A Mind of its Own
I recently finished reading A Mind of Its Own: A Cultural History of the Penis, by David Friedman.* I enjoyed it and I can recommend it, too. Before you get the wrong idea, this is no nudge-nudge-wink-wink volumne, nor is it weighted down with academic weightiness; instead, it's a relaxed examination of the history of men's stormy and often unpredictable (or else: all too predictable) relationship with their penises. The style is neither up-tight nor too breezy, which strikes me as a bit of an accomplishment.
Chapters examined broad topics: the classical penis, the early Christian penis, the Renaissance penis, the African penis, the modern mechanical penis. I make it sound on the facile side, but the author deftly led the reader through major shifts in attitudes towards the penis. There is a marked contrast between Greek and Roman attitudes about the penis, symbolized by the friendly and frisky god Priapus, and the attitude of the early Church fathers (Augustine in particular) who saw the penis as a tool of the devil, the transmitter of original sin, that tell us a great deal about cultural developments over the past 2,500 years.
I found quite a bit of insight on the part of the author, too. I wondered whether the author might be overstating, for instance, the fear that European white penises (to be synecdochic) had for the huge and commanding (in their fears) black penis. However, I gained more respect for his position when he revealed an underreported fact about the lynchings of black men in America: they were almost always accompanied by castration of the victims.
I found no particular passage that stood out for quotation, so I thought I would let the following quick but lucid tour of the penis be the example.
The urethra, the penis's internal transport tube, runs from the meatus (the hole) to the bladder, a distance of about six inches — nearly half of that inside the body — and stretches when the organ is erect. It is surrounded by the corpus spongiosum. Together, they lie beneath two larger, even spongier bodies, the corpora cavernosa, which sit above them to the left and right; all of these bodies are encased by a lining called the tunica albuginea. The corpora cavernosa, which fill with blood when one has an erection, extend down the shaft into the body, where ligaments tie them to the pubic bone. These ligaments are severed in patients undergoing penile-extension surgery. Afterward gravity pulls the penis down, making it "longer" — and a lot wobblier, which is why most urologists neither recommend nor perform the procedure.
The tunica albuginea, the lining that surrounds the penis's internal workings, is another structural marvel — up to a point. "It is about as thick as a magazine cover," says Dr. Ajay Nehra of the Mayo Clinic, in Rochester, Minnesota. "It's very strong, but not very flexible," factors that enhance erectile firmness but create a potential for a serious injury called penile fracture. Actually, this is more like a muscle tear than a cracked bone. The cause is usually overly athletic intercourse, typically with the woman on top. Such fractures are rare, and it treated within twenty-four hours the tumica can usually be repaired. If not, injection drugs help in most cases. Major tears may require the insertion of a penile prosthesis.
Of ejaculation and orgasm, only the first takes place in the penis. The second occurs in the brain. But ejaculation is, of course, triggered by the brain, which receives pleasurable stimulation from the penis — sometimes only for a minute or two, as women well know — until it passes a certain threshold. As the brain erupts into orgasm, it still has the presence of mind to send signals to the genitalia. Sperm cells have already been produced by the testes and are in the epididymis. Another tube, the vas deferens, connects the epididymis to the urethra and transports the sperm there. (This is why ligating those tubes, in a vasectomy, makes a man sterile.) Glands called seminal vesicles meet the vas just before they enter the urethra. These provice fructose and other secretions required for the sperm to exist outside the body. The prostate, which surrounds the base of the urethra like a donut, also provides chemicals enabling the sperm to complete their trip.
At "show time," sperm are moved from the epididymis, through the vas, and deposited at the bottom of the urethra, near the prostate. At the same moment, the seminal vesicles and prostate contract, emitting their fluids. These secretions mix together, then are forced out by a series of convulsions by the bulbourethral muscle, which surrounds the urethra, near the bottom. (Imagine holding a sausage with the casing cut open at one end in your fist, then squeezing.) "Sperm make a journey the equivalent of a marathon in two to five seconds," says Dr. Abraham Morgentaler, a urologist at Harvard Medical School. Is it any wonder men fall asleep so soon after sex?
