Once upon a time, in a land, not so far away, in a time, not so distant, in a country, not too different from our own, a man, Joe Schnurd, for who knows what reason, got an erection that wouldn’t go down. Because his erection was so full and omnipresent, the neighbors began to speak. Erections in the privacy of one’s own home had always been tolerated. But this was a Public Erection.
At first the women found it mildly arousing. They giggled and gossiped, but not much was done about it. But then by virtue of public opinion, their mild arousal turned into public censure and concern commensurate with (or actually multiplied by) their arousal. Subconsciously they assumed that the more severe their reaction, the less the anonymous world of the media would suspect them of harboring this secret arousal. Of course the women whose desire was most extreme, screamed the loudest against this PUBLIC ERECTION.
“This is Not Right!”
“It ought to be banned.”
“There ought to be laws against this sort of thing.”
Marches were held. Protests and anti-protests were filed. Petitions were passed. Opposing propositions were circulated. The world was abuzz with pro and anti-erection sentiments. The residents of Asnia, Joe’s country, were polarized. No one was sitting on the fence. Everyone took a stand.
The anti-erectionists tended to be dominated by young mothers trying to protect their children from ‘all the wrong influences’ while blithely encouraging the mindless wars of GI Joe. These same mothers had been at the Love-Ins in the 60’s, but had now become more ‘mature’ wanting to shield their little darlings from life’s realities.
The pro-erectionists tended to be populated by young radicals, men and women, who were dedicated to the transformation of Asnian society. These young people, mainly students on the college campuses throughout Asnia, had nothing invested in the status quo and so could easily call for its overthrow.
The government of Asnia had been anti-student and anti-education for a long time, having been elected by those who were heavily invested in the status quo, literally. Because the Asnian political system existed to protect the status quo, the Executive Branch of the government was especially and solidly anti-erection, claiming it was definitely abnormal. Most had never seen one before. The Executive branch, sidling immediately up to the young mothers, pulled a major political coup. They claimed their party supported Motherhood and Apple Pie, while they accused the opposing party of being pro-erection, ‘aligning themselves with the individuals who are threatening the very fabric of Western Society’.
And who can stand against young Mothers? Inevitably both political parties opted for Motherhood and became anti-erection. The pro-erection groups were declared illegal, as a threat to ‘normal’ society – citing the pro-erectionists' association with radical groups. And erections were banned.
The church took a strong stand against the erection, citing original Sin. “How could this man experience so much pleasure when he was born into original sin?” The man with the erection, Joe, was then excommunicated from all the religions of The Book. (During this period of time, almost everyone on the western half of the Earth was associated with religions connected to The Book, and ascribed to its divinity.)
Joe’s case was taken up before the Supreme Court, one of whose members had died recently, while making love to his secretary. (Illicit Sex creates greater stress.) There was a great debate in Congress as to whether the new Supreme Court Jurist should be pro or anti-erection. Of course Asnia’s Leader with his ‘far-reaching vision’ appointed an ‘anti-erectionist’. This also was the subject of great controversy.
Interestingly enough, all the males of the Leader’s family were anti-erection for political as well as practical reasons. (The Leader: “If she never sees one, she’ll never want one.”) In contrast, all the females of the family were quietly pro-erection. (The Leader’s wife: “I saw one once; it was quite fascinating.”)
Whole groups began to pop up from nowhere, like mushrooms after the rain, supporting and attacking Joe Schnurd. Those who supported Joe, paraded with full erections, were arrested en masse, jailed en masse, freed en masse, and went to court en masse. As a whole, it was a group bonding experience, further polarizing society.
Entire clothing lines began to emulate the state of erection, with padding in all the right places. At first only the young people wore these new designs out of rebellion. The fashion was mainly confined to college campuses. Initially there was a lot of masculine resistance from the ‘real’ men, who were so afraid of being different from the rest. But the soft female persistence eventually won out.
“Honey, I think they look kind of cute.”
“You’ll never catch me dead in those.”
“Aw, Come on, honey. Please? Just for me.”
“Well, I don’t know. What will the guys think? I’m a ‘real’ man.”
“Please!”
