# Benjamin Franklin and the red-hot dildo **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [August 18, 2006, 7:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/benjamin-franklin-and-the-red-hot-dildo/369266 "2006-08-18T19:05:13Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2006, 7:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/benjamin-franklin-and-the-red-hot-dildo/369266/1 "2006-08-18T19:05:13Z")
I knew Franklin was capable of risque language and stories. There are entire books devoted to his essays. But I never encountered this one before. Definitely not stuff I learnerd in High School History. From Philip Dray’s **Stealing God’s Thunder: Benjamin Franklin’s Lightning Rod and the Invention of America** (p. 132: > [@](#): > > Indeed, when the Stamp Act was repealed by Parliament, the Bitish still demanded that the colonies pay for the stamps already printed, an injunction the Americans found particularly contemptuous. (Franklin said it called to mind the story of a man known to sit on the Pont Neuf in Paris brandishing a red-hot iron, asking passersby, “Would you kindly let me insert this up your arse?” When they angrily declined, he would say, “Well, all right, I won’t insist on it, but at least pay me something for keeping the iron warm.” 1.) Pithily stated 2.) Apparently this guy must actually have existed – it looks as if Franklin didn’t make him up for the story. 3.) I had no idea that the British _still_ wanted the colonies to pay for the stamps printed even after they relented. That never made it into my histories. 4.) Reading the book, Franklin had been living in England for over a decade and wasn’t home until after Lexington and Concord. He was back in Paris by Christmas of 1776. That means he just barely had time to be involved in the whole Continental Congress-Declaration of Independence-1776 stuff, and must have been a bit out of touch with the colonists at first. Interesting stuff I’d never heard or read before. It pays to go over history from time to time. By the way, until I read this book, I had no idea that Franklin’s wife was common-law, and that her name was Deborah. Truly one of the invisible women of history. ---
**Author:** ![Count\_Blucher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c5a1d2/32.png) [@Count\_Blucher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Count_Blucher)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2006, 8:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/benjamin-franklin-and-the-red-hot-dildo/369266/2 "2006-08-18T20:24:18Z")
[BenFranklin] ‘Early to bed and Early to rise, Gives more pumping time between Deborah’s thighs’? No, that’ll never do. [/BenFranklin] ---
**Author:** ![samclem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a9a28c/32.png) [@samclem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/samclem)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2006, 9:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/benjamin-franklin-and-the-red-hot-dildo/369266/3 "2006-08-18T21:19:37Z")
> [@](#): > > Another instance of this same method of a playful, although heated, common-sense analogy is the little story entitled Episode on Pont Neuf (from the Pennsylvania Chronicle, March 23, 1767). Shortly after the repeal of the Stamp Act there was an attempt by the British to make the Americans pay for the cost of printing the stamps. Franklin’s story tells of a Frenchman on this well-known bridge in Paris who with a red-hot iron in hand would accost an English passer-by with this modest proposal, “Pray Monsieur Anglois, . . . Do me the Favour to let me have the Honour of thrusting this hot Iron into your Backside?” When the Englishman exclaimed, “Zoons [!] What does the fellow mean! Begone with your Iron or I’ll break your Head!” The Frenchman retorted "Nay Monsieur . . . if you do not chuse it, I do not insist upon it. But at least, you will in Justice have the Goodness to pay me something for the heating of my Iron."23 The analogy with the unfair British policy in connection with the Stamp Tax was obvious enough to draw a ready laugh from American readers. from [http://www.compedit.com/franklin’s\_hoaxes.htm](http://www.compedit.com/franklin's_hoaxes.htm) ---
**Author:** ![Eve](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Eve](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eve)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2006, 8:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/benjamin-franklin-and-the-red-hot-dildo/369266/4 "2006-08-20T20:36:58Z")
Ah . . . That was one of my favorite children’s books . . . ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2006, 10:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/benjamin-franklin-and-the-red-hot-dildo/369266/5 "2006-08-20T22:30:04Z")
[QUOTE=CalMeacham] 2.) Apparently this guy must actually have existed – it looks as if Franklin didn’t make him up for the story… [/QUOTE] What makes you think this? I can’t see anything in what you posted to suggest this was anything other than a tall tale told for amusement and illustration.