Japanese Slang (21 page)

•   
Anta kare no chinchikurin na hari mita? Kimochi warui!
Did you see his tiny little needle? Gross!

•   
Kare atashi ni ikebari sawatte hoshii no yo! Gya!
He wanted me to touch his lively needle! Yuck!

When gruff men refer to their penises with sticklike slang words, the images are meatier and more belligerent:
nikub
(meat rod),
nikubashira
(meat pillar),
tokobashira
(bed pillar),
tepp
(gun),
hoshin
(gun barrel), and
rosen
and
roten,
both rugged fishermen's words for “oar peg.”
Roten
was uncovered as a potent slang expression as far back as 1925, when the highbrow Kamigun Ky
iku Kai (Kami County Educational Committee), in their linguistic survey
Kamigunshi,
identified
roten
as being a common Osaka-port
word for penis. Another tough masculine trend is to personify the organ. In the post-World War II years the nasty taunt
ket
(hairy foreigner) became the fashionable word for penis, and the older street crowd still enjoys using it. Organs, after all, are both hairy and, like foreigners, dangle about on the outside (of society, that is). Equating foreigners with penises, everyone agreed, made sense, and as vaginas were increasingly being called
naijin
(inside person) on the streets, what could be punnier than calling penises
gaijin
(outside person), or foreigner.

Other spirited personifications show the organ as being a feisty, independent apprentice, still bound to its master, who has to struggle hard to keep it in check. Words like
deshi
(pupil),
detchi
(apprentice), and
detchib
(apprentice stick) became the rage. Penises were also referred to as sons:
segare
(my son),
musuko
(son),
emu
(M) the rough school-boy abbreviation of
musuko,
and
san,
the Japanese pronunciation of “son.” Sons, the argument goes, are constantly misbehaving. Sometimes one has to even resort to beating them. Cocky words like
bi
zu
(sonny) and
yanchab
zu
(naughty little boy),
wagamama na b
zu
(selfish little boy) and
h
t
b
zu
(debauched little boy) became especially popular, as
b
zu
has the added charismaof meaning “priest” and even “a priest's shaven head.”