How Big is BIG? asks Blakka Ellis

Is it just me imagining things? I don't know, but no matter how hard I try to avoid it, everywhere I look nowadays - in newspapers, on posters, and online - I seem to be increasingly bombarded by advertisements for what is euphemistically called 'male enhancement'.

And of course, our societal traditions appear to dictate enhancing a male is never about ways of improving his intellectual aptitude or augmenting his capacity for compassion and cooperation. No, man! From you hear bout male enhancement, you know it's going to be about ways of enlarging sense of manhood by increasing size 'manhood'.

But what's driving this? Every man wants to physically and figuratively 'big up him status'. Few will admit it, but many men are absolutely obsessed with penis size. Is true, man! It's as if every Tom and Harry is preoccupied with Dick! If truth be told, when it comes to the dimensions of that member, many men of all ages, stages, class, and colour look down on themselves with anxiety and shame, and they will not be soothed and consoled by nice little ditties like 'it's not the size of the boat, it's the motion of the ocean'.

I once saw the words 'it's not how deep you fish, it's how well you wriggle your worm' written on the wall of a seaside pub, and I like it. It cleverly and succinctly reinforces what women tell us and what experience confirms that sensitivity and performance are much more important than extreme physical proportions. Somehow though, most men don't seem to be buying it. As far as some men are concerned, and as another popular saying affirms, 'only small people say size doesn't matter'.

We also perpetuate a misogynistic culture, which teaches that sex is war and the penis is a weapon, so 'bigger is better' becomes a more acceptable mantra. What unnu think?

Yeah, it may even sound like I'm stretching the thing - ahem, the topic that is - but I'd love to also insert into this conversational space the perhaps feeble little idea that we may be dealing with generations of men who are suffering from a serious mental condition called 'penis-related BDD'. OK, everyone knows what penis is so I guess I need to explain what BDD is, right?

Well, according to a quick online search, BDD, or body dysmorphic disorder [also known as body dysmorphia or dysmorphic syndrome], is a chronic mental illness wherein the afflicted individual is concerned with body image, manifested as excessive concern about and preoccupation with a perceived defect of his physical appearance.

Yeah, man! Plenty man secretly suffering from extreme cases of penile dysmorphic disorder. As a result, male enlargement appears to be a swelling enterprise. Yeah, peeps, it big!

How big is big? I did a quick little Google search on the words 'penis enlargement' and it showed 7,450,000 results in 0.34 seconds. I actually did that online search after I read a letter in the 'Dear Pastor' column in yesterday's STAR where a man was complaining to the pastor that his wife was cheating on him because she thought his penis was too small. Interestingly, the man shared that he and his wife had been together since high school and she never used to complain about his size. He also disclosed that he had been cheating, too, and his other lady didn't have any problems with his size. Again I ask, how big is big?

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also see other posts: Does Size Matter (women speak)

.....and the Circumcision discourse continues

Sexual Dysfunction & the Gay Man

Never judge a man by his feet