They say that a man's best friend is his dog. While the average man may well be fond of his furry companion, it has always struck me that a man’s most intimate relationship is with his own penis.
Not content with merely grooming and pleasuring their penises, men anthropomorphise them. Women have feelings, frequently negative, about their bodies, but most of us don’t have an actual relationship with any particular part of it. I regard my vagina as intrinsically part of me, much the same way I’d relate to my eyes. Men however have a tendency to regard their dicks as a different creature entirely, one with its own personality and free will.
This is firstly obvious in the choice of pronoun. Men refer to their penises as a “him” never an “it”. If this were not bizarre enough, some men go the whole hog and give their dicks a name as well. Jeffery, the Bishop, the Dude and Marvin the Martian are just some of the monikers attached to penises I’ve known and loved. In fairness, women are sometimes to blame for this, denoting names of endearment on a man’s member in a post-orgasmic haze. Whatever the reason, naming body parts as if they were pets is just plain weird.
New parents and dog lovers have a tendency to regale you with all the antics their beloved has gotten up to during the day. Men do this too and seem to think that women are as deeply concerned as they are with the state of affairs down south. Ask a man how his day was and it’s not uncommon to get a full report on unexpected erections, readjustments, squashed balls, zipper incidents and the general well-being of his genitalia. It’s enough to make you feel like an amateur urologist some days.
Pretending that the penis is a separate beast is a clever trick, I’ll grant you. This way a man can deny responsibility if his dick should lead him astray. As Robin Williams said, “God gives men a brain and a penis, and only enough blood to run one at a time.”
Despite all the love, care and attention men lavish on their appendages, they often have ambivalent feelings about them. Men may love their genitalia, but often they don’t actually like them. This ambivalence seems to be a problem of aesthetics. A man may regard his penis as a joy forever, but not a thing of beauty.
It is said that people joke about the things that bother them. If this is true, then men must find their penises very disturbing indeed. Do a cursory search on the Internet and you’ll find hundreds of weird and wonderful names for the penis. Here’s some examples that tickled my fancy: the one eyed wonder weasel, Ralph the fur faced chicken, purple-helmeted yogurt thrower, trouser trout and love goblin.
I decided to ask my male friends how they felt about their pride and joy. Joe reckoned his was cute when flaccid, brutish when erect; a member with a Jekyll and Hyde split personality. Andrew thought his erect penis like was “handsome, like polished mahogany”, but otherwise “unkempt and miserable-looking”. Mark told me his was “small and withered”. Thomas decided that the balls were the problem, rendering the entire design deeply flawed and faintly ridiculous.
If men find their penises unattractive, this doesn’t seem to stop them wanting more. If the surveys can be believed, most men wish they were bigger. Worrying about penis size is fruitless and unnecessary as most penises are pretty much the same length when erect.
Some adult entertainers do seem to sport whoppers, which may leave a man feeling a little hard done, no pun intended. But I’ll share a little secret with you – closely cropped pubes and camera angles can make a penis seem bigger than it really is. It’s all smoke and mirrors.
As if worrying about size wasn’t enough, some blokes agonise over the curvature and girth as well. One of my exes was concerned about the colour of his. But as long as the penis is clean, healthy, in good working order and can make us come, most women don’t care. We expect penises to be prêt-a-porter and not made to measure. If it fits, it’s fine.
When you think about it, I suppose it’s not so surprising that men regard their penises as an entirely separate animal. In many ways a dick has lot of the same characteristics as a dog. A penis requires plenty of TLC; it needs to be washed, stroked and loved. The penis demands frequent exercise or it gets grumpy. It can be territorial and may not be keen on sharing what it regards as its space with another. It misbehaves, wanders off and gets itself into trouble. It drools and on occasion will piss on the floor.
Playfulness is one of the penis’ most endearing characteristics. It will sit up, shake hands and even roll over and play dead. Like a puppy, a penis gets very excited as soon as you pet it. Stroke it, caress it, blow on it, suck and lick it and it wants to play. No matter how much attention you give it, it soon wants more. Unlike a dog though, a penis isn’t necessarily loyal. Generally speaking it will respond with the same enthusiasm to almost any suitable person who wishes to play with it.
I’m glad I don’t have a penis of my own. They seem very demanding. Perhaps if there was a Barbara Woodhouse training school, it might make things easier. Having said that, part-ownership of a penis can be very rewarding – all the fun and none of the mess. A penis may be man’s best friend, but it can be a woman’s too. At least for an hour or two.