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* David M. Friedman, A Mind of Its Own: A Cultural History of the Penis. New York: The Free Press, 2001.
In: All, Books, The Art of Conversation
Talk Show Host Rejects Homophobia
Not that this furthers our understanding any of incomprehensible "gay Republicans", but it is good to know that homophobia is not always treated as just another opinion in the name of "journalistic balance":
[In North Carolina, KZL radio's “Murphy in the Morning Show"] host Jack Murphy stated [to a notoriously homophobic Republican guest], “To compare any gay person to a pedophile is just wrong” and “You can’t insult them for what they are and expect them to want to join the party.”
[from "Press Release: Kindley continues with anti-gay rhetoric; NCAC demands apology now", North Carolina Advocacy Coalition, 13 July 2006, via Pam Spaulding.]
In: All, Common-Place Book, Splenetics
It Is Hatred
Several years ago, I was asked to do the funeral of a gay man who had been beaten to death in a hate crime. At that time, I had never thought deeply about the danger many gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people face in this culture. That week as I worked on the service, I kept hearing a local "Christian" radio station blaming gay and lesbian people for everything wrong in America. By the end of the week I understood the link between religious hate speech and the funeral I was performing.
I know that critics of homosexuality do not consider themselves to be hateful. They would say they "love the sinner but hate the sin." If the shoe were on the other foot, however, and someone were attacking their families, trying to take their children away, and constantly working to pass legislation to deprive them of basic civil rights, at some point they would understand that "homophobia" is too mild a word for such harassment. "Hatred" is the only proper term.
I was raised in Dallas, Texas and had classmates who were in the Klan. I remember that they did not consider themselves to be attacking other people. They perceived themselves to be defenders of Christian America. Their "religion" consisted of an unrelenting attack on people who were black, Jewish or homosexual. If anyone challenged these views, these Klan members considered themselves under attack and believed that their right to free exercise of religion was being threatened. In other words, they felt that harassing other people was a protected expression of their own religious faith.
[…]
Gay bashing is not just an opinion, it is an assault. Just as the Klan did, religious fundamentalists have a right to believe that homosexuality is a sin. They even have a right to preach a message of hate. But when they harass people in public, it is time for Christians to rise to challenge their intolerance. We have an obligation to protect our neighbors from harassment and slander, especially when it is done in our name.It is time to say that gay bashing is not only wrong, it is unchristian. If Christianity is grace, then judgment is the ultimate apostasy. If Christianity is love, then cruelty is the ultimate heresy.
[excerpt from: Jim Rigby, "Real Christians Don't Gay Bash", Huffington Post, 12 July 2006.]
Conservative Government = Bad Government
If government is necessary, bad government, at least for conservatives, is inevitable, and conservatives have been exceptionally good at showing just how bad it can be. Hence the truth revealed by the Bush years: Bad government — indeed, bloated, inefficient, corrupt, and unfair government — is the only kind of conservative government there is. Conservatives cannot govern well for the same reason that vegetarians cannot prepare a world-class boeuf bourguignon: If you believe that what you are called upon to do is wrong, you are not likely to do it very well.
[…]
Political parties expend the time and grueling energy to control government for different reasons. Liberals, while enjoying the perquisites of office, also want to be in a position to use government to solve problems. But conservatives have different motives for wanting power. One is to prevent liberals from doing so; if government cannot be made to disappear, at least it can be prevented from doing any good. The other is to build a political machine in which business and the Republican Party can exchange mutual favors; business will lavish cash on politicians (called campaign contributions) while politicians will throw the money back at business (called public policy).
[excerpted from the much lengthier: Alan Wolfe, "Why Conservatives Can't Govern", Washington Monthly via AlterNet, 6 July 2006.]
Presidential Crap
Fascinating. (From Wayne Madsen Report.)
