The Patriarch’s Nuts

Abstract

The Hebrew Bible is full of balls. And given that those of us of Middle Eastern background are among God’s hairier creatures, the Bible is full of some shaggy baubles indeed. It is all very well in the polite circles of (usually religiously driven) academia to speak of the dominant patriarchies of the Bible or of the masculinities that saturate many of its texts, but these are convenient abstractions, a relieved stride toward the euphemisms that enable us to avoid the earthiness and crudeness of those texts. So in order to acknowledge that crudity and give it its rightful place—and as a useful introduction to this section on masculinities—I prefer to speak of nuts, onions, oysters, apples, footballs, call them what you will.¹

The intention of every male eater [of testicles] is quite clear: to increase his potency. The best thing of course is to use the testicles of the most potent animal. In Spain these are regarded as the fighting bulls from the bullring, and of these the fiercest fighting bulls from the most renowned bullrings. Consequently, in the famous Florian restaurant in Barcelona you are served a bull’s testicles, accompanied not only by garlic and parsley, but by the name of the bull, its weight, a brief history, the pedigree, the place and time of its death and the name of the matador responsible.

—Midas Dekkers, Dearest Pet (Dutch Lief Dier)