THE PENTAGON — As part of a push to entice more young, strapping men to the Navy, the service announced a new campaign to increase the utilization of phallic imagery throughout the service, sources confirmed today.

The Navy plans to double-down on efforts to place penis-shaped objects in recruitment materials and in naval workplaces around the world, officials said.

“The Navy has a storied tradition of appealing to the virility, fantasies of sexual prowess, and latent homosexuality of young men across the country to draw them into our service and maintain morale and gaiety within,” said Adm. John Richardson, Chief of Naval Operations.

“This new campaign to bombard sailors with subtle and not-so-subtle images of male genitalia will continue to stoke homoerotic passions and build upon our longstanding traditions.”

Top Naval brass realized a fundamental longing within the Navy was going unfulfilled following an incident last year in which a Navy pilot drew a penis in the sky.

“Sailors have a primal drive to surround themselves with images of penises,” said Peter Longwood, a researcher with the Navy Institute for Phallic Imagery. “When that need is unmet, there is risk of sexual tension boiling over into overt acts of intrusive, unbridled genital expression.”

Longwood has been leading a team of researchers in the initiative seeking to maximize the efficiency of the campaign.

“While images evoking big floppy trouser snakes don’t seem to be as effective in improving morale as images of steel-hard pork swords,” said Longwood, “the most important factor appears to be that the phallus be an unwieldy gargantuan macro-penis in size.”

Navy brass hopes that the effort will pay off in the form of new recruits and reenlistments engorging the ranks, which they describe as waves and waves of young, sweaty bodies ready to engage in the physical demands of hot, sultry service to the nation.

“We aim to increase the Navy’s influence across the girth of the globe,” said Richardson. “We will not rest dreamily until we have covered all corners of the earth with our seamen.”

W.T. Door contributed to this report.