fall down and worship

The alcoholic, bisexual, syphilitic and scary-smart John Wilmot, Lord Rochester, penned the politically satirical “Signior Dildo” in 1673. The poem offers these lines:

When next you go thither to make your Selves Sweet,
By Buying of Powder, Gloves, Essence, or So
You may Chance get a Sight of Signior Dildo.
You'll take him at first for no Person of Note
Because he appears in a plain Leather Coat:
But when you his virtuous Abilities know
You'll fall down and Worship Signior Dildo.

Like most of Rochester’s poems, this one swerves seamlessly between anxious praise and painful derision, between the deeply personal and the abjectly political, between male and female, between heterosexuality and homosexuality, between just about every polar opposite you can imagine. Rochester was never a man to be easily pinned down, a facet that Johnny Depp plays up in his portrayal of Rochester in the filmic version of The Libertine. In this particular poem, however, the praised and derided, loved and hated, feared and desired, vexed object in question is the dildo.

The dildo is an ancient object. One found in a German cave dates back about 28,000 years, suggesting that we humans have been using tools to for pleasure since the ice age.  Before their current silicone, stainless steel, pyrex and jelly incarnations, dildos were often carved from stone, ivory or wood, or fabricated by stuffing a leather pouch with rags, horsehair or other filler, which is the type that Rochester’s “Signior Dildo” evenhandedly celebrates and vilifies.

(One has to marvel at Rochester’s choice of the dildo as the tool upon which to skewer his political enemies. He is one dead mother-fucker I’d invite to the apocryphal dinner party.)

But enough of dusty dildo history. I write here today not to bury the dildo, but to praise it. I, as Rochester predicted of his reader, have fallen down and worshipped the dildo. I  love my dildo, and I am not ashamed to admit it.

The dildo is one invention that, like Athena from the brow of Zeus, popped forth fully formed and not in need of much improving. Sure, the juggernaut of technology has given us better materials from which to create our dildos, and certainly those artisans crafting the dildo have added various bells and whistles—from carving along the sides to versions that could ejaculate, which, parenthetically, were available in the mid-eighteenth century. And certainly one could argue that the vibrator has done much to improve the efficacy of the stalwart and immobile dildo, but I would counter the vibrator is a different animal altogether. It might incorporate the dildo, as in the rabbit, but the pure dildo remains proud, upright, virtually unchanged.

The dildo like many perfect tools is intended to do one thing and to do that one, very important, thing perfectly. In this respect, the dildo is much like the windmill, the hammer, the wheel, or duct tape: it is a thing of precision, simplicity and beauty. Over time, the dildo hasn’t changed much, and it represents the very best of what humans can create to make their lives better.

I have to wonder about that Paleolithic dildo. Did a woman, left alone in the cold night while her mate was out hunting mastodon, carefully sculpt it out of its six separate stone pieces? Or did her mate make it for her? Was it part of a religious ceremony, like later dildos used for ritual defloration? Or was it an object devoid of any symbolism, created for the sole purpose of pleasure? I like to think it was. I like to think that our ancestors realized the power of the dildo: the pure ability to give a zipless fuck, Even if it was created in a time before zippers.

I have owned two dildos. The first, as I have written, I purchased in 1991 with my ick-factor boyfriend Todd at a lesbian-owned sex store located in the aerie of an anonymous building on 57th street. The second, the one I own now, I bought last year at Babeland. Made of a dense and delicious silicone that feels surprisingly like a real cock,  it is the Vixskin Cowboy, and it is a squat hefty thing. I have two njoy wands, which I love a lot, and a Juicer Pyrex dildo too, but I consider them to be variations on the dildo themes, less traditional and conventional, if still lovely in their own cold-slick surface and adamantine hardness.

My earlier dildo was orange as a Cheet-O; my current dildo  is a color Babeland names as “root beer.” It’s an unrealistic brown tone; no real man of color is the shade of this dildo. But then, no man of no color is the shade of the “cream soda” dildo that Vixskins makes either. This dildo has highly realistic details: snaky veins curving up the shaft, a differentiated head, and a shape that faithfully duplicates a human phallus. It also, rather troublingly, has two half-testes attached. They bother me, not physically, but emotionally, because they’re both equally there and not there at the same time. I realize the balls help to keep the dildo in a harness were one to use it with a harness, but they trouble me. I cannot, however, find it in myself to simply cut them off. I don’t want to neuter my dildo.

And this truncated aspect of my dildo brings up, as it were, what might be most problematic about the tool of today. Unlike older dildos that were made without a thought of a harness, and were therefore long and slender, tapering happily to a in infinite nothingness, today’s dildos look decidedly lopped off. Severed rudely at their base, contemporary dildos look like decapitated heads. It is a bit off-putting to think about, so generally I don’t.

The will to repress and deny can be a beautiful thing.

