When I said I wanted to write an article about flying penis, I realised the idea seemed much more relevant in my head. Apart from a few flying phallic objects (fairly well identified) in the corners of YouTube, what on earth was I going to find on the subject? ?
Then I realised that the flying phallus had been far more present throughout history than I had imagined.
Ancient or modern, insulting or protective, on display or discreet, here is a brief account of the flying penis’s adventures across the centuries.
The flying penis of the Roman Empire
In Roman mythology, Fascinus is the embodiment of the divine penis, a sacred entity of male fertility, located in the hearth.
He is venerated by the Vestals, priestesses of the hearth goddess Vesta. They hang an amulet bearing Fascinus’s image (a fascinus) beneath the chariot of generals celebrating a victory, to protect them against the evil eye.
Phallic amulets, often winged, are ubiquitous in Roman culture: jewellery, belts, bells, lamps… They were used, in particular, to protect children and conquering soldiers.
Fascinus is often associated with Liber Pater, an ancient Roman god of wine, the vine and fertility, sometimes identified with Bacchus and his Greek counterpart, Dionysus. In Italy, a festival is held in his honour every year in March. The villagers process through the countryside, carrying an enormous phallus to protect the harvest and make the land and its inhabitants fertile.
With the arrival of Christianity, these customs, although still deeply rooted, met with strong disapproval from Christians, who considered it shameful to display and glorify such a sexual symbol.
Winged phalluses appear in numerous relief wall frescoes, particularly in Pompeii and Nîmes.
Illustration: a winged penis-bird on a fresco discovered in 1825 among Roman ruins in Nîmes
The ancient flying penis came back into fashion towards the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th, in the form of engravings and tattoos.
The flying penis of the Middle Ages
In the Middle Ages in the West, with Christianity holding sway, the flying penis became more discreet.
But books were copied by hand by monks, and after copying serious books all day long, they would get bored. And when they got bored while writing, what did the monks do? They doodled funny drawings in the margins.
This seems to have been the case with the monk who recopied, around 1340, the Decree of Gratian, revised by Bartolomeo da Brescia, a particularly tedious old law book.
The flying penis of Bhutan
In Bhutan, a small Asian country between China and India, it is not uncommon to come across erect penises in the act of ejaculating, painted with an airborne look on the façades of rural homes, as well as wooden penises hanging from roofs and doorframes.
Photo: rajkumar1220’s Flickr gallery, Creative Commons licence
The legend of the flying penis
This curious symbol is said to be a legacy of the Bhutanese saint Lama Drukpa Kunley, also known as “the Madman of the Dragon Lineage”. Kunley lived in the second half of the fifteenth century and the beginning of the sixteenth.
Originally from Tibet, Kunley travelled extensively in Bhutan, where he taught Buddhism. He loved women, sex and wine, and enjoyed life’s pleasures in the company of his disciples. His unorthodox teaching methods, far removed from social conventions, shocked the clergy but tended to appeal to ordinary people.
He was the one who spread the tradition of painting phalluses on walls and hanging carved penises around the house to drive away demons and evil spirits.
According to legend, Kunley protected the inhabitants by striking the forces of evil with his penis, a formidable weapon modestly named the “Flaming Lightning of Wisdom”, thereby transforming evil creatures into protective deities.
Photo: Stefan Kasovski’s Flickr gallery, Creative Commons licence
The phallic cult
A monastery was built in his honour in 1499, and still houses many wooden phalluses today. One of them, the Lama’s Lightning, with its silver handle, is said to have been brought from Tibet by Kunley himself. The lama who heads the monastery regularly uses it to bless women seeking fertility. For that, nothing beats a little tap on the head.
The belief that the phallic symbol brings good luck and wards off evil forces still persists today. In the countryside, the walls of new homes and shops are still decorated with phallic murals; wooden phalluses are placed in homes and fields, and they are even painted on truck licence plates.
This custom has been abandoned by city dwellers and has also disappeared from Buddhist temples.
Photo: rajkumar1220’s Flickr gallery, Creative Commons licence
But it seems that although Kunley and his monster-chasing willy did indeed contribute to the popularity of phallic symbols, they were already present earlier in the tradition of Bön, an animist religion practised in Bhutan before the advent of Buddhism.
The modern flying penis
These days in the West, esoteric beliefs associated with flying penises have faded. But thanks to technology, the age-old fantasy of an airborne willy can finally be put into practice… and proudly displayed on YouTube (where some send sex toys all the way into the stratosphere).
Wanting to send a phallic object into the sky is all well and good, but not all methods are equal. And not all flying penises fly in the same way.
Among the techniques for “making an inflatable penis fly”, the same video features, in particular:
The helicopter-hoisted phallus
A radio-controlled model helicopter, some string, and the inflatable willy slowly rise towards the heavens.
The willy rocket
A brute-force approach (although trying to make an inflatable penis fly is already pretty brute-force), but spectacular.
The penis plane
The record for the most reliable vehicle probably belongs to the glider phallus. But the penis plane probably wins the prize for the classiest look (ahem… “classy” may not be the most fitting word, but whatever….).
While they’re at it, the same goofballs also try to fly an inflatable doll (ugh, they could at least have dressed her in a Superman costume first!) and an inflatable sex-toy sheep (the Lovin’Lamb by Pipe Dream, hero of Sextoys Superheroes and, it seems, many other adventures…).
The wooden helipenis
In another video, the same people try to fly a wooden helipenis.
“What are we doing this weekend?” “Well, what a question! Flying penises, of course, like last weekend and the one before!”
The menacing shadow of the helidick
Another helicopter penis, but flat, in the sky. We have to admit, it looks rather menacing.
Modern aggressive penises
In Russia
In 2008, in Russia, a helidick disrupted a conference by politician and chess player Garry Kasparov. This “Dongcopter attack” without any real danger was probably politically motivated, but above all it gives us the chance to watch a very serious-looking man in a suit, a member of the security staff, leap after the flying willy.
On Second Life
A “flying-penis attack” had already taken place on Second Life. In 2006, an interview with Anshe Chung, the avatar of Ailin Graef, who became a millionaire in real life after successfully investing virtual money in the game, was interrupted by… a storm of flying phalluses.
By accident
In Brisbane, Australia, in 2001, at a stag party, Jure Skumavc, the best man, was injured by a flying sex toy expelled by a dancer doing a rather unusual performance. The article doesn’t say exactly which part of the woman’s body the sex toy came from. However, it suggests she didn’t throw it with her hands or feet.
The sex toy reportedly travelled 7 metres and reached a height of two metres. The outcome of the mishap for the “injured” man, whose photo from the day can be seen: a scratch on his forehead and an anecdote to tell at every opportunity—including to the press. I’m not sure that trying to become publicly known as “the man who got hit in the face with a dildo” is a brilliant way to look cool… But he does look rather proud in his photo.
(Illustration at the top of the article: graffiti in London, from duncan c’s Flickr gallery)
Edit (August 2014): Bonus! A GIF from the half-porn, half-horror film Hard Gore:
