The Penis Trap

by Gary Phillips

I think about my penis from time to time. Not always in a sexual way but just happy that it’s there and, even in my advancing years, more or less works like I want it to. Certainly the demand on the little fella is not as great as it was as say in my twenties, in some ways at least. In other ways, like the need to sometimes get up in the middle of the night to take a leak, it’s a good thing that whatever neural connections between my brain and my Johnson are still functioning. I suppose, if my 94-year-old aunt is any guide, there might come a time when you’re awakened, but the worn out muscles of the body can’t respond fast enough.

Used to be as the years piled up, men had no choice but to think of the great sexual times they’d had with their one-eyed monster, as Willy the Shake put it, in the past tense. Nowadays, what with penile enhancement surgeries and wonder pills, a man can swing his dick until he draws his last breath. STDs have increased in retirement communities, grandpa porn is upon us, and Morgan Freeman is thinking about having a baby with his one time step-granddaughter now paramour (yes, it’s a creepy scenario out of a Cornell Woolrich story). There’s no escaping the penis trap. And middle-aged men seem particularly susceptible.

Brett Favre, a 41-year-old Super Bowl winning quarterback, who until recently was still proving his mettle on the gridiron while also being a youngish grandfather, was busted for allegedly sending unwanted pics of his John Thomas to several women, including a former New York Jets online reporter, Jenn Sterger. The married Favre, who was playing for the Jets at the time of the purported incidents, admitted to having left voice mails for Sterger but claimed he sent no such photos.

He was fined 50 grand by the NFL for stonewalling their investigation but not suspended. Thereafter he retired ... but he’s done that before and come back. Sterger, who’d declined to date with Favre and said she received the e-mailed pics after this, has called the aging quarterback a “creepy douche.” The owner of said penis, the league stated, was not ascertained. Unlike the Clinton-Lewinsky case, where the famed blue dress had a semen sample preserved on it, and thus the prez had to admit his affair, Favre had no such contact with the object of his obsession other than maybe into a tissue he threw out. Nor was he subpoenaed to have his penis examined for similarities.

Anthony Weiner, the recently resigned former firey Congressman from New York City, sent his penis pics around too. Like Favre, there was also no sexual contact but, more importantly, seemingly his pics were wanted. From porn star Ginger Lee to a blackjack dealer to a college coed, Weiner got it on in a hands off kind of way. Lisa Weiss, the blackjack dealer, has talked about her and Weiner having phone sex, getting pics and his tweets to her such as this when he’d missed a call from her, “How did I miss this chance to rock your world by phone? Give me another chance! Stalk me baby. Very hot.”

On Bill Maher’s HBO politics program, Real Time, he and actor Jane Lynch (A Judd Apatow regular and the hysterical, designer track suit-wearing Coach Sylvester in the Glee TV show) did a swinging reading of one of the online exchanges between Weiner and Weiss. In Weiner’s case, he too tried to forestall further probing into the matter after he’d made a rookie mistake and broadcast a throbbing crotch shot when he meant to send it as a private e-mail to one of his cyber honeys. While he’s been sending such content before and after he was married, I imagine like any of us he got excited or distracted, he’s a multi-tasker after all, and it’s easy to hit the wrong virtual button.

At first Weiner did a Clinton and denied and deflected that was his junk. Defensively he noted since he was a kid, he’d been the butt of Weiner’s wiener jokes. Ha, ha, motherfucker. Though tellingly, when he was asked point blank by Luke Russert of NBC, is that is or is that ain’t your whang:

Weiner: “I didn’t send that picture out.”

Russert: “That’s not a picture of you?”

Weiner: “You know, I can’t say with certitude. My system was hacked. Pictures can be manipulated. Pictures can be dropped in and inserted.”

He then adapted Favre’s style on the field and went right at his opponents. Weiner did a media offense for a few days where he gave a rambling press briefing and did the media circuit nuancing his denial. But as there were more pics to be had, what with one of his online paramours Meagan Broussard (they hooked up cyber-wise on Facebook) looking to sell her story and pics, and right wing race baiter and lefty hater Andrew Breitbart making contact with Broussard through a friend and having a few choice pics in his possession, Weiner knew what time it was. He admitted all in a surreal press conference at first hijacked by Breitbart where the humble one sang his own praises at the mic, including demanding an apology from Weiner for castigating him. When Weiner got into the room, Breitbart joined the other journalists as if he was one of them. Choking back tears, Weiner copped to his peccadilloes and apologized to Breitbart—who has never apologized to the likes of Shirley Sherrod who he wronged

This penis business leads me to the anti-circumcision measure to be voted on by the good citizens of San Francisco in November. If passed in the city that banned McDonald’s Happy Meals, it calls for the circumcision of boys under the age of 18 to be deemed a misdemeanor, punishable by a maximum of one year in prison and a $1,000 fine. There’s no religious exceptions in the measure, though a dire circumstance is exempted. The backers of this measure have published two comic books about the adventures of Foreskin Man, a blonde, blue-eyed muscled up champion of the turtleneck. In what harkens back to images of the hook-nosed sinister Jew of yellow journalism comic strips and editorial cartoons, the Monster Mohel is portrayed in that vein in the second issue.

Now I can’t say with certitude that just because former Congressman Weiner is Jewish he’s circumcised, but I’d put more than even money on it that he is. I base this not so much on his heritage as his age. Though several years younger than me, and more cut (see, I’ve seen his chest shots, but have assiduously avoided seeking out and viewing his Full Monty pics) I grudgingly admit, but I’m circumcised as this used to be a regular procedure of men of a certain age in metropolitan areas. In fact I recall being freaked the fuck out in high school seeing some guys in gym class with the turtleneck and wondering if they were deformed.

Never mind that various studies have shown STDs and risk of HIV infection are reduced with circumcised penises. Or that cervical cancer is decreased with sex with cut men, leading to new agey great pickup lines like, “Baby, with me you get a good time and help your vagina.” Ignoring the foregoing, how about just for the sake of appearances? Jeez. I won’t even get into the arguments my wife, who’s Jewish by the way, and me, who isn’t, got into over whether our son should be circumcised or not.

The anti-circumcisionists, who try to lamely and inaccurately equate their movement with the anti female genital mutilation cause, inspired a signature drive in Santa Monica. Jena Troutman, billed as a lactation consultant (hmm, wasn’t this a line Weiner and/or Favre used?) had filed the initiative papers to gather signatures but subsequently withdrew the effort.

Well, hell, the congressman and quarterback, both retirees, along with that smiling goof from the Enzyte commercials, could become the spokesmodels for the pro circumcision crowd. Tweet pics of their proud and erect and clean members around for all to see while extolling the virtues of the foreskin-less lifestyle.

Yeah, man, chicks dig the sleek look. Like when the Thing and the Hulk squared off, we’ll have the battle royal comic book where Sleek Man battles Foreskin Man for the Treasure of the Golden Vagina. Epic, I tell you.

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