one pill makes you longer, and one pill makes you small and the ones that mother gives you don't do anything at all...
good morning, boys and girls. today's lesson will feed your head, it will swell your spirit, and it just might blow your mind. so let's skip the foreplay and get right to the meat of it -- i want to talk to you about the penis. penis - it's my antidrug!
you know that there are 47,600 results for a google image search on "penis", in comparison to a mere 13,000 for vagina and but 4,490 for pussy -- a word that can refer to human anatomy, cats and a plant and yet provides only 1/10th the online visual fodder as a wang. but for all of its out-there-edness, how much do we really know about the penis and the ways it shapes our world? screw the writer's addage of show, don't tell ... let me tell you what i think about how the prevalence of the penis in our periphery has messed with our minds.
if men could talk
do you think they might admit en masse that public urination is just bizarre? almost every guy i've dated has at one point or another mentioned how uncomfortable they are about using urinals. the strange thing to me is the sense of disclosure [ding ding ding i said the secret word] that accompanies this "admission", as if they were sharing a secret flaw. i want to go on record right now and say there is nothing wrong with not wanting to piss in public, boys. even this therapist admits he's got urinalphobia and yet he too treats it as a condition --
Irrational fears, or phobias, are commonplace but seldom addressed. The sheer expression of them creates added anxiety. To overcome a phobia, it must first be acknowledged. With this in mind, I'm taking the first step in my quest for mental health. To be exact, it is with dread that I relieve myself in a urinal. I do not think I am alone in this fear, although I have had only one patient in 27 years of counseling present this problem, He was indeed a brave soul. I am hoping that my disclosure will open the floodgates of discourse about urinal phobia. Perhaps a seLf-help group entitled Urinalphobics Anonymous (UA) will emerge.
i'm relieved that there's a growing body of literature on this subject, but find it sad that all but the most scientific of it mainly treats it as a problem of the individual. why do men have to pull their penises out in front of each other, i ask? especially if millions of them are bothered by it. i suppose maybe men don't understand they by and large determine our society since generally it's been set up to pander to their every need and if at all possible avoid making them worry their pretty little heads. but really, if you don't want to pee in front of each other, why don't you start talking about this and maybe drip the first drops to a torrent of change.
if we were back in the glory days of hitching up our skirts and dropping a brick in the middle of the street, it would be different. but we don't have to do our business in the street anymore, supposedly we evolved away from that to live longer. currently, the clear gender discrepancy between our public restrooms makes little to no sense, and while i am deeply suspicious as to why we're set up to hide womens' already shrouded and scary privates (please pronounce that as priv-its) even more, it seems we ladies are much happier with our bathroom excursions. so much so we invite each other along for the good times and the memories. ah i remember that time in paris, what was her name...
what is normal?
revealing your sex organ in public shouldn't necessarily be normalized, nor should be infant mutilation. this really isn't a laughing matter, but i do want to giggle when i ask my boss for time off next genital integrity awareness week. not having my own penis (at least not to speak of lately but i remember that time in paris, ah what was his name...), i didn't think about foreskins until relatively late in life. it was probably right around the time i first saw one up close and personal. shortly thereafter a friend had a baby and discussed his decision not to get the lil boy cut. in case you are ignorant, let me summarize by saying that non-religious circumcision was most likely created to inhibit masturbation and decrease sexual pleasure and that this idea that it's healthier and cleaner to be cut is mostly malarkey. i have found that after washing, the uncircumcised penis responds quite healthily to being masterbated. it also is less taxing on the wrist and leaves one with a pleasant minty aftertaste*.
