Definitions
Sorry, no definitions found. Check out and contribute to the discussion of this word!
Etymologies
Sorry, no etymologies found.
Support
Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word erectile performance.
Examples
Sorry, no example sentences found.
dinkum commented on the word erectile performance
WORD: erectile performance
DEFINITION:
The degree to which a male possesses the capacity for raising a flaccid, favorite organ to an upright or distended positon (e.g., a man's "sleeping" penis or -- as is the case with a male sage grouse or frigatebird -- an uninflated gular sac).
EXAMPLE:
' A unique physical feature of male great frigate birds was also bound to attract the attention of immature human males concerned with erectile performances of their own sex organs. Each male great frigate bird at mating time tried to attract the attention of females by inflating a bright red balloon at the base of his throat. At mating time, a typical rookery when viewed from the air resembled an enormous party for human children, at which every child had received a red balloon. The Galápagos island would in fact be paved with male great frigate birds with their heads tilted back, their qualifications as husbands inflated by their lungs to the bursting point—while, overhead, the females wheeled.
' One by one the females would drop from the sky, having chosen this or that red balloon.
" After Mary Hepburn showed her film about the great frigate birds, and the windowshades in the classroom were raised and the lights turned back on, some student, . . .almost invariably a male, was sure to ask, sometimes clinically, sometimes as a comedian, sometimes bitterly, hating and fearing women: "Do the females always try to pick the biggest ones?"
' So Mary was ready with a reply: "To answer that, we would have to interview female great frigate birds, and no one has done that yet, so far as I know. Some people have devoted their lives to studying them, though, and it is their opinion that the females are in fact choosing the red balloons which mark the best nesting sites. That makes sense in terms of survival, you see. " '
-- From Kurt Vonnegut's 1985 novel Galápagos -- Chapter 20 (page 114).
CITATION:
1985 KURT VONNEGUT, JR. Galápagos (c) 1985 by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. Dial Press Trade Paperbacks.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Number: 8500454581
ISBN-13: 978-0-385-33387-0
ISBN-10: 0-385-33387-0
August 27, 2013