Sometime after 9 p.m. this Friday (March 24) the five-year-old "healthy penis" will hop into a van – perhaps even a limousine – and wave goodbye to San Francisco, his birthplace and home since the summer of 2002. With the city's syphilis rate among gay men plummeting by 23 percent last year, the nameless healthy penis is needed elsewhere. Santa Clara County health officials have invited the healthy penis to San Jose for the next six months to alert gay men about the need to get tested and treated for syphilis, a sexually transmitted disease known to increase one's chances of contracting HIV.
"It's kind of sad it is coming to an end," said the healthy penis' father, Scott Metzger, a straight man who created the comical phallus character. "I am prepared for it, though it is going to be a bummer." | I think being known as the "father of healthy penis" would be enough of a bummer |
Metzger, who insisted his progeny is not modeled after anyone, not only drew the cartoon advertisements featuring the healthy penis and his nemesis, Phil the red-faced syphilis sore, but wrote the dialogue in the strips. Les Pappas, owner of Better World Advertising who came up with the concept for the social marketing campaign, hired Metzger to bring his idea to life.
"Les wanted it to be like the Ritchie Cunningham of penises. He was not to be that square but a happy-go-lucky character," said Metzger. "He is just a silly little character I wanted to be goofy and likeable." |