The Penis

Tea is nought but this: first you heat the water, then you make the tea. Then you drink it properly.
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Endovelico
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The Penis

Post by Endovelico »

Punditry of the penis: let's see this simple, elegant organ for what it is
Ally Fogg - theguardian.com, Friday 9 August 2013 12.00 BST

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'It’s not the dick between the hip joints that’s the problem, but the dick between the ears.'

I may not have been the first and certainly wasn't the last to react to Suzanne Moore's 10 rules for managing your penis by tweeting the Comment is free team: Could I bagsie the follow-up piece on how to manage your vagina? I'll admit it was less in expectation than in the prevailing spirit of trollolol but anyway, a few moments later I had realised my list would be pretty simple and (yes, I know, not for the first time) scarcely justify the commissioning fee.

However those who argued "you would never let a man write something like this about women's bits" are quite spectacularly wrong. Our cuture, media and politics have, for thousands of years, positively bubbled with men telling women what to do with their reproductive organs, whether it is instructing against using them too often or too rarely, using them too young, leaving them until they are too old, or medically intervening in their natural and/or God-given functions. Pertinently, many of those voices have been backed by the machineries of state, politics and religion.

I shall not argue that two wrongs make a right, but it would be petty to complain too much about Moore's patronising advice that I should refrain from trapping my todger in a toaster. Personally, the only item on her list which really made me wince is the recommendation not to be gay, which goes through so many ironic spin cycles it could wring out a hipster's duffle coat.

Perhaps the penis does need to be brought down a peg or two. Throughout known history the phallus has been invested with symbolic and even magical significance to fertility, strength, domination and conquest. It is a marker of masculine status, and discussed in terms of violent weaponry by braggart men and radical feminists alike. It is the only part of the male body that is commonly ritually mutilated for religious and cultural reasons. It is hardly surprising that those few inches of dilating flesh occasionally swell and burst with pride. You can thank me for that image later.

It is obvious why "small penis" is the go-to insult for anyone wishing to puncture manly hubris. Concerns over size and girth do often dominate men's – especially adolescent and younger men's – body image concerns, and comical though it may seem, it causes real distress to some. Very few of those anxieties about length and girth originate in women's (or gay partners') concerns, preferences or desires. They mostly boil down to inter-male rivalries and hierarchies of masculinity – the pecker pecking order, if you will: the bigger the mister, the bigger the man.

Wouldn't it be a relief if after all these millennia we could begin to see the penis as what it is – a rather simple and elegant organ of the body? If you enjoy having one that's great, and if you don't have one or don't want one on you or near you, that's great too, it's no big deal either way. Humanity is rich like that.

In my experience, having a penis is excellent. Indeed if I were to list my own 10 favourite bodily organs it would certainly be in the top one. A large proportion of humanity enjoys playing with at least one of them from time to time. They are also very funny, particularly when bathing in a politician's wine glass. It is good to laugh at penises, but only when they're together, never, ever when you catch one alone – a bit like the cast of Friends, come to think of it.

The penis is just an organ and an organ is morally neutral. It does not make conquests or win battles, nor does it commit assaults or harass people. Penises do no harm, they just sometimes have the misfortune to be attached to people who do. It's not the dick between the hip joints that's the problem, but the dick between the ears.

While we're about it, after we've divested our dicks of dickishness, perhaps we can move on to such ideas as "having balls", and "growing a pair". That metaphor is deeply sexist against women and also hits men heavily in shaming them into harmful roles. Much more significantly, it would be a strange kind of courage that could be reduced to a quivering, whimpering puddle of sludge by sitting down too quickly in the wrong underwear. Let's face it, testicles are rubbish.

To conclude, a few pieces of advice of my own. Check for lumps and blotches; try not to let anyone near your foreskin with a knife without good reason until you're old enough to know that is what you want; stick to soap and water rather than chemical gunk – and listen to Suzanne about the toaster thing. They're really not designed for the purpose and anyway, you'll get much better pressure and heat control with the Breville panini maker.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfre ... mple-organ
I would love to post this at Spengler's...
Simple Minded

Re: The Penis

Post by Simple Minded »

Probably not the same as anal retentive, but close.

