Like Dennis Prager, the avowedly cerebral Selwyn Duke is dismayed by the coarsening of our culture. Unlike Dennis, he does not appear overly concerned that black people are using the F- through N-words inclusive, because that sort of thing just doesn’t go on in the tennis clubs and manicured fairways where he germinates his Deep Thoughts. However, he is worried that one of you ladies might confuse his genitals with non-biodegradable packing peanuts or the oily, moldering black petals of a discarded banana skin.
Now that “Don’t touch my junk!” has become a rallying cry, I must ask a question: What’s with this youth-culture tendency to refer to male genitalia as “junk”?
And what’s with this tendency of Jazz musicians to address each other as “cat,” when clearly neither party to the conversation is a domesticated fur-bearing quadruped?
Since I keep my nose to the ground, I noticed this slang innovation long before John Tyner drew his line in the sand; it seems to be a phenomenon of the last five years or so.
Selwyn experiences language through the olfactory sense, which explains why his metaphors stink. But he’s pioneered a powerful new technique for social order, and instead of invasive pat-downs, the TSA should take a leaf from his book and station slang-sniffing dogs in airports to detect kooky teen lingo.
And it’s one I’d like to put on the junk heap.
Here’s another neologism that might interest you, Selwyn. Curdmudgeon — noun. A callow pundit who aims to be a more butch version of H.L. Mencken, but whose work is like Velveeta cured in a semen-stiffened sweat sock.
I really don’t want to sound like the über-sensitive professional complainers who say that the term “black hole” (density-approaching-infinity-so-not-even-light-can-escape-it hole is a little clumsy, dontcha think?) is insensitive to blacks or, God forbid, like the harridan feminists who would have us supplant “snowman” with “snowperson” (Frosty the snowperson was a San Francisco soul….).
Those are some pretty lame hallucinations, Sel. Have you considered zombies?
But something needs to be said about this, and if I don’t say it, perhaps no one will.
I don’t want to add to your burden, but it’s also possible that no one is going to run into the Lateran Palace, tear off his clothes and scream, “I’ve got a hanker for a chancre!”
Would you mind?
Does it strike anyone else as strange that we’re now referring to male genitalia with a word that means “garbage”?
Dude, have you seen a scrotum?
Oh, I know dictionaries indicate that this usage of “junk” can refer to female genitalia as well, but in the real world it seems to be used almost exclusively for the male variety.
Then what’s all this stuff in the trunk I keep hearing about?
Given the above, is it mere coincidence that this anti-male age sees a phenomenon whereby that which symbolizes manhood, at least physically, has come to be called “junk”?
Why can’t we go back to the days when polite society used that word only to describe Chinese sailing vessels, spit balls, and the previous sentence?
And what might we conclude about this anti-male environment’s psychological effect on recent generations of boys and young men when they will readily refer to that symbol of their manhood (in fact, a fellow’s privates are sometimes called “his manhood”) with a demeaning term?
Not sure. What do you suppose is the result of these same young fellows referring to the female equivalent as a “gash”? Whatever. For the sake of our young men’s psychological health, we must urge them to address their organs of generation by the names their fathers and grandfathers used, such as “beaver cleaver,” “assmaster,” and “Ding Dong.”
My self-image has never been so bad that I wanted to characterize part of my body as garbage.
Nor should you, Sel. That’s women’s work.
Moreover, given that feminist women don’t even like being called “girls” — when that’s just the equivalent of “guys” —
Exactly. When I was young I joined the Guy Scouts, and never felt offended. And when I was a little guy, I loved to read Batman comics and pretend I was Robin the Guy Wonder.
I can just imagine how the “womyn” at NOW would react
…if they met a lunkheaded failed tennis pro with his forefinger Crazy Glued to his chin who thinks it’s the 1970s.
…if the word “junk” was widely used to describe a female body part.
I’m sure they’d faint. You know the ladies.
Oh, not that I blame this on them, or on normal women.
Don’t be condescending to the freaks, Selwyn. Remember what NOW did to Olga Baclanova.
I also don’t expect men to do much about it. You could say that my sex rolls with the punches,
The donkey punches.
…that we really will take these things “like a man.”
Say no more, Selwyn. I won’t ask, you don’t tell.