Phallacy

Life Lessons from the Animal Penis

By: Emily Willingham

Narrated by: Emily Willingham

A wry look at what the astonishing world of animal penises can tell us about how we use our own.

The fallacy sold to many of us is that the penis signals dominance and power. But this wry and penetrating audiobook reveals that in fact nature did not shape the penis--or the human attached to it--to have the upper...hand.

Phallacy looks closely at some of nature's more remarkable examples of penises and the many lessons to learn from them. In tracing how we ended up positioning our nondescript penis as a pulsing, awe-inspiring shaft of all masculinity and human dominance, Phallacy also shows what can we do to put that penis back where it belongs.

Emphasizing our human capacities for impulse control, Phallacy ultimately challenges the toxic message that the penis makes the man and the man can't control himself. With instructive illustrations of unusual genitalia and tales of animal mating rituals that will make you particularly happy you are not a bedbug, Phallacy shows where humans fit on the continuum from fun to fatal phalli and why the human penis is an implement for intimacy, not intimidation.

This program includes a downloadable PDF that contains illustrations from the book.

Critic reviews

"This is a hilarious tour through a menagerie of dicks, and a ferocious guide to not being a dick yourself.”—Ed Yong, New York Times Bestselling Author of I Contain Multitudes

“PHALLACY is both smart and smart-ass, serious and startling—and it will make you reconsider your ideas about sexual balance of power in ways both satisfying and important.”—Deborah Blum, Pulitzer Prize Winning Author of The New York Times Bestselling Author of The Poison Squad

“PHALLACY is Dr. Emily Willingham's detailed, insightful, and funny cross-species biography of the penis. It's an entertaining romp that is as much about evolution as it is about emotion and egos. It shines a light on how we became so penis-centric and the resulting repercussions for science, society, and sex.”—Jen Gunter, MD, New York Times Bestselling Author of The Vagina Bible

“Exuberantly witty and scathingly subversive, Willingham’s PHALLACY takes a long-overdue look at the myriad ways that putting the penis, and maleness in general, at center stage have skewed many fields of scientific inquiry, from the study of evolution to Freud’s fulminations on psychoanalysis. An important and timely book.”—Steve Silberman, New York Times Bestselling Author of NeuroTribes

“As a gynecologist, I never expected a book about the penis to be so interesting or enjoyable! Phallacy is Dr. Emily Willingham’s detailed, insightful, and funny cross-species biography of the penis. It’s an entertaining romp that is as much about evolution as it is about emotion and egos. It shines a light on how we became so penis-centric and the resulting repercussions for science, society, and sex. You’ll never look at a penis the same way again . . . and I mean that in the best of ways!” —Dr. Jen Gunter, New York Times bestselling author of The Vagina Bible


“Emily Willingham’s wonderful book is both a hilarious tour of many bizarre natural wonders and a ferocious corrective for many toxic cultural myths. I lost track of how often I laughed, and how much I learned.”—Ed Yong, New York Times bestselling author of I Contain Multitudes

Lots of bookmarks!

First book I’ve listened to that I made it a point to save bookmarks for hilarious moments I wanted to remember to tel people about later. So great and entertaining!

A bit lost in what it wanted to be

I really have no idea who the target audience of this book might be. On the one hand, I assume biologists probably know a lot of what's going on already; on the other, is there *anybody* else who's that interested in the subject matter?

The book seemed to be suffering from the same perspective, not knowing quite what it wanted to be. It varied between some honestly hilarious (but never vulgar) jokes—the crocodilian 'airbag' and drone bee explosions were quite something—and then quite dry scientific content. It was structured as bite-sized pieces, essentially covering a range of the animal kingdom.

I do think that this book would blow the minds of gender essentialists who believe there are 'two sexes' and that that is in ANY way easily defined. I also think it might be somewhat of a revelation for those who have fallen down the Jordan Peterson hole and think that lobster behaviour has anything to do with that of humans. Ugh.

My favourite part was actually the closing chapters, which explicitly drew a line between monotheism and patriarchy (no more worshipping penis gods—which was a trend? Then we have to de-deify dicks and make them important in some other way); it reminded me of Jack Holland's "A Brief History of Misogyny" (highly recommended). I enjoyed even more the link between medieval witch burnings and paranoia over "magical castration", i.e. stealing penises from men via magic (TO KEEP AS PETS...!), and Freud's quackery. It's still unbelievable to me that people take his work as serious (there's even Freudian therapists in the US!!) when it requires that everything in life is analagous to a penis (meanwhile, Jung was more about that magical penis energy). Anyway, that's a whole other rant—but I loved how this book rendered that type of work that purports to be 'scientific' even more ridiculous through the comparison with straight-up magic.

I listened to the audiobook, and the reading was horrific; perhaps I would have enjoyed the book more had there been even a little life to it.

Seminal stuff. Buy this book - you won't get shaft

Brilliant author and scientist takes on a hard topic and creates an interesting read that won't go over your head. Seriously, it was very interesting. Dr. Emily Willingham has written what should be the go-to book on animal di**s. I listened to the audiobook and found the author's voice pleasant and thoroughly enjoyed her wit.

Hard to listen to. Good science. Too much bias.

Voice is hard to listen to. Science part in middle is good. Beginning and end are not about science - more authors opinion and bashing.

Science isn't fair sometimes

At first, the occasional biases presented by the author are a little annoying. But after some quick introspection realizing the title of the book is a play on words and that science by its very nature is incredibly biased, especially in terms of male and female differences, such quick diversions by the author become a welcome and enjoyable aspect of the book. As well as it is an incredibly informative book and a fun read.