Time was when it was the ‘in’ thing to find oneself in the possession of a willy. It was the mark of the masculine, of a certain swaggering virility, of cowboys and sports stars and ad executives, of spread legs on dingy subways, hard power over soft power, gun-toting hip-thrusting scarcely receding vigour. A dangling willy served as the world’s greatest comforter: with a willy to grab onto, men and women alike could hold in their hands the warm sticky sureties of patriarchal success.
Since Biblical times willies of course have been necessary for the act of procreation. ‘Oh, that’s a big willy!’, you might have heard out on the street, or ‘I bet those testes produce plenty of spermatozoa which after travelling down the penis ends up in an ample amount of semen!’.
Nowadays however it is not so popular to have a willy. The organ is scorned, and more and more people are beginning to tuck. All sorts of contraptions, from overtight trousers to tights and tapes, are used to bind up and smother the once omnipotent willy. Sometimes the subject is barely raised online only to be shouted down across all social media, and the willy is forced to retreat from the conversation, limping and chastened, figuratively downtrodden. In short, it seems that in a crowded marketplace, the willy is struggling to penetrate.
But perhaps that’s no bad thing. The erasure of the willy makes room for other appendages. A space for bananas, plums, or pears, the opportunity to wear new fits, fabrics, even skirts or frilly dresses. For those who never owned one or thought to care, the decline of the willy opens up the arena, for bolder experiments, opposing points of views, ur- or un- or aphallic perspectives.
So what after all is the future of the willy? Not to go obsolete, but less readily pulled from a pair of pliant jean shorts or other undergarments. The willy will no longer be placed on a pedestal, nor will it be the pedestal, but perhaps after the working week is done on a Sunday it can lounge around at its leisure.