July 4, 2006 — Even Bush's crap is classified top secret. According to our Austrian sources, Austrian newspapers are currently abuzz with special security details of George W. Bush's recent trip to Vienna. Although the heavy-handed Gestapo-like security measures meted out to Viennese home owners, business proprietors, and pedestrians by US Secret Service agents and local police before and during Bush's visit received widespread Austrian media attention, it was White House "toilet security" ("TOILSEC"), which has Austrians talking the most. The White House flew in a special portable toilet to Vienna for Bush's personal use during his visit. The Bush White House is so concerned about Bush's security, the veil of secrecy extends over the president's bodily excretions. The special port-a-john captured Bush's feces and urine and flew the waste material back to the United States in the event some enterprising foreign intelligence agency conducted a sewage pipe operation designed to trap and examine Bush's waste material. One can only wonder why the White House is taking such extraordinary security measures for the presidential poop.
In: All, Common-Place Book, Curious Stuff
Beard of the Week XII
Yes, we are back from our trip to Rome. We returned late last Thursday night having lost none of the 22 people in our group. This was Isaac's first venture organizing a tour, and he had great fun as tour guide, mother hen, and font of all historic and cultural wisdom about Rome, ably aided in some details by our friends-in-Rome, Renzo & Jim.
So many beards, too, both classical and modern, although I only took a few photographs. For instance: the gentleman to the right. I can tell you that we found his tomb — and this bust — in the church of Santa Maria dell'Anima, the national church of Germany, near the Piazza Navona. However, I failed to note down his name, although Isaac claims that it was (in English) "Frank" something or other; anyone passing through might find out and send word. I also failed to note the time period of the piece, although one might guess 17th century. The church itself dates ratyher further back, although the modern facade apparently dates from the 16th century. The church is only recently reopened after extensive restoration.
There are, of course, many more churches to report on although we visited many fewer than we did on our visit in 2001. There are also more beards, and more stories to tell as time goes along.
Last Stand
Two harrowing snippets from Seymour Hersch's "Last Stand: The military’s problem with the President’s Iran policy" (New Yorker, 10 July 2006):
A retired four-star general, who ran a major command, said, “The [military-planning] system [that's looking for excuses to bomb Iran] is starting to sense the end of the road, and they don’t want to be condemned by history. They want to be able to say, ‘We stood up.’ ”
[…]
In late April, the military leadership, headed by General Pace, achieved a major victory when the White House dropped its insistence that the plan for a bombing campaign include the possible use of a nuclear device to destroy Iran’s uranium-enrichment plant at Natanz, nearly two hundred miles south of Tehran. The huge complex includes large underground facilities built into seventy-five-foot-deep holes in the ground and designed to hold as many as fifty thousand centrifuges. “Bush and Cheney were dead serious about the nuclear planning,” the former senior intelligence official told me. “And Pace stood up to them. Then the world came back: ‘O.K., the nuclear option is politically unacceptable.’ ”
Still Valid after all These Years
I'm afraid I can't really help myself. This remarkable little googlette came my way:
Is the Uncertainty Principle still valid?
Were this a joke, the obvious punch line would be:
Not sure.
I know, I know — perhaps later we'll have a learned essay on the Uncertainty Principle — I've got notes someplace. But, I'm too tired tonight to do other than snort at the unintended humor of the Internet.
However, I do wonder why one might think the Uncertainty Principle might no longer be valid. Has the Bush administration been trying to create their own reality at the quantum level?
Terrorists' Aides
Every time a Republican attacks our freedoms a terrorist gets his wings.
[RJ Eskow, "A Warning For America – When Republicans Hurt Our Freedoms, The Terrorists Win", The Huffington Post, 1 July 2006.]
