Emily Willingham, Ph.D. discusses how the phallus became a symbol of fertility, protection, and power across cultures and history. The conversation explores why these meanings have shifted over time and what that reveals about how we think about sex and power.
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You talk about the rise and fall of the phallus towards the end of the book, the fall of the phallus. Tell me about the fall.
You know, the rise of it was interesting because it seems to have been associated, at least in some parts of the world, with the rise of agriculture. You started to stake out your plot of land and you want things to grow on it. And one of the most know, at least to a lot of eyes, one of the most obvious manifestations of fertility is a penis and what comes out of it. And so they would. You know, some very early manifestations of this are like the Egyptian God Min is depicted with a flail, which is what is used to harvest grain, right? But he also has an erect penis. It's parallel to the ground. And it's this dual association of fertility with this kind of rise of agriculture. And. And I am just speculating here, but I also feel like just the fact that, you know, people with penises tend to have greater physical strength is also associated with being protective. And I don't think it's any accident that Priapus, which is a very early Greek demigod, was both a scarecrow, but he also, given his name, was Priapic, right? And was depicted with having a gigantic penis. And so these were protective, and it was fertility. And they even put it on amulets in ancient Rome with little wings of phallus, you know, to protect children. And then somehow that transmogrified into removing humans out of it entirely and just having a penis there. And I feel like that was kind of the fall in a way, because it erased the person entirely.
In Cambodia, I hiked far up a stream near one of the temples, and they had carved thousands of phalluses, penises, into the bedrock. They wait till the river was low. They'd carve all these penises, so they'd fertilize the water that would come down under the rice paddies and all. And I was just fascinated at the amount of work it would take to do that much carving to have a bunch of penises. So they represented something. And you go into this in the book about penises representing dominance and power, and thus the flip side of that means vaginas are, you know, weak or submissive. Do you think that that's. That that's shifting? I mean, at least from the research you're seeing or from anything else you've.
Seen, this may be aspirational on my part, but I think it is.
