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mercerhanau 's review for:
Phallacy: Life Lessons from the Animal Penis
by Emily Willingham
Hundreds of animal fun facts bookended and peppered throughout with social commentary. What’s not to love? My friends definitely had to suffer through many funny quotes and tidbits from me while I was listening to the audiobook. For example, “I have yet to hear of a human penis making music.” This book is very satisfying. Very entertaining if you have a fitting sense of humor.
Maybe more like a 3.5, since it was a little slow-going at times, but I did really enjoy the book overall and think many people would benefit from giving it a try. I think the author does a good job of balancing science with personal ick/suspicion about how society centers the penis as a tool of violence and stand-in for everything important about masculinity (not that all men have penises or that all people with penises are men).
Some sections toward the end felt like very condensed historical overview or making unfounded assumptions about history. I don’t know the history of Christianity vs. Pagan “phallic cults” enough to say either way. Probably important to the story she’s trying to tell, but it felt a little thrown in in an otherwise largely biological book. Still thought provoking for why different cultures put different emphasis on phallic symbolism and the power/violence/shame of penises and their associated activities.
But yeah. I agree with her. Let’s decenter this thing and stop making overly-specific appeals to nature (cough JP’s lobsters cough). Nature is SO beautifully varied, and humans are capable of making compassionate decisions with our BRAINS, not just flailing on the floor like toddlers and making horrible comparisons to animals when we’re told “no”.
Maybe more like a 3.5, since it was a little slow-going at times, but I did really enjoy the book overall and think many people would benefit from giving it a try. I think the author does a good job of balancing science with personal ick/suspicion about how society centers the penis as a tool of violence and stand-in for everything important about masculinity (not that all men have penises or that all people with penises are men).
Some sections toward the end felt like very condensed historical overview or making unfounded assumptions about history. I don’t know the history of Christianity vs. Pagan “phallic cults” enough to say either way. Probably important to the story she’s trying to tell, but it felt a little thrown in in an otherwise largely biological book. Still thought provoking for why different cultures put different emphasis on phallic symbolism and the power/violence/shame of penises and their associated activities.
But yeah. I agree with her. Let’s decenter this thing and stop making overly-specific appeals to nature (cough JP’s lobsters cough). Nature is SO beautifully varied, and humans are capable of making compassionate decisions with our BRAINS, not just flailing on the floor like toddlers and making horrible comparisons to animals when we’re told “no”.