The Perplexed Penis

The Perplexed Penis

Three friends were having drinks at their local tavern in Umbilo, Kwazulu Natal. Relaxing and enjoying themselves, they drank some beer, shooting the breeze about the usual things that men discuss; cars, sport and fishing. A common enough scene replayed every day in bars and popular watering holes throughout South Africa. They got up to go the men’s toilet to relieve themselves. Staring at blank wall tiles, their alcohol lubricated banter continued. Another bar patron, an Indian man followed them into the men’s toilet. Some claim the conversation turned to penis size. Someone thinks they heard a conversation about penises, that white men have bigger penises than Indian men. Somebody else heard someone say “your friend’s penis is bigger than yours.”

Heated words were exchanged, the inevitable argument ensued. The men returned to the bar. Things turned ugly. The Indian man insists he was assaulted and subjected to verbal abuse and racial insults by the white men. He left the bar and a scuffle ensued outside. He returned with some friends, five of them in all, carrying handguns. Events took a deadly turn with fatal consequences. The Indian men walked back into the bar, opened fire, killing the three friends. There are conflicting stories and eye witness accounts of what happened. Who knows if the truth will ever emerge? Dead men can’t talk. The video footage may shed some light. Two innocent bystanders were wounded. Two of the gunmen were dedicated veteran off-duty policemen using their service-issue firearms. It was all over in a matter of seconds, forever changing and shattering the lives of several people.

The three friends aged 33, 40 and 57; ill-fated victims to add to the growing number of people killed every day in South Africa with firearms. Another senseless tragedy in a country where the daily murder statistics now average nearly fifty people a day and human life has no value. The term “the sanctity of human life” has become devoid of any meaning or significance. The accused justify their actions. They cite self-defence. They claim that the three friends who were cut down in a hail of bullets were racist bullies, who used knuckle dusters on their friend and called them “coolies” and “currie-munchers.” Maybe they were racist thugs who deserved to be censured and punished. But did they deserve to die? Why did the off-duty policemen not arrest them instead of shooting them?

This orgy of violence is yet another manifestation of predominantly male aggression, machismo and testosterone taken to extreme levels. It’s an example of the instant and perverse justice of vigilantism and the law of the jungle. We know that violence is celebrated and glorified in films and on TV but it seems as if the Rambo males of South Africa have claimed for themselves a divine and exclusive right to end other people’s lives at the slightest insult or provocation. And it cuts across racial lines as males of all colours wipe out their families when they sense that they have lost control of their lives and things no longer go their way. It is barbaric, senseless and stupid.

I too was once the victim of a gross invasion of my privacy in a man’s toilet. It was a violation of my right to use a public urinal in peace and quiet, to answer the call of nature and pass water unhindered and unmolested. I was a 20 year old undergraduate student at the time, at Wits University, in the final year of my bachelor’s degree having studied history, political science and international politics but with more than a passing interest in the anatomy of Italian females.
I had just walked out of the Wits canteen. My hands were full, a cup of steaming coffee in one and a jam doughnut in the other. I walked passed “Greek Corner” and the packed tables of the piazza. The Greek male students had once again skipped their commerce lectures for the day, absorbed in their poker games, smoking, shouting and calling each other “vre malaka!” The Greek female students, spectators, cooing their appreciation from a distance, assessing those with future husband potential. Meanwhile their mothers and fathers were elsewhere working their butts off, dutifully doing their bsc or “behind shop counter.”

I walked into the Senate House men’s toilet. It resembled a narrow L-shaped passage, a badly designed afterthought, cramming in all the essentials for successful ablutions, with barely enough room for two cubicles, two hand basins and two urinals. Walking into such a tight space made it inevitable that you would have to involuntarily brush past someone undesirable. I stood at the urinal next to the door relieving myself. The door was perilously close to the urinal and if opened with sufficient force would hit you on the buttocks, knocking you off balance, propelling you forward into the urinal, wetting your hands and crushing your penis against the cold porcelain.

I stood there staring into a blank wall, my mind empty concentrating on the task at hand. The occasional tug here, by way of encouragement and good aim was all that was required. I aimed a stream at the white marble sized disinfectant balls, moving them around in the porcelain bowl, happily amusing myself by playing a favourite game, urinal pinball. A fellow student walked in and stood at the urinal next to me. He had red curly hair and a ruddy complexion. He looked like a village cricketer. He was either an eccentric science student or an English literature major. He had that innocent and permanently bemused and bashful look of a young man who has not had much success with the female students.

I heard it before anything else.

