Back when I was a regular listener to talk radio, the ads for PE snake oil were absolutely ubiquitous. They aired more than any other product I can remember (except maybe Bose Wave radio).
I never knew how to feel for this target audience. It sucks people are vulnerable to obvious snake oil ads. It also sucks that PE is a thing that's important to people.
My parents actually did buy, not a Bose Wave radio, but one of the South African wind-up ones they advertised heavily just before Y2K. (My parents were insomniac Art Bell fans.) It came in pretty handy for sporadic weather-related stuff.
One of the funniest things is Reddit “evolving” to lock threads or downvote comments about people’s appearances on popular threads, but simultaneously embracing comments that associate a man with perceived negative qualities as having a small penis. And it will almost always be the top comment.
The double standards are shocking. If a woman says "if he cheated on me like that, I'd (fill in horrid genital mutilation)" and everyone has a laugh about it or cheers her on. If a man responds in kind, people are mortified, too shocked to even speak condemnation. Likewise for prison rape. It seriously troubles me how many people celebrate the prospect of that happening to male convicts. If you suggested it as a fitting punishment for a female offender, you might not even exit the room you uttered the words in unharmed.
> The double standards are shocking. If a woman says "if he cheated on me like that, I'd (fill in horrid genital mutilation)" and everyone has a laugh about it or cheers her on.
One of my earliest memories of mom: Her in traction for two broken vertebrae, thanks to dad and a bakelite phone. Of all the relatives and friends who've been physically assaulted by someone close, about 99% were female and about 99% of them were hit by a male. The exceptions were older sisters and that ended when the younger sibling got big enough. Because size matters.
I did 25 years with a profoundly abusive spouse and know a bit about being abused by women. To believe I was at physical risk would be a sad delusion to have.
In my experience, efforts to marginalize the risk that men pose to women don't come from a place of sound analysis and good faith.
Radio and sports ads are the worst. This. Penny auctions. Crypto. Gambling. I tune out of things I might have otherwise listened to because it feels filthy.
> Kevin said that he had undergone five surgeries with Elist, including two upgrades, a revision and a removal, and his penis no longer functioned.
Still, Kevin had always found the surgeon to be caring, if a little preoccupied. “He reminded me of Doctor Frankenstein — the intensity of him wanting this thing to come to life,” Kevin told me. It sounded strange, he acknowledged, but before each operation he’d been filled with excitement. “You just feel relieved that you’re fixing something,” he said.
At an appointment earlier this year, Kevin said, Elist promised to fix him again with a sixth procedure, but one of the surgeon’s assistants discreetly advised against it. Kevin thought he could spot “the other experiments” in the clinic from their loose-fitting sweatpants and the awkward way they walked. There were so many men waiting to see the doctor that they spilled into the hallway.
…
I think I’m of the ideal height, with the ideal penis size… so there’s a requisite for this entire article that I just won’t understand. But that last paragraph would scare the hell out of me if this was something I was interested in.
Men have a lot of problems that are under discussed and swept under the rug. Loneliness issues, confidence issues, perception issues, issues with men thinking their life doesn't matter to just name a few. The suicide rate among men is so high for a lot of reasons.
Suicide rate is around 4 times higher for men in Western societies, but suicide attempts by women are at least twice that of men. More lethal, messier suicide methods are more popular among men, and in my opinion, it's because women are socialised to be more considerate of those who will find their body.
when making fun of a man's penis size for whatever reason becomes normalized, it isn't surprising body dysmorphia becomes more prevalent. double standards galore. mens issues just don't matter.
I dunno about you, but the only people who have ever made fun of my penis were other men, and every woman I've known who called herself a feminist cared about men's issues. I first learned about the inequities in child custody impacting men from one.
This isn't a "double standard," it's what feminists have been saying for a long time, that these rigid gender roles hurt everyone (though women in particular do bear the brunt of it).
You've really never heard a woman say men with big trucks are "compensating for something" or any other put-downs related to penis size for perceived macho or overtly masculine behavior?
