Subtext, Self-confidence, and my Penis

2003-06-03 - 2:43 p.m.

It's a lovely day in the Bay Area, and I'm fully sober keeping my desk chair warm at work.

It's been a rocky road of late boys and girls, but I seem to be getting by with a healthy dose of unhealthiness, a bandaged sense of humor, and record breaking streaks of masturbation. Some times in this lonely world, your best friend is only an arm's length away.

Speaking of my nether regions, a while back I went to LA. As tempted as I am to end that story right there, I'll press on. Downtown LA offered me little in the way of entertainment, and being a resourceful young buck, I got myself into some fun that only comes around when bored in foreign cities (don't kid yourself, LA is about as foreign as it gets). No, not hookers, not on my expense allowance. Maybe if I was a partner in this firm, but I digress. I went the economy way, which consisted of drinking a lot of Johnny Walker Red and taking pictures of my penis in various states of arousal and poses with my handy dandy digital camera. In the months since, those pictures have gotten around, at least more than I have.

The thing about pictures of my wang that was unexpected is the shy respect I've gotten for their dissemination (pun intended). It's not about the tool in question, or the photographical technique and artful skill employed in the picture taking. No, what people admire most, I've found, is that I am not afraid of having the pictures viewed.

If you're just tuning in, and don't know my views on self confidence and sexuality, the abridged version is thus: It's good. Sex is not taboo, your vagina or penis is not taboo, confidence in one's self is not taboo.

As open minded and progressive as San Francisco, CA in the year of Your Lord, 2003 is, there are still many a folk who come from middle America, circa 1830, around. It seems to me, after years of nonchalant study, that people of a repressed, insecure nature are more likely to open up/cut loose/unwind/relax a little around you if you demonstrate carefree inhibition. Give a lot, get a little, that's my motto. Oh, bugger off, you know what I mean.

Did I take the pictures drunk and horny? Yes. Did I allow them to leave the privacy of my own home because I thought maybe a pretty lady would like them and want to wear me as a scarf? Yes. Do I think that even though the execution is questionable, the underlying benefits of displaying balls (not the literal showing of the pictures' subject, silly, but the figurative meaning of "balls," which now thinking about it, is oddly similar to "guts," an interesting relation that will never be further explored here) may be somewhat contagious, allowing less open compatriots to feel better about how their ass looks in those jeans, or about asking that girl at the coffee shop out, or even just have the gumption to assert their individuality a bit more than before? Yes.

So, in conclusion, being a deviant with a genuinely good subtext is a positive thing. Inspiring deviance in other subtexturally good kids is positive too. Gary Glitter and Michael Jackson are negatives. I'm somewhere in the middle.