Is the Male Nose the New Phallic Symbol?
Has the pandemic declared another male body part too special to be subjected to discomfort? Does the male nose demand to be elevated to an illustrious position alongside the penis. The penis has been coveted down through the centuries. Penis envy is a real thing, I’m told. But for the last two years, I’ve seen more proud noses appearing above surgical, cloth, and KN95 masks than I’ve ever seen penises.
And, they proudly defy social rules.
Not that there aren’t female noses peeking out as well, but I just assumed that a female nose is merely trying to compete with the male dominant nose and, of course, failing. Is it a sign of liberal times, whenever women insist that their body parts are as important as a male’s? We all know that females in many parts of the world have always been forced to hide not just their noses but their entire bodies and faces from public scrutiny.
Something as sinister as a female face might merit stoning.
But here I am witnessing one of the rare attempts in the history of humankind to cover a man’s nose, and, uh, uhm, it’s not going well. Not that we’ve resorted to stoning a male for daring to poke his nose above his mask. That day will probably never come.
We do, however, have federal mandates that require even males to cover their noses in public places like airports and airplanes.
How’s that going? I mean how are the males handling such hardship for possibly the first time in their lives? I’d say, pretty much like little whiney girls.
And, we all know that being compared to a little whiney girl is perhaps the worst put down one can give a man.
When I was a little girl, my brothers and sisters and I were often relegated to the back seat of our family cars for long periods of time while traveling. Our dad loved road trips. However, my brothers had different back-seat experiences than my sisters and I did. The limited space in the back seat was not divided equally. Not even close. My brothers, we were told, needed to spread their legs because their genitals required it.
So they did, gleefully.
Whereas my sisters and I had to close our legs tight and even tilt our bodies a little to the right or left to make room for our brothers’ penises. It appears that a vagina simply doesn’t require any extra special treatment. We did, however, receive proper, early training about our place in the social hierarchy.
And, it was our mothers and grandmothers who gave us that training. Thanks, mom.
I just returned from my first trip by air in over two years. I visited my daughter In LA. I had not seen her since January 2020. The COVID cases were low in both my home state and in Los Angeles County. I decided to take advantage of the situation.
As a self-appointed observer, I was offered a literal smorgasbord of human behaviors to take note of during the trip.
Having lived in relative isolation for such a long time, my mind was boggled by everything I saw. Life is as complicated as ever, I soon realized. And, flying is at the top of the list of complications.
Needless to say, I witnessed one male nose after another during the round trip.
There was an increase in visible male noses on my return flight of March 17th. After the short ten days spent in LA, it was pretty obvious that Americans had declared that the pandemic was over. Far more people in the airport without masks or with noses on display. Even aboard the plane, I saw many people standing in line for the bathroom with noses out, a few with face masks off.
There was one entire family who never wore masks and no one said a word to them.
We were lucky to sit with a nice young man who was not only extremely polite but also wore a KN95. He even replaced it with a fresh one as soon as he was seated. We found out that he was returning from camping in the Sierras. I knew right away that I was sitting with someone who was from my tribe.
Thank you, young man, for being such a delightful seat mate.
In case you’ve received the wrong message, this article isn’t really about COVID. I’ve long ago settled it that Americans don’t have what it takes to cooperate during a national emergency. We live in a society that honors the ideal of every man, woman, and child for themselves. I’m really good at fending for myself. Better than most as near as I can tell.
No, this article is about the cultural foolishness of male superiority.
I’ve been told that women are the weaker sex for so long that in spite of the fact that I gave birth to two kids, put myself through college twice, retired from my own career, support myself entirely and insist upon doing so, and can wear a mask longer and without complaining than most men I know, I still bought into that garbage that I was the weaker sex.
No longer, however. I’m pretty confident, after everything that I’ve observed, that I can get through life by using my own problem-solving powers and innate abilities.
On our flight from LA to Chicago, I watched a young mother with a toddler squeeze into the tiniest of bathrooms on board with the baby in her arms while properly wearing her mask. I saw a pregnant woman with a well-fitted mask. I saw an elderly woman who could barely walk wearing her mask. I figure at least one menstruating woman was on board wearing a mask while rummaging in her purse for a tampon.
I then looked at the noses of several men and couldn’t help wondering which body part was bigger — their nose or penis.
Later, after I’d arrived home safely, I found myself smiling whenever I thought about the nice man who sat on the aisle seat with us from LA to Chicago. He’ll never know what an impression he made on me. I suspect he deals with some shit from the “brotherhood of nose kings” as well, but hopefully, there’s more men like him than I thought. You might have to look past a lot of noses, but I think they’re there, and worth sitting next to on a crowded plane during a pandemic.
Heck! You might even be lucky enough to be the mother, sister, or wife of one of these really, really great guys. Something tells me that THEIR penises are definitely bigger than their noses, too.
Teresa Roberts is a retired educator, author, world traveler, and self-sppointed myth buster. You can find her books on Amazon.
