Those Things of Which We Dare Not Speak, But Should

A few weeks ago, I was approached by Aaron Kemmer to review his new book about maximizing one's penile health. As an advocate for positive sexual communication and healthy approaches to issues of a bodily and sexual nature, I happily agreed.

My reaction to its straightforward illustrations pertaining to the male member and how to best enjoy, enhance and utilize it, made me realize that men may have been given the short end of the stick with regard to open discourse about their most precious possession. Why, I wondered, are we so much more able to openly discuss and view the female anatomy than the male?

As the author of a book as openly sexual as Your Orgasmic Pregnancy: Little Sex Secrets Every Hot Mama Should Know, one would think I'd be the exception to this strange unspoken rule that a man's member should neither be viewed nor discussed without adolescentgiggles and a shameful sense that viewing this material was akin to sneaking a peak at a porn magazine when you were a teenager. But no!? Between me and the company I keep, you'd have thought we were looking at a banned copy of some subversive politically incriminating manifesto under a fascist regime. Ridiculous. There were requests to toss it, hide it, refuse to review it, etc. among my inner circle. Part of me wanted to concur.

But then, I began to grow angry on behalf of all of you poor men who have to contend with such reaction when wanting a safe and open forum for discussing all things penis. We women fiercely protect our rights to speaking about whatever aspect of our anatomy or sexuality we wish, but it seems that there's something threatening about encouraging men to engage in the same sort of ribald discussions women claim as their birthright.

Whatever we fear and flee will eventually master us, so if our fear of the penis isn't resolved, we will be relegated to unhealthy expressions and deviations of the male sexual organ and drive. Given that the male sex drive tends to greater force in the yin/yang scheme of things, denying a healthy and safe form of discussion for all men to participate in at will, we are ensuring that problems of prostate, fulfillment and disconnect will stay on the rise.

Mind you, Kemmer's book is not at all pornographic. Rather, it is geared to teaching men how to befriend their penises, to utilize various exercises for maximum size, pleasure and virility and to create a more open discourse with regard to men and their members.

With such positive intentions, how could this book invoke such automatic responses of shock, horror and hush hush?

I pity the men whose organs and sexuality have been relegated to a space of adolescent jokes, pornography, 'male speak' and the inability to have open and honest conversations which would benefit prostate health, sexual health and intimate relationships; and hope that we can, one day soon, come to a place evolved enough to include all things human as acceptable topics of conversation and action-oriented discourse.

Creating a sense that bodies are OK to be in is the first step to healing the sexual and sensual fissure in this nation of ours. Communication is founded on truth and acceptance and an open mind, not upholding taboo and shaming people.

We clearly have a lot of work to do to that end.

Follow Danielle Cavallucci on Twitter: www.twitter.com/cavallucci

Comments

[sunnybunny]

Well I like them. I like to see them, talk about them, I even have one I like to play with every chance I get.

[PlaceboStudman]

Ain't society grand (sarcasm!). It's been this way for 7 millenia, at least, starting as early as the pre-dynastic fertility cults of Ancient Egypt and their worship of the fertility god, Nim, who is depicted with an enormous exaggerated erection. Jump a few millenia and Look at The Bible (old testament) and it's *supposed* condemnation of homosexuality. Several mentions of male-on-male sexual behavior, yet not hardly a reference to lesbianism. Jump a few more millenia to the 1600's Salem Mass, and women who were sexually aggressive were seen as witches and burned at the stake (seen as an obvious threat to the male masculinity). Jump to today's society where it is still very much acceptable and almost understood that a disabled man is considered "half a man" because he may not be able to "perform".­..whether he actually can or not...Even Stephen Hawking has children, folks! Believe me I should know, I am disabled and I live this one every day.

[IvyShoots]

No one was ever burned at the stake in Salem. Fourteen women and six men were executed, none because of threatening "the male masculinity" or for being "sexually aggressive­." Don't make things up.

[PlaceboStudman]

While your numbers are accurate, you give no alternative motive to my contention, widely held by scholars, that many of those women who were deemed witches were doneso because they refused to keep their "lustful" desires to themself. Colonial puritanical belief, as was the law of the land in the 1600's, was very deeply rooted in the repression of women, and the dominance of men, on a purely sexual basis. In fact, ALL religions possess a strong tendency toward sexual oppression of women, and a condemnation, even condemnati­on-to-deat­h of anyone who strayed from the socially accepted morays of the time

[SelenicMagick]

Whether they were "burned at the stake" or otherwise put to death the reality is that those deaths had MORE to do with patriarchy and sexuality than most are willing to admit to.

In point of fact, while none of the people involved WERE witches most of the women involved WERE put to death because of accusations that they "practiced witchcraft" and "tempted" the men making the accusations sexually.

[PlaceboStudman]

Follow up: Women *TODAY* face similar and sometimes worse fates, simply for being women. Women in Kenya and Ethiopia are condemned to death as witches by self appointed male witch doctors. They face "female circumcision" as well. Women in the middle east face "honor" killings when they disgrace their families by acting in promiscuous or socially unacceptable, usually sexually overt manners.

So, really, things haven't changed THAT much for women in 400 years

[DownerCow]

It has always been thus. Women's sexuality is beautiful, tender, nurturing, a precious gift bestowed on drooling, undeserving, threatening, ugly men. If a man looks in a woman's window, he is a peeping tom. If a woman looks in a man's window, he is exposing himself.