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You Can’t Lick Our Dick



You Can't Lick Our Dick
I had quite a weekend down in Arcata. I will try and write a more detailed account of some of what happened later on today, but this one bit was too good not to highlight on it’s own…

This was a campaign poster that the people we stayed with had above the toilet in their upstairs bathroom. I actually didn’t take this photo myself, but luckily found one online that matched the poster I had seen.

As far as I can tell, this was a real poster used in President Nixon’s re-election campaign of 1972. And it reads at the bottom, in all caps: “YOU CAN’T LICK OUR DICK”.

When I first saw this poster, I did a double take over their choice of words. At first I just thought it was supposed to be one of those things where people make up a rhyming slogan for a candidate and that’s that. “Lick” in this reading would simply mean “to beat, or win against.” Which renders it innocuous. Something along the lines of “I Like Ike”, which was a slogan for Eisenhower.

As I delved deeper into the use of certain local flora, additional layers of meaning began to unfold themselves for me. I realized that Nixon’s re-election campaign would have been happening during the “climax” of the sexual revolution of the 1960’s and 70’s. Nixon, of course, couldn’t really be further from that revolution culturally. If anything, what he stood for was the staid rock-hard values of the past - values which were being threatened by the revolutions in sexuality and consciousness.

And so, this poster isn’t just a meaningless rhyme; it packs a punch which would have been understood more keenly (if not consciously) by people during that era. The slogan then becomes a statement of constancy in the face of change and cultural/moral confusion. By using a nod and a wink, the poster in effect tells you that with Nixon, there are no nods and winks. There is no subtext. It’s just him, standing on his own two feet. “The President” they call him. What more could you want than that? Freaking brilliant piece of marketing, if you ask me.

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3 Reader Responses

  1. Alec Says:
    July 31st, 2006 at 10:03 pm

    I’ll go there: the phrase implies that Nixon’s supporters have one giant, collective penis (”our dick”) and that his detractors want to lick it but aren’t allowed, because “our dick” is only for vaginal intercourse with the missus. Question is, who’s the missus?

    Reminds me of the dicks, pussies and assholes speech from Team America.

    I agree, it’s great! Layers. That said, I don’t think the double meaning would have been lost on anyone (the “penis” usage of “dick” evidently dates from 1890), so it seems too profane to have been a real, official slogan.

  2. Tim Boucher Says:
    July 31st, 2006 at 10:27 pm

    Great analysis. Also check out this old piece I wrote about how the Oval Office is America’s vagina, and the President is the penis.

    I don’t think the double meaning would have been lost on anyone (the “penis” usage of “dick” evidently dates from 1890), so it seems too profane to have been a real, official slogan.

    Yeah, I agree. But I do think that there is perhaps a “sense of decency” that could have been exploited in a piece like this - if it’s real (which I’d love to be able to solidly verify). That decency being: a decent person would implicitly know the President of the United States of all people wouldn’t ever stoop to using a sexual double entendre in a campaign ad, because that’s simply not a decent thing to do. And they would morally correct themselves for even noticing the sexual reference, possibly chalking it up to their own perverse mind - thus becoming shameful and guilty for thinking it.

    Then, once the sexual reference has been sublimated (forced into the subconscious mind and out of the conscious critical faculties), they are then free to see the “official intended” meaning which is simply “There’s no beating the President!” And aligning themselves with this positive message would also help expiate them from the guilt of the other meaning they may have perceived.

    Meanwhile, stoners would see this and start laughing like crazy… because those layers of twisted meaning might have been more apparent to them.

    That is, of course, assuming this whole thing is even real at all. An ad like this would never work nowadays, I don’t think. Actually maybe that’s not true - because I’ve always thought that the reason they called Kerry a “flip-flopper” was to associate him in the public mind with having a limp dick. And that seemed to work well and nobody caught on.

  3. sketchmonkey Says:
    August 1st, 2006 at 9:24 pm

    Hmmm, that begs the political question du jour: how many licks does it take to get to the center? ;)



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