Fanny

Lose a game of pétanque 13–0 — prendre une fanny — and tradition is merciless: you must kiss the backside of Fanny, the bare-bottomed lass whose painted posterior hangs in the clubhouse, for good luck and better aim next time. It is ritualized humiliation, administered with love, in front of everyone, usually with a pastis waiting as consolation.

France has a complete theory of losing. Losing badly is not a trauma to be processed; it is a ceremony to be performed. You kiss Fanny, everyone laughs with you (mostly), and the defeat is converted — by ritual — into belonging. You are not a loser; you are un membre du club.

America has the opposite theory: the participation trophy. Losing badly is a trauma to be prevented. Everyone gets a trophy, the score is de-emphasized, and the word loser is treated like a slur. The intention is kindness. The result is a generation that has never kissed Fanny and therefore never learned the essential skill: surviving a 13–0 with your dignity rearranged but intact.

The two theories meet every time a French team and an American team share a boulodrome. The French cannot believe the Americans keep score so anxiously; the Americans cannot believe the French line up to kiss a painting. Both are right. Both are wrong. That is the entire dictionary.

France ritualizes defeat. America anesthetizes it. The score is 13–0 either way.