Good Vibrations Magazine

This story, like a lot of my stories, begins in a bar. A bunch of people were sitting around, drinking and talking to celebrate a friend’s book release — a memoir of her stripping career. She was telling us about how this one man came in and dropped his pants to masturbate and his penis was… well… so small as to be… tiny.

Without being unkind, I think it’s safe to say that this man’s penis was medically anomalous.

One of the women standing around (and if I remember correctly, it was all women) went to fetch another friend with the excited, “It happened to her, too!”

The second woman came over and proceeded to talk animatedly about her surprise at the much-less-than-anticipated size of the penis of a paramour. I had a game face on, but my heart was in my mouth. It sank to my stomach when this woman trilled something to the effect of, “What do you even DO with something that size?”

I looked at my friend who was standing next to me, and said, less-than-compassionately something to the effect of, “What would you even DO with something BIGGER than that?”

She grimaced and nodded. We stayed quiet. The writer/sex worker began to talk about another penis that she’d seen — one that was shockingly large. Two-liter soda bottle large.

She said, with true compassion, “I don’t think he’ll ever have penetrative sex with another human.”

I’ve seen some porn that makes me believe he has hope still.

My friend and I adjourned to the bar. We didn’t talk about it, but we both were bothered. The conversation about penis size bothered us. The part making fun of small dicks? Really bothered us.

See, my friend and I are dykes. Queers. Queer-identified dykes. And nothing matters less to us than cock size. Or, rather, penis size. Or, rather, to say it a different way, the size of anything that might have organically grown on your body, doesn’t matter. There are, after all, lots of ways to find pleasure. And lots of things of various sizes that to accessorize with — regardless of your anatomy or orientation, even.

Amen.

In fact, no one in that conversation knew that better than the writer/sex worker who was matter-of-factly cataloging the anomalous penises she’d seen. And, in fact, she too identifies as queer. None of this upset me. It was the reaction of the other two women. The conversation felt like some guy’s worst nightmare: a bunch of chicks hanging out, laughing at how small some guy’s cock was. It’s like the first half of that feminist phrase — that men’s biggest fear is that women will laugh at them.

Perhaps the two women who were laughing were straight and only having retrograde peniscentric sex with cisgendered men? Not likely. From what I know of them, they are sophisticated, smart and adventurous women, in charge of their own sexuality. The finger-pointing (as it were) wasn’t from a place of ignorance or even, I think, plain meanness. There was something else going on.

And that something meant that (with apologies to Freud’s cigar) sometimes a penis is not just a penis. This was a conversation in which there was bonding happening. A salesperson shared a story about odd things that had happened on the job. Two listeners chimed in with their own stories about things they’d seen that were like that; from their own lives. It’s possible that the second woman’s story about the man with the very small cock was one from a professional arena — it’s possible it was and I missed part of the conversation. But let’s assume that’s not the case. The distance between the arenas in which these events occurred — the difference between on-the-job and in-the-bed — is what makes the difference in tone. It’s the difference between a customer and a lover. Making fun of the guy you make coffee for is expected. Making fun of the guy in your bed is…

So why do we make fun of the customers? Because they have the money. Because they have the power. This part of the story knows no gender.

But this part does: That feminist saw that begins, “Men’s worst fear about women is that women laugh at them”, ends, “Women’s worst fear about men is that men will kill them.” It seems like there’s still enough power differential between the genders that men are still the “customers” on some symbolic level, holding the power and money; there’s the thrill of defiance in making fun of the penis — it’s where we can still hit where it hurts.

There’s a less tedious explanation here, too; one that’s simpler and has nothing to do with feminist rage. The woman with the second penis story was simply bonding. She was illustrating that she was like her and not like them. Inadvertently, friendship was made over the agreement of the unacceptableness of certain male bodies. Us and them. But any dismissal implies judgment.

For me, in the us and thems, there’s no them there. I do not know if there is for any of the women involved. I don’t think there was any real malice, just an easy target.

I tell my writer/sex worker pal that I’m writing this piece and show it to her. She tells me that actually, what was funny to her wasn’t his anatomy — it was that while he was jacking off, he was talking all about his big, big dick. Not his sexual inadequacy, but his limited imagination. That’s likely fair, but how do you eroticize the compact in a culture that fetishizes the SUV?

For however many dollars he slipped to her, for a few minutes, he was driving his stretch limo. It may be the only place he gets to ride. It’s what he’s supposed to ride in. It’s our entire language of sex in our culture: size matters. In fact, it’s the same language the girls in the bar were speaking.

It may be a long time — if ever — before we can endow all genitals with equal cultural symbolic status, but until then, I think I’ll know what I’ll do the next time a conversation turns to penis size. I’ll smile, say, “Mine’s smaller,” and get another drink.