It was the sound that highly pressurised water makes when it comes out of a hose-pipe fitted with a Gardenia nozzle and jet blasts your brick driveway. Hot brine hit the curved porcelain bowl with such force that it splashed everywhere like the after spray of the Victoria Falls. This guy clearly had a problem and as are often the ways of the world, his problem was becoming my problem. I felt something warm and wet spreading on my hands. He realised what was happening and his face grew progressively crimson with embarrassment and shame but he said and did nothing. What would the proper urinal etiquette have been in this instance? He could have said: “Terribly sorry old chap, I know I’m wetting you but I haven’t peed for a week!” He could not stop himself. He was in full and irreversible flow like a raging river in flood. I looked down and the unmistakeable evidence was there. My khaki chinos were irretrievably stained with dark incriminating spots. I stop our story here and cut to a new act and scene.

I am the accused standing in the dock in a packed criminal court. I wear a blue blazer with gold buttons, grey flannel trousers minus a belt , polished black lace ups with the laces removed, a white cotton button down shirt and my Wits tie, which the policeman escorting me hands over to me in court as we emerge from the holding cells and the tunnel below the court-room. I put it on in court. I look like an earnest and respectable future articled clerk, nowadays called candidate attorneys. I stare helplessly at the bench through large square gold-rimmed spectacles. An inebriated looking judge wearing glamorous robes in prostitute red; hovers above the sordid fray, a looming presence in his lofty mahogany perch, glaring at the unwelcome impostors in his court room. The judge’s registrar ushers me to the witness stand and swears me in. Being quasi-legally trained, stupid and an impoverished student I decide to represent myself.

The prosecutor in her black robe has mirthless lips and narrow unforgiving slits for eyes. She is a determined petite Afrikaans blonde, from Boksburg. I give my version of events in my evidence in chief and she continues the proceedings with her cross- examination.

Prosecutor: “Could you please tell the court what happened on the day in question or your version of events on that fateful morning?”

Accused: “It was approximately 10:15 am on a Monday morning. I had just come out of a Latin lecture in lecture hall SH1 B. I had fallen asleep during the lecture. I desperately needed a caffeine fix to wake me up and I was feeling slightly peckish so I bought a coffee and a jam doughnut from the Senate House canteen next to the piazza.”

Prosecutor: “What happened next?”

Accused: “I ate the jam doughnut and drank the coffee and needed to relieve myself so I went to the ground floor men’s lavatory in Senate House next to the campus bookshop and post office. I went in and first washed my hands at one of the hand basins.”

Prosecutor: “So you say that you washed your hands? Please tell the court why you washed your hands first? Isn’t that unusual?”

Accused: “No, not really; I washed my hands before urinating because my fingers were sticky from eating my jam doughnut. I tried to lick the jam off my fingers but they were still sticky and I didn’t want to get jam on my new chinos.”

Prosecutor: “Please tell the court what happened next?”

Accused: “After washing my hands, I dried them with a paper towel. I then walked to the urinal to relieve myself. As I stood there, this chap came in a stood at the urinal bowl next to me. I’m standing there minding my own business and the next thing I know I’m being subjected to the perverse humiliation of an unsolicited golden shower.”

Prosecutor: “So you say that he came in to the toilet and he urinated on you. How is this possible?”

Accused: “It’s not only possible, it actually happened as I’ve repeatedly told you and the police.”

Prosecutor: “For our enlightenment please explain to his lordship and to the court what a golden shower is?”

Judge: “Yes, yes, Miss van Vuuren, we understand perfectly well. Is this gratuitous and sensational repetition of the language of the gutter really necessary?”

Prosecutor: ‘Well, yes my lord, with respect, it goes directly to explaining the circumstances leading up to the event and the fateful incident on the day in question in which the accused launched his vicious attack on the victim and furthermore if the court pleases it shed’s light on the accused’s state of mind and his intention at the time.”

Judge: “Very well, Miss van Vuuren, please continue but keep it brief!”

Prosecutor: “Thank you my lord. Please tell the court what a golden shower is?”

Accused: “Well, this guy pissed all over my hands and my trousers”

Prosecutor: “So you say that the victim actually urinated on your hands and trousers without you specifically inviting or encouraging him to do so?”

Accused: “Yes that’s what I said; only I used the word “pissed.”

Prosecutor: “What happened next?”

Accused: “I was very upset by this deliberate and careless act of extreme provocation. My chinos were brand new and I lost my temper. I once pissed on my thumb after a bee stung it. But that was different, I was four at the time and I only did it because my grandmother told me it to do it. “

Prosecutor: “That’s completely irrelevant! Please stick to the facts and the events that took place on that day. How do you know that it was a deliberate act?”

