I was not made a horse,

And yet, I bear a burden,

Like an ass.

— Shakespeare, Richard, II, V, 5

You say that men are hanged, not hung?

I verily believe, men are hung,

Some well hung,

And others not so well hung.

— Doreen Grace

Now, before any of the puritanical moral minority get on my case, let me remind you that a few years ago I wrote about The Vagina Monologues and got much acclaim for it. And it was mostly the ladies who sang the praises too, saying that it was bold and refreshing to explore such a controversial topic.

The Vagina Monologues is a famous play, written by Eve Ensler, that caused quite a literary stir around the world a few years ago. It opened the eyes of many people.

Well, I believe in gender equality, therefore the male equivalent ought to get equal billing, ergo the phallus. Phallus, such a nice, decent, innocuous word used to describe a very important part of the male anatomy. I suspect that many folks don’t even know what phallus means and certainly wouldn’t use it as an epithet. “Don’t be a damn phallus.”

Of course, there are other words linked to the phallus that also have different meanings, but it all depends on how they are used. For example, prick can mean to stick with a sharp object, as in, “The needle gave him a painful prick.” Cock is a male fowl, “The cock crowed in the morning.” Hood can be a head dress or a car bonnet, “Open the hood and check the engine oil.” Buddy is a good friend, the Americans say, “Hey buddy, what time does the bus get here?” Member means to belong, “He was a church member.”

All of those words and more can be used instead of phallus, as we’ll see right after these comments about ‘Wives tale’.

Hi Tony,

Marriage is a two-way street. Both partners should always communicate, respect each other and both should be able to cook. When we were younger, my wife and I were busy working, building careers, and taking care of young children, so whoever got home first would start cooking dinner.

Sharing household duties was crucial to the relationship. As for sex, if wives perform well in bed, the husband should also want to please her, but should not share the details with their buddies.

Dennis

Miramar, Fl USA

Hey Tony,

The tales of wives are many,

Too much for all to see,

But what is true my erudite friend,

Is that they all begin and end with ‘me.’

Fredric

Nothing is as important to a man as his phallus…. nothing. So much so that health authorities use scare tactics to get men to do health checks. Just tell them that their phallus will be affected if they don’t test and see how quickly they visit the clinic.

Doctors will tell you that the first question men will ask is, “Doc, will it affect my sex life?” Men who do contact sports will neglect to wear protective equipment on their heads, shins, elbows, but they will certainly wear a groin guard. No man wants to injure his member, for a hit in the phallic area is an unforgettable experience.

Yet this is not new, for men have been so fascinated, enamoured, curious about that part of the male anatomy that numerous cave drawings, illustrations, books and research have been done about it. And yes, size does matter. Men are obsessed with the size of their phallus and women are too.

Just glance back to that letter that lady wrote about hung and see what I mean about dual reference. I was actually illustrating the usage of bad grammar and how people wrongly say that men are hung instead of hanged.

Read her clever response, brilliant usage of words. The French would call that a double entendre, words or phrases with dual meanings. As you can see, she cited that some men are hung and some are well hung. Whatever that means. If you took sex-ed class or asked your uncle, you would know. Or even better, if you watched the TV series Hung you’d get the gist, the meaning, the essence of what ‘well hung’ means.

The hard fact is, whether you want to sweep it under the carpet and act as if it doesn’t exist, a man is judged by the size of his phallus, and even though the so-called experts will say otherwise, the reality says different. Every day the papers have ads that profess to enhance the male organ, plus men bombard the advice columns about increasing the size.

A woman will tell a man, “Don’t worry, Honey, size doesn’t matter,” yet she’ll snicker and tell her female friends that she thought that she was holding a cigarette.

This obsession with size is exacerbated when men watch porno movies and see those guys who are hung like horses. Now, go back up to that Shakespeare quote about horses and asses. Every man wants to be like a stallion, and yet the Jamaican saying is, “Donkey seh the world nuh level.” If you don’t know what that means, ask you elders or scrutinise a donkey.

The phallus has good reason to be important, for both men and women place a great premium on that organ. A lady friend of mine recently returned from visiting her man overseas and when I asked her how was the trip, she responded by saying, “I really enjoyed his phallus.” Not one word about the vacation scenery, the shopping, the friends, his personality, warmth or character.

And yet, some people think it’s taboo to even mention those things. Truthfully, I was taken aback by her candid response, but it does bolster my point about the importance of the phallus.

The hypocrites and puritans will scoff, but relationships and marriages succeed or fail because of the phallus. A marriage is not deemed legal unless it is consummated, and only a phallus can do that.

Even lesbians are fascinated with the phallus, and research has shown that many women of that persuasion will backslide because they missed that part of love-making. “Women are nice, but at times I miss the feel of a real man,” they will say.

What’s interesting is that phallic symbols abound all over, yet there is no equivalent female symbol. What’s also interesting is that men don’t curse each other using the phallic description, but will cuss you out by using the female equivalent. Jamaican men are versed in the art of gender-biased sexual profanity. No cat got his tongue.

In almost every society, great emphasis is placed on the phallus, by mothers and fathers, but mostly by fathers. Japan has an annual National Phallus Day, Kanamara Matsuri, where images and effigies of that organ are paraded on the streets. Just like the Pied Piper of Hamelin, “Big ones, small ones, tall ones, short ones…..”

When a male child is born, the first place that a man looks is at the phallus. He will proudly declare, “My boy that, take after him father.” Heaven help him if he doesn’t see the syringe needle when the nurse says, “Don’t worry, Mr Brown, it’s only a little prick.”

The phallus is a man’s private joy, or his shame, depending on his perspective. Few men are truly satisfied with theirs, and envy others. Visit any male bathroom and see how men guard theirs from the gaze of others. Women will walk naked in a group, but most men, insecure about their size, won’t.

The phallus can be magical, and just recently a lady wrote the advice column saying that she’s hooked on this married man because of his phallus. She can’t help herself, she says. Again, at this point, the hypocrites and moralists will scoff, but the plain, hard truth is, without the phallus, mankind would cease to exist.

It has gone down in the annals of history by great writers. It is revered, worshipped and praised by many, even as it is the downfall of others. “My phallus got me in so much trouble.”

Others have great fears, and I recall seeing this article titled, ‘I have outlived my penis’. Wow! that’s the first time I’ve used that word today to describe the phallus.

Education is critical. That’s why this doctor who was addressing the sex education class said this about the phallus: “Anything rises we’ll discuss it.”

Actress Mae West asked: “Is that a gun in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?”

More time.

seido1@hotmail.com

Footnote: Ignorance is a curse, and more and more I grow impatient of it. The reason is, we live in an age of instant knowledge and research, just click a mouse and Google, and voila! the information is there. As a child I had to go to the library or pore over encyclopedias. Yes pore, not pour. We are surrounded by ignorance that is mind-boggling.

So many people have no sense of history and use their high-tech gadgets for entertainment only. They research nothing and know nothing. We have the School’s Challenge Quiz groups, but in general the average child, and young adult are ignorant of the world and what’s in it.

Reading is a lost art. Sometimes when I ask them how come they didn’t know certain information, they tell me that they weren’t born then. A man who can read but doesn’t, is as bad as the man who cannot read. Sad to say, this ignorance shows in our media too.