Junk

The now famous rallying cry against the TSA: "Don't touch my junk." As a 21st century version of "Don't Tread On Me" I'm certainly in favor of it. The ludicrous notion that every traveller on a plane is an equal risk to be a Muslim jihadi suicide bomber is...ludicrous.

But I find it unfortunate that the man refers to God's gift to him as "junk". I'm well familiar with that phrase --which poor Charles Krauthammer apparently thought the man invented on the spot; one of the rare times Charles gets things wrong-- and lots of other that describe the male genitalia. "Junk" is just not one I'd ever be inclined to use.

I recall, imperfectly I am sure, from reading Freud in college that he believed human genitalia could easily be described as arousing or exciting, but never as beautiful. He was wrong about a lot of things, that included. Now I lack the necessary orientation to appreciate the beauty of vulvas, etc. But I have met a few cock-and-ball combos in my time and sometimes one of the words I have for them is beautiful. But then, I do admit to a certain hyperappreciation of the male body. See here and here and here, and, well, here. The list is long; I am on board with Walt W on this.

One of many male-female differences is that men have endless inventive and friendly nicknames for their "stuff", while women generally prefer geographic euphemisms likes "down there". And at least according to one feminist woman I talked to about this, most of the colorful names for women's sex organs were given them by men.

It's an interesting comment on our sexuality that, in North American English at least, if you want to talk about your sex organs, you usually have to choose formal and clinical language that is always Greek or Roman in derivation --penis and testicles and scrotum, vagina and clitoris and vulva-- or AngloSaxon derived words that are not for polite company: dick, cock, prick. So we either have to talk medical or talk dirty.

The other oddity is that while we use our body parts --almost all with AngloSaxon-derived common names--very freely as metaphors for the rest of life and the universe, our sex organs are themselves "metaphored" by non-human objects. Examples: the head of the class, the mouth of a river, the long arm of the law, the foot of the cross, etc. But never do we use penis or vagina like this, as neutral descriptors of the world. Only as a direct insult: he's a prick, she's a cunt.

I am not one of those who wants to go campaigning for a positive language and attitude toward sex organs. Waste of time. Human attitudes to sex always have been and always will be deeply ambiguous.
With good reason. God knows that, on the surface, your "junk" can not only make you very happy but also get you into big trouble. But that's like blaming guns for violence. (To say nothing of the fact that any human endowment or activity whatever can likewise bring pleasure and catastrophe.) The fault, dear Brutus, lies not in our junk, but in ourselves.