Once Upon a Penis

The Dick Sisters Origin Story

Do you remember your first penis? Maybe it was your little brother, newly arrived home from the hospital, and you wondered what that little swollen red stump of a thing was between his legs. Or you saw a dog lift its leg and whizz all over your mother’s rose bushes.

We, Allison and Kristine, on the other hand, drifted off to sleep mesmerized by penis-shaped mobiles hanging over our cribs.

Urologist by Charles Bragg [Actual framed piece in the Lloyd house!]

Just kidding. Not really! The reality is that we grew up surrounded by dicks: dick textbooks, dick deformities, dick dissections, inside-out dicks, dicks on swizzle sticks, sick dicks, swollen dicks, sad dicks, dick art, dick farts, dick conferences and dick vacations, patients calling our home phones at odd hours, dictating their dick complications, you name it. If there was ever a dick in town that needed a doctor, our fathers –Drs. Ellis & Lloyd – were sure to share all the non personally-identifiable penis deets with us, their daughters.

As a result, we have somehow found ourselves subsequently overcompeensating when it comes to all-things related to The Most Revered Appendage™ – the thing that paid for our schooling, the clothes on our backs, the food we consumed, and the Laura Ashley explosion bedrooms where we recorded our deepest, darkest and weirdest thoughts while trying to block out images from Dad’s urology journals.

Picture in your mind’s eye two little girls on opposite coasts, each hoping Daddy might read them a bedtime story, but instead found our respective fathers next to the slide projector, looking at floor-to-ceiling sized images of bloody, cut-open phalli.

Our Dads: “Grab a seat and let me tell you all about How the Vas Deferens Got Dissected or Catheterize and the Ureter.”

Our Moms: “Don’t you dare tell anyone at school what your father actually does for a living, otherwise we’ll start getting phone calls!”

Which meant that . . . WE TOLD EVERYBODY. There’s a reason we decided to become writers and not dick doctors, people!

The only thing more embarrassing than having a dad as a dick doctor would probably have been a butt doctor, but we didn’t know any of those kids, and sadly, because the two of us lived on opposite sides of the country, we didn’t even have each other.

How we felt riding our bikes to school before we found each other.

But as phallic fate would have it, we finally met in the spring of 2013. Here is our fateful meet cute origin story, according to Kristine:

I remember meeting Allison on a cold rainy night in Seattle at an overrated Mexican restaurant where all the hipsters congregated. We were a group of nonfiction writers, all writing about ‘Family Matters’, dressed like librarians and art teachers, weighted down by tote bags bursting with notebooks and great literary works.

Allison arrived late, a swirl of energy and apologies and sat down next to me. Instantly likeable, she was friendly and open in a way not many in Seattle are, and it didn’t take long until we were chatting away about our projects. I mentioned writing about my parents’ marriage and my dad . . . and the pervasive peendom of life with a urologist.

“Oh my god! My dad was a urologist too,” she said.

“Shut up. I’ve never met another urologist’s kid out in the wild. Did y’all talk about dicks at dinnertime?”

‘Dicks at Dinnertime’ quickly dominated the evening’s conversation from there.

Here’s Allison:

The next thing I knew, Kristine and I were talking loudly, one-upping each other with detailed descriptions of bloody sausages and how we each had gained a deep, academic-level understanding of erectile dysfunction well before we ever thought about going to college.

Another writer at the table mentioned that her dad was a nephrologist, but after failing to come up with even a single instance of being subjected to penis-deformity discussions at the dinner table, Kristine and I realized we each had a stockpile of future material.

When the guacamole arrived in two perfectly-formed round balls, I arranged the dishes underneath an erect salt shaker. Then Kristine started comparing burrito sizes. Soon we were coming up with names for the one-eyed cacti along the windowsill. Obviously we hit it off right away, and what would have ordinarily been a pretty typical writerly night out turned into a peen party we’ll cherish forever.

Anyway, that was our fateful meet-cute, and we’ve been retelling each other dick stories ever since. As Kristine recently moved back down South and I’m still stuck in Seattle, we thought it would be fun to dickstart a little penis project and see where it goes.

So, what is The Dick Sisters all about, you ask? Here’s a little peenie primer:

1. We’re just dicking around. Life’s hard enough (wah wah) so even though the points below spell out our ulterior motives, please know the main purpose is to entertain ourselves and share with you some silly dickstractions.

2. Penises are funny. We’re not trying to be dicks here, but seriously, if you think penises aren’t meant to be laughed at, or you spend an inordinate amount of time gazing upon your own penis or the penises of others (and you are not a urologist) then this is probably not the right place for you.

3. Penises get too much press time. Hello, women’s health?¹ Not to put too fine of a penis head on it, but we look forward to the day when the textbooks for women’s sexual function are as gerthy and thick as the men’s, and when there are just as many pharmaceutical ads on TV for female romps between the sheets as there are for ED.

4. We’re doing our small part to tear down the patriarchy. To be clear: we believe the patriarchy isn’t just an antiquated system that is harmful to women, it’s useless limp dick that serves almost nobody except a handful of dirty old men who probably haven’t gotten laid in awhile. Even still, we love all the men and all the penises props, we’re just here to poke some good, clean fun.

Is that the patriarchy burning down in your pants, or are you happy to see me?

5. Peenie posts will arrive every Weenie Wednesday (more or less) and for now all content is free. Count on us to perk up your ‘lil peckers. Subscribe below, tell your friends, and be sure to follow The Dick Sisters on Instagram.

Just search ‘penis cactus’ on Etsy and you, too, can make new friends.

1

Dennis M, Khatiwoda A, Bartley J. HF01-02 WE FINALLY FOUND HER! AN ORIGIN STORY OF THE CLITORIS. Journal of Urology [Internet]. 2023 Apr 1 [cited 2024 Oct 21];209(Supplement 4):e256. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1097/JU.0000000000003243.02