-your-own-laundry meme and a stop-telling-me-about-your-Farmville-needs meme to sweep the nation and I’ll be all set.

Good Job For Being in on a Joke

Bacon is one of those things that we, as a people, have decided is funny. Like Rick Astley videos and cats with words superimposed over their precious little faces, bacon is audaciously hilarious. Participating in the bacon meme is like when our ancestors participated in barn-raisings. It’s a communal celebration of something everyone likes, and why not? Why not have a little fun with some pig flesh every now and then? It’s not like we’re all aboard with a manslaughter meme or an assault with a deadly weapon fad. Yet.