From Factoidz
By Michael A. McGrath
(Photographs not part of the original article)
In every language around the world, there is a word for the male reproductive organ, which we call the penis. Tembo. Kisi cinsiyy?t orqani. Im-keng. Kalc’h. Utin. Pidyn. Bod. Peniso. Pene. Suguti. Zakil. Siitin. Zipfa. Allu. Peni. Zipfe. Schwanz, etc., etc., etc. The British sometimes call them “dangly bits,” an obvious throwback to the Victorian era.
On the male body, the penis is about one head lower than the navel. Underneath the penis is a sac, called the scrotum, and inside the scrotum are two ovular organs called the testes or testicles. These small oval-shaped organs produce the sperm necessary for human reproduction. Most of us would admit that the function of said organs, including the penis, is quite a marvelous thing. However, the process of reproduction isn’t the subject of this article. I want to focus on the simple fact that we, as a purportedly “civilized” society, are scared to death of the male genitals! We are phallophobic in nature.
To us Westerners (Americans in particular), the male genitalia are the representation of a bloodletting sword or knife or a reprehensible act of violence perpetrated on women. To us, they symbolize everything perverse and disgusting about the male gender. Through our misdirected symbology and misrepresentation, we have grown to fear the male reproductive organs.
When we study history and various cultures down through the pages of time, however, we see quite the opposite: our ancient ancestors celebrated human sexuality, both the male and the female, as something wonderful, beautiful and nothing to be ashamed of.
One of the earliest known sculptural representation of the female form, known as the Venus of Willendorf, clearly depicts a robust female likeness, carved out of stone and small enough to fit into a man’s pocket. The earliest known representations of a masculine nature include the phallic pillars of Ireland and Great Britain, many of which leave little to the imagination as to what their makers were thinking at the time of their inception.
My guess: Most men are quite happy with their “dangly bits”. And as you can see by the men in this picture, some of us aren’t so homophobic, and don’t deprive ourselves of the joy of getting naked.
This isn’t the case, as far as we are concerned. In American culture, the nude female form is much more likely to be classified as a “piece of art” than the nude male. It’s perfectly acceptable to see the breasts and vaginal cleft of a woman as the subject of a piece of artwork, but when the penis and testicles of a man are revealed or exposed, in art, this (strangely enough) somehow transforms the artwork in question into something we deem pornographic.
Exposure to the male genitals is said (by some) to cause permanent psychological damage in adults and children.
Today, I saw the film, “Watchmen,” a movie that was released in 2009, based on the graphic novel series by the same name. In this film, one of the characters (called Dr. Manhattan) is completely naked in more than one scene. And, yes, folks, everyone can see his modest penis and testicles. They aren’t anything scary or perverse in the least. Dr. Manhattan’s character, in the film, was (at the beginning of the movie) a flesh and blood human male who was transformed into a being of brilliant blue energy through a fluke research accident. In the transformative process, though, he didn’t lose his gender identity, including his penis or testicles. In spite of the non-spectacular nature of Dr. Manhattan’s modest genitalia, people everywhere have been complaining about it. Some even said that the filmmakers did a “disservice” to the original character in the graphic novel by making Dr. Manhattan’s penis “too large.”
As a professional illustrator and fine artist, I have to say that I thought the artists who created the film version of Dr. Manhattan did a remarkably tasteful job of making this character’s gender members so non-threatening. It seems strange that no one of note complained about Malin Akerman (who plays Laurie Juspeczyk and the Silk Spectre II) showing her nipples and breasts in a graphic sex scene in the film.