THE SECRET HISTORY OF POP CESSPOOL, VOL. 10

Penis envy might begin at a very early age, but it is certainly reaffirmed and amplified by that first elementary-school field trip to see The Nutcracker, especially if you -- and most of the other students in your 6th grade class -- have never beheld professional ballet in person. I suppose that in communities with more status and culture, such experiences happen earlier and more frequently, and so most young adolescents are long-inured to the idea that men in dance companies often have man-sized cocks. For my class, however, the show represented a paradigm shift.

I could wax poetic about the quiet, saucer-eyed reactions of the very Catholic girls in the class -- the slight head tilts, the scattered whispers during intermission, and so on. Was that a grin on the teacher's face? Was there an audible shuffle in the theater when the really-well-hung lead male strutted onstage? Did any of the other boys (certainly not me) nudge their female classmates to see if they were aware of the splendorous meat? Any answer would be hyperbole.

This much is true: The boys certainly noticed that cock. That shit was funny. The cock forced my young, aspirational brain to reconcile the highly cultural experience of seeing The Nutcracker in cosmopolitan downtown Allentown with the possibility that many of the females around me weren't experiencing anything intellectual at all. To be sure, they weren't necessarily quivering with lust -- "awe" might be a better term -- but they were affected, nonetheless, and this was immensely troubling.

(read the complete and ongoing Secret History here)