Testimony | Leonardo

Testimony

By Adam Zaretsky

I remember that the word testament and testicles have etymological origins in common. Early swearing on the Torah was not always possible before the printing press. Often it was told that men would take an oath on each other’s thighs or even under each other’s thighs. Due to the fact that the oath was a testimony, shy scholars had substituted balls or testicles with the words: ‘thigh’, stones or underthighs. The image is of men holding each other’s cojones cupped in each other’s hands during an oath, this is testimony. Giving each other testimony on the bollocks makes much more sense than a thigh in terms of relations between honesty and fear of pain. It also shows that the word is made of flesh as the germline genetic material (sperm and spermatagonia, ovum and oogonia) doubles as a holy book as well as a total trust fall for sure. It is certainly time to update the translation, re-enter these traditions into the halls of justice to include bodies of difference to lay oath hands on.

Considering Ruth and other female judges in the Judeo-Christian-Islamic Trinity of monotheistic cult(ures), we must ask how contestable (con-testicular) oaths are conducted in lieu of a book between: women and women, women and men as well as the detailed gender, identity, sex and sexualtity gradations and off the locus points of the day. The pen and the penis (and the pasta penne) need a gendered reinscribing, as well as protest (pro-testicular) neologisms beyond detestible (de-testicularity) testes, can be converted to gender neutral (neutered) or pluralized hybrid language of identity biodiversity. The tablets are not ‘stones’ these days. Penises are not the only thighs in the thicket. WE need a new embodiment of trust, lineage, language and law crossover that includes more than thinly veiled phallic worship. Lets get some yoni in that lingam langue, what Maya Spasova calls, “The Venus in every penis.” A good measure would be starting from the sum total of a dynamic equilibrium orificial economy and reverse engineering to a menu of options in the anatomy of testimonials.

All that being said, I killed Keith the centipede. I swear an oath on Gaia’s ovum… it was no fun. Keith was lit. May heesh live on in the brains and sinews of those heesh has touched.