From: anderson@macc.wisc.edu (Jess Anderson)
Newsgroups: soc.motss
Subject: Re: penis size
Date: 1 Jan 93 00:23:43 GMT
Organization: Madison Academic Computing Center, UW-Madison


In article <C0530L.L7J@agora.rain.com> bcapps@agora.rain.com
(Brent Capps) writes:

>dyer@spdcc.com (Steve Dyer) writes:

>>In article <C02xFJ.19v@agora.rain.com>
>>bcapps@agora.rain.com (Brent Capps) writes:

>>>I'm sitting at my terminal debating on whether to post
>>>this or abort.  I know I'm going to get flamed by morons who
>>>can't believe that anybody would consider this to be a
>>>problem.  Fuck it.  I'm tired of remaining silent.

Frankly, Brent, I think you create *most* of the problem for
yourself, possibly without being aware of it.  There's a lot
of evidence for this in your two postings.

Both Jeff Dauber and Matthew Melmon have spoken to some of
the issues, wisely, I thought.

Even though the matter seems pretty touchy (I'm trying to
avoid words with such echoes, but it's nearly impossible)
and apparently causes you to be self-conscious and sometimes
emotionally pained, it seems to me you're being rather
hyper-reactive, to judge by your response to Steve Dyer.

You start out by telling the clinical details and by
*assuming* it will lead to flames.  For one thing, there's
an element of fortune-telling involved there: why would
anyone flame you for telling your own story?  For another
thing, you know, surely, what the world is like; knowing
that, it's odd that you express surprise when people react
in more or less expected ways.

>>Wanna trade?

I think Steve is merely saying what a lot of men would
think: "*I* should have his problem!" Then too, there is
really a difference between the *real* obsession some men
have about big dicks and the casual banter nearly all gay
men indulge in on that subject.

>You still don't get it, do you?  Your response is a prime
>example of why we don't want to talk about it.  We know that
>if we try to discuss our feelings somebody's going to
>respond with a flip remark or laugh at us for being
>self-conscious or accuse us of bragging.

It looks like you've divided the world into either/or, when
you might have divided it into both/and.  I don't think he
implied an insensitive lack of concern for your feelings;
rather, he suggested you could be making too much of a deal
about it all.  I may put it differently, but that's what I
think too.

As I mentioned above, self-consciousness is often a very
painful thing.  But it's not reasonable to expect the
entire universe to revolve around your self-consciousness,
either.  In our culture, dick size is something many if not
most people make too big a deal about.  But much of that
is merely social convention, in-group ritual, and of no
great importance.

You can't do much about the society at large, probably, nor
about the usual conventions of the society of gay men.  What
you *can* do something about is your own sensitivities in
the matter.

>I can understand what women with very large breasts must
>have to endure.  They can never shake the feeling that men
>are only interested in them as an object of sexual
>gratification.  I can also understand how men with smaller
>penises may feel -- like they're going to be evaluated on
>the basis of their penis size rather than on their worth as
>a human being.  Well, I feel the same way!

I don't think the dick-size/breast-size analogy is all that
apt.  Sexual dynamics for women are different enough from
those for men, I think, that the similarities you note here
are somewhat superficial.

To be sure, there are people whose interest in you will be
almost exclusively concerned with your dick and not with
your personhood.  But this is a factor to be contended with
whether your dick is big, average, or small.  One takes it
in stride, as one does so many things in this life.
Otherwise, you're going to find yourself in the untenable
position of deciding whether having a dick that's "too big"
is somehow better or worse than having one that's "too
small."

>>How big does it have to be before you feel ashamed of it?

Shame has nothing to do with reality, that's one thing.
Another is, he's asking you a good question.  People are
sought after or not sought after for all sorts of reasons.
If one sets out to judge such things in the way you
apparently have, there will eventually have to be an answer
to the kind of question he asks.  Yet that's preposterous on
its face.  Right away you have a useful clue, then.

>I threw away my tape measure.  What difference does that
>make?  I wish I'd never posted that article now.  Every size
>queen on the net has been pestering me for details.  None of
>these guys ever bothered to reply to my posts before.  What
>kind of a message do you think that conveys?  That I'm a
>piece of meat, that's what.

I'm sorry to say it, but this is a baseless whine.  What did
you expect?  You've found out something very useful, after
all: the people who never took the slightest notice of you
before and now do have telegraphed clearly that they're not
very interested in your other qualities.  You've gotten the
truth from them; you should be grateful it was so easy;
usually it isn't.

More to the point, "you make me feel like meat" is never
going to fly; it requires your cooperation, which you can
withhold whenever you like.

>>P.S.: You weren't at Rooster Rock, that's for sure.

>No, and now I feel more self-conscious than ever.  I feel
>like if I'm ever at a motss-con in a clothing-optional
>situation that everybody's going to be staring at me,
>checking it out.  That makes me feel like a freak!  No thank
>you.

If you let the matter plague you to such a point, there's no
way in hell you can hold others responsible.  For better or
for worse (I think it's for worse, but it's also a given),
people in our culture react to exceptional people in a
constrained and largely predictable fashion.  If you let
that distort and otherwise afflict your life, it's your
choice, but it certainly won't do to hold others accountable
for it beyond a certainly fairly limited extent.

Jeff is right: you have what you have.  Matthew is right:
others have comparable concerns.  What's at issue for you is
not these facts, but rather what you make of it for
yourself.  You certainly have a choice in the matter.  So far
you've chosen to let it afflict you in various ways.  You
could stop doing that, and in my opinion, it would be better
if you did.

If the prevailing mores change in such a way that this issue
tends to be diminished, so much the better.  But there's little
point in holding your breath until that happens.

-- 
[Jess Anderson <> Madison Academic Computing Center <> University of Wisconsin]
[Internet: anderson@macc.wisc.edu <-best, UUCP:{}!uwvax!macc.wisc.edu!anderson]
[Room 3130 <> 1210 West Dayton Street / Madison WI 53706 <> Phone 608/262-5888]
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Newsgroups: soc.motss