3/1/2003: Harvard's snow penis

A beefcake moment on IotD? No. What you're seeing there is snow of course, 9 feet high, built by Harvard's crew team, and covered in ice "to avoid shrinkage", and it wouldn't be such a big deal, but...

The sculpture was torn down by a pair of girls who were offended and wanted to keep others from being offended. They didn't come forward for a long time, but when they did they set off a week of controversy when one of them announced that she did it because its "only purpose could be to assert male dominance" and "No one should be subjected to an erect penis without his or her express permission or consent" and "The unwanted image of an erect penis is an implied threat; it means that we, as women, must be subject to erect penises whether we like it or not."

I guess Cellar IotD readers have now been subjected to an erect snow penis - OK, a picture of one - without your express permission or consent. Gee, sorry about that, but I assume we're all at least mentally adults, and can handle it without throwing any sort of hissy fit.

Being a guy, I suppose I'm not really qualified to say whether the sculpture is a dominance symbol or not. The first thing I think, really, is that some guys on the crew team have serious latency issues. Erecting (arg) a giant penis of snow? Never would have occurred to me in a million years. Myself, I would have gone for the giant female naked buddha-esque figure, chubby and grinning and busting out with parts. (I guess I'm comfy with whatever that says about my sexuality.)

I think this is a tradition. Don't they do this every year?

Hmm.. a search doesn't reveal anything of the sort. I have seen articles about things of this sort happening at other universities, though.

Heh. These made me laugh:

(warning: could be offensive!)

http://www.treehuggercreations.com/snowblower.jpg

http://www.saunalahti.fi/~stunn9/kuvat/SnowPeople.jpg


And here's a few other interesting links. There's only discussion in these links:

http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=272806

http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=274391

http://www.matthewyglesias.com/archives/002359.html

http://www.erinoconnor.org/archives/000523.html

Heh

The guys building a big penis out of snow? The girls demolishing it? It sounds like downtown performance art. Freud would have a field day with this.

I don't know whether to be more appalled at kids, or rather 'young adults' who are purported to be the best and brightest of our nation, one day to be the movers and shakers and leaders ... who are spending their time planning and constructing such an edifice (although it IS a nice penis, to be sure) or at the ones who ripped it down in a moment of politically correct pseudo-feminist (maybe they think they're real feminists. who knows) rage.

*shrugs*

Screw it.

Hell, what should I expect from people who probably use the word 'deconstruct' in sentences.

oooh ... friend of mine just sent me this snow sculpture pic ...

More snow penises:

http://poetry.rotten.com/decrepit-snow-awards/

http://home.ptd.net/~joshd/snow.html

http://www.morningbuzz.net/other_stuff/snowpe.jpg

Now we just need someone to make a big ol' twat.

As far as I can see, snow phalli will be with us forever. As long as there is someone who finds a penis funny they will exist. However I take offense that a public display of a phallic image is wrong, whereas a public display of vaginal pride is ok. While I do understand the need to support women in their quest for true equality, why does it always have to do with talking about their vaginas and taking offense to penises? I hope that this isn't the future of America.

I have been lurking for a few weeks since I found this site but this particular post caught me harder than usual.

The really sad part is that my first post is nothing thrilling or profound, in fact it is dead simple. Someone needs to tell the girls
"Hey, it's a penis, get over it. "

As I'm looking at these pictures of some amazing snowy constructions ... I'm reminded of a story told to me by one of the (rare) males students at Bryn Mawr ... I'm not presenting him as totally undamaged ... the man is sufficiently whipped that he took his wife's religion (hey, I respect him on this one) and her last name (I give him a hard time on this).

Anyway ... he describes a situation there at Bryn Mawr where some fuzzy-headed feminists decided that the maypole was too oppressive a male image (excuse me, but apparently they missed that tidbit of info on May 1, Beltane, being a pagan fertility festival ... and the maypole is SUPPOSED to be a phallic symbol) ...

So anyway ... the traditional Maypole was banned from the campus. It was replaced by the "Mayhole" which was apparently a sufficiently vaginal goddess symbol to make them happy.

(I don't have a problem with feminism, per se ... big fan of equal pay for equal work here ... what I have a problem with is using gender in the same way the race card gets played. I spent my undergraduate and graduate career studiously avoiding classes in 'women's studies' largely because I didn't think it was right to pay my hard-earned cash to sit in a room for three hours a week to discuss how much men suck. That's not fun, or educational for me.)

Quote:

Originally posted by Nightsong "Hey, it's a penis, get over it. "

How interesting...the quality of the snow used in the outhouse sculpture Wolf posted gives it a distinct look of marble. Perhaps it is meant to represent the outhouse to be used on the new Beverly Hillbillies reality show...

You know... as I get older... I come more and more to an unescapable conclusion about people.

Some people just take life, the universe, and everything too fucking seriously. And this is a perfect example. My favorite bit was that they destroyed the phallus not only because they were offended, but because they *didn't want anyone else to be offended*. WOW!! That is a high calling indeed. If I wanted to prevent anyone from being offended, probably the best I could do would be to stay in bed all day. (And even then, my wife would probably have something to say to me.)

If these womyn were so offended by the display of the snow penis, I'm not going to blame them and I'm not going to say they shouldn't have been offended. (I personally think it was tacky and, like UT, suspect that it says something about the sculptors.) But there are many more positive ways they could have expressed their offense without disturbing the sculpture itself, that would have probably done them a lot more good in terms of the image they portrayed of themselves. (Castrating woman stereotypes, anybody??)

Oh hell no! You're not just going to walk away after saying something like that! Come on, I want to hear some of these nicknames!