Review

Boy’s talk

Living with a willy: the inside story
Nick Fisher
Pan Macmillan, 1994, £3.50

Nick Fisher, ‘agony uncle’ of Just Seventeen, reconstructs the mythology surrounding the penis. Ostensibly this is a debunking exercise to challenge the prurience of Anglo-Saxon culture. In practice, he reworks the penis as a phallocentric icon under the guise of journalese.

Rather than an exploration of the construction of the male gender as patriarchy and a countering of the phallic role, we are presented with a popularism that states: ‘This book isn’t going to teach you a lot of long Latin words ending in m’. We get not a ‘willy’ etymology but a voyeuristic escapade. It’s all a bit laddish.

Using letters from Just Seventeen readers, Nick Fisher weaves his heterosexist text around ‘size’, STDs and penetration. Incredibly, when taking us through the issues surrounding HIV we are entertained with: ‘Just think of your dick as a Jaguar XJ6 4.2 litre, fuel-injected, Sovereign saloon car.’

This is a book without analysis. It pretends to offer boys answers but instead asks the wrong questions. Living with a willy is short and accessible and provides rudimentary factual insights into a number of sexual health matters. Bland and unchallenging, this book may be read by the Just Seventeen readership — or on the other hand, they may not bother. If you only have £3.50 then it would be better spent on Straight Talk.