Accused: “I know because he pointed his penis in my direction.”

Prosecutor: “I put it to you that he did not point his penis at you. The victim had no intention to urinate on you. Was it not possible that the curvature of the porcelain bowl and the unusual force of the victims discharge against the urinal bowl was so powerful that it accidentally spilled all over you?”

Accused: “It’s possible but then why did he smile while he urinated on me?”

Prosecutor: “I put it to you that the victim was either relieved or embarrassed or both. Did you know this man before he accidentally urinated on you?”

Accused: “No, he was a complete stranger.”

Prosecutor: “A complete stranger you say! Then don’t you find it strange or odd that a complete stranger would intentionally and maliciously urinate on you for no reason?”

Accused: “Not in Kempton Park, where I come from!”

The courtroom erupts into spontaneous laughter and the judge brings down his gavel several times to restore order.

Judge: Silence! Silence in court!

Prosecutor: “What did you do after you realised that the victim had unintentionally urinated on you?”

Accused: “I grabbed the Parker pen in my shirt pocket, clicked it and plunged it into his neck.”

Prosecutor: “My lord, I hand in as exhibit A, a white and stainless steel Parker pen with the words “Jimmy’s Tyres & Exhausts” engraved on it. I also direct the courts attention to a white porcelain urinal bowl of the wall-mounted type used at the Wits men’s toilets, marked as exhibit B.”

Prosecutor: “What happened after you stabbed the victim in the neck?”

Accused: “The chap cried out, clutched his neck and dropped to the floor. There was lot’s of blood everywhere and I ran out of the toilets into the corridor outside. I was confused and tried to rub the blood off my chinos but it was hopeless. Someone called Wits Security. They arrested me and called the police.”

Prosecutor: ‘My lord, if it pleases the court, I hand in as exhibit C, a pair of men’s blood-spattered chinos.”

Had these events actually transpired, I would have hired a good criminal lawyer and pleaded temporary insanity. Thankfully common sense prevailed and nothing happened but it could quite easily have gone the other way. Fuelled and fortified by enough alcohol, I might just as easily have dispensed some jungle justice and launched a brutal attack on the hapless pissoir perpetrator, thereby killing him. At the very least I had sufficient grounds to castrate him or turn a deflated and empty Brutus on him.

It becomes increasingly evident that men’s public lavatories are dangerous places and we’re not talking about casual groping here. A few months ago, an acquaintance, a harmless mild-mannered Pretoria photographer, a slightly built, gentle and kind family man who seldom goes to rugby matches was savagely beaten up by two drunken thugs and no doubt Blue Bulls rugby supporters in the men’s toilets at Loftus Versfeld rugby stadium. He needed extensive reconstructive dental work and consulted a maxillo-facial surgeon.

Serious thought therefore needs to be given to public urinal design. There is clearly a problem with open unprotected public urinals. Women with their infallible logic, superior intellect and infinite common sense will simply say, “Use the cubicles and the regular loo!” That’s too complicated for a number one and reminds us of the restrictions of home and endless domestic squabbles about toilet seats. You get the industrial type urinal which is a continuous sheet of stainless steel wall as commonly found in Rugby stadium lavatories and in less salubrious drinking establishments such as hotel bars in Brakpan. You have to step up to the plate as it were. You are normally required to step onto a narrow concrete ledge that slopes slightly forward and away from you towards the narrow trough. It’s a delicate and treacherous balancing act. These are favoured by long range navigators who because of their large shoe size stand well back off the step, with their hands on their hips and let their equipment do the rest. The porcelain bowl type as I experienced offers no protection. The best models are long, flat and wide and shaped like a recessed wall mounted water feature. They also have small porcelain walls on either side, acting as modesty flanks to shield you from the prying eyes of your curious neighbour and any collateral damage. I think the Space Shuttle engineers at NASA may have got it right with their tight fitting protective crotch cups and flexible vacuum hoses, but that would eat up our entire defence budget.

What is it then about men, their penises, their mindless aggression and life being a constant “pissing contest?” This unhealthy obsession with penises has plagued humanity since time immemorial often with disastrous consequences. It starts where most problems have their origins, in the cave where the size of your penis determined the size of the club you wielded and hence the origin of the term: “here comes the big swinging dick with his stick.”

