Calm down, it's just a willy...
I think that it's not the first time Big Dave has caused a controversy - often required to don a loincloth of fig leaves - or copper.
The good burghers of the Japanese town of Okuizumo have suggested a giant replica of Michelangelo's David might do well to slip on some underpants, lest kiddies are left traumatised by an eyeful of the "big and unexpected" statue. Okuizumo, in Shimane Prefecture, has enjoyed the 5-metre tall nude since last summer. It was …
Soon to take a sauna. We stoke ours to 90 degrees centigrade - comfortable, until Girlie throws water on the Kiuas (heater) which is full of stones for heat retension. It has pine benches, no problen. Wood doesn't retain heat. We have to remove metal jewellery before we enter, else it'll burn us.
Heard about a Russian oligarch who had a sauna fitted to his boat. He demanded copper benches.
Er, NO!!! Must've hurt!
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Michelangelo's David is generally considered to be a good looking chap.
The legend is that he was originally carved with a larger dong, but the wealthy traders who commissioned him grew jealous of the appreciative comments their wives made about him, so they insisted Michelangelo chipped David's manhood down to its current size. Alas, the story is probably not true.
Still, why do the Japanese pixel out genitals, but are fine with demon tentacle rape porn?
http://www.theonion.com/articles/japan-pledges-to-halt-production-of-weirdo-porn-th,2657/
"[...] so they insisted Michelangelo chipped David's manhood down to its current size."
It is however true of the figure in Jacob Epstein's "Day" high above the pavement at 55 Broadway - St James Park station - which was built as the headquarters of the Underground.
The possibly apochryphal part of the story is that people on the pavement below objected to the way rain water was channelled off the tip of it.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/browniebear/7497205432/
A similar story exists for Eric Gill's "Ariel" at BBC Broadcasting House - although there are conflicting accounts.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/browniebear/4506291514/
"why do the Japanese pixel out genitals, but are fine with demon tentacle rape porn?
tentacle porn was thought up because of genitals censorship; the law wanted the genitals to be censored but the adult artists wanted to make adult manga; so they invented the tentacles style!
There is a nice article on Kotaku.com regarding the matter: http://kotaku.com/5938424/its-possible-to-talk-intelligently-about-tentacles-right
"Still, why do the Japanese pixel out genitals,"
The best example of this is in the anime Eden of the East, where at one point the main characters are running around a half-destroyed shopping mall which is also populated (for reasons that aren't entirely clear, even after you've watched the whole thing) by twenty thousand naked NEETs. And the obfuscation was a sort of scratchy blob over the relevant parts, adding a surreal note to the whole experience.
"The legend is that he was originally carved with a larger dong"
Technically, David's much-derided willy isn't that small- probably at least average length for an adult male. It just looks that way because it's easy to forget the statue it's plastered on is 5.2 metres high :-)
No. The average human body that's at best pudgy and out of shape is not beautiful. There is good reason that you don't typically see your average schmuck as the subject of high art. It doesn't matter what the age or civilization. Most people simply don't measure up.
The Germans had a great PSA regarding exercise that featured an "average" David demonstrating what lack of exercise would do to you. Nobody wants to see the that version of David.
> No. The average human body that's at best pudgy and out of shape is not beautiful.
That's a very subjective viewpoint actually, and not shared by others. :D
It's diffficult for a man to "appreciate" other men's bodies so how would you define beauty in the context of the human form other than what you personally find appealing?
In Africa, men find attractive the "fuller" woman and prefer it visually as apposed to the more western view that thinner is better (to a point).
<cliche alert>Beauty is in the eye of the beholder</cliche alert>
It says it all really.
Wrote :- "Most human bodies ARE beautiful, we are just conditioned to think they are not."
Bollocks (if that is the right term to use here). So you are saying that if only in the school playground we had passed round illustrated books of naked warty old geezers, we would have grown up thinking that wart old geezers were beautiful?
