It has been known by many different names to many different people:
Knob, dick, schmuck, rod, tool, percy, John Thomas, the bald headed mouse, the yoghurt-spitting sausage, KojakÂ’s Moneybox, the salty salami, Captain Winky, the pink lighthouse that wants to draw you onto its rocks, the sentimental teaser, the crimson butterfly, the arrow of love and of course, Russell, the fur-faced chicken.
It has meant different things to different cultures
To the ancient Greeks it was a thing to worship. They used to parade the streets with a 150 foot golden phallus with a star on top, like some kind of bizarre pornographic Christmas tree, with two heaving sacks beneath it.
To the early Christians it was an instrument of evil. They called it the DevilÂ’s Rod believing that and believed demons were created from sperm that had fallen upon the ground.
To the people of the 1980s the funniest thing imaginable was a wicked cartoon willie that could speak. Perhaps the most unbelievable of all.
It is a thing of pride and shame, it can inspire laughter and fear, it is a symbol of power and yet it is incredibly fragile and weak, it can be a pound of flesh or an ounce of winkles, it can be used to express both love and hate, it can create life and it can condemn us to death. And it can do wees as well.
How can only small, wrinkled and ridiculous flap of skin and sinew be all these things?
What in the name of cock is going on?
A year ago I couldn’t give a toss. Or perhaps not. Giving a toss was as far as my relationship with Little Richy went. I am a man. I try not to think about my penis, let alone anyone else’s. But then I had the idea to do a male version of the worldwide smash “The Vagina Monologues”. I saw a gap in the market and I couldn’t resist the male urge to fill it. I have spent the last six months thinking about cocks, reading about cocks, talking to men about their cocks, looking at pictures of cocks. It’s driving me insane. I’m beginning to wish I’d done a show about really big tits instead. Maybe next year. Do please send in any pictures or videos that you think might help me in my research.
I set up a website at www.talkingcock.co.uk with two anonymous questionnaires (one for men, one for women) all about the sergeant with one blue stripe who loves to stand to attention. There are questions about length, girth, penile injuries, unusual penises, wanking, as well as what it means to be a man. I got a thousand responses in the first 24 hours. A month and a bit later I have already topped 3000. The site will stay open for as long as I do the show. So go and take part. No lying though! In my survey the average penis length comes out as just under 7 inches, which is about an inch longer than any other survey IÂ’ve seen. Which means that either big cocked blokes like filling in questionnaires, or more likely that when men have been measuring themselves theyÂ’ve really dug the ruler in, as far as it would go. TheyÂ’ve broken skin. It seems odd that men are so insecure that they feel it necessary to lie in an anonymous questionnaire. But I think that maybe they actually believe their cocks are bigger than they are. They are lying to themselves.
As you may already be able to see, learning all about my Cyclops sausage dog has been quite a fascinating journey and one that has shown me much about what it means to be a man. Very early on I saw that the status of men and their penises is on very dodgy ground. I wanted to work out why John Wayne Bobbitt, having his penis cut off and thrown into a field, is seen as a humorous event! If a man did anything vaguely similar to a woman (even if she had like Bobbitt done something to “deserve” it) then he would quite rightly be seen as evil. So why do women and men find it funny when it happens to a man?
I was also astonished to find out how much men identify themselves through their penis. I got a very moving story from an American man who was born at a time when practically all American men were circumcised. And although he also was circumcised, he looked as if he wasnÂ’t. The doctor hadnÂ’t done a great job. Yet he spent the next 30 years feeling defective and different and miserable.
And of course, thousands, maybe millions of men worry because they have a penis that differs from the others in size or shape. I’ve had reports of penises the exact size and shape of a pepparami, others that are like three cock cans stacked on top of each other, another that had two holes at the end and was referred to by the owner as “the double barrelled shot-gun” and one, rather delightfully, with a vein in the shape of a question mark on it. Like some kind of a perverted Batman villain!
Again these differences are regarded as funny by most people. Men laugh loudly because they donÂ’t want anyone thinking their purple-headed mountain is small or defective (though they would probably like to claim that they had the coke can one). Women laugh, I donÂ’t know, possibly because they feel men are arrogant and insensitive and so they deserve to be mocked.
But men have admitted to me that their “unusual” penises (though, god help me, after I’ve been through all this, I have to conclude there is no such thing as a usual penis) make them feel ashamed, unmanly, unlovable and even suicidal. Ironically, like the guy who was and wasn’t circumcised, most of these men are worrying over nothing. Most of them actually have fairly average size penises, some are still worried even though they have 7 and a half inch long todgers, the width of jumbo sausages. We are made to feel that a cock the size of a baby’s arm, is the ultimate symbol of masculinity. In fact I’ve had many stories demonstrating how large penises can be a cross to bear. Some couples are unable to have penetrative sex at all. You can’t fit a square peg into a round hole. Many women have been injured by an over-sized spam javelin. Although some women (and men) undoubtedly get some psychological pleasure out of being filled and stretched, the scientific facts are that most penises are six inches long and most vaginas are also six inches long. It’s a match. Most women don’t actually enjoy being rammed in the cervix. And women can only feel the first three inches of a winkie anyway, because there are no nerve endings further in to the velvet glove than that. Because it would make child birth too painful. Rather than the walk in the park it is at the moment.
Although most women realise that size (which probably more accurately means girth) is important, the majority also realise that there is far more to successful love making than a massive tummy banana. In fact many women revealed that some big cocked men think they have done enough by just turning up and donÂ’t put any effort in. But even so most men still want a big one. There is an evolutionary argument that human males evolved big penises, not to attract women, but to intimidate other men. If youÂ’re ever seen monkeys in the jungle, or small boys in changing rooms you will see that there seems to be some truth in this. The only people who really suffer from penis envy are men.
Penis size, erectile dysfunction, anxiety about womenÂ’s high sexual expectations in the modern world, all these things are making men feel more and more unsure of what and who they are. I think straight men need to look to our gay counterparts to see what actually being a man is about. IÂ’m not saying we all have to start fucking blokes, but some of you might be happier if you did! No, gay men were once persecuted and ashamed of who they were, but then they stood up for what they were. They accepted themselves. They were proud of themselves and they didnÂ’t give a monkeys about what anyone else thought. Now they have a true sense of identity. I think straight men are in similar need of such a movement. But all the stupid macho bullshit means we have to compete, even if it sends us all sinking further into the quagmire.
In my cock celebration, gay men are at the fore-front. After all they not only love their own cocks, they love everyone elseÂ’s too! I thank you for your support fellas. Every cause needs its extremists.
I will leave the final words to Leonardo Da Vinci, the To quote Leonardo Da Vinci the man who first really investigated and documented the penis (although he did draw it with two urethras, on for sperm and one for urine, but maybe he had met that double barrelled shot gun bloke)
“A man who is ashamed to show or name the penis is wrong. Instead of being anxious to hide it, man ought to display it… with honour!”
I will be calling him as a witness in my forthcoming trial!
Richard Herring is appearing in his show “Talking Cock” at the Soho Theatre in London from Wednesday 25th September - Saturday 19th October (not Sundays) at 9.15pm. Box Office: 020 7478 0100
