What's a hoon?

Australian men have their manhood questioned by a bunch of busybodies, ninnies, and marketing types. Andrew Bolt reports from the antipodes...

Herald Sun: How low can you go?

Noticed even more spam in your in-box, offering to turn a gentleman into a horse? I blame Sydney.

Only Sydney -- of all the cities in Australia -- could have been so crass as to run a road safety campaign preying on the great male fear.

He is obviously not an Aussie of Italian heritage.

It's Roads and Traffic Authority has spent nearly $2 million on its "little pinkie" campaign, which implies that hoons who speed have little penises.

These RTA ads show men trying to impress with their wheels, only to have onlookers -- mainly women -- waggle their little fingers in mockery.

Oy vey!

You and I, being Victorians, no doubt would tut-tut at ads so vulgar.

In fact, this being the state of the Big Hugs Collectives, we'd be shocked not so much by the vulgarity -- good taste is no longer fashionable, after all -- but the insensitivity.

White males and faithful Catholics are the only officially approved targets left in the world, Andy. I'll bet no Aboriginal penises were mocked in these ads.

We are, after all, the home of the "differently abled", so unwilling to acknowledge the most innocent differences that we've even forced male bowlers to let women into their pennant competition.

Eek!

And so sensitive are we about shame that even a notorious drug user such as Ben Cousins is not a law-breaker or druggie, but a man with a "health problem". Like an asthmatic, I guess.

"I just want Ben to get better", intones the man from the AFL. Not: "I want Ben to grow up, the fool."

So men with small penises are not to be mocked in Victoria but to be praised as, as . . . anatomically compact.

But Sydney is different. It's a shock-jock's heaven, with even the ABC there giving the country The Chaser's War on Everything, which on Wednesday used the national broadcaster to mock the recently dead in song, with lyrics such as:

Steve Irwin lived in khaki, a cartoon kamikaze, who taunted crocs and tots
so frequently,

But all that was forgotten after (he) took (his) final
breath. Yes, even tools turn into top blokes after death.

In Sydney that's entertainment, but in Melbourne it was outrage fodder for 3AW talkback host Neil Mitchell.

So, no surprise that it was Sydney that made the pinky wiggle a prime-time ad for a government campaign.

And how well it's worked. If the RTA research is to be believed, more than 60 per cent of young male drivers surveyed said the campaign made them think of driving less like a hoon.

Just shows, I guess, what a terrible fear young men have of the public mocking their privates.

And, indeed, it's a phobia that men everywhere share, which may explain why the story of the ad campaign's launch became the third-most-emailed report in the world, said the BBC.

Of course, there have been critics. The Advertising Standards Bureau got 34 complaints about the ads, mainly arguing they were discriminatory, which of course they were, and not just to the anatomically challenged male.

I mean, what does the RTA now have to say to the speeding woman? That she's flat-chested? Menopausal?

Hee-hee! She can't cook!

Ah, but that's an ad too sensitive even for Sydney. Which leaves us men once more having to deal with the streamers after the party is over.

How many penis enlargement offers did you have to clear from your in-box today, guys? Blame Sydney. It's told the world we blokes really do mind.