Anyway, softly, gently, inexorably the fashion took over – with baby, then children clothes, and finally women’s clothing adopting the padded crotch design. Virginia Slims adopted this slogan for their joint advertising campaign with Crotch Maker, primary producer of the padded crotch fashions. “You’ve come a long way, Baby. Now you too can wear the pants in the family.”
The political leaders meanwhile still maintained the Boxer shorts and Puritanical black suit and tie, no matter how hot it was outside. But they kept winning elections on their anti-erection stance because everyone was afraid to go wholeheartedly pro-erection because of what happened to poor, old Joe Schnurd and members of his Erection movement.
Those opposed to Joe had taken to carrying limp carrots in their pockets to symbolize their anti-erectionist stance. Because Political Careers were made or broken based upon a politician’s erection stance (Who could stand against Motherhood?), these Limp Carrots, as they came to be called, had inevitably forced laws through their Congress banning erections except in the privacy of one’s own home.
Who was this man, Joe Schnurd, the one with the erection, which wouldn’t go down? The scientists of the Establishment researched Joe’s life, his early childhood, his adolescence, his young adulthood. They researched his bosses, his fathers, mothers and grandfathers. They researched his cats, dogs, fish and birds. They looked at his diet, psychoanalyzed his mind to discover what it was that gave him his permanent erection – because the authorities didn’t want this to happen again.
The state of his wealth was poor, he only had enough money, not really enough for the extravagances of life. He only had one wife, no girlfriends. His wife did always seem to have a merry twinkle in her eye, giggling uncontrollably at life’s many vagaries. Of course they diagnosed her as a classic ‘manic’ personality. The psychoanalysts recommended multiple electroshock treatments to cure this malady, pointing out that when a manic comes down they became severely depressed and even suicidal. The Church leaders accused Mrs. Schnurd of hiding a major depression because she had not even asked The Savior of The Book into her life. They believed that her joy was ‘certainly superficial at best’.
The religious scholars wrote vast discourses upon the evils of the Erection. Obviously these erections were part of the moral decay of Asnian civilization inspired by Satan. The preachers exhorted their congregations: “To resist erections is to resist Satan and the decline of Western civilization.” Of course the churches were heavily dependent upon the Boxer-shorted Establishment for their funding and donations. The Public Erection was finally raised to the level of a Mortal Sin.
More and more of the Asnian youth became alienated by the rigid worldview propagated by the anti-erectionists. However if they openly professed erectionist sympathies or wore erectionist fashions, they couldn’t get jobs. (Because the Executive Branch was anti-erection, promotions, demotions, media access, jobs and loans were based upon erection politics. Erectionists were denied middle class advancement, while the anti-erectionists were rewarded with participation in the full wealth of party politics.)
Coming in on the side of the anti-erectionists were the capitalists, naturally. Initially business was neutral, not wanting to offend either segment. In the second stages, the clothing people made vast fortunes either using the wilted carrot logo to attract the anti-erectionists or selling the padded crotch design to men, women and children of every culture. Finally the industrialists with impetus from the manufacturers of weapons, steel, gas, guns and bombs, began to realize the real threat of the erectionists to western civilization.
“Erectionists are entirely too passive. Lovers are not fighters,” the generals would say. “In study after study it has been shown that there is an inverse relationship between weekly sex and the willingness of a soldier to take another’s life. This erection movement is threatening our army, our defense system, our very way of life. It is a threat to free enterprise and our great and glorious nation.”
At first the other industrialists were ambivalent. However when they discovered that an underlying theme of the erection movement was that happiness comes from within, they became virulently anti-erection. They realized that the erection movement deep down was anti-consumerism. This was against the Asnian way. Consumerism had made Asnia what it was today, the biggest exploiter of natural resources on the planet, making the industrialists rich beyond all imaginings. The garment industry was slow to follow this anti-erectionist trend because they had made a bundle on the Erection movement and the fashions it had inspired.
The poor were perplexed. They had been having erections for centuries, had been prescribing them for a variety of ailments, male and female. It tended to be a cure for male and female depression, was a minor mood elevator, had no adverse side effects and was widely available throughout the world, emerging spontaneously in the smallest, most primitive villages throughout the planet Earth.
