Don't Stand Too Close to a Naked Man

believed that if a woman blew on her thumb hard enough, she would have what I have-that it would just pop out.

This was all very confusing when I was a kid. My dad died when I was young. Although my mom was very good about explaining the birds and bees, whenever my brothers and I would ask about how the male and female actually got together, it was suddenly dinnertime. Since then, the smell of home cooking always makes me feel silly and sexy.

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The penis is an emotional organ. Like hunger and fear, it operates deep beneath the surface of your life. It's a barometer of something else. It's a gauge. That's why it's a little frightening to get a boner when you don't want one. It's a little disheartening, a little unusual, and a` little scary. Also quite exciting. I can get one from a magazine. A good?looking car. A hot tub. A real man. (Just kidding.) I went skinnydipping once in an ice?cold lake; got a chubby.

This makes activities like dancing difficult. During the sloe numbers in high school I always wondered if a girl could tell if I liked her. They can tell, can't they? Well, can't they?

Guys can't tell about women, though. There's no visible sign. If we're skinny?dipping in that icy lake you can tell she's cold. Is that the same as excited? There ought to he a signal to let us know when were making fools of ourselves.

Men usually don't make a big deal out of what they've got until women make it a big deal. Until sexual awareness hits, the penis is just something that performs a useful function. Then it suddenly develops a mind of its own. The point is that guys never really notice what's between their legs until they notice women. Then the only thing we relate it to is women.

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Penis envy really only exists among guys.

I learned this when I was still just a little guy in transition from elementary school to being forced to shower with the boys in junior high gym class. That was a scary day, and sex wasn't even in the picture. There were several boys who refused to shower in public. It wasn't like they had anything to hide. They just did not want to be naked in front of guys like Tommy Rodriguez.

I say you've never seen envy until you've seen Tommy Rodriguez in the shower. Now that was envy. Seventh grade and he already looked like Burt Reynolds! (I really shouldn't compare the two since I think Tommy's been married to the same woman since seventh grade.) I'd seen my dad's, and even he didn't look like Tommy Rodriguez. I thought, something's really wrong here. I carried that frightening image with me for quite a while. Maybe because I kept trying to sneak glances at it. And that's not something you want to get caught at.

There's always a guy like Tommy Rodriguez wherever you turn. I've seen Playgirl magazine. These guys should be named Dick. If they got excited they'd probably faint from the blood loss. Even if the body could adjust, there'd still be some numbness in the shoulder.

But that's all behind me. Now that I'm a man, I'm finally comfortable with what I've got.

It's been over an hour by now.

- -

Can we discuss, uh. . testicles for a moment? I promise this will only take a few seconds because even the word scares men. We very rarely talk about it. Even God didn't want to think about it. He said, We've got some extra elbow skin left over? Okay, use that.' This aversion starts in Little League when you learn that you have to protect our valuable area with jockstraps and cups. That is the reason I've never understood why balls are spoken of in the same context as courage. If they were so brave, they'd say, 'The hell with the cup!' Instead, they're the first things to shrink when you're really petrified.

I've also never understood why men grab themselves and say, 'Right here! This is it, right here.' You jump into a cold pond and they try to hide up inside you. These are not courageous organs. Courage is knowing when to get out of the water.

But wouldn't it be great if women's courage and nerve were connected to their ovaries? 'Hey, right over here! Right here! Cook these. I've got your steak and potatoes right here!' Women patting their midsections, right where their ovaries are: 'Yeah? Right here! I got your laundry right here! I work, too, you know.'

Balls are one reason why guys have to be careful of hitting other guys. There's a certain age when all you do is hit other guys there. Even when you're little boys, you know that's where it hurts. You wrestle other kids and they always go for the nuts. I wrestle the kids on the set, and quicker than you can say 'ooofff!' they go for the gusto.

This is nothing like goosing, of course. As a kid, you're always goosing other guys. I cracked my tooth in the bathtub once when my brother grabbed mine-and that was just four or five years ago.

The important thing is knowing when to stop goosing your friends. Usually it's when women start doing it.

Some guys never want to stop, though. They'd like to whack you?just little touches-only there's too big a stigma attached to touching another man there. You can smack it, but you can't make contact. The quicker the snap, the better, but you don't want to be lingering.

Once, camping in our backyard with my brother David and Sam Hobson-one of David's older friends-we were, for Borne reason, all naked. It was innocent nakedness. I was maybe ten. This guy Sam Hobson had a boner. It was always a big deal to get one, although at the time you didn't know why you got one. He laid it on his sleeping bag and said, 'I dare anybody to hit that,' because he knew he was bigger than everybody else. I've always been proud of my brother David for what he did. Like a flash he was out of his sleeping bag, and he slapped it. Hard. So hard that I burst out laughing from fear. David, on the other hand, ran away as fast as he could. Naked. And Sam Hobson-also naked-ran after him.

Big Sam and the Twins.

Sadly, Sam ended up killing my brother.

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When You're a man, the penis is a very difficult part of the body to ignore. It's easy to ignore your liver; it's easy to ignore your pancreas. They do their jobs quietly, and you really only know about them when they malfunction. The penis always lets you know it's there. It shifts, moves, rises and swells with the tides, gets caught in your underwear, too quick a zipper and watch out! It's got to be touched, positioned, adjusted, put in here, tucked over there, pulled out, put in-and don't forget to wash your hands.

It's always in use.

Some women say that's our problem; that we're obsessed with it. Then they say men's behavior-and even our cars-are an extension of our organ. They heap tons of blame on the poor thing. I resent that. What's an extension of the vagina-a purse? I once bought a red Corvette and my aunt kept on me about the extension thing. I said, 'Yeah? Sounds all right to me. Who wouldn't want two tons of manhood?'

Believe it or not, I used to think women were just fooling around when they said all that negative stuff about men, and that they never really meant it. (They don't have what we've got, so what do they know about it? Figure out your ovaries and your periods instead.) Now I know that their antagonistic attitude is just a reaction to years and years and years of abuse from men and society about their whole deal. They've got a myriad of problems that we don't have. What we need to understand is that penis bashing has a lot to do with women wishing their lives were as simple as ours. Like a comic once said: 'Women have babies, cramps, and menstrual cycles. We gotta shave? All right!'

All right? Clearly, they get the short end of the stick every time they turn around.

We should get over this. To me, the penis is very simple and not deserving of anyone's ire. It's not to blame. It didn't choose its shape. It's vulnerable sitting out there. It has the same problems as every other organ: it ages, it gets sick, it dies.

Uh oh.

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Despite what I went through as a kid, it's my good fortune that my real name is Tim Dick. It forced me to focus on what's male about me. So much of my behavior and humor depend on those glandular feelings and associations. But only to a point. Women joke that men have two brains. Well, let me tell you: I control it; it does not control me. It has no life of its own. It needs me to live. I feed it. I take care of it. Without me it's nothing. It