Here, I'll give you a segment of a Netflix special where a woman makes fun of a past boyfriend with a micropenis, does that count? Some of the audience laughs but it doesn't kill TBF. Starts at the 2 minute mark.
Oh I've heard song lyrics and standup jokes and lines in movies and TV shows, sure. I was talking about my personal experience. (I did laugh at the Ali Wong joke, but I won't go to bat for it or anything, it is a joke about stereotypes and insecurity. And the follow up jokes didn't land for me because they got mean.)
I'm sure I've heard men and women make "compensating" jokes, I don't remember any particular instances and have no idea about the proportion.
Experiences will differ, but I think it's a mistake to attribute the policing of masculinity to women primarily. I'm sure there is far too much of that, but a lot of it (in my personal experience, most) comes from other men, and at any rate blaming women is unproductive. The culprit is suffocatingly rigid ideas about gender, and it's a problem for all of us.
This vaguely reminds me of self-image problems vs. unreasonably beauty standards that we mainly associate with young women.
It’s definitely quite different in that everyone in public sees a girl’s face and the shape of her body, whereas penises are hidden by default. Also the “toxic” standard for women is everywhere across media, whereas excepting pure pornography penises are rarely and briefly shown.
But these stories are so sad. These men feel ashamed of their bodies for not “measuring up” — is this phrase itself perhaps a link between penis size and masculinity/value that is ingrained into our very language?
There has been a big effort for years to call out the harms of, e.g., airbrushing in advertising, to push for including more plus-sized models, and to generally expand the notion of beauty for women.
I don’t think there’s any such effort to claim that, say, all penises are beautiful, all men are attractive, and so on. The mere suggestion seems utterly foreign to our conception of manhood. We have billionaires and presidents still boasting about their penises. What a crazy thing to make a point of pride and shame.
With men it may be hidden, but it affects "measuring up" as you say in exactly the way that matters to most straight men: having more (or even any!) sexual partners, especially as supposedly they're having less sex than ever[0]. It's one of the many factors in the toolbox fallacy: "If only I was 'big' enough, I'd be more confident with women".
Maybe, but probably not the way it works out in the stories we tell ourselves. I vaguely remember a study making the rounds in the news a while back that found that, while women certainly do sometimes dump men or refuse to have sex with them over penis size, it's almost never because they think it's too small.
I've certainly had to course correct over that sort of thing before. Fortunately good sex can be had without penetration. Though I appreciate that it could be socially costly for a straight man to suggest such a thing in public. But it might be good if it happens more often? The number of times that article mentioned suicide is deeply disheartening.
Like mumblemumble said - it's not about the reality. It's the assumption of "I'll be enough when X". "Repeats" are more likely an outcome of overall performance beyond size (though depending on the partner's preference, it will assist).
Starts with some absolute horror stories (e.g. complete loss of function), continues to talk about the technology improving, but still includes horror stories.
It's not clear if the average outcome is horrible, but it sounds like people are getting paid to advocate or sued for sharing horror stories, so it's hard to trust anything.
> Some implants got infected or detached. Others buckled at the corners. Occasionally these protrusions broke through the skin, forming holes that would fester. The hole of the health-spa vice president was so tiny that he originally mistook its fermented odor for an STD.
> Later, doctors unaffiliated with the Penuma would compare such penises to “a torpedo,” “a penguin,” “a pig in a blanket,” “a beer can with a mushroom sticking out on the top” and “the tipped-down nose of the Concorde.”
> Elist sat behind an imposing desk in a borrowed office and spoke about his
> forthcoming book, a collection of parables for spiritually minded surgeons
> titled "Operating with God." His ghostwriter had rendered his voice so
> skillfully, he said, that he'd found himself moved to tears while reading
> it. Beside a gilt statue of a jaguar in the corner of the room, someone had
> propped a mirror with an image of Jesus etched at its center. As Elist
> recounted passages from his book, his merry face, crowned by a hairnet,
> hovered next to Christ's.
The above reads like a Tales From the Crypt movie script, in the leadup to Elist slicing into yet another victim's Johnson.