Norwegian Fireball
You know, if it weren't for the random mailing lists that I subscribe to — I mean, do any of the "top blogs" cover this stuff? — I wouldn't even know about cool things like last week's fireball in Norway (thanks to NASA's Space Weather):
NORWEGIAN FIREBALL: A spectacular fireball that flew over Norway last week, causing sonic booms and making the ground shake when a meteorite presumably hit the ground, was not quite as spectacular as first reported. Researchers now estimate the kinetic energy of the event as 300 tons of TNT, far short of the Hiroshima-like blast described in some news reports.
Space rocks with this much energy hit Earth more often than is commonly supposed–once a month or so. Most go unnoticed because they enter the atmosphere over uninhabited stretches of our planet, or during broad daylight when fireballs are difficult to see, or at late hours of the night when would-be sky watchers are asleep. This one was seen (and by some accounts felt), so it made a bigger "splash" than usual. Searchers are still scouring the countryside for possible fragments of the meteorite.
Noah's Rainbow
During the most recent round of Republican gay-bashing — i.e., the national "debate" about the "gay marriage" amendment — I listened to the rehash of the usual vacuous and specious arguments about why gay people should not be allowed to participate in the institution of matrimony, and reflected on some responses. I suffer from l'éspirit d'éscalier to an acute degree, so I'm only now getting around to them.
This one is for the "God created Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve" crowd.
Okay, let's work with this idea that the Adam and Eve thing really was God's signalling that the human club was to be exclusively heterosexual, and let's overlook for a moment that the first thing all that unbridled testosterone led to was original sin, closely followed by the world's first murder, just as soon as there were enough people to have a murderer and a victim. Skip ahead through lots and lots and lots of begats until we get to another of the biblical literalists' favorites: the flood in the time of Noah.
Remember this one? The one that killed everything and everyone except those who were on the ark (and also, evidently, spared fish, but no matter). Why the flood? Recall: God was so put out with the way humans had turned out that he decided to wipe them off the face of the Earth and start over with something better. So, what's the obvious deduction here? That the heterosexual-only version of humankind didn't work out so well.
And so, the flood. Before the flood: straights only; after the flood: gay people were part of the new, improved version of humankind. Where did they come from, one might wonder?
Although it doesn't really matter, there area couple of options. The best option for the creationists is simply to assume that God did it as part of his new, improved design, for whatever inscrutible reason He happened to have had. (Perhaps he thought the pre-flood Earth was too drab and underdecorated.)
Another option, for those inclined towards a genetic cause of homosexuality, is that one or more of Ham, Shem, or Japheth — Noah's boys — were gay and his (or their) progeny inherited. Or, to be more precise if the "gay gene" is inherited through the female line, one or more of their unnamed wives could have been lesbian. The probability that at least one of the sons or daughters-in-law was gay is > 35%.*
But the details don't really matter. The big picture is this: antediluvian: straights only, didn't work; postdiluvian: gays and straights together in a new, improved creation, still going strong.
And don't forget this bit of symbolism, usually overlooked by the fundamentalists: God was so happy with his bold, new creation — which evidently differed from version 1.0 by the introduction of gay people — that he sent Noah a rainbow, the universal symbol of gay pride, as a sign of his covenant that this time He got it right.
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*Apply the binomial distribution, with pgay = 0.1; if pgay = 0.05, the probability is >23%, still a good bet.
Beard of the Week XI
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Before I forget to mention it, Isaac and I are taking a vacation in Rome starting next week, so I and Beard of the Week will be on a brief hiatus starting then, but we plan to return in a couple of weeks, perhaps with some new beards from Italy.
The last time we visited Rome was in 2001, less than a month after September 11. Rome is a destination we choose for a number of pretty obvious reasons, but we also have friends there whom we like to visit, and Isaac likes to revisit to the city he lived in for a good part of the 80s when he was resident in the Abbey of Sant'Anselmo, and Secretary to the Abbot Primate of the Benedectine Order.
This week's beard, then, is Isaac's, as it looked on our last Rome trip. The top picture ("Saint Isaac") I took in front of a church-yard gate in the villiage of Albano, where we stopped on our way to see the gardens in Ninfa. The lower picture I took in Bernini's Colonnade at St. Peter's Basilica, Vatican City.
