http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a5_186.html
(1) I agree with Cecil that it probably ain’t a male organ.
(2) If it were, it’s barely visible.
(3) If it were visible, so what? The picture for the briefs shows a telltale bulge. Men have penises. So what?
(4) Unless I’m mistaken, I’ve seen more than a few newspaper circulars or catalogs hawking lacy/translucent women’s undergarments in which nipples or pubes are pretty clearly discernible. Why no controversy from those?
Because, penises, ew.
And, I forgot to mention the entire canon of Eastern and Western statuary and art in which they are blithely and without much controversy on display.
Except for the ones that were fitted with plaster leaves during the Victorian era…
Because, Sears didn’t carry penises in the Seventies.
That didn’t keep all of us little gay boys from adding imaginary parts to the underwear models, though…I’m still surprised my mother didn’t wonder about me when I took the Sears and Penneys catalogs into the bathroom for 40 minutes at a time.
What makes you think it’s an enduring controversy? The only reason it’s coming up again now is because that old Cecil column came up in the rotation. All that says is that it was a controversy, once.
Well, even his old column was prompted 22 years after the fact. Seems like it endured at least a lot longer than I would ever have imagined.