I mean I’m not tracking and classifying users by their neuroses. I get the sense it is mostly male Asian immigrants living in CA unable to get any dates in a competitive, underpopulated, mostly white female dating market.
I agree that this is a thing and one that I have witnessed but not on HN. And yeah, there are studies indicating white women as having the largest (or maybe second, black women were up there) racial ingroup bias in dating [0]
If so, they need merely read johnnyworker's post at the top of this topic to find that there are "plenty of fish in the sea" (possibly 2/3 of them!) that would be satisfied with their physique.
> HN seems to have a small group of people who openly advocate for their own race’s inferiority on the basis of average penis size that crops up from time to time.
I don’t know what you think a life coach does. But one that solves their own problems and is happy is probably a good one.
I think one thing we have leaned over time is it is not always possible to change how one thinks.
For example. Some men like women, and do not find other men attractive at all. No amount of conditioning may change this. Or even something as simple as eating, an urge so strong that reasoning about it id nearly impossible.
What if this man had the same feeling about penis size as other men about desiring women?
Of. Note. I have never desired a larger penis, but worried it was smaller than desired by the opposite sex. When thinking about it, I prefer the size I am, as a the large floppy ones look like they get the way of normal day to day interactions.
You appear to be conflating things that are rigidly immutable vs. things that are reasonably intrinsic and healthy.
It sucks that some people develop such neuroses, but it’s pretty strictly detrimental to their lives and mental health.
These surgeries are largely unnecessary, solving imagined problems. If a life coach looks at this and sees a real problem and a positive solution… I would steer clear. I would say this person has a distorted, ungrounded perspective
I did not conflate. Outright told you that your assumptions that these things are mutable are wrong.
You sound just like an anti trans or old school gay hater.
Things you think are choices or are “developed” may just be things that are the way they are. Why do some people like blue and others purple.
You are outright putting your desires as normal and others as not.
You are a penis bigot at worse, or misinformed at best. Take some time to understand you are one person and not representative of all and what is normal for you may not be normal for others.
I suppose you are entitled to an opinion, but I feel very strongly that body dysmorphia that causes men to obsess over their penises and seek surgeries to change it is a harmful neurosis not at all comparable to trans/gay folks intrinsic identities.
It might be hard to shake a neurosis like penis obsession but it isn’t healthy…
I agree, it is disappointing to hear of a life coach doing something ridiculous. Considering the rigid standards one has to meet and the strenuous and continuous licensing and re-licensing that happens, it is virtually unheard of to see a life coach be involved in anything less than aspirational.
From a technology point of view there is a lesson in how a company controls the media it's customers consume. How alternative sources of data get discredited and how untrusted the information found online is. The result, when you can't trust anyone, is to trust the source you want to believe. Many men want to believe they'll get a bigger penis.
IIRC the Kamasutra says there's 3 genital sizes for both men and women; big (horse/elephant), medium (bull/mare) and small (hare/deer). It says you can have great sex with up to 1 size difference, and although the woman being one size smaller is preferable to her being one size bigger, it calls equal unions the most perfect ones. And that's just refering to vaginal intercourse itself, of course there is so much more to sex.
I don't know what my point is, other than: don't fret! If you find someone you like, and who likes you, a lot of silliness and unfounded fear will fade away.
I wonder what the kama sutra's model has to say about surveys indicating that women who have sex with women tend to have significantly more satisfying sex lives than women who have sex with men. Presumably, for the purposes of the model that its authors are getting at, the magnitude of "size mismatch" between two mares is infinitely greater than that of a mare and a horse or hare. Which might imply that the model is deeply, fundamentally broken.
It seems to have a track record of breaking people, too.
Strap-ons come in any size. It can be difficult to find ones which allow full control / subtleties but the harnesses from Aslan leather do a pretty impressive job of providing full control over the dildo.
I didn't mean to cite it as an authority on everything, but the bit about genital sizes struck me as sensible, certainly more sensible than just obsessing about having a huge penis.
