Phallic Worship – Non-Fiction

Feature Writer: Dr. Michael A. Smith /
Feature Title:  Phallic Worship /

Phallic Worship

Men have worshiped the male penis for millennia. Evidence of phallic
worship go back 28,000 years (give or take a few years). You can see
how this happened: the penis rises and it falls under its own will,
it leads men where they want to go, and it makes decisions for them.
It must be magic! It must be satisfied! It must be revered!

In ancient Egypt, the god Min represented the fertility of the Nile
River. He is depicted holding his baloney in his left hand. During
the heyday of Egyptian archaeology, his image was only photographed
from the waist up to protect Victorian sensibilities. Paintings and
reliefs also suffered from vandalism. To this day, there are signs
hanging over his lower half, such as “No Smoking” (with a properly
Freudian graphic of a cigarette crossed out).

Ancient Greece (as you could have guessed), was a hotbed of penis
worship.

The Dionysus cult had a public parade every year in which the men
carried the largest penis possible by a team of men in a parade
through the cities. On the ass which Hephaestus rode, the animal has
a penis erection. Even in Aphrodite’s temple on Acropolis, the
altars were topped with phalluses.

To Ancient Greece, the penis was the main symbol of fertility and
they even created dildos constructed from leather and marketed them.
The male idea of female sexuality was that Greek men believed that
women envied their penises. Men created artwork displaying women
with dildos. Female homosexuality and female masturbation are rarely
depicted unless seen with a dildo.

The Greek god Priapus was the embodiment of hotdog worship. He was
also the source of the word “Priapism” which means boner. Priapus
was cursed by Hera, and was born from Aphrodite ugly as sin, but
with a huge eternally-erect tube steak.

Hera apparently didn’t realize that size would make up for what he
lacked in looks! Aphrodite rejected her son as a monster, but he was
taken in by a countryman. It wasn’t long before everyone noticed
that everything (and supposedly everyone) he touched became
amazingly fertile (and in those days, fertile was good).

The Roman Empire tried to stamp out Priapus worship after the advent
of Christianity, but some of his followers, although nominally
Christian, embraced the worship of Priapus long after they denounced
other pagan gods. This painting of Priapus portrays him weighing his
hotrod. But wait! Don’t you weigh something by lifting it? How can
you lift something that’s always standing up anyway? Details, details.

Priapus survives today in the form of a Marvel Comics character, and
a Toyota hybrid model, which is priced to attract men undergoing
midlife crisis or those attempting to compensate for their nether
shortcomings. There was some consternation about the name of the
car, which may have been a publicity plant after all, so the car is
now the Toyota Volta.

The Old Testament refers to the male member in many places, most
notably in circumcision. The Hebrews used this as a covenant,
symbolizing the handing over of one’s most prized possession to God.
In Genesis 47:29, a reference is made to swearing an oath
by “placing thy hand under my thigh”, which refers to the practice
of holding the penis.

In classical Hindu tradition, the Lingam is a phallic symbol
representing the god Shiva and his rampant sexuality. “Tantric”
Hinduism uses ritual sexual intercourse to unite with the sexual
power of the goddess Shakti, with magic spells and divinations.
Before the Gandhi era, religious art portraying the torpedo was
quite common around India. Ghandi, being somewhat of a prude, once
said that all the temples portraying erotic sculpture “should be
sunk into mud,” to protect “ordinary people”. Now, destinations such
as the temples of Khajuraho owe their tax base to ordinary people on
honeymoons and traveling shutterbugs.

Thought to be an offshoot of the Lingam of India, men and boys in
Thailand even today sometimes wear a man-flute amulet to draw bad
luck away from the real jewels.

In Russia, Grigory Rasputin’s totem pole came to be heralded as a
miracle of its own. The advisor to Czar Nicholas II was reported to
have screwed hundreds of thousands of women, including the Czar’s
wife and daughters, plus a large part of the Russian aristocracy,
despite never bathing. The story goes that when Rasputin was
murdered in 1916, a chambermaid appropriated his tally-whacker after
the autopsy. The gearshift made its way to Paris, where a cult of
Russian expatriate women worshiped the cattle prod as a fertility
charm. Rasputin’s daughter was not amused, and took possession of the
supposedly 13-inch chimney cleaner. What is reputed to be Rasputin’s
boom stick (but may also be a sea cucumber) is now on display at the
Russian Museum of Erotica in (appropriately enough) St. Petersburg.
There is a much more colorful version of the story at Uncyclopedia,
which is probably about as true as the above. I’ve got one more
thing to say about Rasputin’s Mandingo: Eww!

Symbols derived from such reverence survive today. Phallic symbols
include the necktie, church steeples, guns, and even Santa Claus!
Slide down the chimney, indeed!