In case you haven't heard of the Internet sensation caused this week by a pro football player named Chris Cooley, just Google his name and you will immediately find out. In short, Cooley, a popular and talented member of the Washington Redskins exposed an important fact about himself when he posted a photo on his personal blog.
He sits in the nude and uses his computer. Yup, alert the authorities now because I can't imagine the world can deal with that without some sort of discipline. Oh yeah, the other thing he revealed was his penis and its immediate vicinity. That's how we found out that he blogs sans clothes.
Cooley apologized to his fans and the tens of thousands who got to the site prior to him removing the photo, and explained that the penis sighting wasn't intentional. For those who can still find a third party site that features the photo, www.playingthefield.net I think you'll agree with me that you must focus on seeking out his member. He was trying to share pages from the Redskins play book that occupy 85% of the area in the photo. Since those pages are bright white and his crotch area was in shadows caused by the book in his lap, I think I can agree with Cooley that he isn't an exhibitionist.
But I'm sure you're asking yourself, why is she telling me this? Here's my angle, other than the fact that I was forced, forced I tell you, to look at the crotch shot to write this piece. The first comment by a fan after Cooley's apology on the landing page of his site is written by someone isn't completely convinced that the penis was exposed unintentionally. But, that fan is very sure that using the proper word for that body part is unacceptable. The writer suggested the oft used word, JOHNSON, all in caps by the way, as a way to deal with Cooley's explanation.
What exactly does that say about us as a society? Can you extrapolate any general thoughts from one comment on a sports blog? I think you can. The written word is rarely used unintentionally, even on the Internet; words might be misspelled but they aren't put there by mistake. The sound of the word penis is so cringe-worthy that despite the fact that we became acquainted with Cooley's, the word is still too uncomfortable to read.
As the week has gone on, comments have gotten raunchier and now sound like ones I'd expect from sports fans who regularly devour blogs and provide commentary that is vulgar. The size of Cooley's penis has become a topic as well as homophobic comments that arise from the fact that the use of the play book while nude necessarily means that his penis must have touched the book somehow. That isn't something a heterosexual man would allow. OK then.
Cooley is now writing back in a defensive and vulgar manner. There will be no logical end to this banter, so I'll put a period on it this way. No good deed (in this case his apology) goes unpunished.