I once knew this guy. He was an unexceptional guy - a little geeky, and a lot loud, but not prone to particularly deep thought, or certainly not anything ground-breaking or controversial. He’d been signed off sick for a while with depression or some-such, and for all his noisy bluster and inability to let anyone else finish a sentence, it was fairly clear to anybody who cared to look that he was a pretty nervy guy.
The only really unusual thing about the guy was that he had a pierced cock, and like many similar cultural burps, this fact became less interesting to anyone else in direct proportion to how transparently attention-seeking the initial motive behind doing it became.
This is how a typical situation would play out. Bear in mind I’m paraphrasing, and may be conflating details for effect.
The guy would walk into a room and ostentatiously announce his presence, by being blustery and loud. People would acknowledge him with an enthusiasm in direct relation to how well they knew and liked him, whether their attention was already taken up elsewhere, and whether or not they were just trying to have a quiet night.
Depending on the response, he would do something else noisy, until at the very least, most people knew he was there.
Then, after a while, regardless of what other conversations were going on, he would find a way to mention his pierced cock.
“Did you see Episode 1?” A person would say.
“Yeah, it was shit.” Someone would respond.
“Yeah. It’s even shitter the fourth and fifth times.” The first person would continue.
“…God, people are always going on about my pierced cock.” Our hero would loudly interject.
“Hm.” One of the other people around the table would say, tactfully. “Still, looking forward to the second Matrix movie. It should be a treat. After all, that first one was lots of fun.”
“I mean, ALWAYS. It’s like they’ve never heard about cock piercings before. God, people, don’t go on about it, you know? It’s just a piercing. In my cock. It’s no big deal.” The guy would continue.
“Right. Yeah.” Somebody would say, feet shuffling. “So…”
“You know I’ve got my cock pierced, right?”
“Uuuhm. Oh.” The speaker would look frantically around the other people at the table, and finding no refuge, would take the leap. “Really? So… you’ve got… your cock pierced?”
The guy with the pierced cock would roll his eyes dramatically, and say “Oh, god, come on. It’s just a cock piercing. It’s just life, you know? Why is everybody so fucking interested in it? Jesus, people are sad, if the only thing they’ve got to get excited about in their mundane little lives is judging someone just for being different, and having a little imagination. Why can’t people just mind their own business and let people like me do what we want with our cocks. It isn’t hurting anyone. It’s just personal expression.”
“Oh… kay.” Someone would say, sheepishly, absently scratching at their shirt. Maybe their nipple ring was chafing… we’ll never know.
“It’s like I can’t even go out any more.” The rant would continue. “The other night, I was in this place, just minding my own business, having a drink, and some girls I’d never met before begged me out of the blue to see my cock piercing. So I was like ‘fucking hell, okay, jesus, if it’ll shut you up’, and got up on the table and showed them all my cock. You know, to stop them going on about it.” There would be a pause, in which it’d feel like he was almost challenging someone to talk about something else, his fingers twitching ever so slightly near his zipper.
Nobody would say anything for a bit. Then conversation would slowly start to get back to normal.
Then, suddenly:
“Fuck, okay, if it’ll shut you up, you can see it.”
And the sound of a zipper.
For some reason, and I have genuinely, sincerely no idea why, that memory, about a person of great noise and fury that ultimately signified nothing, has been on my mind all day today, so I thought I’d share it with you.
Chris Sims, ladies and gentlemen…
Evidence of the demise of purchased music is everywhere to be seen, except for one place: the statistics.Interesting article about the music industry @ the Guardian