But not as beautiful as my dildo. The wonderful thing about dildos is that they  can fuck a woman—or a man—as she (or he) wants to be fucked at that moment. Using a dildo, I don’t have to direct, ask, whisper or nudge. I need not flip or twist or arch, unless I want to. It’s all of the pleasure and none of the obligatory communication or occasional frustration, and that is sometimes a very good thing. Sex toys—vibrator or dildo or combination thereof—are one advantage that women have over men. Men’s sextoys are less good. Ours are awesome, and they testify silently, or in a low-level humming, how we don’t really need you men to get off.

(Which might very well be the reason that places like Alabama have legislated against selling sex toys. Though if you do live in Alabama, you can now get free shipping from Tony Comstock.)

Men, however, needn’t feel threatened by the dildo. And not merely because there is nothing like the human touch, the arms and legs and skin, the human breath, the human tongue, the gift of speech, and the electric press of the person. But also because the dildo, as much as it squishes masculinity into this one  reductive tool, can also embody a man and all that manliness suggests.

The dildo gives me the ability to fuck another man without fucking another man, in short. My dildo, which does not look like nor feel like my boyfriend’s cock, gives me the gift of dalliance without threat, pause, guilt or complication. Any time I want to fuck someone else, I can. I can wash off my Cowboy, get into whatever groove I wish, and have at it. He can be someone I know, someone I don’t, someone I’ve only read about. In my own little corner, in my own little world, I can fuck whomever I want to. And when I’m finished, I can do it again with someone else, or I get up out of my bed, wash off my dildo and get on with my day.

My dildo too allows my boyfriend and me to fantasize together what it might be like to have a second man in our bed. What it might feel like. What it might look like. How we might feel about it. And it allows us to do it safely, controlled by our own voices and wishes, without the risk of, or to, the actual human. We can try a threesome on for size and we can do it whenever we want, without the inherent hassle of aligning three separate Gothamite’s schedules.

My dildo offers a full plate of freedom, a freedom that oddly, rarely, and ecstatically, comes with almost no responsibility.

My dildo, you are an unsung hero, even given that when I use you I sing hushed garbled praises. You are a silent partner. You may lay unused for days or weeks, but when I take you out, you are always, ever, uncomplainingly, ready to work.

Dildo, I salute you.

Comments

[badinfluencegirl]

i have a few toys but my first dildo is arriving in the mail not soon enough. i ordered a leo. i expect i will love it madly and deeply forever or until i lose it or find one to love even more.

without having met leo i already believe that my other toys will feel cheapened and lost by my utter disinterest post arrival.

mine will vibrate because the non-vibrating ones were out of stock, but it doesn't NEED to.

:)

excellent post chelsea

[The Fury]

Vibrating or not it is a world wonder to see a woman use a dildo. I know many women who have names for their toys. Do you or any of your many female readers have a name for their dildo companions?

[summerbreeze]

Dildoes are like duct tape. That's a good 'un. I'll have to remember that one.
I run mine through the dishwasher. By themselves. With no soap. I have to warn my man. It's kinda funny - "by the way, honey, I"ve monopolised the dishwasher again." They come out like NEW.

[Slut Boy]

Etymologist Anatoly Liberman details the origins of the word "dildo:"

http://blog.oup.com/oupblog/2007/02/dildo_back_and_.html

[erica]

Chelsea Girl, I'm sure you've read Thomas Nashe's "Choice of Valentines"? I think it's one of the wittiest, most lascivious, sexiest, and thought-provoking poems about dildos (although it's not exactly celebratory ... but the phrase "blind misshapen owl" is worth all the misogyny).

[S.P.]

"Libertine" is one dark film...

[chelsea girl]

Fury, I myself have never named a toy. On the other hand, I used to work with this lesbian couple who had two dildos with monikers. The smaller one was "Richard," and the larger, "Dick."

Thank you to Erica and Slut Boy for expanding my field of knowledge. I'm a broad who enjoys being broadened.

kissykiss,
chelsea girl

[Jack]

its been a long time (28years - when I was 14) since I have read fear of flying but isn't a zipless fuck more about zipcodes then zippers :)

[chelsea girl]

Jack,

Here is how Erica Jong defines "zipless fuck" in Fear of Flying:

"Zipless," Jong writes, "because when you came together zippers fell away like rose petals, underwear blew off in one breath like dandelion fluff."

I think zipcodes undoubtedly plays a part in the concept as well, that is sex unrestrained by geography or other boundaries. In this piece, however, I used the term in the meaning supplied by Jong and quoted above.

cheers,
chelsea girl

[ell]

Wilmot and dildos have been on my mind recently too.I bought The Libertine a couple of weeks ago and still have yet to watch it...I think Johnny Depp and I need to get up close and personal real soon - those lips! I'm interested to see how this film is.

My sweetheart thankfully enjoys my pleasure any way I take it and various items of dildohood often make their way into our play.

Long live the dildo in whatever shape it takes! Beautiful writing as always CG.

Ell