The display of the fingers as horns wards off cuckolding while celebrating masculine empowerment. The sign of the horn refers simultaneously to the prowess of a bull (fecund masculinity) and to the horns that signify that a man has been cuckolded (his wife has had sexual relations with another man).

This is also an apotropaic figuration of the phallus, though in a less directly evident manner.

Perhaps the most frequently used contemporary apotropaic phallic symbol is the gesture popularly referred to as “the finger.” Although often used as a signal of anger, disdain, and even disgust, the finger and its many variations are also apotropaic, warding off threats, responding to aggression, and serving as a warning.Ī more complicated version of the finger, the sign of the “horns,” is produced by extending the index finger and little finger. Though they are not consciously regarded as apotropaic, the city of Amsterdam is bedecked with thousands of roadside phalli that mark roads and protect pedestrians. Recently the phalli were taken down to avoid offending Western travelers who associated them with obscenity. The phalli became the protectors of travelers who would pray to them for safe passage and offer them rice and hemp. The preventive gods were presented as giant phalli that were erected along highways, at the ends of bridges, and at crossroads to impede the passage of evil beings. The apotropaic qualities of the phallus derive from the ways in which it represents the idea of strength and manliness evoked to protect communities and their assets.Īncient Japan looked to a group of gods called the Sahe no Kami, or preventive gods, to protect believers against beings from the underworld. Throughout the Mediterranean region both Greeks and Romans used phallic figures to protect valuable resources such as grain cisterns. The island of Delos, reputed to be the birthplace of Apollo and Artemis, was famous for its statutes of phalli. In ancient Greece phalli were carved above doorways to protect homes, and phallic sculptures appeared throughout Greece. Symbols and figures of male genitals also serve apotropaic functions, warding off evil and fending off aggression. In regard to phalli and its place in Ancient Greece wrote as follows:

Zesture meaning