I can’t say I have any insight into the sex lives of lesbians, but size seems unlikely to be the driver of that vs. things like empathy, more equal sex drives, and no pressure to get off before the other partner.
To add to your point, I think the article highlights one reason to be interested in the procedure that is not about body obsession:
> after five kids, their wife couldn’t feel them anymore
Seems like today this can only be remedied by a woman with kegel exercises, and if she is not up for it, there is nothing you can do as a man to shrink the size gap.
Reading this made me extremely uneasy. My impression - perhaps it's just being hopeful for a material solution for a psychosis of the mind. But when I think on that impression isn't a pill just about any fleeting vice the same as what these men have suffered. Maybe I'm not better. We need avenues to help each other. To talk with another. Maybe there's an opportunity to create something?
> A year had passed since Mick’s explant, and he’d entered a serious depression. He’d barely noticed when pandemic restrictions were lifted, because he’s continued to stay in his bed. Originally six and a half inches erect, he had lost an inch of length.
Dude was already above the average cited in the article before he went under the knife. That's some tragic dysmorphia.
The saddest stat in the article is that the overwhelming majority of patients were already average or above. That alone should be considered a dereliction of the Hippocratic Oath to do no harm. This type of procedure should be banned for anyone already over 4 inches.
Most are scam , I think.
Random stuff:
- [big gun] :) , is exception, not rule. Exercises, luck, pillows? Stop working after 30s? Not much old movie performers?
small is better than nothing no? I mean, some nice women are happy with their half centimeter!
I guess some women have their own fun/thing. Cant compete with [dildo dragon] thing
[dildo/dragon/glove] thing can be men's best friend. Helps to fill the void :). It is an art, though.
68 comments
[ 5.0 ms ] story [ 136 ms ] threadI never knew how to feel for this target audience. It sucks people are vulnerable to obvious snake oil ads. It also sucks that PE is a thing that's important to people.
Male body shaming is weird and oogy.
That'd be C.Crane. Looks like he and Bell were into each other https://ccrane.com/art-bell-an-interview-with-a-legendary-ta...
One of my earliest memories of mom: Her in traction for two broken vertebrae, thanks to dad and a bakelite phone. Of all the relatives and friends who've been physically assaulted by someone close, about 99% were female and about 99% of them were hit by a male. The exceptions were older sisters and that ended when the younger sibling got big enough. Because size matters.
I did 25 years with a profoundly abusive spouse and know a bit about being abused by women. To believe I was at physical risk would be a sad delusion to have.
In my experience, efforts to marginalize the risk that men pose to women don't come from a place of sound analysis and good faith.
> Kevin said that he had undergone five surgeries with Elist, including two upgrades, a revision and a removal, and his penis no longer functioned.
Still, Kevin had always found the surgeon to be caring, if a little preoccupied. “He reminded me of Doctor Frankenstein — the intensity of him wanting this thing to come to life,” Kevin told me. It sounded strange, he acknowledged, but before each operation he’d been filled with excitement. “You just feel relieved that you’re fixing something,” he said.
At an appointment earlier this year, Kevin said, Elist promised to fix him again with a sixth procedure, but one of the surgeon’s assistants discreetly advised against it. Kevin thought he could spot “the other experiments” in the clinic from their loose-fitting sweatpants and the awkward way they walked. There were so many men waiting to see the doctor that they spilled into the hallway.
…
I think I’m of the ideal height, with the ideal penis size… so there’s a requisite for this entire article that I just won’t understand. But that last paragraph would scare the hell out of me if this was something I was interested in.
I confess that after reading it I began to feel that it is even unethical to be in the penis-enlargement field.
This isn't a "double standard," it's what feminists have been saying for a long time, that these rigid gender roles hurt everyone (though women in particular do bear the brunt of it).
Here, I'll give you a segment of a Netflix special where a woman makes fun of a past boyfriend with a micropenis, does that count? Some of the audience laughs but it doesn't kill TBF. Starts at the 2 minute mark.
