Man, the penis, and… my annoyance.

In an online community I’m part of, the movie Watchmen came up. Which I enjoyed! (My short review is that it isn’t the graphic novel, but honestly… you’d need to have a really really long movie to capture everything. But, it is still a good movie and the changes to the plot make sense for what was eliminated for time purposes.) The movie has a fair amount of penis in it. The movie got away with an R rating because it’s Dr. Manhatten, a blue glowing man… so it’s CG penis. And there’s even more penis in the graphic novel.

The guys were complaining about it, and when I told them that a “penis was just a penis” and that they should get over it, it devolved into a joke session that was basically to embarrass me for even daring to think that their genitalia was anything less than amazing. My comment wasn’t meant as a slight- just that it’s nothing to be ashamed about, or anything to glorify.

It baffles me how men can at once feel that it needs to be worshipped and hidden. What is it that makes men unable to admit that male nudity isn’t a big deal? Modern man (as a species) has fetishized nudity so much that you can’t take a kid to an art museum without them snickering at the genitalia on Greco-Roman statues, or for most men to try to avoid the statues entirely. It’s the human body.

Of course, our society’s fear of the penis directly translates to MPAA ratings. Female nudity doesn’t qualify a movie for an NC-17 rating, but male nudity nearly always does.

Men. It’s a body part. If you’re blase about it, it doesn’t mean that I’m going to think you’re gay. Just get over it!

Originally published at Whitney Drake. You can comment here or there.