Sperm Count: Speaking of Erections

Fresco of Priapus, Casa Dei Vettii, Pompeii (PD-ART, Fer. filol)

We take words for granted. Take for instance erection. You mention erection and you think of sex. In order to consummate sexual intercourse a male needs an erection; it’s not a requisite for procreation in this age of test tube babies and frozen sperm, but it doesn’t hurt. The sexologist Dr. Ruth used to roll her tongue employing her German accent to create a mellifluous and exotic sound when she said the word in order to emphasize the auspicious state that it betokened. There’s the flaccid penis and there’s an erection. A male with a penis which cannot make the transition from one state to the other suffers from ED, or erectile dysfunction. If the cross had two stations it might conform to these two earthly poles of existence. However, considering how much the word erection is used, it’s rather astounding how seldom one thinks of its roots. Erection is the state of building something up and an erection is what results from this activity and every erection has its shaft which is the foundation for what will eventually rise up. You might erect or participate in the erection of a tent or building. Remember when you were a kid and you innocently played with your erector set? Little did you know that this would be the foreplay that led to manhood. To erect is also to create. So we erect buildings and eventually cities and that is why the word was chosen to describe a condition in which the male penis engorged with blood becomes proud and hard. The erection is the Robert Moses of the human body. Plowing the field is slang for having sex. But you need an erection to plow the field and to coin the name of a famous soul song create an “expressway to your heart.”  The erection  is what makes ontogeny recapitulate phylogeny. It’s what turns the individual into a race and it’s a symbol of the life force. In the bible the Tower of Babel is a major erection and when that erection is lost, mankind becomes impotent, speaking in so many different tongues that no one is able to understand each other any more. The word of god has become scattered words, now lacking a divine unity and mission.

Getting Bogged Down and Sandy

Three cheers for all valiant reporters of the Weather Channel and their colleagues on CNN, and the three major networks, but it was like throwing a wet blanket over any entertainment potential the storm might have had. Every time you’d looked (if you were one of the lucky few who had power) they were up to their ankles, knees, thighs in water. If you were a producer this must have proposed some daunting challenges. While there was excitement about say the hanging crane on 57^th Street--whether it might fall and its potential for damage (and the Schadenfreudian wishes that the 90 story luxury tower , a modern day Tower of Babel built for the super rich, would fall) there wasn't much room for movement, when your basic story is that you and we are getting soaked. The actual losses and tragedies associated with major catastrophe were and continue to be heart wrenching. But the reporting was all a little like Groundhog Day, the movie where a weatherman (Bill Murray) ended up repeating himself. Normally commercial interruptions are anathema to viewers, but the pro bono work being done by television became so monotonous that commercial breaks started to be missed. If only we could hear again about the sale at this or that car dealership, about Cialis and Flomax, even good old General Foods seemed desirable. Once we could again be exploited by advertisers instead of the elements, life would return to normal.