Penis envy is as old as..... as......er... um..... penises! or is that penii?
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Typhoon
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Re: The Penis

Post by Typhoon »

Both penile articles in The Grauniad remind me of the Cosmo foreplay advice for women to take hold of the penis with both hands and twist . . . in opposite directions.
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Simple Minded

Re: The Penis

Post by Simple Minded »

On a recent show, Dennis Miller postulated that the problems between the sexes will be solved by evolution, when everyone evolves to has a pen-gina!

He asked one caller what the caller thought of Miller's idea. Caller: "I think you are a va-genius!"
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Re: The Penis

Post by Typhoon »

Simple Minded wrote:On a recent show, Dennis Miller postulated that the problems between the sexes will be solved by evolution, when everyone evolves to has a pen-gina!

He asked one caller what the caller thought of Miller's idea. Caller: "I think you are a va-genius!"
Very good.
May the gods preserve and defend me from self-righteous altruists; I can defend myself from my enemies and my friends.
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Torchwood
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Re: The Penis

Post by Torchwood »

Objectively, the genitalia of both sexes are not the most elegant efforts of evolution. Especially given those regions' dual functions.
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Endovelico
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Re: The Penis

Post by Endovelico »

Torchwood wrote:Objectively, the genitalia of both sexes are not the most elegant efforts of evolution. Especially given those regions' dual functions.
Can you imagine having two appendages, one for each function? And where would you place them? Side by side, one higher and the other lower?... No, I think this is the most elegant solution...
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Nonc Hilaire
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Re: The Penis

Post by Nonc Hilaire »

Torchwood wrote:Objectively, the genitalia of both sexes are not the most elegant efforts of evolution. Especially given those regions' dual functions.
One of the primary proofs that God is male is the fact that men were not designed with their penises on their chins.
“Christ has no body now but yours. Yours are the eyes through which he looks with compassion on this world. Yours are the feet with which he walks among His people to do good. Yours are the hands through which he blesses His creation.”

Teresa of Ávila
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Typhoon
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Re: The Penis

Post by Typhoon »

I'm reminded of a joke . . .
A bunch of engineers are sitting around at a party, discussing the nature of the God, and who designed men and women.

The mechanical engineer stated that God must be a mechanical engineer because
"if you look at all the pulleys and levers that drive the body, how the tendons and muscles and bones all work together, well, it's just amazing."

The chemical engineer said that no, God has to be a chemical engineer because
"if you look at all the chemical processes that drive the body, how the hormones and the brain and the glands and everything else all interact, well, it's just astounding."

The electrical engineer said that no, God has to be an electrical engineer because
"if you look at the circuitry of the body, how the thousands upon millions of nerve cells transmit signals from one part to another, well, it boggles the mind."

The civil engineer, who had been quietly listening to the other engineers, finally spoke up and said, no, God is most definitely a civil engineer.
The other engineers were skeptical, to say the least, and demanded to know how he came to such an implausible conclusion.
The civil engineer replied that
"only a civil engineer would run a sewer line right beside or right through a playground. "
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Typhoon
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Re: The Penis

Post by Typhoon »

I find the contemporary cultural conventions interesting.

For formal occasions, men wear suits, with the penis nowhere to be seen, while women wear gowns that may leave little to the imagination.

Beachwear is similar. Men, esp in N Am, are expected to wear boxer type penis-hiding bathing suits, penis revealing speedos are frowned upon, while women may wear bathing suits that leave next to nothing to the imagination.

This was not always the case, in Medieval Europe, for example

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One of the most popular fashion accessories of the Middle Ages was the codpiece – a flap or pouch that attached to the front of the crotch of men’s trousers and accentuated it in such a way as to emphasize or exaggerate the genitals. They were stuffed with sawdust or cloth and held closed by string ties, buttons, or other methods. The crotch was often extremely large or gave the idea of an erect penis. The word, codpiece, comes from the Middle English word, cod, which means scrotum.

Another symbol of virility in fashion was a style of shoe called the poulaine. These were long, pointy-toed shoes, that were also meant to suggest the size of the wearer’s penis – the longer point, the more virile the man.

Codpieces and poulaines are frequently seen in the paintings of the Dutch artist, Pieter Breugel.
There is a portrait of Henry VIII, one of the great “fashion horses” of the later Middle Ages, wearing both.
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[Portrait of Giovanni Battista Moroni]
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