By Jim Hagarty
2016
I was just saying to my wife the other night that nowadays there is a museum for every darn thing but not a one that I have ever heard of to celebrate the male genitalia.
Why not, I wondered.
And right on cue comes the news that there is such a museum, in a small town in Iceland of all places. It is called the Phallological Museum and it displays everything from gigantic whale penises to speck-sized field mouse testicles and bull scrotums
And recently, the museum put its first human member on display.
There is also part of a Sperm Whale penis that is as thick as a tree trunk and as tall as a man. The entire penis is not on display but if it was, it would be about five metres long, or about as big as my garage. And that is when it is, ahem, in a relaxed state.
I probably will never make it to Iceland but it is tempting to go there just to see the 276 specimens from all of Iceland’s 46 mammals, along with a few foreign contributions. After all, it is the world’s biggest and only penis museum.
On display are the penises of whales, dolphins, walruses, redfish, goats, polar bears and rats, just to mention a few. The walls are decorated with massive dried penises, while several dried bull and reindeer organs have been transformed into whips and walking sticks.
Fifteen silver-coloured casts of different-sized human penises also stand in a glass case below a picture of Iceland’s 2008 silver medal-winning handball team, the members of which were willing models for the casts.
In fact, men from around the world are lining up to donate their penises to the museum when they are done with them.
Foreign visitors to Iceland are flocking to the museum. Uninformed about cultural norms and practices in Iceland as I am, I am intrigued to discover that local people go to the museum as well. A nice Friday night, after work activity to give the mind a rest.
There is just no easy way to get myself out of this story so I guess I will just have to get up from the computer and run away.
So many terrible puns to be written, so little time. And even less courage.
