What's In a Name?

One of my few readers has complained that during the entries describing my recent medical adventures, I used the word "penis" more often than was wanted.

First off, that was where the problems, both the longstanding one ostensibly under treatment and the various non-helpful bits along the way, presented themselves.

Second, that was the work site. And it was worked on by doctors, nurses, and maybe others (I was anaesthetized three times. And those tiny miners...).

Third, it was the part that should have at least smiled at the attention from all those women, but Noooo... tubes were going to go in and out of it, or were already there, and things were wrong, and it cowered in understandable fear.

But, let's see, maybe there were some other terms available: the male organ, for example, which sounds both prudish and utterly rude all at once, besides which we have a full array of organs, not just the one. Perhaps the member, or male member (what, pray tell, might be the female member? And member of what?).

I could have called it the pee-pee, which might have gotten it confused with the substance it lets out, or the wee-wee, which has the same problem. Or the wiener, which was a popular term in elementary school.

Dick. Prick. Cock. Dong. Schlong. John Thomas. One-eyed trouser snake. Rod. Hose. Tool. Etc. The secret of bodice-ripper novel writing, and some porn, was not in choosing the noun but in dropping at least two adjectives in front of it. Turgid, throbbing, engorged are just a few. Rampant manhood. You get the idea...

Or, as we did in high school, I could have named it. One fellow called his "Sock," because he claimed that's where he had to tuck it in the morning; I thought it was because he stuffed a rolled-up pair in the front of his trousers. Another name was "Charlie Brown," the poor little round-headed bald kid.

Or I could have just used some pronoun, like in the movie, "My Favorite Year." Peter O'Toole, as a washed-up actor, finds himself in the women's room. A woman comes out of the stall, sees him, and complains, "This is for ladies only." O'Toole, partly exposed (or so it's hinted), replies, "So is this, madam, but once in awhile I have to run a little water through it." The obligatory digression: this movie has been a favorite of mine for some time. The leads are O'Toole and Mark Linn-Baker (cousin Larry), who is supposed to shepherd the drunken legend O'Toole until he completes an appearance on a 50's TV show. O'Toole also delivers a line which I've stolen: after being thrown out of a New York restaurant for assorted bad behavior on some previous visit, he is greeted by the host with "Wonderful to see you again, Mr. Swan." The reply: "Wonderful to be seen." Some fine little performances, and a couple fine big ones.

I think the complaining reader would have preferred to hear much less mention of the "private part" altogether. But it's like Voldemort in the Harry Potter books: if that's what the problem is, you need to call it by name.