How about “Brass Foot in Cannibalpeas’ Mouth”?
Reminds me of a question asked about my genitalia by a girlfriend years ago (no idea, don’t remember what the issue was) and I replied, “I don’t know, you’ve been up close with more men’s parts than me. How would I know if that’s uncommon?”
I think it’s probably common. A straight guy who wasn’t involved in sports, or a gym rat probably has seen few balls in his life.
Probably some other corner cases: medical professional, laser hair removal technician, prison inmate, celebrity phallus plaster caster…
It’s true enough that such gendered (and sexist) language is common parlance today. But so is calling people “crazy” and otherwise offering unfounded assessments of their mental condition. Such assessments, and the language that accompanies them, are (rightly, I think) banned here at bbs. We also used to call people “cocksuckers” pretty freely, but the homophobic nature of that term seems to be gradually killing it.
In other words, common parlance changes, and for good reasons sometimes. While I’m not calling for a ban here or anywhere else on citing testicles as the seat of real bravery, I am highlighting what I see as another objectionable, sexist metaphor. I don’t think I’m alone in seeing it as a denigration of women’s capacity for bravery, no matter how often people say that a woman just demonstrated the enormity of her “balls.”
So if anyone who commonly uses such gendered descriptions of bravery at least reconsiders using them, I’d say, “Thank you. That strikes me as a good start.”
I’ve always assumed my bravery resides in my armpits, as the sweat glands there seem to activate anytime I’m called upon to act with true bravery.
If nobody else has pointed out the obvious might I that my testes are the seat of my cowardice? I remember a.copper slamming a torch under my chin to open me up while his mate came from behind to punch my kidney and how my balls ached for days and I pitched forward into my own heave.
As Joyce would say, the scrotum tightening sea. Our balls are not heroic. Oh so very far from it.
Well yes, that’s the great irony. Men are highly protective of those ever so vulnerable and delicate little softie-walnuts. (And no matter how huge some supposedly are, they’re still little things in the end. I mean, in the front.)
Yeah, I know that soccer is supposed to be soft but a smack in the nuts is heave inducing. Or the face by the way. Sorry for the digression into head injuries and dementia but it’s in my head.
That’s a winner.
Posting this quote down here for any new viewers. I’m a fool:
Okay cool, so you actually can imagine a woman being brave. That’s nice.
Have you also thought anymore about the inaptness of citing male genitals as the source of bravery, be it bravery exhibited by a man or a woman? Or are you instead the sort who still denigrates people with other justly outmoded terms that implicitly also denigrate a disempowered demographic, such as “cocksucker”?
Yes, I’ve already said that I did. It falls under the “you don’t get to decide what anyone else finds offensive banner”. I get it.
“Usually we think that brave people have no fear. The truth is that they are intimate with fear.” - Pema Chodron
Only fools show no fear. Heroes are scared shitless but act anyway because they must.
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