so hey, leave those kids alone. please! because circumcision is the reason men have no feelings. thanks to NORM - the national organization of restoring men - there's hope they might some day feel again:
clearly just the tip of the iceberg!!! i hereby recommend that we let men keep their foreskins and that we give them stalls. and then if any of you restored types want to come talk about your feelings with me, perhaps we'll finally have a true meeting of the heads and of the minds.I've been restoring for almost two months and it's hard to believe, sex with my wife is getting better. I actually have more feeling. It's great. -35 yr old man, CA
I'm a 17-year-old male who is circumcised. I got to thinking, what am I missing? It makes me sad because I'm not whole as I was intended to be. Circumcision has deprived me of the most sensual receptor on my sexual organ. -B.J., Oregon
I can only describe the restoration process as a METAMORPHOSIS of body, mind, heart and soul. The changes to me as a person have been dramatic - I am not the same person as I was when I began this process. I have been given the opportunity to heal probably the largest wound in my life, a wound that up until a few months ago I never knew existed. The last few months have been a journey of self-discovery like no other. I have begun to access feelings and parts of myself that are new to me - perhaps they were always there, but I believe that the trauma of the circumcision pushed me into a more mental/intellectual realm to deal with this extreme pain. Only now do I have an inkling of the extent of my feelings that are coming through, and the most exciting part is that it is only the beginning!!!
*alright there's no minty aftertaste, but here's more from those wacky mothers against circumcision: "We do not pull out our teeth to prevent cavities -- we brush them. When your son reaches puberty, he should retract and rinse during daily bathing. Brushing teeth is more difficult than cleaning the intact penis." speaking of cavities: "Smegma lubricates the cavity between the foreskin of the penis and the glans, thus allowing smooth movement between them during intercourse. ...The adult stage follows with its period of maximal sexual activity. Sexual intercourse becomes a regular feature of life and the function of smegma for lubrication assumes its full value. Women also produce smegma, quite a bit more than men actually. Smegma is not dirt. Interestingly, in ancient Greek, smegma means ‘soap.’"
8 comments:
I would like to thank Wendy for helping we to confront my frustrations and make my own emission admissions re: public urination. It is not the grotesque primitive hyper-maleness of the activity or the pointed displays of eye-averting that get me, it is that, when it comes time for me to step up to the plate (or the cake, as the case may be), I now have to stare at advertisements for power tools and liquor strategically placed six inches in front of my nose in a context where it is anathema to stare anywhere else but six inches in front of my nose. Why has pissing now become a tool of capitalism?
Oh, is it wrong to be bowled over when someone publishes the etymology of "smegma" with a hint of gratuitousness?
that was supposed to say withOUT a hint of gratuitousness. i need a comment copy editor.
excellent point on tools, e. i agree with you on the evils of capitalism but i kept getting distracted by the six inches. can't wait to read debaclypse now...
I'm not wild about urinals, but if it leads to shorter lines at public events, I'm not apt to complain. I do think that - not only for reasons of privacy, but also for reasons of splashback - it is wise to install shields between urinals.
To evandebacle: you're going to have to deal with the ads regardless. Ads can be put inside stalls - either on the walls or on the doors - just as easily as they can be put above urinals. Personally, I find it to be a diverting challenge to completely ignore the ads. I managed to go for a week before I realized what product/service was being advertised on the floors of the Jackson Blue Line stop. And now I will make a conscious effort to avoid putting money into the hands of that corporation. Fun!
todd
(1) I feel no discomfort peeing around other men, and no embarassment in admitting that, in the comfort of my own home, I am more likely to sit to pee.
(2) "men don't understand they by and large determine our society since generally it's been set up to pander to their every need." While it's always worth exploring the many ways in which many societies are set up to convenience men at the expense of women, it would perhaps be a mistake for feminists to conclude that Western capitalist society is set up to pander to the every need of individual men. Look at your neighborhood homeless for an example; child custody or the military draft are two more areas that tend to favor women. Historically, most men have lead short, sad lives of toil and despair, regardless of how patriarchal the society; and if contemporary American society seems to be especially catering to male needs, couldn't just as much be said about contemporary catering to female needs?
(3) I think I recently saw Geico plastered all over the Jackson L stop, and, while I find all invasive advertising obnoxious, it was especially galling to consider that this car insurance company has shelled out big bucks (I presume) to reach L commuters - a population that has surely the second or third *smallest* car-owning per capita in the nation! What do they think, that with a better deal on automobile insurance we'd all be driving to the loop?
(sorry for that everyone. i was really bored last night.)
oh don't apologize for it, bob. in terms of a neutrally, totatalistically (yes i can just make up words) pandering/catering society. yes. that's what today's post will be about.
my verification word (creepy CL influence) is g-moon-x-rh. also i don't have gonorrhea or hemorrhoids in case anyone was still wondering.
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