Dear University of Stanford,
One of the noblest things a person can do is donate their body to the progress of science. I don’t just mean that in the way that you might sleep with a nerd to inspire them to invent something great like penicillin or the microwave.
No, what I’m talking about is delivering my corpse from the clutches of my sentimentally greedy family and handing my cadaver over to something greater and better (than my family): your university’s medical department. The aim of which will be for your students to cut me up into tiny pieces like eager, studious serial killers. And, like most serial killers (statistically speaking), they’ll get away with it too.
In donating my body to this lofty cause, I will be reduced to the sum of my parts, divided and unrecognizable, everything that made me human obliterated, my soul never found in the wreckage of all that flesh and bone. But please don’t let any of your medical students laugh at my dick!
I imagine myself laying on a cold steel table under a bright light, bloated, skin pale and splotchy, hair uncombed and probably unshaven (unless I get a really diligent student); lifeless, limp and totally vulnerable. This thought doesn’t really bother me all that much. It actually sort of makes me smile to myself and shake my head in a bashful, “you lovable rogue” type way. But when I imagine the same scenario in which my dead penis is also visible for all to see, I naturally get a little squirmy.
What I’d never, ever dream of doing is laughing at a dead man’s dick. I feel that would be in poor taste.
I know that my lifeless member is bound to draw some looks. Hell, that’s inevitable. Your students are only human and at some point will need to get used to the sight of a stiff pecker. Soon they’ll be seeing them every day! But my point is that there’s a big difference between scientific discovery and making a joke out of something, especially when the punch line is my penis and the set up is simply removing a blue sheet from my naked body. I don’t like to think about whether a lightning quick or an achingly slow reveal would enhance the funniness in some warped student’s mind.
You might detect a certain level of insecurity in my plea, which frankly I resent. Trust me, my dick is fine. I mean, it’s average in both size and looks. But we’re force-fed so much hardcore pornography on the internet twice to three times daily that many people have developed a warped view of how other people’s penises are supposed to look, particularly mine in this case.
Maybe I’m biased, but I don’t think my dick looks all that funny. Do you?
I’ve included a photo, so you be the judge (you’ve probably been wondering when the unexplained picture of a penis would be mentioned). As you can see, it’s sort of just your plain, garden-variety dick. But I know that deep down that won’t stop some immature students of yours from pointing at my privates and going, “Hah!” every time they unveil my supine, marbled corpse, and giggle when they’re rolling me back into the freezer and take one last peek under the sheet so they can have the mental image to think about whilst stifling laughter on the bus ride home.
And don’t even get me started on when they begin carving up my dick and looking inside it, probably holding segments of it up to the light with scrutiny and a trace of a mirthful smirk threatening to turn into all-out laughter. Not even I know what they’ll find when they dissect my johnson, but you can bet your ass that whatever’s in there they’ll find a way to make a joke out of it, the cold bastards.
It is a well-known fact that prospective doctors have to strategically cut up corpses to desensitize themselves to when they actually kill people in real life. An unintentional side-effect of this is the development of a dark, disturbing sense of humor. They just want to make a joke out of everything! I’m fine with them putting their thumb on my blue lower-lip and opening and closing my mouth whilst doing a high-pitched, back of the throat voice like I’m a ventriloquist doll, just don’t let them do the same thing with my foreskin!
Speaking of which, can you guys give me a circumcision? I’ve always wanted one. I give you permission to dissect my dick straight after.
They say laughter is the best medicine, but because I’ll be dead there will be no need for medicine anymore. Just cold, sober, entirely straight faced examination. Period.
For disclosure’s sake, I feel I must admit something: I have laughed at my fair share of penises in my time, which there’s no shame in. Penises are a naturally funny thing to laugh at. I mean, just look that them! They look ridiculous, hanging there all glum and dejected. They remind me of a man standing on a street corner who has given up all hope in life, then a car drives by through a puddle and splashes him with muddy water and his shoulders slump even more, which obviously would be a really hilarious thing to see regardless of whether he was a penis or not.
Cocks come in all shapes and sizes, some with big mushroom heads, and others that are more soberly horrifying. I’ve happily laughed at them all. But what I’d never, ever dream of doing is laughing at a dead man’s dick. I feel that would be in poor taste. Unless of course it was a really, really funny looking one, like if the balls had somehow grown above the penis and hung over either side, making it look like a really dopey Mr. Snuffalupagus, the wiry pubes being his luscious eyelashes. Then I could understand laughter, as I’m sure the corpse attached to the funny penis could too. But again, I must stress: my dick, not funny.
Death is a scary prospect, but there is courage to be found in embracing its inevitability, and bravery in looking death in the face and laughing. Just don’t look down at Death’s dead penis and laugh. That’s just tempting fate.
The fear I have of death is miniscule compared to the fear I have that someone I don’t know will look at my penis and think that there is something funny about it. As I sit here writing this, I have pulled open the elastic of the waistband on both my tracksuit pants and my undies and taken another look down there just to be sure. Nope, there is definitely nothing funny about my penis. Though I should probably get that funny-looking red spot checked out. I meant funny as in concerning, not actually funny.
In coming to terms with the idea of donating my body, I’ve honestly considered trying to die in a way that would remove the need for them to laugh at my inanimate wang. Like maybe dying in a house fire where my dick is burnt entirely off, or expiring from blood-loss due to chopping off my own dick. But these are just stop-gap measures. I know that the laughter will be even harder should my dick not be present. It’d look really weird just having a pair of balls there.
Oh, before I forget: I don’t want them laughing at my balls either. That should go without saying. They come as a package.
To conclude, I will gladly donate my body should you be able to assure me that you will keep a constant watch over it, maybe even post around the clock guards and CCTV cameras to ensure that levity is not even in the same room as my penis, let alone the rest of me.
Yours eventually,
Clem Ieaudd
P.S. If you’d be so kind as to extend an invitation to me to view some of your students at work, perhaps laughing at dead people’s dicks along with them might help me come around to the idea that my dick could also bring a certain amount of joy into the world after a lifetime of it bringing nothing but desolation and misery. I never said my dick is good, just that it isn’t funny.