# What is it with giant snow penis sculptures?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-it-with-giant-snow-penis-sculptures/565834
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
**Created:** [December 30, 2010, 4:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-it-with-giant-snow-penis-sculptures/565834 "2010-12-30T16:17:34Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@joebuck20](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/joebuck20)
#### Post date: [December 30, 2010, 4:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-it-with-giant-snow-penis-sculptures/565834/1 "2010-12-30T16:17:34Z")
Granted I haven’t seen them much since moving to the south some years back, but growing up in the Midwest, especially when I was going to college, I’d always spot a few each winter, sometimes in the back of someone’s pick up truck, or the front yard of a frat house or just on the edge of the sidewalk.
I don’t know about you, but when I go out and play in the snow, I don’t think, “hmmm, let’s make a giant snow penis.”
Anyway here’s a story I saw today about it:
> **[WATCH: Snow Penises Given Generous Local News Coverage](https://www.huffpost.com/entry/indiana-snow-penis-news_n_802414)**
>
> WATCH: Snow Penises Given Generous Local News Coverage
So anyone else spot these things where you live.
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### Author:  [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)
#### Post date: [December 30, 2010, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-it-with-giant-snow-penis-sculptures/565834/2 "2010-12-30T16:21:23Z")
We don’t get snow here so we have to make do with water.
They don’t last long. 😃
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### Author:  [@tdn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tdn)
#### Post date: [December 30, 2010, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-it-with-giant-snow-penis-sculptures/565834/3 "2010-12-30T16:23:10Z")
> [@runner pat](#):
>
> We don’t get snow here so we have to make do with water.
>
> They don’t last long. 😃
Have you tried mixing the water with viagra?
I think that people would make snow vaginas, but they’d look like little more than mounds.
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### Author:  [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)
#### Post date: [December 30, 2010, 4:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-it-with-giant-snow-penis-sculptures/565834/4 "2010-12-30T16:33:58Z")
> [@tdn](#):
>
> I think that people would make snow vaginas, but they’d look like little more than mounds.
But that would involve planting shrubbery. Too much work.
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### Author:  [@tdn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tdn)
#### Post date: [December 30, 2010, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-it-with-giant-snow-penis-sculptures/565834/5 "2010-12-30T16:36:59Z")
> [@runner pat](#):
>
> But that would involve planting shrubbery. Too much work.
That’s OK. I’d be right there with my lawn mower anyway.
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### Author:  [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)
#### Post date: [December 30, 2010, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-it-with-giant-snow-penis-sculptures/565834/6 "2010-12-30T16:41:55Z")
> [@tdn](#):
>
> That’s OK. I’d be right there with my lawn mower anyway.
Have you seen this ad?-Maybe NSFW.
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvFSgXpyhoM](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvFSgXpyhoM)
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### Author:  [@dhkendall](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dhkendall)
#### Post date: [December 30, 2010, 5:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-it-with-giant-snow-penis-sculptures/565834/7 "2010-12-30T17:50:51Z")
Very simple, and your OP kind of hints at the reason right there:
> [@joebuck20](#):
>
> I’d always spot a few each winter, sometimes in the back of someone’s pick up truck, or the front yard of a frat house or just on the edge of the sidewalk.
Many pickup truck owners (at least the stereotypical ones) and pretty much all frat boys have the mindset of a 14 year old boy. Of course they’re going to make snow penii! (yes, I know that’s not the proper pluralization form.)
I remember when I was around 13 or 14 I didn’t make snow penis sculptures but, in the giant field behind my school, I used to walk several feet in a straight line in the virgin snow, stop, walk in an arch (stopping at the apex to put one bootprint inside the arch perpendicular to it) and then walk another straight line a couple of feet over from my first straight line back to the beginning. Of course I’d look like I was just casually walking, but the intent was to make a penis with my tracks in the ground.
Thing is, though, I grew out of it.
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### Author:  [@Inner\_Stickler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inner_Stickler)
#### Post date: [December 30, 2010, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-it-with-giant-snow-penis-sculptures/565834/8 "2010-12-30T17:58:53Z")
And the world is poorer for it.
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### Author:  [@limegreen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/limegreen)
#### Post date: [December 30, 2010, 5:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-it-with-giant-snow-penis-sculptures/565834/9 "2010-12-30T17:59:15Z")
And a 10/12 year old boy ( in the video) is seriously saying how disgusting he found it?? I’ve taught adolescent boys for 20 years, and I am skeptical that that was his true opinion. Most kids would be giggling or at the most, eye-rolling.
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### Author:  [@Drunky\_Smurf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Drunky_Smurf)
#### Post date: [December 30, 2010, 6:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-it-with-giant-snow-penis-sculptures/565834/10 "2010-12-30T18:04:51Z")
> [@joebuck20](#):
>
> I don’t know about you, but when I go out and play in the snow, I don’t think, “hmmm, let’s make a giant snow penis.”
