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About once a week or so, I go to my Gmail spam folder for two reasons: to make sure nothing I wanted is in it, and to see what kind of stuff I didn't want is in it.

There's an old direct marketing tenet that says if you want to know what's working for another marketer, just observe what they send repeatedly. If that's true for unsolicited e-mail, my spam folder says the average American male is a moron.

Warning: This article contains off-color references.

Not only is the vast majority of the e-mail in my inbox about enlarging my penis, the subject lines alternate between idiotic, nonsensical and downright funny.

"Get more flesh on your pole," says one. Who would buy from an e-mail with a subject that says that? Apparently someone does.

"Update your penis," says another, apparently offering me an opportunity to get a penis 2.0. What would an updated penis do that the current version doesn't? Would it be able to make martinis? Now, <ital>that<ital> would be impressive. Just ask my wife.

Then there are the completely nonsensical subject lines such as, "heal your lost wig that evening phoebe," offering, you guessed it, a penis-enlargement product. And let's not leave out "it will be over now but he advise me u need my ass." Phew: Thank goodness he advise u; otherwise u may never have know how much I needing ur ass.

One penis-enlargement spam subject line coincidentally hit home with: "you're an inspiration windy." To the windy part, my family can attest. To the inspiration part, not so much.

Is there an association for penis-enlargement spam copywriters? Do they attend conferences where they learn things like the word "member" generally outpulls "pole" by 20%?

And who responds to these offers? Who would put something on or in their body offered to them in an e-mail that opens by telling them to get more flesh on their pole? Are women really so much brighter then men that they don't even respond in the minuscule percentages needed to make even spam profitable? [Don't answer that.] Is there a file of men who respond to penis-enlargement spam somewhere? Can we get a copy and try and stop them from using their newly updated poles to reproduce?

Alas, these are troubling questions to which answers aren't immediately apparent. But clearly, there is a group of buyers and sellers out there who live in a completely different world than the rest of us and the majority of buyers are easily suckered American males with penile inferiority complexes.