I received from a twenty-five year-old. Read it. It will change the way you think and talk about dick size.
Otherwise, the letters I get on the purple-headed custard chucker are all over the map. Sadly, the inability to ejaculate in the presence of someone you love seems to be a common problem among gay men.
Sad because it reflects how uncomfortable some of us have become with having sex in the context of love. Gay men have more sex than anyone on the planet and yet in some ways we’re the most inexperienced at it.
By trivializing sex, mechanizing it, “sizing” it, some of us have ended up removing it, permanently, from intimacy. Luckily, this is not the case for most gay men, who struggle with less tragic problems, like figuring out where their next ejaculation is going to land.
Hey, Woody!
Why are gay men so obsessed with penis size? I’m tired of going out on dates and having friends ask “how big was his bird?” I can just see my dates telling their friends how disappointed they were that they only got 6 inches when they reached into my pants. I don’t know, maybe I’m just bitter that I’m not bigger. I think I’m pretty normal-sized, but then, I don’t know what normal is. Do you?
—The normal hard
Dear Hard:
You know, the whole size obsession reminds me of a joke. Four Catholic ladies are having coffee together. The first one tells her friends, “My son is a priest. When he walks into a room, everyone says ‘Father.“”
The second one chirps up, “My son is a bishop. Whenever he walks into a room, everyone says ‘Your Grace.“”
The third Catholic lady says smugly, “My son is a cardinal. When he walks into a room, everyone says ‘Your Eminence.“”
The fourth Catholic lady sips her coffee in silence. The first three ladies all ask, “Well?”
She replies, “My son is a 6’ 2", hard-bodied stripper, and hung like a rhino. When he walks into a room, everyone says, ‘Oh, my God.“”
The point is … wait, I’m looking for it … oh, here it is, right where I left it. The point is that our obsession with size is a joke and we’re the butt of it.
Here’s the set-up: We act like the totality of sexual pleasure can be reduced to a hash mark on a ruler. Here’s the punch line: It’s not true.
Here’s the proof: Ask yourself if the hottest sex you ever had involved a big dick. If you’re honest, the answer is no. The answer is much more likely to have involved an electrifying chemistry with the other guy, because he kissed so well, because you were flat-out in love with him, because his smell had a pheromonish effect on you, because Fill In The Blank But It Probably Had Nothing To Do With The Size Of His Dick.
Don’t get me wrong, size matters. Visually, but not sexually. When I think of the worst sex I’ve ever had, many of the sessions involved men with baseball bats between their legs.
Mutual desire, energy, love, lust, smell, sight, and a million other things in combination are more important than size. Alas, I know you’re going to obsess about size no matter what I say. But if you’re going to obsess do it with facts, not fear. And these are the facts: The largest study to date of “erect penile dimensions”—the Kinsey study—showed that the average erect dick size was 6.1 inches.
But the Kinsey study has a deal-breaking flaw: Kinsey’s subjects measured themselves. What was Kinsey thinking? Asking men to measure their penis size in private and then report it truthfully? That kind of optimism should be bottled.
The most reliable study of penis size to date appears to be out of the University of California, San Francisco (where else?). In 1996, researchers let 80 men measure themselves with an observer present (don’t ask, I’m just reporting it). And guess what? The average erect penis size dropped a whole inch from Kinsey’s study, to 5.1 inches.
In other words, left to their own devices, men lie. Shocking isn’t it? The study proved that lying about your dick-size is the most common male deception, second only to lying about your trick’s dick size.
Here are some other stats from the groundbreaking study: Average erect girth, 4.8 inches. Average flaccid length, 3.5 inches, average flaccid girth, 3.8 inches.
There have only been three penis size studies that urologists consider reliable. The interesting thing is that each time a reliable study is done, it shows shorter and shorter erect penis sizes. Why? Because we’re men. We lie, therefore we are.
Each successive study has had tighter and tighter controls to eliminate the, ahm, more creative mathematical interpretations of the ruler. Sadly, urologists are faced with the dilemma of men with normal-sized dicks wanting penile augmentation surgery because their sense of inadequacy is as big as the lies we tell ourselves.
Instead of fretting over how big we are, we should be concentrating on the real reasons that make sex with a man so great—the way he moves, the way he smells, the way he looks, the way he shtuups. And don’t forget the greatest thing of all: The physical and emotional energy he brings out in you.
Hey, Woody!
I’m getting penis envy from hanging around the online chat rooms. Amazingly, the average dick size in these chat rooms is eight inches! Yes, eight inches! I know because people tell me so. Of course, they’re measuring from the crack of their ass to the tip of their lies, but maybe I’m being a sore sport. My question: For those of us who want to know how big our dicks REALLY are, what’s the best way of measuring them?
—Digging deep for one last inch
Dear Digger:
There are three great lies in gay life:
1.“I’m bisexual”
2.“I go to bars for the music”
3.“I have an eight inch dick”
You can’t really prove the first two, but there’s no hiding the third, unless you’re online.
Penile size can be measured in a lot of ways. Obviously, the differences will impact the results. There are two widely recognized ways to measure the treasure. The most common is the “You Wish” method first popularized by America Online’s chat rooms. It involves looking at your pinky and describing it as a thigh.
The more accurate method, preferred by urologists unconcerned with scoring potential, involves the following:
1. Using a paper tape measure, not a ruler
2. Measuring to the nearest half-centimeter, not the nearest half-foot
3. Measuring flaccid length as soon as you undress (room temperature and other factors will affect length and girth)
4. Boy, are you guys going to scream at this one: Forget about starting the measurement from where your balls meet your dick. The proper measurement starts at the junction of skin between your pubic hair area and the base of your dick. In other words, when you’re erect, measure the side of the penis facing your stomach. I know. It sucks. But that’s how all studies do it.