This simple health treatment, also promoted as an aphrodisiac, although not conclusively proven scientifically, was untaxable. Nobody had to buy it. Nobody need advertise or manufacture it. It grew spontaneously wherever there was man and woman. Inventories need not be formed. No data needed to be entered into the computer. Because there were no profits and it was untaxable, it was considered anti-Asnian. You see the Asnian Government had been created to protect the rights of Big Business in their capitalist system; so they were united, as always, to fight the Erectionist threat and protect their obscene profits.
In fact this burgeoning erection movement frightened those in power throughout the world. The veil of illusion was coming off. The Erectionists were shattering the illusions that money brings happiness, that power brings contentment, or that acquiring things brings peace of mind. Joe Schnurd had only enough money, not very much power, and possessed hardly anything but the bare essentials and yet he had this permanent erection, which testified to his internal vitality.
The major columnists, in the employ of Big Money, as usual, began talking about Joe’s alcoholic brother; about the mental illness of his great, great half uncle, claiming that Joe’s state would be partially hereditary and unavailable to the average man. Finally someone decided to talk to Joe. Of course they were still mostly interested in whether he approved or disapproved of the latest styles. They asked about his favorite foods and colors, his favorite singing groups, whether he was pro or anti-erection, even though he was still sporting a big one, discretely concealed by a table with a white tablecloth. They asked him about his childhood, whether his mother had beaten or abused him, whether his father had neglected or dominated him.
During a commercial break, after his last interview, before going to court, on the evening news of a small station in a small town, after the cameras had been turned off, with no one around, one of the minor commentators came forward. After looking around surreptitiously to make sure no one was watching, he actually asked Joe what he believed. Joe was startled at first. He was used to small-minded questions designed to trivialize his catalyzing existence. He took a few minutes to respond, causing the questioner to wonder if Joe had heard the question.
Finally, after what seemed an eternity, Joe stated slowly, but clearly, “I started to slow down. I started to settle down. I started getting behind. I realized that life at the back wasn’t that crowded. I liked it that way.
People and friends passed me as if I was standing still. Their speed was accentuated by the fact that I was actually going backward. I enjoyed the peace and quiet. I began to love my wife. I began to pleasure her regularly. We fell more deeply in love, daily renewing our sexual vows. Then one day our love became round in her stomach and turned into a child. Then our love turned round again in her stomach again. Our merging selves allowed me to sense and feel the changes she was going through. Then this love turned into a second child.
By this time I was so far behind, that I could never catch up. I became nourished by the solitude and the isolation from my peers. Instead my company came from my love bundles, my two children and my wife. Inevitably I realized that with this, I had everything that any man could have.
With this realization, my erection began to form. Just a little at first, because I was embarrassed. Then it grew more and more permanent with my growing realization that this ecstasy was free and available to all regardless of sexual persuasion.
As my erection grew, I came to the realization that the softer and gentler my exterior limbs became, the harder the penile erection. I came to realize the softness of my limbs had to extend to my mind. The harder and more inflexible my mind, the harder my limbs, the softer my sex. I came to realize that those who play war games become hard of limb, hard of mind, and soft of their sex. The men become soft and the women become dry. This explains why there are so many lubricated condoms for sale, when natural juices are more than sufficient with proper arousal.
Like ripe fruit, which drops from the tree, I quit participating in the illusions of Maya, the external world of phenomenon. I came to understand the everlasting joy of Just Being. I became happy that I existed. My erection now knew no bounds and I couldn’t get it down.”
The newsman, who had asked this question during the commercial break for reasons of security, was glad of his precautions. Unfortunately for our newsman, a sound technician had listened in. Upon hearing such incendiary speech, the technician, secretly belonging to the banned Erection Party, immediately turned on the power to the microphone. Joe’s revolutionary words were then projected over the Pampers commercial, which was airing at the time. The technician had been waiting for years for something of substance from these news commentators and pounced when he at last had his chance. Now all those with the power to cancel Joe’s words were also secretly pro-erection and allowed Joe’s response to go forth on the public airways.
Unfortunately for Larry Smart, the newsman of this local station in this small city, his secret interview had been broadcast to the entire population of his small city. His immediate relief, that he hadn’t asked this question on his public show, was followed by abject fear, when he realized that the mike had been live.
This newsman was also secretly a member of the Erection movement. This is why he had asked Joe the first relevant question he had ever been asked by any reporter, interviewer, or newsman, talk show commentator, or television anchorperson. But he also realized that in asking this question he was risking his entire career in the anti-erection society.
