Shame on having men wear clothing in movies

For a show that doesn’t hesitate to portray totally nude women, the slitting of a woman’s throat; bloodied heads perched atop spikes lining crenellated castle walls; the repeated stabbing of a pregnant woman’s stomach, rounded with child; the gory decapitation of a horse; a woman’s lifeless, suspended body, riddled with arrows; and torture scene after torture scene (one involving rats, one involving a horrifyingly large scepter); Game of Thrones sure does seem to get uncharacteristically squeamish when it comes to showing male nudity. In short, where are all the penises?

It's been a Hollywood double standard since the beginning of Hollywood. I understand the argument that we all judge a nude man on the screen by size of his penises, but we have been doing this regarding women's boobs forever. 



The real problem with the lack of dick on GoT is that there doesn’t seem to be set rules about what sexual taboos should or shouldn’t be broken on this show other than that the erect penis is not to be seen. Again, this is a series that has shown an adolescent breast-feeding, the birth of a smoke demon, frequent incestuous relationships, women’s faces covered in cum, and too many vagina-shots to mention individually. So, why not the penis? Are the actors afraid to show us there possibly small penises or god forbid a perfectly normal size one on television. Maybe there would be less talk about the size of a mans penis if more people saw that most of them where about the same. 

Is it because HBO doesn’t think the audience can handle it? Is it because the penis is still thought to be more of a threat than, I don’t know, a scene of a woman being brutally beaten and raped? Or, for that matter, a scene of a man being flayed? Or even a scene of a baby being murdered? The preciousness surrounding the penis demonstrates nothing more than the reluctance to objectify the male body in the same way that women’s have been objectified in modern media for decades (and in society as a whole for, like, ever).



Men are not used to seeing themselves portrayed as nothing more than sexual beings. Men are used to being complex in ways that transcend sexuality. But one of the most interesting things about Game of Thrones and one of the reasons why I like it so much and why it’s so popular among so many feminists is that the women on the show are explicitly sexual beings, but that only enhances their complexity, and doesn’t detract from it. 


For most people, sexuality is an integral part of their life and so it’s a relief to see it portrayed on the screen in all its glory—and its messiness. And sometimes in life—and as is frequently the case on Game of Thrones—a woman’s sexuality and her body are exploited and things turn ugly and perverse. But that happens to men too, of course, in life and in the GoT narrative. And yet it’s only ever visually hinted at, and rarely shown. Many of the male actors on the show have said that they would be happy to be nude on the show (and many female actors agree). So why not let them? The penis might be the last taboo on television, but isn’t HBO’s whole thing that it’s “not TV”? The best way to show that would be to show more penises, and not just for salacious purposes, but also for the integrity of the narrative and for the sake of vanquishing the sanctity of this particular body part. It’s just a penis. Let’s not give it any more power than it deserves.