I spent a large portion of my youth with a pretty severe penis envy: I was obsessed with the idea that having a dick would make life so much easier, not to mention way more fun. I wanted to piss on shit with no regard for authority, to whip out my wang in the middle of a middle-school assembly like the psychotic kids I looked up to — I wanted to brag about my big balls in the locker room and woo the ladies with low-resolution dick pics from my Motorola RAZR.
I eventually got over this anatomical shortcoming as I embraced my female body, but coming into my own as a woman did not turn me into a male-bashing pussy licker — not entirely, at least. While the glass ceiling is still a very present reality, and while skyscrapers and Fourth-of-July hot dogs still continually conjure images of monumentally oppressive cocks, it would be erroneous to claim that all penises are equally granted this superincumbent phallic authority.
Yes, I hate the patriarchy, but I’m not going to deny that I also love dick — sue me. After I gave women a chance to talk about their vaginas as both a source of pride and insecurity, I wanted to do the same for the penis holders among us. It turns out that owning a cock does not guarantee inherent and everlasting self-confidence — news that would have shook my adolescent self to its core. Almost everybody who participated, in fact, said that their penis could be bigger or that “big-dick porn” contributed to an often unfavorable self-image. Only about half of my respondents, similar to those of the vagina survey, felt positively about their family jewels. The other half fell somewhere between ambivalence and frustration, showing there’s a potential for insecurity and body shaming regardless of sex or gender.
Much like characterizing the female sex organ, it’s extremely difficult to define what it means to have an “average” or “normal” dick. Contrary to standardized dick doodles in the Dwinelle bathrooms or elsewhere, penises are massively varied — whether in terms of ball size, shaft length, girth, erection angles, color, texture, freckles, pubes or whatever else. While I’ve encountered quite a few dicks in my day, I’m still astonished by the variety of penile units around me at every nude party, beach, etc. From “girthy as a motherfucker” to “California shaped” to “pirate curvature,” the imagery with which people painted their man meat was outrageously diverse.
Whether described as a “grub worm in a turtleneck” or “the disgruntled cousin of my arms,” most descriptors were endearing and generally approbatory. With the obvious inability to publish all the results of my survey, a quick summary is as follows: A lot of people had dicks that hang to the left (never right), a good percentage had differently sized balls, most people “manscape” their bushes and 99 percent of people are not “showers” but “growers.” Moreover, in my survey, a roaring 70 percent of people “love” giving head, 77 percent of heterosexual or bisexual people regularly partake in period sex (cool) and an unsurprising 73 percent deemed condoms a “necessary evil,” claiming they caused decreased sensitivity and, at worst, instances of erectile dysfunction.
Of the 40 percent of people who reported regularly watching porn, almost all of them complained that doing so contributed to their insecurity and preoccupation with penis size — despite understanding that the average porn dick is marginally larger than that of most normal humans. Whether favoring the “Most Viewed” tab on PornHub or some legit fetishes — MILF, hazing, “pregnant and hairy,” Gay4Pay, “Boni’s Facebook,” BDSM, alien gangbang — porn mainly proved to be a double-edged sword for people as a serious source of both arousal and bodily insecurity.
Despite the widespread desire to have a bigger cock, however, my findings indicated a strong tendency for people to overestimate the size of their penis. Of the 112 people who responded to my survey, only eight reported their penis to be smaller than average. Six out of this eight-person minority expressed negative feelings toward their penis, indicating that media and porn’s psychological repercussions affect women, men and everyone in between.
Perhaps the biggest insecurity for a lot people was a fear of being unable to perform properly during sex. Whether they worried about irregular or unpredictable erections, premature ejaculation or ball sweat, a great deal of anxiety centered on moments of sexual intimacy. While one dude feared he wouldn’t be able to induce vaginal orgasm because of his “shortness,” another felt he was constantly about to tear open someone’s asshole with his “enormity.” There are issues on both ends of the spectrum, so it seems, and even people with reportedly large dicks cited room for improvement in the size department.
For the record, folks, size really doesn’t matter. It’s how you work with what you’ve got that makes you a good lover. In fact, some of the worst experiences I’ve had have been with men with larger-than-average packages. You can’t jackhammer your way to the top, unfortunately, and surely, people are not that impressed with having the shit banged out of them. It’s time we retired that party trick once and for all and realized that having a huge penis is neither a prerequisite nor a foolproof measure of great sex.
While having a monster cock might make for a great pornstar, ramming the cervix isn’t always the goal. Concentrating so fixedly on penis size is both a superficial and unproductive diversion from what matters far more: Stuff such as foreplay, symbiotic communication, selflessness or even emotional connection can enrich the sexual experience far beyond how you measure up to James Deen.
Boni Mata writes the weekly Sex on Tuesday column. You can contact her at sex@dailycal.org or follow her on Twitter: @yungEwaste.