Phallos is a 2004 novel by the acclaimed novelist and critic Samuel R. Delany. Taking the form of a gay pornographic novella, with the explicit sex omitted, Phallos is set during the reign of the second-century Roman emperor Hadrian, and circles around the historical account of the murder of the emperor's favorite, Antinous. The story moves from Syracuse to Egypt, from the Pillars of Hercules to Rome, from Athens to Byzantium, and back. Young Neoptolomus searches after the stolen phallus of the nameless god of Hermopolis, crafted of gold and encrusted with jewels, within which are reputedly the ancient secrets of science and society that will lead to power, knowledge, and wealth. Vivid and clever, the original novella has been expanded by nearly a third. Appended to the text are an afterword by Robert F. Reid-Pharr and three astute speculative essays by Steven Shaviro, Kenneth R. James, and Darieck Scott.

Through close examination of the physical, physhological and mythological aspects of phallos, the author differentiates masculinity from patriarchy and discovers a mysterious, divine reality coequal with the maternal principle as an originating force in the psyche.

A fascinating study of the phallus as a symbol of power and dominance, this book offers an interesting thesis regarding a cultural repression of homosexuality and some challenging hypotheses concerning elemental ties between boys and older men.

As well as the Little Owl or glaux, so often seen accompanying the goddess Athena, many other birds played an important role in Greek art and symbolism. This booklet describes the ways in which the Greeks viewed birds, from useful hawks and fowl to exotic parakeets and peacocks. Some of the birds most often depicted are imaginary, from the griffin to the phallos bird, whose head and neck consisted of an erect penis. The book ends with a field guide to species likely to be seen on a visit to the Agora archaeological park today.

Scholarly yet lyrical, and informed by both Jungian and Freudian theory, this worthy sequel to the author's Phallos (title 27) maps the insecurities and unconscious forces which from early life prompt men to violence, and proposes powerful countermeasures.

A philosophy student’s research draws him into the sexual underground of 1980s and early nineties New York John Marr is surprised he doesn’t have AIDS. He has been having near-daily sexual encounters with strange men since before the dawn of HIV, but he remains healthy. His initiation began in the bathroom of the Staten Island Ferry Terminal, and since then he has found himself at home in the darkest corners of Manhattan’s culture of anonymous gay sex. During the day, it is a different story, as Marr works on his graduate thesis—an analysis of the work of a brilliant 1970s philosopher who died mysteriously in one of the gay bars of Hell’s Kitchen. As his research and his sex life begin to converge, Marr senses that if AIDS doesn’t get him, something darker will. The Mad Man, which the author dubbed a “pornotopic fantasy,” is more than a powerful work of philosophical erotica; it is a snapshot of a vanished moment in New York City’s gay history, when fear and lust commingled in a single powerful force.