Larry had warned his wife against erectionist fashion, although he secretly wore red bikini underwear under his Boxer shorts. This was quite daring; for bikini underwear had been banned for quite some time under the New Morality of the Leader and his political party. Random checks were done on all federal employees. Guidelines were sent out to all federal agencies. Federal moneys were denied those states still allowing bikini underwear on men. California, thumbing its nose at the Federal government, dropped bikini wearing from a felony to a misdemeanor. The idea behind the bikini ban was that bikini wearing was linked to the radical erectionist movement, harking in its origins to the Erection-Ins, which had followed the politicization of the Erection.
Anyway, our newsman panicked as his career passed before his eyes. His job as a news reporter could go up in smoke if it was discovered that he had asked a real question. He remembered his training in journalist school. “Never, never ask any truly vital questions unless you want to be banned to outer regions of civilization. Trivialize at all costs. People don’t want to be disturbed, especially at home in their living rooms after a long day’s work.”
Our newsman didn’t like cold weather and certainly didn’t want to start a new career at his age. His children were in private schools; he had huge mortgage payments in a declining market. He enjoyed his life and didn’t want to be a martyr. Although sympathizing with the erectionists, Larry Smart didn’t want to risk his job and security for their sake, even though he admittedly had an occasional erection unrelated to producing children.
However, as he feared, a minority of self-righteous listeners immediately called the station, demanding Larry’s immediate resignation. He had been an extremely popular commentator up to this point, always toeing the line of mediocrity at all costs. But this vocal minority immediately set up an organization to boycott and form picket lines in front of the station ‘to prevent the decline of Western civilization’ – threatening more severe measures, who knows what, if action wasn’t taken. Although this was a small town with a small amount of viewers, a dangerous precedent had been set.
“Our Asnian way of life is being threatened from within,” they bleated. “Where is this ‘getting behind’ going to lead?” – “Our children must be protected from this blasphemous talk.” – “Who hired Larry Smart anyway?” – “They should be fired too, for employing such a radical.” – “‘Getting behind’! I can’t believe such words would be allowed on public television, where my children could hear it.” – “The Asnian way is to get ahead, not behind. We are Number One and this kind of talk will only lead to our moral decline.”
Inevitably the sensationalist tabloids got wind of this scandal and Larry started packing his bags for Alaska. The truth was out. What Joe had said didn’t really matter that much. His existence was still trivialized and his words were largely ignored. Instead the media focused all their attention upon the fact that a news commentator had asked a pro-erection question.
When this truth came out, the head of the news division called upon the reporter’s supervisor, who was then investigated, interrogated, questioned, queried, and quizzed as to why this reporter was in their employ.
Head Supervisor: “Why is this suspected erectionist on our staff? His presence compromises our whole squeaky clean operation? If there is just one erectionist in our group, the public will think that the erectionists have infiltrated our organization. Because of this suspicion we must come down hard on Larry to ensure that no one suspects that we might secretly harbor pro-erection sympathies.”
Ironically each of them did – privately, of course. Each of the supervisors, men and women, secretly supported the Erection movement. But each and every one of them was not going to risk his job, his comfortable place in society, for the sake of the Erectionists.
Supervisor: “If the Leader insists that everyone wear boxer shorts, so be it. If he owns an enormous amount of stock in Boxer Shorts Inc. and is now forcing countries all over the world to buy boxer shorts, to insure continued military aid from the AS of U, Associated States of the Union, i.e. Asnia, let it be. If he and his friends are reaping great profits from the backs of third world peoples, ask no questions. We’ll wear our boxer shorts if that’s what it takes to maintain our security.”
Of course the natives in the third world countries were forced to wear boxer shorts or face imprisonment, resettlement into camps, called cities, or forced into slavery, called military conscription, heads shaved, native clothes and identity stripped away, replaced by guns, missiles, radars and bombs.
All of Larry Smart’s supervisors (and maybe even you, gentle reader, yes I mean you, the one reading this book, and me too) were aware of these and other global atrocities committed in the name of Asnia. Yet Larry’s supervisors all had nice houses with the normal conveniences. They all participated in a comfortable Asnian middle-class life style. Why get upset? Why rock the boat? It’ll do no good anyway. Right?
