The Dick Joke Is, Somehow, Thriving

Everyone can (and is) riffing on male parts, because it is the perfectly all-inclusive, low-hanging fruit.

Despite the Odds, the Dick Joke Is Thriving. And It's Only Going Up from Here. Blake Griffin landed a dick joke about Caitlyn Jenner at the Comedy Central Roast of Alex Baldwin, which aired last weekend. "Caitlyn completed her gender reassignment in 2017, finally confirming that no one in that family wants a white dick," he said to roars of laughter. Was the joke offensive? Racist? Hilarious? All of the above? For her part, Jenner took the dick joke in stride. "Caitlyn was down for it," one of the writers of the roast said. "She was like, 'Well, you know, I'm gonna hit hard. I want them to hit me hard.' And so we did."  Dick jokes have existed throughout history in nearly every culture known to man, from the greatest literature of all time—Shakespeare and James Joyce—to ancient graffiti. "Weep, you girls. My penis has given you up. Now it penetrates men's behinds. Goodbye, wondrous femininity!" some anonymous guy scrawled on the wall of a bar in the Roman city of Pompeii around 2,000 years ago. They have been staples of comedy for millennia for a reason: They're nearly universally appealing.   "Whether you're rich or poor or black or white, everyone laughs at a dick joke," says comedian Aaron Berg, who hosts a recurring show at The Stand in New York City. (Berg also hosted a somewhat controversial, entirely satirical show called White Guys Matter that addressed some aspects of white male inadequacy.) One comedian has elevated dick jokes to poetry, launching them into the realm of high art: Jacqueline Novak, whose one-woman off-Broadway show about blow jobs, Get on Your Knees, manages to make the dick joke both hilarious and high brow. She's not the first woman to tell a dick joke, nor will she be the last, but she is perhaps the only one to devote a show almost entirely to the penis (with a few minutes sidetracking to ghosts) and be feted by The New York Times for doing so. Novak, who has been called a "deeply philosophical urologist," may represent a tipping point in dick jokes, because her show is finally allowing people to see the wisdom (yes, wisdom) in penis humor. Read the Full Story The 15 Best HBO Documentaries of All Time If you had to watch a documentary in high school, I'd bet it was either because teacher was sick, or didn't feel like dealing with a bunch of 14-year-olds for the day. Cue the free-period nap, drooling in the dark while tepid voiceovers in British accents piped into your dreams. Read the Full Story The Irishman Is Much, Much More Than a Martin Scorsese Mob Epic Turns out, this Martin Scorsese fellow knows a thing or two about making a pretty decent Mafia movie. Whodathunkit?   The odd thing is that if you were to gauge your appetite for the director's latest underworld epic, The Irishman, based solely on its recent trailer and the iconic names that flash onscreen—De Niro! Pacino! Pesci!—then you might walk away with the impression that he'd somehow smooth-talked Netflix into whipping out its not-insignificant checkbook to bankroll nothing more than a guns-and-goombahs greatest hits collection. And, for the record, there wouldn't be a damn thing wrong with that. After all, Scorsese spinning mob tales is like Van Gogh painting sunflowers in Arles. There can never be too many variations on the same theme. Read the Full Story The 15 Best Topcoats to Keep You Feeling Warm (and Looking Cool) This Winter You need a great topcoat in your closet. It's not just because things are getting colder, and it'll keep you warm out there. Nor is it simply because a topcoat looks great with pretty much everything, from a full-blown suit to a pair of jeans to sweats (yes, really). It's because a topcoat—or an overcoat; let's not get hung up on semantics—does both of those things at once, and it does them very well. It's an essential. And we've rounded up 15 of the best to buy right now. Check 'em out. Read the Full Story Ted Bundy Was a Father Figure to Molly Kendall. Now, She's Speaking Out For the First Time. Nearly four decades ago, a small Seattle publishing house put out The Phantom Prince. The 1981 book, written by Ted Bundy's long-time girlfriend Elizabeth Kendall, was met with little fanfare and went out of print after a few years. But this year, Netflix turned the book into the movie Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile with Zac Efron starring as the notorious serial killer. Read the Full Story This Is the Full Story Behind That Explosive Confession In Steven Avery's Case Since Netflix aired the first season of its groundbreaking docu-series Making a Murderer, each new development in the case of Teresa Halbach's murder has been greeted with a groundswell of reaction. But none quite like the story this morning that an unidentified inmate had confessed to the crime Steven Avery and his nephew Brendan Dassey have been convicted of. It seemed like there might finally be movement in the cases of the two men, who have maintained their innocence. But the confession raises more questions than it answers. Read the Full Story   Follow Us     Unsubscribe  Privacy Notice   esquire.com ©2019 Hearst Communications Inc. All Rights Reserved. Hearst Email Privacy, 300 W 57th St., Fl. 19 (sta 1-1), New York, NY 10019