The New Male Sexuality (13 page)

You would think I’d know better. I mean, I’m well educated and have read a lot about sex. But I still believe that I’d be more attractive to women and a better lover if my penis was an inch or two longer and an inch wider
.
—Man, 28

My big wish is that my cock were exactly like my hand. If I told it to stand up, it would stand up. If I told it to lie down, it would lie down. Why can’t I have the same control over my penis that I have over all my other appendages?—
Man, 50

In this chapter I discuss the issues about penises that have been of most interest to the men I’ve worked with. I’ve been surprised to discover over the years how ignorant many men are about this organ that means so much to them. Some basic knowledge can be helpful. I won’t bore you with irrelevant details, but I will discuss what penises are, what can reasonably be expected from them, and what happens to them as they age.

Let’s start with how we think and feel about our penises.

TOWARD A FRIENDLIER AND MORE REALISTIC VIEW OF OUR PENISES

To say the least, we men have mixed feelings. Our penises are very important to us. They are the main distinguishing characteristic between us and women, and they are a source of great pleasure. But there’s often a sense of unease or discontent with our organs. We fear that they may not be up to
snuff in terms of size, power, and predictability. This does not feel right or good. We fear that, sooner or later, they are going to disappoint and embarrass us.

Some men are on friendly terms with their penises. They like them for the pleasure they provide and see them as a kind of friend, sometimes even giving them pet names. Other men, however, are in a state of near war with their cocks. They speak cajolingly, angrily, or threateningly to them: “Come on, please, you can do it, yes you can”; “You better come through for me, you son of a bitch”; “I’ll break your neck if you don’t get hard.” This kind of self-talk is often caused by the penis’s failure to do what its owner wants, or fear of such a failure. Whatever the reason, it is not conducive to friendly relations.

Being on better terms with our penises is made difficult by the common terms we have for them—
cock, prick, rod, tool, ramrod, hard-on, dick
. These words sound harsh and do not contribute to a sense of warmth, gentleness, or friendliness. They fit right in, of course, with the view of penises in fantasyland, always throbbing, thrashing, banging, ramming, thrusting. You’d think a penis was a weapon of war rather than an instrument of pleasure and love.

This depiction is neither realistic nor useful. We need something more accurate and helpful. Consider that the penis is very soft. Even when fully erect, the skin is velvety and smooth. Consider also that the penis spends the vast majority of its time in a flaccid state, just lying there all crinkled up and cuddled against the body. Even the fabled adolescent penis spends most of its time just resting.

In addition, we should take into account the age-old idea that penises have minds of their own. A man usually comes to this conclusion when he feels aroused and ready for sex but his penis isn’t cooperating. A useful way of looking at this situation is to ask, “Why won’t it cooperate?” or, better still, “What does it need that it isn’t getting?” I used to ask men with erection problems to take the role of their penis and write a letter or essay giving its point of view. The results were quite revealing. Often the penis complained mightily about not getting what it needed (a relaxed owner, a booze-free environment, proper stimulation, and so on) and resented the demands being made on it. An example:

You never pay attention to me unless you want something, and then you want it exactly when you want it, and get angry and threaten me unless I comply. Half the situations you get into scare the hell out of you and that scares me. I’m not at my best when I’m scared. I want
you to know that unless you pay more attention and give me what I need, like more appealing and less frightening situations, you’re getting zilch. And that’s that!

It may sound strange to hear that penises have needs and can get frightened. But real penises are far more vulnerable and frail than the robotlike machines in the fantasy model. They do have needs. Just as athletes have long known that their muscles and systems work better under certain conditions than others (having to do with rest, nutrition, exercise, temperature, and so on), we now know that penises and sexual systems do the same. In
Chapter 6
I’ll talk more about what you and your penis need.

It will pay you to start thinking of your penis as the human organ it is. The more you can regard your penis in a gentler and more humane way, the more you take care of it, the better relationship you’ll have with it and the more it will behave as you want. And when your penis doesn’t do what you want, it pays to listen carefully. It’s trying to tell you something.

PENIS ENVY

Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis, had a theory that girls and women were dissatisfied with their own genitals and envied men their penises. They wanted them, too. I have yet to meet a woman who wanted to have her own penis (except on camping trips), although many would like to borrow one from time to time. As a woman friend once put it: “Why would I want a thing like that hanging between my legs? I’d be afraid I’d sit on it.”

I think, however, that Freud was partly right about penis envy. It exists, but only in males. Almost every male seems to envy someone else’s penis. He wants one that’s longer, wider, harder, with more staying power, and he assumes that some other man or lots of other men have one just like that.

One reason we are so unhappy with our penises is the superhuman expectations we have learned. Having repeatedly read and heard about gargantuan, hard-as-steel ramrods, our own real penises don’t seem like much. How can anything real seem adequate compared to the telephone poles we read about?

