@1- They fight only males because only males will fight to kill each other, as males seem to do from every species. It would be a dull fight indeed, were it a hen fight, rather than cock. Not everything is about gender inequity.
Interesting article.

Always good to hear from someone visiting the Oaxaca coast. You're not kidding about the terrifying cross-Madre road. BUT:

There is an incredible divide between the Seattle vibe and the Mexico vibe that is probably largely accountable to weather.

Largely?

Great stuff, Grant. Bring more. I love reading about Mexico when the topic isn't narco murders.

Reminds me in a small way of bull fights in Spain, but with all the fancy divided out. Great article, it makes me want to travel to Mexico.

pretty sure that person was just making fun of the Stranger commenters in a general way.

I went in expecting this story to annoy me in at least five different ways. The last thing I expected was to be both charmed and informed. More like this, please.

That was one of the best features I've read in a while and I have no particular love for Mexico or the culture described above.

A very nuanced scene was painted without trying too hard or being cliche, which is hard to do, especially on such a cliche topic.

But most importantly, I have huge respect for the neutrality maintained. Although the first cock fight I ever go to will be the last -- just to experience it -- I also don't quite get people who immediately call it wrong, and I'd bet all day that the vast majority of people decrying it have never spent more than 15 minutes around a chicken.

"Do these tiny wars somehow feed the wars of men, make them more intractable? I have no idea." -- well fucking said, bravo.

I couldn't read any more past this line, which is the worst sentence I think I have ever read...

"After midnight on the coast road southeast of Puerto Escondido, you can track the last lone pedestrians by the dogs going off like sensors and the roosters following, their humanlike screams propelled by their own tyrannical sperm count as if avatars through which the hard-ons in the boys' and bachelors' beds of Oaxaca were let sing."

This is a very good article. The only thing I would object is the notion that Lázaro Cárdenas was "the only honest man to have ever led" Mexico. This is misinformed: he was a total crook.

Run out of socially relevant issues in the United States??? Gotta go do a story in a country where no one cares about the subject matter??? Where has your compass gone??? Hey Stranger, don't you care about putting a quality product on the shelf? There's a throw-away-pulitzer waiting out there for your rag...all you gotta do is do a DOMESTIC story...perhaps.

Anyone willing to watch something so sick and inhumane is seriously disturbed

More Cogswell, please.

I went to the Tijuana tequila festival a few years ago (recommended) and saw these. Dogfighting seems barbaric but this was like "playing with your food"

Dog fighting and cock fighting are equally deplorable

Good stuff. To those who were by the intrigued by the cockfighting aspects of the article, I highly recommend the novel "Cockfighter" by Charles Willeford (1962) for a depiction of the dusty, sweaty, cockfighting underbelly of the American South.

Really, really interesting story. -)

@16: Agreed! If you want to witness something REALLY stupid, check out the troll fighting from the 12/04/12 I, Anon.

@13/16 - there it is! I was waiting for someone to come and dismiss this entire well-written and informative piece with one naive sentence. I am actually surprised there aren't more "Julie Russells" commenting, being as this town is so full of them.