Besides they were all safe inside. The bogeyman was outside their soft and delicate confines. They just pulled their covers a little higher over their heads, hoping that he will go away. The sun will rise soon. The daylight will scare those evil monsters away. Or will it?
However, now the whole issue was dropped into their collective laps. As his supervisors, they had been collectively pleased with his job performance. Larry Smart had even been up for promotion before this little fiasco erupted. He was to become one of those myriad supervisors, who were lost in the middle between the top and the bottom. His mind had been groomed and pruned to fit into the middle class worker-bee mode. He was on the verge of moving into the solid middle, when this unfortunate question popped from his lips.
Supervisor: “Smart’s response was suspect also. If he had been intelligent, excuse me, I mean innocent, he would have denied everything. Instead his extreme reaction and subsequent guilty behavior proved his total involvement with the Erectionists. It’s obvious that he is a curious sympathizer, at the very least. We have discovered a questioning mind. This can only lead to trouble. He must be weeded out.”
Privately his collective supervisors remembered back to their college years. They remembered questioning the belief system of the status quo. But they saw first hand the weeding out of those who were most critical. Those in positions of power suggested that questioning authority destroys brain cells, leads to uncooperative worker bees and aberrant behavior. This was definitely dangerous as it could disrupt the regimented values of the hive.
So Larry’s collective supervisors watched their collective words and associations and read their collective newspapers in order to know what to collectively believe. But they were not alone, for they are we.
Supervisor: “If we are collectively told that black is white, then so be it, if this will protect our privileges within the status quo. Publicly we agree that black is white to protect our collective position. However privately behind closed doors, with all the lights turned off, we all concur that white is really all the colors of the rainbow including black, yellow, red and brown. But we, all of us here, have gone underground. We are trying to tread the thin and narrow middle class path. We still have jobs. However, now a stand is required, which takes a risk, which threatens our middle class stability. And we are afraid.
Each of us remembers the exhilaration of our youthful questioning, and secretly, collectively yearns for ‘the good old days’. Each of us collectively sympathizes with free-thinking. But each of us collectively is afraid of losing our collective lifestyles, even though we collectively despise the compromises we have had to make. How we all collectively yearn to get away from all this regimentation.
Now one of our peers has dared asked a question outside the boundaries of ‘normal Asnian’ thought. The shit has begun to fly from the top. We supervisors have been collectively called on the carpet by our collective superiors. And we are worried. We all liked Larry Smart; he has always done a good job. But our collective jobs are on the line unless we take a collective stand. It is very clear. Larry Smart must be fired to establish the corporation’s collective stand against free thinking, even though each of us individually supports free-thinking and the Erection movement. Many of us even wear bikini underwear underneath our boxer shorts.”
Even those on top of the Ladder, i.e. the Leader and his cronies, secretly supported free thinking and erections. Unfortunately they also understood that coming out pro-erection was political suicide. So even though each of the politicians and each of his constituents were secretly for free thinking and erections, each also realized that the collective public opinion was anti-erection and anti-free speech. Consequently the politicians came down hard on free speech and the Erection party.
The Leader himself harbored pro-erection sympathies. Any time he envisioned himself in bikini underwear before his first lady, he would get a tiny erection and it felt good. But he immediately suppressed the thought, called his advisors to pass down another anti-erection dictum, so that none might dare suspect his true sympathies.
He thought to himself, “The Party has made me what I am. I must support the Party. Better to be limp and majority, rather than erect and minority.
Look what I have! Power, prestige, influence. So what if I must embrace an anti-erectionist stance even unto the privacy of my very own underwear. God bless my Boxer Shorts. Bless my Profits and my friend’s Profits. Bless the oil fields, bless the gold bullion, and bless the Smart Bomb and all my military advisors. And bless my God, the God, who has protected my men in battle. That other nationalities have died in the tens of thousands is secondary to fact that only a few hundred Asnians have lost their lives in ‘Just Causes’. This is history. The victor tells the tale.
