Free Manhood: The Rise and Fall of the Penis by Mels van Driel Page B

her if by any chance she has 52
    t h e p e n i s
    two vaginas: one is enough for him, the second is superfluous. The wife, who is having an affair with the parish priest, then proposes donating her second one to the church. The farmer of course agrees. The couple invite the priest to supper, and after the meal they all get into bed. The priest first introduces his member and the stupid farmer makes do with his portion. ‘Remember our agreement, use your own share and leave mine to me,’ says the farmer. To which the priest replies: ‘As God is my witness: I don’t desire your portion in the least, as long as I may use the church’s share.’ The priest can carry on as before.
    Doctors used to link the size of the nose and the dimensions of the genitalia. The idea was shown to be absurd, but there are so-called nasogenital alliances . One of these is the anatomical affinity between the erectile tissue compartments in the penis and those in the clitoris and the olfactory mucous membrane. When someone becomes sexually aroused, the olfactory mucous membrane tends to become rather swollen. As a result sexually stimulated people have slightly more difficulty in breathing through their nose. It can happen that a man has the urge to sneeze when confronted with an attractive woman. There is obviously after all a link between the nose and the sex organs. No wonder that in Ancient Rome adulterous men had not their penis, but their nose cut off!
    There are complicated forms of cooperation between the sense of smell, the sex hormones and the sexual urge. These operate through pheromones. The word ‘pheromone’ is a contraction of the Greek words fero (transfer/carry) and hormao (set in motion). Pheromones are substances that secrete organisms in order to induce a reaction in members of the same species. They do this through various glands. A male pig, for example, produces the pheromone androstenol in its mouth which causes a fertile sow to go rigid, so that he can mount her at his leisure.
    Pheromones can be picked up via the tastebuds and olfactory recep -
    tors, on the tongue, in the nose or via Jacobson’s organ. The latter is situ ated on the floor of the nasal cavities of, for example, reptiles and mammals. In man it has become rudimentary in the course of evolution; researchers from the University of Michigan recently showed that the two genes that govern signal transfer in Jacobson’s organ are no longer functional in man or anthropoid apes. The genes are there but 22 million years ago were shifted to an inactive chromosome section. The loss of pheromonal communication was compensated for by the gradually acquired ability to see a wider colour spectrum (red, orange and green).
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    Length
    From an early age one hears the complaint, sometimes disguised, about being under-endowed. According to the American sexologist Barry McCarthy, two out of three men think their penis is too small. He attri -
    butes their worries about the length of their penises to various factors.
    In the first place little boys see their father’s penis for the first time when they are at an impressionable age. Second, in changing rooms one usually sees another person’s penis from the front: the other person’s penis appears to be bigger because a man can only see his own penis from above. Seen from above, however, there is what visual artists call ‘foreshortening’. The penis seems smaller than it really is. Third, flaccid penises can differ widely in length, while in erect ones on the other hand there is never that much difference. And fourth, men don’t know much about the subject in general, because they don’t like talking openly about these kinds of intimate matters.
    The problem of penis length is as old as the hills: in eighteenth -
    century Normandy it was for that reason customary for midwives to keep the umbilical cords of male babies relatively long. If the cord was pulled too tight in tying it and was therefore cut