5 (Literary) Quotes About the Penis

Lovelies:

The unofficial "Week of the Man" is drawing to a conclusion over here at MK headquarters. For the most part, I am a lover of men, not a fighter. And many (or should I say MENy?) of my dearest friends happen to be male. As it turns out, so is my father!

Nonetheless, I've been picking on them a little over the past few days--and I'm not quite ready to stop. So I'll sign off for the weekend with a few (literary) quotes about the notorious body part (not always so B.I.G.) that makes men men. And also makes them complete idiots sometimes.

So if you dare, you might spice up the cocktail party chatter this weekend by busting out with some of these high-brow-yet-naughty quotes. (How to work them in to conversation? Hmm. Good question. Perhaps while standing next to a young man, as you both wait to get yourself a drink, you might say, "I notice you have a penis. Well, the renowned essayist Michel de Montaigne had one too--how about that? And you know what he had to say about his?")

Even if you don't repeat these, I hope you enjoy them. I also hope you'll add to this list, because I know it's woefully incomplete. There's got to be something out there from James Salter's luminously sexy novel, A Sport and a Pastime, for instance. Or from Norman Mailer or Anaïs Nin (not that I read either of those two writers). Chime in, peeps!

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Then came adolescence. Half my daily life spent firing my wad down the toilet, into my fat elder sister's brassière, anywhere. "Come and give me all you've got," the neighbour's cat whispered. So I did. I battered my penis to a pulp. I tried to cut down to 17 sessions a day, to save it snapping off or getting cancer, but it had a life of its own. Especially at the thought of shikses.

--PHILIP ROTH in his hilariously naughty debut novel, PORTNOY'S COMPLAINT

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My dick is a moonbeam.

--STUART DYBEK in his short story "Sauerkraut Soup"

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We are right to note the license and disobedience of this member which thrusts itself forward too inopportunely when we do not want it to, and which so inopportunely lets us down when we most need it; it imperiously contests for authority with our will: it stubbornly and proudly refuses all our incitements, both of the mind and hand.

--MICHEL de MONTAIGNE

She drew somewhat aside, examining his body, exploring it with her hand, fondling his penis. "How strange a man is. Poor limp helpless little thing, what good are you now?"

--EDWARD ABBEY in his novel BLACK SUN

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Eager desires confound my first intent,

Succeeding shame does more success prevent,

And rage at last confirms me impotent.

Ev'n her fair hand, which might bid heat return

To frozen age and make cold hermits burn,

Applied to my dead cinder warms no more

Than fire to ashes could past flames restore.

Trembling, confused, despairing, limber, dry,

A wishing, weak, unmoving lump I lie.

--JOHN WILMOT, EARL OF ROCHESTER, libertine and satirist, in his poem "The Imperfect Enjoyment"

(Johnny Depp playing the Earl in the 2005 movie THE LIBERTINE)

Aristotle says that humor that relies on innuendo is more sophisticated than the kind that relies on ribaldry. What about those that do both, like the example above?

xxx