And most heterosexual men have never seen another erect penis, or at least not a typical one. The ones we are likely to have seen, in pornographic movies and magazines, are not representative.
The producers of these films conduct broad searches for the biggest phalluses in existence.
Given the absence of reasonable standards, there is good reason for us to wonder about the adequacy of our own organs.

HOW LARGE IS ENOUGH?

Like all other physical characteristics, penises do differ in size and shape. As indicated in
Figures 1
and
2
, some are longer, some shorter; some are broader or wider, some narrower; some curve or bend to the right, some to the left, some not at all; some point upward when erect, some downward, some straight out. Although penises differ in size, there is less variation among hard penises than among soft ones because a smaller soft penis will increase more in size during erection than a larger soft penis. Nonetheless, there is still some variation, and there’s nothing that can be done about that.

Men almost invariably assume that a bigger penis is better and is what women prefer. Women think much less about penis size than do men. The vast majority of women I’ve talked to could not recall a conversation about sex with women friends where penis size was even mentioned. When I questioned these women about size preference, they gave surprising answers. There are, to be sure, a few who said they like very large penises, which give them a “filled-up” feeling in intercourse. But the vast majority of women I’ve talked to do not desire large penises. Here’s what a thirty-seven-year-old woman had to say: “The penises in my fantasies are always very large and thick, but in real life a large penis can be hard to take. I’m much more orgasmic with an average-size penis; a large one is distracting. The old adage ‘It’s not the meat but the motion’ most definitely applies.”

I’ve also talked to a number of men with very large penises. You’d think they’d be quite content, because they’re the ones who measure up to the fantasies of most men. Surprisingly, many of these men are anything but happy. Most of them say they wish they had smaller organs. They complain about women gasping—not in ecstasy, but in horror—when they first lay eyes on their outsized organs. Some women have refused to have intercourse with them at all, and many have refused to do oral sex on them, fearing they would choke. And some of these men said they often have to be careful when having sex lest they do hurt their partners. Sometimes living up to a fantasy isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.

Most women I’ve talked to prefer average-size penises, and that’s nice, because that’s what most men have. But what about smaller-than-average
penises? It’s true that some men’s erections are shorter than average (which is to five to six inches long) and some are less thick than others. While it may be difficult to believe, such variations really don’t make much difference. As already indicated, most women aren’t half as interested in penis size as men. But when I’ve pressed women to talk about smaller-than-average penises, several said the guys they knew who had such penises were terrific lovers. Perhaps to compensate for what they considered an inadequacy (their small penises), these men developed their skills at touching, kissing, and caressing. But this does not mean you have to get a Ph.D. in sex if your penis happens to be on the small side. Most women said that a small penis was fine, because “it’s the man that counts, not the size of his penis.”

Figure 1: Flaccid penises

Figure 2: Erect penises

If you have trouble accepting your penis, you might want to spend some time considering what it would take to make it acceptable. After all, this is the only penis you’ll ever have. There are no penis transplants and there is no safe and effective way to make what you have larger. Is there any chance you can just accept it and move on? I guarantee you that the size and shape of your penis is not what makes for a good lover.

THE PARTS AND HOW THEY WORK

Before going further with the penis, let’s take a quick look at the internal sex organs: the testes, epididymis, vas deferens, seminal vesicles, prostate gland, and urethra. The testes produce sperm and the hormone testosterone. The vas deferens are two firm tubes that extend from the testes to the prostate gland. Sperm travel through the tubes from the epididymis and are stored at their upper ends until they mix with the secretions of the seminal vesicles and prostate just prior to ejaculation. The secretions of the prostate comprise about a third of the seminal fluid or ejaculate, giving it its whitish color. The sperm actually account for only a tiny fraction of the ejaculate, which explains why a man who has had a vasectomy still ejaculates about the same amount of fluid as before the operation.

The urethra is a tube running from the bladder through one of the spongy tissues in the penis and ending in a slit in the head of the penis. Both urine and seminal fluid travel through it, but not at the same time. The prostate surrounds the urethra where it leaves the bladder, and prostate problems such as inflammation or enlargement can cause urinary difficulties.

The external male genitalia consist of the penis and the scrotum, the
latter containing the testes. Despite what many people think, the penis contains no striated muscle tissue, the kind that can be enlarged with exercise. There is also no bone in the penis, giving the lie to the term
boner
, which many of us used as teenagers. Most of the penis is filled with two large cylinders of spongy tissue surrounded by a tough fibrous covering. In a healthy male, the spongy tissues become engorged with blood during sexual excitement, causing the penis to expand. As the spongy tissues fill with blood, they push against the fibrous sheath, making the penis hard. This is quite similar to what happens when you fill a tire with air. As air fills the tube (comparable to the spongy tissues in the penis), it pushes against the tire, which limits the expansion. So the tire gets hard, just as your penis does. As the spongy areas in the penis expand with blood and press against the sheath, the flow of blood out of the penis, through very small veins, is reduced.