Matters progressed from pre-historic man to the ancient Greeks, who worshipped many gods including the swinging god, Dionysus who was the god of wine, fertility, madness, ecstasy, parties and orgies. The Greeks started cults in his honour and worshipped the penis as an ancient symbol of fertility. Drawings and sculptures of satyrs, half man half horse depicted huge phalluses in a constant state of priapic arousal to illustrate their insatiable sexual appetite. In ancient times enormous stone phalluses were placed at roadsides as lucky symbols and early road signs. These giant sculpted penises on stone pillars stood sentinel at country crossroads and intersections to protect travelers from evil spirits and the evil eye. The celebration of the erect penis was seen as a positive symbol. Women and girls routinely wore penis amulets as lucky charms and erections were carved on doors and the stone plinths of houses to bring good fortune. Some can still be seen today on traditional island houses. Phallic worship was very common in antiquity and also practiced in the ancient cultures of Rome, India, Egypt and Japan.

Besides irrelevant dead Greek poets eulogising the penis as the font of all human inspiration, the obsession continues to our childhood playgrounds where we start to envy little Johnny because of his amazing skill and prowess which allows him to piss further than the rest of us, his unrivalled technique at making intricate patterns in the sand and his aptitude for wiping out entire ant colonies unmatched.

It carries on with nation states on the global stage. We see it in language monuments designed by male architects and in our sky-scrapers. It doesn’t help that in the popular vernacular we automatically see a penis extension in any male driving a shiny new Italian sports car. In the age of knights and chivalry, the length and girth of your lance mattered. In Napoleonic times and when Horatio Nelson ruled the waves, the muzzle capacity, the bore of your cannons and the size of your cannon balls mattered. In the First World War we witnessed the devastating power of massive artillery pieces with the Germans developing the Big Bertha gun that was so big it had to be mounted on several railway carriages and could lob enormous shells for miles. In World War Two, Nazi engineers and scientists designed the penis shaped V1 and V2 rockets. The very same engineers and scientists were recruited by the Americans after the war and during the ensuing Cold War, the size, girth, length, range and destructive power of your space rockets, bombs and intercontinental ballistic missiles mattered most in the global pissing stakes. The former Soviet Union and the USA amassed enormous nuclear arsenals and persisted with a policy called MAD or mutually assured destruction. They tried to outspend each other, with the USA eventually succeeding and designed devastating weapons of mass destruction inspired by the Milan based Phallic School of Missile Design.

The penis is a biological necessity to ensure the survival of the species but the usual textbook emphasis on procreation risks stating the obvious. There is no doubt that sometimes the penis is a useful recreational appendage. Conceptual artists use it as a painting instrument to brush broad lively splashes of colour on canvas. Two brawny Australian chaps wearing nothing but capes and floppy hats have similarly put their penises to good use. They do theatrical contortions using their genitalia with running commentary. They are currently in Cape Town displaying their wares with flexible ease in their show called “Puppetry of the Penis.” They do a great Eiffel Tower impression, a wedding ring, wind surfer and assorted other sketches like “walking the dog.” “Penis hanging art”, apparently is also a widely practiced Chinese martial arts style. It’s called “Chiu Chiu Shen Gong”- nine, nine magic art. Some innovative con men in the former homelands dipped theirs in ink and rolled them on application forms to imitate finger prints in order to commit pension fraud.

The ancient Greek practice of penis worship continues today.A small village in Greece called Tyrnavos celebrates the annual phallus festival each year on the first Monday of Lent otherwise known as “Clean Monday” in Greece. It is based on a pagan fertility festival and has become one of the most infamous penis theme parties in all of Greece. People sing rude bawdy songs and encourage passers-by to kiss their huge model phalluses. You can buy phallus shaped bread and sweets and drink from phallus shaped straws and cups. For some unknown reason you have to drink spinach soup and burn it down with tsipouro, the strong local version of fire-water. You can even dangle ceramic phalluses from your belt if the mood grabs you. Initially the festival was restricted to men but today it is open to all ages and all sexes. The local church is not impressed.

Is the penis a source of joy or sorrow? Rather than being a reason for death and destruction, it should be a cause of celebration. Far better then that we see it as a positive symbol of art, creativity and fun, not the perplexed angry penis of power, conquest, domination and insane competition. And incidentally in Greece where the penis is celebrated, the crime of rape is almost non-existent.

D.H. Lawrence has the last word on the penis. In his final novel “Tommy Dukes”, written as he battles against tuberculosis, he states the following:

“I believe in having a good heart, a chirpy penis, a lively intelligence and the courage to say shit in front of a lady. It would be wonderful to be intelligent: then one would be alive in all parts mentioned and unmentionable. The penis rouses his head and says: How do you do? – To any really intelligent person. Renoir said he painted his pictures with his penis…He did too, lovely pictures! I wish I did something with mine. God! When one can only talk!”


Costas Ayiotis
Meditations, Observations & Reflections from the Republic of Hout Bay
17 September 2008