In older men, are fish photos really penis symbols?

For various reasons, I haven't slept well the past few nights and I woke up this morning around 5:30 wondering why men post photos of themselves holding fish on a dating site. I had planned to share my adventures in an orderly fashion but I am skipping ahead, come on, you know my mind wanders. Box, what box.

I haven't told you about the "silvermatch" site and I will evaluate it later but it has a really neat feature. When you are looking at a profile, up in the right hand corner, there is an open window which works like a slide carousel, that is you can see a continuous slide show of photographs. When you find one of interest, you just click it and the man's profile appears for your perusal. If you like what you see, you can begin communication directly.

So the last few nights when unable to sleep, I have counted men instead of sheep. Into my dark den flows photo after photo of hopeful men who speed by under my clicking finger. Last night I became aware of how many men post photos of themselves holding up a string of fish or a single large fish. Once this registered on my sleepy brain I really began to wonder about the basis for this.

Many of you of a certain age will remember when the first Datsun "Z" sport car came on the market. The women's movement was beginning to spread into the popular media and few liberated thinkers could miss the symbolism of that car. Talk about phallic! It was a powered penis charging down the highway. Men flocked to auto show rooms and there were waiting lists to purchase it. I was married to my son's father at the time and I recall receiving a Christmas card from a friend with an enclosed photo of him posing as Santa beside his "Z". I cracked up and laughed until I had tears: What's in his sock? - he made house calls - better than the pizza man - getting back up the chimney was easier than getting down. You get the point.

For some reason, my sleep deprived brain made the connection between younger men and their hot rods and these photos of mature men and fish. OK, follow my thinking... the reason for posting photos on a dating site is to attract the opposite sex so that they will open your profile and learn something that triggers them to open communication with you. So it reasons that one would post a photo with some sex appeal. I don't mean that in an erotic way; I mean projecting a positive image, smiling into the camera like you would smile at a person you would like to meet. A twinkle in your eyes. Sex begins in the brain. So what's with the fish!

I viewed shot after shot of men holding fish on a string, in their arms or even posing beside some giant phallic denizen of the sea hung on a hook. Yes, I know that men and women are wired differently but do men really think that fish are sexy? Are fish phallic symbols to men? Maybe small fish are conjones - "see, I've got lots"- do larger fish imply a larger penis? - is a photo with a marlin on a hook suppose to stand for "Baby, get ready"? I haven't researched this yet but I do think that something fishy is going on.

Maybe I'll just go back to bed and sleep on it. Oh, did I mention that here are also a lot of photos of men at the Grand Canyon. Hmmmm. Yeah, I need some sleep.