Even though I’m not allowed to have an erection anymore, I prefer it that way. It’s better to be erectionless. None of that messy stuff coming. Not having to perform for my wife. Not expected to be soft and gentle. Bombing her doesn’t seem to work anymore. The fantasy worked well for awhile. But now I only see tortured bodies with bloody arms reaching out to me – their faces screaming in agony - pleading, ‘No more wars!’
And people think it’s easy being the Leader. Ha! So many people to please. So many boring suit and tie balls, fancy foods, jet lag, the constant badgering by the press. The games that must be played. A team player, sensitive to the needs of my reference group, I try my best to reflect their needs in my policies. Stupid liberal politicians. attacking me on traditional Asnian values, when traditional Asnian values are Big Business. They mistakenly associate Asnia with the citizen’s personal rights, while Asnia was really formed to protect the property rights of the landowner.
Don’t they know their history? The Associated States of the Union became independent over economic reasons – not freedom of speech. The Wealthy led the revolt and wrote the constitution to reflect their business needs. When I protect Asnian business interests overseas, I am falling in line with all the great Asnian Leaders.
Just look at our most famous Leaders. Our first Leader and founding father led the Revolution to protect his own real estate interests – not the rights of the people. Subsequently, with the support and encouragement of a series of Leaders, the Asnians conquered the rest of the continent – eradicating the indigenous population as if they were pests and weeds. Human rights? I don’t think so. Somewhere in there Asnia was threatened by a Civil War, which threatened to break the country apart. The Leader at that time assumed dictatorial powers by decree - for national security reasons, of course. How I would love that! He suspended more civil liberties than I would ever be allowed to. After dominating the continent the following Leaders went on to conquer the Hemisphere, just economically, of course. It’s easier that way. There is no need to worry about all those aggravating liberties that Asnians always demand. Since then we have attempted to dominate the World – for International Business, of course. I’ve certainly done my best.
So please, dear Liberals, don’t talk to me about returning to traditional Asnian ideals. I am a mainstream Asnian Leader. If you don’t like me, you are obviously anti-Asnian because I am Asnia. Asnia made me and I have made her. Whoops getting another one of those pesky erections. They’re going to be the death of my political Career.”
(The preceding words are normally attributed to the Leader’s speechwriter, as the Leader himself only spoke in slogans and phrases, rarely completing sentences.)
Although everyone was secretly on poor Joe’s side privately, everyone was against him publicly - at least those with anything invested in the status quo. The Gray Panthers, representatives of the retired people supported him; they had nothing to lose. The students supported Joe; they had yet to enter mainstream Asnian economics. The poor with their traditional conservatism were against Joe. With nothing to lose and everything to gain, the poor resists change at every turn. The middle class, while secretly supporting Joe and ready for change, were too afraid of risking their tenuous position in society to come out in support of Joe. The wealthy, depending upon business and politics, publicly came out against erections, although in the privacy of their own confines, they had some wild parties, actually celebrating the Erection.
What then happened to poor Joe? No one knows. The media, in cahoots with the rich and powerful as always, were told to forget about Joe. The issue was too polarizing for society, causing too much civil strife and stimulating questioning. Social unrest and protest had become the order of the day.
The Leader set the tone in a news conference. “Let us leave this unfortunate affair behind us and get on with more pressing issues”, he almost continued, “like my next Defense budget, for another war, which will get your minds off your erections and onto conquering and power, my glory.”
“Down Boy! He always pops up when I think of all those sleek, shiny, curvaceous, metallic smart bombs, bursting forth spreading chaos everywhere.”
The press collectively decided that all these protests, all the social unrest was no longer newsworthy because it was commonplace. News of the erection movement dropped from the front-page headlines, to the fifth page. ‘Protests Continue’ ran the headlines, intentionally minimizing the conflict.
Public Opinion polls were published saying that an overwhelming number of people had No Opinion or Didn’t Care. The alternative press, what there was of it, discovered evidence that these polls were bogus, as the pollsters only surveyed the President’s close friends and advisors. But the mainstream media ignored the dissent - of course.
So the press collectively decided, after pressure from the Top, of course, that the dissent, the tension of social revolution, the polarization of society was not newsworthy anymore and so began to collectively ignore it. From front-page news Joe Schnurd’s plight was moved to Page 7 to Section B, to Human Interest, to Non-Existent. During a series of appeals, the press forgot his case. The Establishment assumed that if the media forgot about it that the Asnian Public would also forget about it.