I don't recall my parents or teachers "conditioning" me to think that nubile young women were beautiful. In fact it seems to me now that they did everything possible to discourage it, like confiscating pin-up mags depicting them.
Schoolteacher :- "I shall keep these disgusting publications."
> Why not celebrate the masculine form?
Kryten: But it's hideous! That's the best design they could come up with!? Are you seriously telling me there were choices and someone said "Ah. There. That's it. That's the shape we're looking for; the 'last-chicken-in-the-shop' look." Shakepseare had one. Einstein. Perry Como sang 'Memories Are Made of This' with one of those stashed in his slacks!?'
Lister: Well yeah.
Kryten: No wonder humans don't have a zoom mode!
Vic.
>Kryten: But it's hideous! That's the best design they could come up with!?
Q: What is the knob on the end for?
German scientist: It is to give more pleasure to the man!
French Scientist: It is to give more pleasure to the woman!
British Scientist: It is to stop your hand falling off the end!
Modern fluid modelling suggests the knob on the end has evolved to act as a plunger, removing what might have been left there by a previous gentleman- all the better to promote your genetic material. More civilised than easting his offspring after the fact, as lions have been known to.
Anyway, here's a Monty Python song, NSFW: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nGRPFUYUUdQ
Mathematically speaking I have more than twice the average number of penises found on humans (which is less than 50% as there are more women)
I even have more than the average for men (which is very slightly under 100% - due to disease, accidents, carving knife-related events and very sharp vacuum cleaner attachments, or misplaced curiosity)
Under natural conditions there are more women born but now that half the worlds population in China and India have ultrasound, abortions, and in China a one child policy along with both somewhat turning a blind eye toward little girls mysteriously dying things are a bit skewed sadly. Not to mention it occurs in other countries besides these two as well.
Totally off topic but having almost half the world's population in two neighboring countries where there are not going to be enough women may be a real geopolitical problem here in the not too distant future. Young men not being able to get laid tends to breed violence.
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Wrote :- "The human body is a beautiful thing. Why not celebrate the masculine form?"
As someone else said, most are not so beautiful. And for many of those people, the sight of a beautiful one paraded for the sake of its being beautiful just pisses them off. Like having a statue of a fat cat guy in a top hat lighting a cigar with a £50 note and placing it in the poor part of town.
Wrote :- "society at large welcomes this kind of shenanigan so long as it's a female that's being held up as a spectacle."
You are getting out of touch. These days naked females are rare on mainstream media. It just isn't PC. Instead it seems fashionable to show naked men, especially in gay scenarios. Watching TV, my wife and I have a contest in which she counts appearances of naked or part-naked men, and I count the ditto women. She wins.
We had to reset the score after seeing "Wilde" last week.
After all, us men call the "Morning Glory" "Piss-Proud".
After a pee, gone (have to stand on my head, natch)
But the Japs have the same....
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manneken_Pis) - scroll to the last piccie. Can't understand why kiddies are offended. Simply shows where they cane from. "Etch'd in stone!"
>oh my...I'm not even sure I want to know how you know this [The ancient Greeks had an aesthetic style that favoured small penises with a long prepuce.]
History of Art and the Classics used to be considered part of a rounded (some would say elitist) education:
"Sex was invented by the ancient Greeks, but it took the Romans to introduce it to women".
My hobby is figurative clay modelling. Apparently my style is "neo-realist" - which means the penis is modelled at the same scale as the rest of the body. It's surprising how many people say that it's been made too long. Seems as if all the neo-classical statue "little" ones have affected women's expectations. Men usually have a distorted expectation based on the foreshortening effect of looking down at their own.
>"Sex was invented by the ancient Greeks, but it took the Romans to introduce it to women".
>Anything the Romans did was a Greek copy. So whatever they did, the Greeks would have to have done it first.
It was a joke, and only mildly homophobic (though many of gay men I know won't complain since they get so much fun out of poking fun at the exploits of us heterosexuals). Of course Greek men and women got together to make more Greeks.