The thing about unbidden erections is that they are normal. There need be no shame – but that of course means that we must reject society’s shaming of the beautiful, healthy hard-on. Paradoxically, when I rejected shame and embraced the possibility of a public erection, then the hard-on never came – it was like the tension had been dissipated and it just didn’t happen. That said, I have witnessed a number of men bearing erections outside of a sexual context: morning wood in a hostel dorm; many and various nude beach erections; locker room erections. In no case did the stiffy-sporting man show the least shame or discomfort. In the words of a (very well-endowed) young man responding to his sister chiding him about his public beach-boner, “C’est normale.” Societal attitudes are like the hard-on is a threat, like the man wants to run around and fuck everything with a hole. I wish we could get away from this nonsense. Amar Rama
Agree, a hard on is normal physiological behavior. It’s common in men and society should quit making us feel like we’ve done something wrong. We should be proud of every moment we experience it and not feel embarrassed. It’s going to happen almost anywhere and in any circumstance. Thoughts can result in a HARD cock, so can bedtime, and just doing things that energize the blood flow to our prize. And when it does go about your business, don’t attempt a public readjustment that will inevitably draw even more attention to you and your living cock. It’s part of who we are and we should raise our head in pride instead of lowering it in shame.
RoB T
Here’s my take on it: Women can get erections (clitoris and nipples) but they are not always visible. Having a visible erection is uniquely a male characteristic in humans (hyenas are another story…). Women tend to associate erections with sex, wanted or not (i.e.rape). Every male on this planet knows that spontaneous erections occur, and they do not necessarily mean sexual arousal. Men get more erections without sexual arousal than with it, and are unaware of how many times they get one whilst they sleep. This is the male experience but not the female experience. Therefore, erection shame is firstly driven by women as a protective mechanism and secondly driven by homophobia. The issue at stake here is that it is not the having of an erection that is the fundamental issue, it is what you do with it. This is true in both cases. Most straight nudist organisations have strict rules about not displaying erections if and when they occur. Most gay nudist organisations do not care about them. most gay guys know that they are not going to be raped if some other male in their vicinity has an erection. As a visible erection is one of the defining features of being a male, we should not be ashamed of being male, and nor should we be ashamed of having a visible erection.
Damon
Hear hear Damon, Amar Rama, and everyone for this stimulating discussion and Seb for the arousing photos and graphics! I’ve been reading a good book on Adam and Eve by Stephen Greenblatt and am learning that we can thank St. Augustine, who had an involuntary erection in a bathhouse when he was an adolescent, an experience which much later in life he turned into the doctrine of “Original Sin” (his formulation). Augustine traced the idea that “solitary arousal,” involuntary erections in men, are the expression of Original Sin, of the “evil” which is embedded in all sexual acts, back to Adam and Eve. Only after eating the apple “were the eyes of both of them … opened” so that could see that Adam’s erect penis was an expression of unholy lust, and feel ashamed, grabbing for fig leaves to cover their genitals. When Damon writes, “As a visible erection is one of the defining features of being a male, we should not be ashamed of being male, and nor should we be ashamed of having a visible erection,” I couldn’t agree more. The “shame” almost all men feel about involuntary erections in Western Christian culture goes back to the story of Adam and Eve. And by the way, according to Greenblatt, it wasn’t Augustine’s partner of 13 years with whom he had a son, who made him feel ashamed when he remembered his involuntary teenage erection in the bathhouse. It was his domineering, saintly mother, who became Santa Monica, whose holy day is August 27, and after whom the city in California is named.
So on August 27, lads, strip naked wherever you are and have a voluntary, public erection, in memory of St. Augustine, whose mum made him feel ashamed of himself and prevented him from becoming a real man.