“Write a column about your penis.”

This is what Opinion editor Curtis says when I ask him what the most memorable column of the year should be about.

“My penis?”

“Yeah, you up to it?” Curtis prods. “You man enough?”

I tell him to shut up, and instead write a column on my dirty roommates. It wasn’t a question of tastelessness. The Nexus Opinion page once printed the acronym “C.U.N.T.S.” over 250 times, as it pertained to a feminist group circa the early ’90s. If I wrote a column on my purple-headed yogurt slinger, it would run.

But how could I rationalize an entire Opinion piece devoted to my meat Popsicle? Truly, there is no mine of puns and synonyms deeper than the schlong mine, but that in and of itself doesn’t warrant an entire column. And true – given the age and physiology of half the campus – the issue of the johnson and its proper upkeep and maintenance is relevant every single morning.

But the common experience of morning wood and the potential for puns does not an Opinion column make. It has to be loaded with relevant facts, impassioned with calls for social justice, blah, blah, blah. Frankly, I wasn’t sure if my 6.8 inches of man meat was capable of erecting a column that towered over all the hot air spewed onto the Opinion page this year. Could I make my humble one-eyed snake and sentiments on the subject somehow stand out?

It goes without saying that personal revelation is always memorable. Gossip was the first thing protohumans did with their vocal chords. If I told everyone I hang slightly to the left and no longer concerned myself with my lefty status (after it had been bugging me since middle school), they’d remember. They’d see me on campus and say, “Hey, that’s Dave. He hangs left.”

Self-revelation is great because we’re all pretty much the same these days. If I write, “I fear zipping up my pants in haste and accidentally severing my schlong,” 10,000 men wince in empathy. I write, “Most ladies have, at some point, been disappointed that they can’t paint their name in pee like us tri-pods,” and 10,000 women sigh in regret.

Yes, I imagine most men wake up like me and thank the dear Lord for their member; I imagine many women do as well. It’s a good era to have a trouser dragon. We live on the verge of sweeping penile technology that will redefine the ethics and boundaries of what it means to be hung – well or otherwise.

For many millennia, the complex orchestra of chemicals that creates the legendary “boner” was a mystery to man. Impotent men would kill and eat cute endangered animals and accuse their wives of witchcraft in a vain attempt to pitch any kind of tent – a lean-to, even.

Today we can summon the mightiest Wagnerian erection symphony with a pill. The marvel of Sildenafil isn’t that it creates the mystical hymen slayer; instead, it’s that Viagra blocks the chemicals in the blood that kill a boner. It’s this little assassin of boner killers in a pill. As men, we stand to have rock-hard, functional phalluses until death, which could be in our late 150s. All the disgust I used to feel for Anna Nicole Smith-types who marry rich old men is gone. Thanks to Viagra, everyone earns their inheritance.

Within 50 years, stem cell technology could mean the ability to grow organs from any old fat cells. Imagine a cold chest of extra dodes, just in case the old lady goes nuts one night and hacksaws old Capt. Winky.

Better cock-tech could be very beneficial to women as well. Viagra is already prescribed to women, because the boner-killer chemical in men also leaves women dry and thin. Thousands of older women are currently getting their rocks off as a side effect to man’s ultimate pursuit. But I think cock-tech could go a lot further to better the country.

I’m well aware of the many misbehaved rogue cocks in town. They date rape, they regular rape, they generally act like the little pricks they are. With microsurgery what it is, I envision some form of penile parole program for repeat prick offenders. I see a day where bad keepers of the baby maker get their offending member removed and put in bio-stasis until they show themselves capable of handling their dicks in public.

On a somewhat downbeat note for women, corporations will soon discover the genes responsible for Ron Jeremy’s porn star crippler, as well as those responsible for the ultra-short man. Iceland has sold its entire country’s DNA, and the corporation analyzing it has already found the genes for diabetes and certain cancers. The day when you can custom-order a full-sized shaft for your embryonic boy is just over the horizon.

But the more I reflect, the less I think I would ever consider endowing my child with anything so burdensome as a massive cock. I’ve come to humble terms with my own genetic determination. My growing spurts are over, and the high school question of “am I going to measure up” is no longer of concern. Like most guys, I arrived humbly at the mean of “enough to satisfy, not enough to injure.”

And, like Opinion columns on the subject, it’s not about size anyway – it’s about girth. See how wide these columns are. Oh yeah. Take it.

Senior David Downs is perverse, amoral and refuses to take his life seriously. Kill him if you see him. His columns run on Wednesdays.