You don’t? That’s weird.
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### Author:  [@tdn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tdn)
#### Post date: [December 30, 2010, 7:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-it-with-giant-snow-penis-sculptures/565834/11 "2010-12-30T19:17:50Z")
> [@runner pat](#):
>
> Have you seen this ad?-Maybe NSFW.
>
> [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvFSgXpyhoM](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvFSgXpyhoM)
Thank you.
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### Author:  [@Freudian\_Slit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freudian_Slit)
#### Post date: [December 30, 2010, 7:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-it-with-giant-snow-penis-sculptures/565834/12 "2010-12-30T19:24:33Z")
Did they actually blur out the snow sculptures?!
The kid’s shocked attitude was a bit hilarious. From his tone of voice, he was acting as though he’d seen someone gang rape a puppy…
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### Author:  [@tdn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tdn)
#### Post date: [December 30, 2010, 7:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-it-with-giant-snow-penis-sculptures/565834/13 "2010-12-30T19:33:31Z")
> [@Freudian\_Slit](#):
>
> The kid’s shocked attitude was a bit hilarious. From his tone of voice, he was acting as though he’d seen someone gang rape a puppy…
I like making snow puppies.
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### Author:  [@joebuck20](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/joebuck20)
#### Post date: [December 30, 2010, 7:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-it-with-giant-snow-penis-sculptures/565834/14 "2010-12-30T19:47:29Z")
> [@tdn](#):
>
> I like making snow puppies.
And then raping them? With a giant snow penis?
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### Author:  [@tdn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tdn)
#### Post date: [December 30, 2010, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-it-with-giant-snow-penis-sculptures/565834/15 "2010-12-30T19:48:45Z")
> [@joebuck20](#):
>
> And then raping them? With a giant snow penis?
That’s sick! No way!
I use my own penis.
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### Author:  [@Jenaroph](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jenaroph)
#### Post date: [December 30, 2010, 7:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-it-with-giant-snow-penis-sculptures/565834/16 "2010-12-30T19:50:16Z")
“I don’t care what Susie made, we’re not having an anatomically correct snowman in the front yard!” - Calvin’s Mom, _Calvin and Hobbes_
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### Author:  [@Freudian\_Slit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freudian_Slit)
#### Post date: [December 30, 2010, 7:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-it-with-giant-snow-penis-sculptures/565834/17 "2010-12-30T19:51:24Z")
I did actually find people more horrified by snow penises than the little boy. This [Jezebel article](http://jezebel.com/5703390/why-do-men-want-women-to-look-at-their-dicks) is from earlier this month but it seems fitting:
> [@](#):
>
> I just don’t get cockshots. I don’t get snow penises, either. Or dickflashing, including the non-predatory kind. But are they just different points on a spectrum of men wanting to be looked at the way women always are?
> [@](#):
>
> Snow penises are actually a time-honored tradition. I was recently reminded that in my college days, one was built in the center of campus, with “life-like veins, a urethral bulge, and a sizeable scrotum” and promptly destroyed, which was in turn lamented by unnamed penis defenders at The Economist. The (female) destroyer of the snow penis came forward and declared, “No one should have to be subjected to an erect penis without his or her express permission or consent.” Even the frozen variety.
>
> But what about why it was built in the first place, one of so many snow phalli? Maybe it was a collective act of dickflashing by the anonymous builders. Maybe they just want someone to look at it. Even when it’s not erect, like Kanye West’s wasn’t. Or when it’s somewhat indecisively semi-hard, and even more pertinently, the girl you’re sending it to has already told you she doesn’t want to see you or it, like Brett Favre’s.
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### Author:  [@lisalan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lisalan)
#### Post date: [December 30, 2010, 8:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-it-with-giant-snow-penis-sculptures/565834/18 "2010-12-30T20:07:31Z")
It’s tacky, clueless and juvenile. If anyone other than young adolescent males are building these things then they need to get some serious help.
Oh and are they building circumcised or uncircumcised ones???LMAO
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### Author:  [@BlackKnight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BlackKnight)
#### Post date: [December 31, 2010, 12:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-it-with-giant-snow-penis-sculptures/565834/19 "2010-12-31T00:47:11Z")
One of the major reasons people make these things is because people get so irrationally upset about them. “Oh noes! It’s a fake phallus! Run, Dorris!” It’s hard to imagine a less destructive prank.
Granted, they’re rather cliché.
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### Author:  [@Inner\_Stickler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inner_Stickler)
#### Post date: [December 31, 2010, 2:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-it-with-giant-snow-penis-sculptures/565834/20 "2010-12-31T02:00:22Z")
Yeah, no kidding. If people stopped freaking out about them, they’d stop showing up.
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