Admittedly there was much dialogue in the minuscule alternative press. Articles about “The Politicization of the Erection” - “Erections and the New Right” - “Libertarians for Joe Schnurd” But the mainstream media merely forgot about Joe Schnurd, and the Public forgot too.
The press forgot, public opinion forgot, the historians forgot, the reporters forgot, the TV news commentators forgot. Everyone forgot, except for in the privacy of his or her own homes. Each individual remembered. It was only the Collective that forgot.
Each person, only in the confines of their own homes, was still doing it - privately at first, then in larger collective groups. Even though publicly erections were still censured and against the law, these public erections began happening in wider and wider circles. Still no one was talking about it. It was just happening in larger and larger private groups. Private clubs were founded, which grew in size and number. Although many still adhered to the anti-erection stance, those in the know were all pro-erection, celebrating life to its fullest, bursting out all over, ebullient, aroused, abundant, and ecstatic.
An announcer for a late night radio show, which was broadcasting from a private party: “Here we are at an erection party, which is, of course, against the law. Although illegal, luckily we’re unknown, unheard of, and ignored. But we are having a great time, just celebrating the growth of life, if you know what I mean. Ah, here is Joe Schnurd, now of the unknown movement. Joe, what do you want to say to our underground audience? Could you give us a few words of wisdom?”
“First my name is not Joe (anymore). My name is James. I am definitely anti-erection {while sporting a big one}. My advice is to go about your life privately. Try to get further and further behind. It’s much more fun back here. Plenty of room for growth, expansion, and arousal, bursting, ballooning, overflowing, forever and ever, now and ever shall be. Amen.”
Facing the Void senselessly, after being ravaged by his wife for the thousandth time, Joe found no more meaning in goals, money, or material possessions. He began wallowing for longer and longer periods in the endless Now, ecstacizing. Then the Now spread into the Past and the Future.
Joe became filled with the need to create, to somehow live through time. His branches began to blossom; the blossoms fell off revealing the tiny baby fruit underneath; then the fruit began to grow.
Joe’s minds were filled with thoughts to the overflowing. They began to spill over into his dreams and sometimes into his waking life. He began blurting out incomplete sentences and ideas in a public setting, ideas and thoughts that were part of a grander conception, thoughts at the end of a long chain, with no individual meaning. Joe’s wife put some paper with a pencil in front of Joe and he began to write and write and write and this is what he came to say.
In the beginning, there was Is and Not.
Is saw Not and, by the ancient law of balance, they immediately fell in love -
Both having what the other had not -
They fell upon each other instantly.
Throbbing and pulsating,
Is explored Not’s Emptiness;
And Not fondled Is’ Something.
Awed by the Void, Is caressed Not until she was moist with Life.
Fascinated by his rising Stalk, Not held onto more and More and MORE.
Is continued chasing the Emptiness and Not kept coming up with Something.
As Not became ever more empty, Is began to grow and Grow and GROW.
The Great Whirling began as Is pursued Not.
Spinning, whirling, throbbing,
Pulsating, desiring, caressing,
Sucking, licking, stroking, opening, and entering.
And still Is found Nothing, while Not held onto the Something.
Their Union was Orgasmic.
Not began to wail and out of the Void emerged the Mystery.
Is yelled and the Space was filled with Awe.
The oscillations were tremendous - the feedback frightening.
Gradually becoming transformed Is began to groan,
“Help! I don't want to let go!” screamed Is at the top of his voice.
Not responded with silence, knowing that this was the only Way.
Is yelled “No” again, weeping away his Soul.
Not roared silently.
Is groaned and writhed, moaned and squirmed,
Then melodically began to change his skin, as that was his Nature.
And Is became Empty
And Not, writhing silently in the ecstasy of penetration,
Silently became Full.
Is and Not finally became Empty and Full.
Full and Empty fell in love again.
And that is where we are today.
Pulsating, throbbing, quivering -
Loving like our creators –
Yearning for Death and Rebirth -
Hoping our Something becomes Empty
And that our Nothing becomes Full.
And Full continues to pursue the Empty -
Endlessly, swirling, spinning. spiraling eternally.
The Yang becomes Yin and the Yin becomes Yang.
The Tao is forever and revolving.