After reading The Vagina Monologues by Eve Ensler and attending a local production of her play, author Joe DiBuduo wanted to respond with his distinctly creative, male point of view.
DiBuduo planned to write a play or screenplay titled "The Penis Chronicles." After handing out a questionnaire to a multitude of people who said they would participate, Joe received only one response. "The Penis Chronicles" couldn't be written with only his and another man's thoughts.
Realizing how reticent most men and even his college instructor were to talk about penises, DiBuduo felt obligated to research and share his narrative about the male appendage. He ended up with one monologue - "A Penis Manologue."
A Penis Manologue is available in print, e-book, and audiobook. For more information, see http://www.apenismanologue.com or joedibuduo.com
Joe DiBuduo earned a certificate in creative writing from Yavapai College in Prescott, Arizona. Gifted with a vivid imagination, he’s a prolific writer of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. A Penis Manologue is his first nonfiction book.
Excerpt
Foreword
After reading The Vagina Monologues, I put together a survey for both men and women. I passed out self-addressed,
stamped envelopes for the anonymous questionnaire.
Everyone that I asked personally agreed to fill one out. Then I uploaded the survey onto my Web site, www.joedibuduo.com, and also posted it on Facebook, Craigslist, and www.cryonicman.com, the site for my first (and hopefully, soon-to-be published) novel. Then I created
a Web site and a blog at www.apenismanologue.com.
I expected to get several hundred replies to my survey. Total replies I received: one. I couldn’t believe that in this enlightened age men and women wouldn’t talk about the penises in their lives.
I asked a guy at my gym if he would fill out the survey, and after he read it he replied, “If you were twenty years
younger I’d kick your ass for asking me questions like that.”
Shocked, I asked, “Why?”
“Too personal,” was his answer.
Expecting to acquaint myself with some open-minded men willing to fill out my survey, I attended a meeting on
Men and Masculinity at Prescott College in Prescott, AZ. To my surprise, mostly women showed up to discuss masculinity.
They seemed interested to learn what makes us guys tick.
Apparently, we men don’t talk about how masculine we are, so I don’t know how women are going to learn about masculinity without any men willing to share their thoughts. I guess most men feel we already know we’re masculine and
don’t need to discuss our feelings and emotions as women do. If we do, other men will look at us as though we’re sissified.
The instructor at this meeting asked us how we perceived masculinity. Several women equated men to an onion because
an onion has many layers. The outside layer is hard and tough but the deeper the layer, the sweeter the onion. I
thought that was a nice analogy, as men have to be tough on the outside even if their emotions want them to cry or act in some other unmasculine way. After experiencing this reluctance
of males to talk about their penises, I figured I’d change the title of my work to A Penis Manologue, because
I’m the only one expressing an opinion.
A highly educated woman who read my outline implied that I’d portrayed all men as potential rapists because of my
statements throughout the story indicating that men think about and need sex often. Having sex is a healthy habit, in my opinion, but I told her that rape has nothing to do with
sex — it’s all about control. Rape is a crime of violence, not passion. Sex is not the chief thing that motivates rapists, says A. Nicholas Groth, director of an innovative sex offender
program at the state prison in Somers, Connecticut. “Rape is the sexual expression of aggression,” he says.
I personally have never thought about raping anybody even though I’ve been a horndog most of my life. I can’t
remember anyone ever saying, “I’d rape her,” or “I’d like to rape her,” during any group discussion. I’ve heard men say
what they’d like to enjoy doing sexually to some beauty, but never once heard a man talk about raping someone.
When I was researching penis facts, I found information that has changed my entire attitude about sexual trauma.
When I began to write my response to The Vagina Monologues, I wanted to make the story a comedy. However, once I started researching and saw the horrors of genital mutilation and other practices that go on around the world, in all strata of societies, I became emotionally upset. I’m one of those people who empathize with any type of victim. The thought of getting raped is horrendous to me, and I can’t begin to say how I was affected when I learned about genital mutilation.
When I first began to write the text that eventually turned into this book, my intention was to use it in a
screenwriting class at Yavapai College. However, when I attempted to read my chapter on prison rape, my female
instructor banned the story from the classroom. It was hard for me to believe that a college instructor would find talking about Jolly Jellybeans a taboo subject. Maybe because nobody likes to talk about what goes on in prison. I began to think that for my mental health, I should shelve the project.
Living and breathing penises 24 and 7 was getting to me. It seemed like an abnormal subject to devote so much
time to. However, when I saw how reticent most men and even a college instructor were to talk about penises, I felt obligated to write about them. So I elected myself to be the official Nookie Probe writer.
Professional Reviews
Humorous & Informational
by Auditing Annie on February 2, 2012
Being familiar with the vagina monologues, I anticipated when I saw the title that this book may be rather on the dull side. I was wrong. This book made me laugh excessively, and feel sadness for those unfortunate individuals who were mutilated. I was educated about a lot of things that I did know or thought about as a female. The information is presented to the point without dragging a topic on so long that it became redundant, and caused me to research further on items that I felt pertinent or found Interesting, such as the Castrati. While the chapters are short, the book length is reasonable and touches on many subjects that leaves the reader open to further explore interests or obtain more detailed information in more focused sources. The book does not curse that I remember, but instead use a colorful mix of everyday words to call the member. Overall, I enjoyed the book and will recommend it to others.
Candid, Honest, and Enlightening
by Carl Hitchens on December 19, 2013
I read it in two sittings. I approached it with caution and got totally drawn in. It is humorous, irreverent, but more important, enlightening. Joe DiBuduo has courageously taken on a difficult subject often diverted by opportunistic writers toward pornography. Joe stays on subject, dealing with male sexuality intelligently and honestly. Yet his book is not a stodgy, clinical treatise treating sex like a course in anatomy. From male comedic behavior to rape, DiBuduo tackles the male sexual mystique with clarity and self-implicating candidness.
5.0 out of 5 stars5 stars for spelling, grammar, punctuation and formatting (The IndiePENdents)
by Mr. Richard Lw Bunning on February 20, 2016
This evaluation is posted on behalf of Julia Petrakis, manager of the now defunct IndiePENdents.
The IndiePENdents ran from December 2011 until February 2016. The organization was the brainchild of Jasha M. Levi, (1921-2013), Author of 'The Last Exile' et al.
Evaluations were made on already published, independently published, books.
Three 'evaluators' passed books that met basic objective standards of spelling, grammar, punctuation, and formatting. Those passing were awarded "The IndiePENdents Seal".
Neurosis, a mental illness, affects everyone to a greater or lesser extent, yet most know little or nothing about it. This book reveals all, including incidence, signs and symptoms, cause, treatment and prevention, in lay language.
