August 20, 2017

"When you put a hat and sunglasses on it, it kind of takes the raunchiness out of it."

"I want to raise the bar for dick pics. If you’re going to send one, at least make me laugh. Put some effort into it."
[Soraya] Doolbaz says her husband is very supportive of the idea and dick pics in general, noting that they dated long-distance for a while. Before that, she says she received enough dick pics to give her plenty of inspiration for the project: “Oh my God, when I was single, I would get a ton of them,” she says. “And my friends would get them too and we would show them to each other.”
That's from a Village Voice piece published in 2015. I found that as a result of searches inspired by discussion in the comments to yesterday's "Questionable Artwork Café," where I'd invited people to impose political analysis on a Thomas Hart Benton painting of a farm scene. Participating in the comments myself, I said:
Huge vagina symbol in foreground.

Empowering for women or insulting?

Horse is big phallic symbol, but far from adequate to that huge vagina. Also the harnessing of the horse is emphasized. Is that empowering for women?
And after I got a little pushback for seeing a vagina symbol, I added:
Freud thought a hat was a vagina symbol.
And then the fanciful notion:
That suggests that when a man is having sex with a woman, he's wearing her.

Not wearing her out. Wearing her like she's a very elaborate hat.
Robt C brought up one of my all-time favorite books:
If what Althouse says about sex and hats is true, it give a whole new meaning to Oliver Sacks' book The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat.
I said:
Suddenly, everything makes sense!

The man wasn't wrong at all. He was right and everyone else was wrong. And that's the way of the world, if we could only see things from a different point.

As Bob Dylan sang: "We always did feel the same/We just saw it from a different point of view."
Meanwhile, CWJ had said, "Well there are pussy hats after all." But those are hats for your head. To get the humor — and it's my favorite form of humor — you have to picture the ridiculous big-and-small foolery. The penis is wearing that hat. I figured somebody had already made a project out of putting little hats on penises, and I was right. The big-and-small element or humor is not present in the art project shown at The Village Voice. Soraya Doolbaz — great name! — makes penis-sized clothing, including hats, and dresses real penises up for posing in photographs. In the woman-as-hat notion that amused me, the "head" for the hat is much smaller than the head in a normal hat, but the hat is much larger than the normal hat, so you've got a very radical disproportion.

As I said in a post back in 2009, I have long been aware I am usually amused by humor about the size of things:
We were talking about the expression "postage stamp lawn," that is, a very small lawn, perhaps the size of an area rug. But what if there really were a postage stamp the size of an area rug? That would be a huge postage stamp. Ha ha. Imagine the size of the envelope you'd put it on. Okay. That to me is hilarious, and it reminded me of the joke I found so funny — decades ago — that I laughed so hard the teller of the joke got mad at me for laughing so much. I was cutting the joker's hair — I used to think I could do haircuts and acted upon that belief — and I noticed a bright red dot on the top of his head — the size of a pimple, but not a pimple — and not something he'd ever have noticed. I said, "What's this red dot on top of your head?" He said, "That's my Santa Claus hat!"
I have ever since regarded that as the funniest spontaneous remark I've ever heard, and maybe that will give you some insight into how I feel about the woman-as-hat notion that amused me so much yesterday. Or maybe you have the same taste in big-and-small jokes and you're laughing too. Click the "big and small" tag for more insight into Althouse's big-and-small fetish. In any case, I hope you like the photographs of Soraya Doolbaz.

And apologies to all of you who are thinking I waited nearly 4 hours for the 3d post of the day and this — this!! — is what I get? This post, half written, spurred a real-world conversation that took up nearly the entire interval. So that makes me think if you'll find plenty to say in the comments.

27 comments:

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

Oh, neo-Nazis are the new penis.

tcrosse said...

I always thought Mr. Potato Head should have a dick. Or maybe several, of various sizes, like a set of Allen Wrenches.

Big Mike said...

@Althouse, you and Meade go off on some very strange tangents at times.

Michelle Dulak Thomson said...

The funniest spontaneous comment I ever heard came from a man at whose house I was staying a couple decades ago. The pair had young kids, and they were very loud early in the morning. Suddenly, there was no sound at all. I poked my head out the door (which was just off the kitchen), and asked what was happening. "You know the old saying," he explained. "No," I said, perplexed.

"Familia breeds content."

tcrosse said...

@Althouse, you and Meade go off on some very strange tangents at times.

It must have been something in the NYT Crossword.

Anonymous said...

I think the furrow in the ground conveys more of an image of the female genitalia than the round dingus, though it's "vulva" rather than "vagina." But plow=penis and furrow=vulva is an old, old visual pun; I think it goes back at least to the Middle Ages, if not to the ancient world. Didn't Aristotle have the idea that the man provides the seed and the woman provides the soil that nourishes it, form and matter?

Michelle Dulak Thomson said...

tcrosse,

Apropos of which, see the cartoon of "Mr. Tater Tot" in this week's New Yorker. One hat, one eye, one leg.

And, yes, the general shape is more or less penile.

Michelle Dulak Thomson said...

whswhs,

"When Adam dolve and Eve span ...."

Fernandinande said...

Oliver Sacks' book The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat.

You can't trust that guy: "In February 2010, Sacks was named as one of the Freedom From Religion Foundation's Honorary Board of distinguished achievers."

tcrosse said...

Maybe there's a tiny little strap-on for the Barbie Doll, available through the Althouse Amazon Portal.

Ignorance is Bliss said...

Based on your obsession with big and small humor, your men-in-shorts issue makes more sense.

FullMoon said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
bagoh20 said...

Nobody sincerely laughs at a big dong. They gasp, whisper, look around to see who's watching, then maybe giggle, but "funny" is not the right word.

rhhardin said...

Women's domestication of the penis.

Women no longer feel they're expected to say eeuuuw. A curious expectation given female genitals.

tcrosse said...

A curious expectation given female genitals.

What a crack.

Comanche Voter said...

Did she notch (so to speak) a mark on her bed headboard by receiving a dick pick from former Congress critter Anthony aka "Little Tony" Weiner. I mean if she's going to brag about receiving a ton of same, surely she must have one of Little Tony in her collection.

Gulistan said...

Are you a fan of Steve Martin's old stand-up bit about getting small?

Kevin said...

"When you put a hat and sunglasses on it, it kind of takes the raunchiness out of it."

Can it go out in public? Then it's still raunchy.

tcrosse said...

Let's not forget Tiny Elvis.

Big Mike said...

So Althouse has a "big and small fetish"? I'd ask Meade which side he comes out on, but I'm pretty sure I know how he'll answer.

Big Mike said...

And it might be truthful, or it might not.

richard mcenroe said...

Put a necktie and a donkey tie-pin on it and it makes a Democratic Congressman...

Night Owl said...

"I have long been aware I am usually amused by humor about the size of things"

Maybe you'll find this amusing.

Another related scene .

walter said...

Joe Cocker said "You can leave your hat on".
Magic Johnson advised "always put your hat on" before sex.
I've hat it with this topic.

Laslo Spatula said...

The next step is mean and women sending pictures of their assholes.

Celebrity leaks show that this is already happening.

Or so I've heard.

I am Laslo.

walter said...

Leaky assholes don't seem very photogenic.
Butt who am I to judge?

loudogblog said...

I remember, back in the 80s, Andrew Dice Clay had a joke where his penis told him, "I need a new hat."