1. https://youtu.be/QQXGEd-8Hws
I'm sure I've heard men and women make "compensating" jokes, I don't remember any particular instances and have no idea about the proportion.
Experiences will differ, but I think it's a mistake to attribute the policing of masculinity to women primarily. I'm sure there is far too much of that, but a lot of it (in my personal experience, most) comes from other men, and at any rate blaming women is unproductive. The culprit is suffocatingly rigid ideas about gender, and it's a problem for all of us.
It’s definitely quite different in that everyone in public sees a girl’s face and the shape of her body, whereas penises are hidden by default. Also the “toxic” standard for women is everywhere across media, whereas excepting pure pornography penises are rarely and briefly shown.
But these stories are so sad. These men feel ashamed of their bodies for not “measuring up” — is this phrase itself perhaps a link between penis size and masculinity/value that is ingrained into our very language?
There has been a big effort for years to call out the harms of, e.g., airbrushing in advertising, to push for including more plus-sized models, and to generally expand the notion of beauty for women.
I don’t think there’s any such effort to claim that, say, all penises are beautiful, all men are attractive, and so on. The mere suggestion seems utterly foreign to our conception of manhood. We have billionaires and presidents still boasting about their penises. What a crazy thing to make a point of pride and shame.
[0]https://www.healthline.com/health-news/young-adults-especial...
I've certainly had to course correct over that sort of thing before. Fortunately good sex can be had without penetration. Though I appreciate that it could be socially costly for a straight man to suggest such a thing in public. But it might be good if it happens more often? The number of times that article mentioned suicide is deeply disheartening.
C’est la vie
Starts with some absolute horror stories (e.g. complete loss of function), continues to talk about the technology improving, but still includes horror stories.
It's not clear if the average outcome is horrible, but it sounds like people are getting paid to advocate or sued for sharing horror stories, so it's hard to trust anything.
> Some implants got infected or detached. Others buckled at the corners. Occasionally these protrusions broke through the skin, forming holes that would fester. The hole of the health-spa vice president was so tiny that he originally mistook its fermented odor for an STD.
> Later, doctors unaffiliated with the Penuma would compare such penises to “a torpedo,” “a penguin,” “a pig in a blanket,” “a beer can with a mushroom sticking out on the top” and “the tipped-down nose of the Concorde.”
[0]: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/okcupid-race_n_5811840
Men appear to be mostly anti-black and otherwise agnostic, whereas women have strong in group preference.
it does?
I think one thing we have leaned over time is it is not always possible to change how one thinks.
For example. Some men like women, and do not find other men attractive at all. No amount of conditioning may change this. Or even something as simple as eating, an urge so strong that reasoning about it id nearly impossible.
What if this man had the same feeling about penis size as other men about desiring women?
Of. Note. I have never desired a larger penis, but worried it was smaller than desired by the opposite sex. When thinking about it, I prefer the size I am, as a the large floppy ones look like they get the way of normal day to day interactions.
It sucks that some people develop such neuroses, but it’s pretty strictly detrimental to their lives and mental health.
These surgeries are largely unnecessary, solving imagined problems. If a life coach looks at this and sees a real problem and a positive solution… I would steer clear. I would say this person has a distorted, ungrounded perspective
You sound just like an anti trans or old school gay hater.
Things you think are choices or are “developed” may just be things that are the way they are. Why do some people like blue and others purple.
You are outright putting your desires as normal and others as not.
You are a penis bigot at worse, or misinformed at best. Take some time to understand you are one person and not representative of all and what is normal for you may not be normal for others.
It might be hard to shake a neurosis like penis obsession but it isn’t healthy…
I don't know what my point is, other than: don't fret! If you find someone you like, and who likes you, a lot of silliness and unfounded fear will fade away.
It seems to have a track record of breaking people, too.
> after five kids, their wife couldn’t feel them anymore
Seems like today this can only be remedied by a woman with kegel exercises, and if she is not up for it, there is nothing you can do as a man to shrink the size gap.
Dude was already above the average cited in the article before he went under the knife. That's some tragic dysmorphia.
not native sorry!