My subway arrived at the 34th Street stop at about 6:30 a.m., giving me time to arrive early to my 7:00 kickboxing class where I would guide people in using kicks, punches, knees and elbows to solve all their domestic issues. My heart melts a little every time I receive a testimonial like the following:
“My wife and I got into an argument over dishes being left in the sink. I threw the jab-cross-knee combination we worked on in class and after she got up off the ground, she washed not only the dishes but also the puddle of her blood. Thank you not only for your kickboxing instruction but also for helping me maintain my marriage!”
As I was rounded the corner to the final stairwell up to the street, I jarred into a freeze as I saw a black man standing on the stairs with his erect penis sticking out of his pants and finishing what looked like his morning toss-off. I saw a few drops of liquid fall from his penis to the ground and in my innocence I thought he must have just finished up urinating. Looking at the steps, I didn’t see any puddle of piss and thought to myself, “If it wasn’t urine what in God’s name could it possibly—Jesus Christ!”
Elisabeth Kübler-Ross talks about The Five Stages of Grief that one goes through when experiencing a grief-inducing event, such as the death of a loved one. The five stages include Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression and Acceptance. I discovered that when witnessing a penis at 6:30 in the morning one also undergoes various stages leading, but not ending in, acceptance. And thus was born The Five Stages Of Seeing A Penis, soon to be released in book form.
The first stage is Shock, where you are startled to a point where you are like a deer caught in the headlights. There have been many cases of people who have been sodomized while completely catatonic. I myself have woken up from the dentist’s chair to a facefull of semen. Needless to say, I insisted that I would not pay any extra for the facial.
The second stage is Justification. You can’t accept that a man would just have his meat hanging out there blowing in the wind, to use Bob Dylanian terms. “He must have had to urinate really badly” or “Perhaps his zipper is broken and he needs to do laundry and was forced to go commando and the combination of broken zipper and no drawers has led to this unfortunate situation,” are common responses.
Unlike the five stages of grief, Acceptance is not the last stage of The Five Stages Of Seeing A Penis.” After the initial shock of seeing the penis and the subsequent desperate attempt to justify why the penis is making an appearance in order to maintain your current worldview that in this world men keep their penises in their pants, especially in public places, you have to accept the fact that in front of you stands a man and protruding out of his pants stands a penis. If by this point you can’t accept this as a reality, you might have gone into complete cognitive dissonance and the following stages may not occur until much later.
After Acceptance comes Anger. “Why the hell should I be subject to witnessing this man’s penis—especially before 9:00 a.m.?” A subtle aspect often denied in the penile viewer is the anger that this man has his cock exposed and you would also like to pull out your pud but are too afraid of the consequences, from legal to laughter.
The final stage of The Five Stages Of Seeing A Penis is Desire, where you have gotten through your initial shock and anger and now want to experience that schlong firsthand. This often expresses itself in reaching out to the appendage or dropping to your knees and opening your mouth or the spontaneous dropping of your panties and spreading of your legs. In the incident in question I experienced all of these common manifestations of desire.
There were two things I took out of this incident, besides the development of The Five Stages Of Seeing A Penis. The first is that I will most probably refrain my barefoot walking to places that are not hotspots for the morning wank, such as subways and Starbuck’s restrooms. Secondly, I have committed myself to cover my penis from view until at least 9:00 a.m., realizing a sighting of this sort could result in a traumatization of the viewing victim.
With having a penis comes a tremendous responsibility. One must wield his organ with this awareness, especially if you plan to use your penis as a tool for Self-discovery.