In: All, Beard of the Week, Reflections
Oppenness + Tolerance = Creativity
People who want to take a swing at San Francisco [using it as a right-wing code phrase for "gay"] should think twice. Yes, the Irish coffee at Fisherman's Wharf is overpriced, and the bus tour of Haight-Ashbury is disappointing (where are the hippies?), but the Bay Area is the cradle of the computer and software industry, which continues to create jobs for our children.
The iPod was not developed by Baptists in Waco. There may be a reason for this. Creative people thrive in a climate of openness and tolerance, since some great ideas start out sounding ridiculous.
Creativity is a key to economic progress. Authoritarianism is stifling. I don't believe that Mr. Hewlett and Mr. Packard were gay, but what's important is: In San Francisco, it doesn't matter so much. When the cultural Sturmbannfuhrers try to marshal everyone into straight lines, it has consequences for the economic future of this country.
Garrison Keillor, "With ineptitude on full display, the party's over for Republicans", Baltimore Sun, 8 June 2006.
Atheistic Lions
According to Reuters:*
KIEV (Reuters) – A man shouting that God would keep him safe was mauled to death by a lioness in Kiev zoo after he crept into the animal's enclosure, a zoo official said on Monday.
"The man shouted 'God will save me, if he exists', lowered himself by a rope into the enclosure, took his shoes off and went up to the lions," the official said.
So, can we consider the question of the existence of God settled now in the negative? The Argument by Lion has to be logically at least as sound as the Argument from Design.
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*"Lioness in zoo kills man who invoked God", Reuters, 5 June 2006.
Heterosexuality in the Free Market
I'm reminded of a 1961 British film called Victim. Or rather I'm reminded of a line Pauline Kael wrote when she reviewed it. The film was about a married barrister (Dirk Bogarde) who is blackmailed because he had a homosexual affair. It was an early step in popular culture's being sympathetic to gay people, though it also had lines like "nature played me a dirty trick!"
When Kael reviewed the film, she said, "it's a cleverly conceived moralistic thriller…various characters are able to point out the viciousness of the English laws, which, by making homosexuality a crime, make homosexuals the victims of 90% of the blackmail cases."
However, others were less comfortable with the film's mostly sympathetic stance. Kael went on: "A number of the reviewers were uneasy about the thesis that consenting adults should be free from legal prosecution for their sex habits; they felt that if homosexuality were not a crime it would spread. (The assumption seems to be that heterosexuality couldn't hold its own on the free market.)"
It's that last line – about not holding its own on the free market – that I always remembered and found funny in her review.
Can heterosexuality hold its own on the free market? Yes, it can! Because you don't CHOOSE to be heterosexual, do you? If you're a heterosexual man, you don't look at a woman and go, hmmm I think I will choose to be attracted to her. Here I go, it's starting. Here I go… there!
Why do people think gay sexual preference is a choice, and heterosexual sexual preference is an innate instinct? It's very stupid, and lacking in empathy and common sense, to think one is a choice, and the other an instinct. Stop it! Would you?
[Chris Durang, "Bush and the Ugly Face of Tolerance", Huffington Post, 6 June 2006.]
The Un-Threat
AMERICA HAS much more to fear than gay marriage. So it was disappointing to hear President Bush's radio address on Saturday, and his speech yesterday, in which he defends marriage, scolds activist judges, and supports the Marriage Protection Amendment, which would change the Constitution by only allowing one man and one woman to wed.
"Government, by recognizing and protecting marriage, serves the interests of all," Bush said, noting that straight marriages provide a safe haven for children and a pillar for society.
One problem: Gay marriage isn't a real threat. In Massachusetts, married gay couples are not masterminding terrorist bombings. They are not refining weapons-grade uranium nor are they running up federal budget deficits. Married gay couples are not monitoring their fellow Americans' phone calls and e-mails. They haven't cut Medicaid. And they didn't put that doughnut hole in the middle of Medicare's new prescription drug program.
