Danny Kaplan had, quite frankly, the largest penis I have ever seen on man or beast. I am not exaggerating by this. These days, I spend a lot of my leisure time riding horses, and, pound for pound, Danny's dong would put that of any stallion to shame—and he was, I should add, a lot less shy about displaying it, too. Lest the reader wonder how someone with the name "Danny Kaplan," which, after all, sounds like that of a Woody Allen protagonist, could have a foot-long schlong, I will remind the reader that Ron Jeremy, too, is a Jew. However, Ron Jeremy is no Danny Kaplan, at whose bris, it is said, the moyel called for a pair of industrial power shears.

Danny was one of the counselors at camp. My parents thought it would be a good idea to send my brother and myself away for the summer, and, for this purpose, they chose the camp at which my elder cousins were already successful and popular senior counselors. This had two advantages: It was Jewish, and, accordingly, it was cheap. The dining hall was kosher, and Shabbos services were compulsory. However, what they had not reckoned was that the authentic Jewish camp experience they had planned for me would turn out to be Auschwitz.

I was what charitable people might call a "late bloomer." The less charitable, who included everyone except my mother, might call me "fucking pathetic." Early press-ganging onto a little league team, where I realized the full potential of young boys to themselves be extensions of their fathers' penises, had filled me with a horror of anything remotely resembling athleticism. A large part of my childhood was spent in my own head, re-reading The Lord of the Rings and eating microwavable chicken burritos. My clothes were purchased at what was euphemistically called "the husky boy's shop." At camp, my lack of ability in physical pursuit and lack of social skills instantly marked me for ostracism. Fearing contagion, even my own cousins and younger brother avoided me.

To contrast, none of our sixteen-year-old overseers doubted that Danny Kaplan, the skinny boy-man with the spiky hair with the johnson larger than the rest of him, was the king of us all. After all, he had the scepter. Lord of his domain, Danny would arise every morning and, stark naked, stride to the porch of the 400-year-old Dutch mansion that served as our barracks. There, he would release a mighty stream of urine into the front yard. Where that golden shower touched, the earth was forever blackened and sterile. No grass would grow there, but the unlucky camper who incurred the displeasure of the counselors might find himself forced to hold a push-up position over that accursed spot for up to an hour.

In Herman Wouk's The City Boy, the fat, awkward Jewish kid ultimately triumphs. My summer camp experience wasn't written by Herman Wouk. It was written by William Golding. In the communal shower at camp, my own peter, like a micolithic version of the mighty Galapagos tortoise, would retreat, ashamed, into my hairless groin. Though, without my glasses, my bunkmates were only blurry, indistinct forms, I could hear their laughter perfectly clearly. They were young and athletic and lean, with flat, muscular stomachs and cruel eyes. They would meet the girls from the other side of camp by the lake at night, there to rehearse the production of the next generation of Jewish campers. Alone with the mosquitoes, I would cry myself to sleep every night.

At the inevitable camp shows, while my bunkmates aimed punches at my short ribs while my back was turned, Danny would sit in the back of the barn and slyly suck himself off. He would hug his erection to himself with both arms like a little boy with a puppy he was trying to keep concealed from his mother, his dickhead protruding from the neckline of his sweater. When he was sure that none of the head counselors were watching, he would whip it out and slap it against his hand like a billy club, perhaps knocking a few of the smaller children unconscious with it. Onstage, Tevye worried in vain about marrying off his daughters, because the female half of the camp was watching Danny like mice hypnotized by a snake. Why so many nice Jewish girls chose to lose their virginity to that thing, I'll never know, since it must have been like being fucked with a Buick. Danny got more play than a basketball in an inner-city gym class, not that the virgin sacrifices satisfied his appetite for conquest of various sorts. I won't say that he paid any special attention to me, but he didn't neglect me either.

"You have nice tits," he said to me one sunset evening. "I think I want to titty-fuck you."

Psychic trauma aside, Danny Kaplan's penis taught me many life lessons. The first and most obvious, of course, is that all men are not created equal. The second is that I am not, in any wise, inclined towards homosexuality. And, if I ever was meant to be gay by nature or nurture, then I should be awarded the Southern Baptist equivalent of the Nobel Prize for finding the cure: Threaten to titty-fuck the fat kid with a monster cock, and they'll never even shower in front of other guys ever again.

'Course, Danny Kaplan's penis wasn't the only life lesson I learned.

Next week: The Importance of Chewing Your Corn and Life Lessons From a Man with No Teeth

Childhood trauma? Send us e-mail at editor@corporatemofo.com