What is a chode? I don’t know about you, but I’ve been pondering the meaning of this word ever since I heard a 6-year-old boy holler “Chode!” at a fellow student on the zipline during third-grade recess. Perhaps in this context, the phrase was merely uttered as a repetition of a parent’s linguistic misstep — but, still, the question lingered in my mind.

In my time as a female member of this planet, I have heard two separate definitions for “chode.” The first is a synonym for a “prick” or any other word with a negative connotation and of similar meaning. The second definition, which I always believed to be the more accurate one, refers to a penis that is wider than it is long. That would be, for example, a penis that is 6 inches long and 7 inches in circumference. Perhaps the shape of a particularly stout cucumber may incite your imagination, or even, in a more extreme example, so may half of one of those crème-filled Hostess logs. Urban Dictionary, along with the general Washington University population, agrees with this description of a chode.

So, now that we know what a chode really is, are they real? Can someone really have a penis of such a corpulent figure? And if so, does this make for any sexual advantages? One would think that these are pretty straightforward questions, but investigation says otherwise. Of 10 sexually active Wash. U. senior females questioned about the existence of chodes, all 10 remarked that they had never seen them. While one said, “Is that even possible?” another inquired if such organs were functional during sexual intercourse. On the other hand, of the six Wash. U. males questioned, all remarked that they were certain of the existence of chodes. Two in particular noted their time spent in locker rooms before and after football practice as evidence for chodes. One Wash. U. graduate offered a story of an extreme chode sighting: “I met a guy in the locker room of a friend’s club whose nut sack was the size of an orange, and his penis was mostly inside him.” He continued, “It was like a flap of foreskin!”

Between males and females, it seems the mystery of the chode has not been completely unearthed. But I did finally meet one female this past week who had had a sexual encounter with what she described as a chode. The anonymous junior described the specimen at hand as “possibly 5 inches long and as wide as [she had] ever seen a penis.” Although this does not confirm its true existence as a chode, she said it was difficult to maneuver sexually, as it was wider than the entrance to her vagina. Sex was possible in the end, she said, “after enough foreplay.”

Although few conclusions have been formed in the Wash. U. community about chodes, it is clear that they exist in some capacity, whether females recognize the presence of a chode or not during a sexual encounter. It is also clear that extreme chodes may need extra help entering the ever-flexing vaginal entrance if they are wider than the vaginal opening at penetration. While we may end up throwing around the word “chode” with the Loch Ness Monster or Yeti, the brief sightings of this mysterious member could actually prove it to be real and not a fable.