If there's anything to be said about two years of gay marriage in Massachusetts, it's congratulations to the couples and now back to our regularly scheduled conversations about "American Idol " and "The Sopranos."
[excerpted from an editorial, "Gay marriage, so what?", Boston Globe, 6 June 2006.]
Attn: Gay Flag-Burners
Other Republican operatives say the strategy [of re-introducing hot topics like "gay marriage" and "flag burning"] is a waste of time when most Republican voters are angry or divided over the Iraq war, high gas prices and immigration.
"Those are the issues that are dominating people’s dinnertable talk," said Scott Reed, who managed Bob Dole’s 1996 presidential campaign. Reed dismissed Frist’s plan [of forcing votes on perennial conservative favorites like "gay marriage", flag burning, and the estate tax], saying: "If you’re a gay who likes to burn flags, it’s going to be a long year."
[James Kuhnhenn, "GOP pushes bans on gay marriage, burning U.S. flag: Moves seen as effort to rouse party’s base", KnightRidder newspapers via Columbus [OH] Dispatch, 4 June 2006.]
Beard of the Week X
When I was in graduate school, our department (physics) had a secretary who was very sweet, very helpful, but rather naive in many ways. One day — and I don't remember how this came about, since encouraging females in this way was not exactly up my alley — she happened to feel my beard. I have always kept it pretty short, but never stubbly.
She was surprised to find that it felt soft. I was surprised, of course, that she was surprised. Just now I've started wondering whether this softness has a noticable variability with color. Empirical studies may be called for.
Memorial-Day Margaritas
A weekend ago Isaac and I went to a large, backyard picnic, hosted by some friends, to celebrate Memorial Day in the traditional way. Among other amusements, we were entertained by a young magician who kept the adults and the annoying and precocious children amused. I ate hot dogs; they always taste better at Memorial-Day picnics.
New freinds whom we met there were circulating at one point with a pitcher of their own-recipe Margaritas, which were quite tasty and suited my favored style of cooking from scratch: opening cans. I honed my skills in the seventies.
If I wrote it down correctly, this is the recipe Steve & Lorraine recited. I haven't tried it myself yet for accuracy and understandability, but none of the ingredients look dangerous.
Memorial-Day Margaritas
- 1 can frozen limeade concentrate
- 1 can tequila
- 3 cans water
- 1 can triple sec
- 1 can beer
Mix and put in the freezer for awhile. We had ours in salt-rimmed plastic cups.
Let me know if you try it and it turns out the way it should.
Googlettes
Continuing my morbid fascination with the search strings that people use to arrive at this blog, I feel that a word is needed for these often spectacularly odd phrases. I'm toying with "googlettes", but I'm not committed.
There are, of course, a couple more odd googlettes to mention today. Strikingly, both appeared on the same day, within hours of each other. Beyond that, I see no connection except that each googlette led here. They were:
- contraceptive doilies
- Are white belts gay?
I would like to write brilliant and biting satirical bagatelles on these topics, but my mind is so confounded that it remains blank. My first thought is to wonder what could possibly be going through these peoples' minds — my second thought is to shy away from knowing, because it might disrupt my own tenuous sanity to peek at their thought processes. "Contraceptive doilies" sounds like it could only have come from some Monty Python "Bulgarian Phrasebook" sketch* played in reverse.
By the way, a Google search for "googlette" turns up "about" 496 references# (and few of them look like they come from independent sources), but the predominant use of the word (to mean "a start-up subsidiary of Google, the company") is far less useful than my proposal. Besides: only 496 references can easily be surpassed.
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*"My nipples explode with delight", etc.
#I have been amused for some time at how vestigial old-habits since the common use of digital watches have led to a request for the current time getting a response like "about three-seventeen". What's "about" about it?
In: All, Curious Stuff, Such Language!