It turns out that my spam-blocker, though not the fraud of this piece, had been stopping roughly 75% of all legitimate emails from getting to me. Among these lost emails was one pertaining to my new apartment and one setting up a meeting to discuss my–possibly–new job. So, having gotten too scared to bother, I shut off the spam-blocker and opened the flood gates to all emails. Within moments I’d gotten a handful of personal emails, thank God, but I’d also gotten a few dozen for, well, Penis products, or more fittingly, Penis promises: Make it bigger! Make it Wider! Make it feel stronger! Make it last longer! In fact, a few days have since passed and it seems that the only spam I get is for Penile enhancement, Penile enlargement, or Penile enlongment.
I could easily dismiss this as just another of the Internet’s indulgences, the nerdy male equivalent of what Nigerian scams are for sheltered housewives, but is that really what it is? Television, a far more controlled space, also seems increasingly filled with advertisements aimed at my member; smiley faced males and their even more smiley faced wives, narrators speaking mediocre double entendres, middle aged couples dancing to imitation Latin bands. But it’s not just kept to the recluse Internet/Television demographic anymore, in fact, New York City’s billboards–once purely the domain of scantily clad girls and dating services–have also seen an increase in the increasing business. It’s time we ask: Does America have Penis Issues? 
But where would they come from, these insecurities? Are picky women, quick to discard any man that doesn’t reach a certain girth, to blame? Maybe, but there just aren’t enough of these females to really have a cultural impact. According to studies, 85% of women are quite happy with their partner’s Penis size, despite the fact that their men are generally insecure about it (not surprisingly, there’s a similar disconnect on the other end with breast size). So if women, no strangers to dysmorphia, aren’t calling en masse for larger Penis sizes who is? How does the Penis Industry find it’s demographic?
There’s one root cause that can’t be blamed on anyone but Darwin. Human males, standing up straight, usually only see their own penis from a perspective that doesn’t exactly highlight it’s size. But we long ago passed the ‘mirror test’, so I don’t know if verticalness alone can shoulder the guilt.
For decades, the media has knowingly put forth a image of female beauty that is unattainable, unhealthy, and actually rather unattractive. For years, more intelligent men and women have been fighting to have this image replaced with something resembling reality. I would suggest that, though women admittedly have it worse, men have also increasingly become victims of this culture, particularly young men who are biologically determined to spend four years doing nothing but thinking about their changing body. But very few people talk about this. Men, who have occasionally been blamed for the bulk of women’s image issues, are somehow thought to be immune from from the same media and cultural stigmas that effect woman. But if thousands of emails, hours of television commercials, miles of billboards, and, most importantly, millions of dollars are any proof, men are not at all immune, are in fact perhaps more determined to become something impossible. The Penis Industry knows this, even if we don’t.
But it’s more than just a funny title. It can actually be quite dangerous. Men are running out, in large numbers, to get surgery with–I’m assuming–poorly qualified doctors on one of the body’s most sensitive and complex areas. Or they’re taking hormones, confusing their body’s very carefully set balance of chemicals. Or they’re get royally ripped-off: Enzyte, a fixture on television and enlargement wonder drug, doesn’t just look like a fraud, it is a fraud. But, then again, so is the very concept that it’s based on: That nature doesn’t know what it’s doing, that the American Media knows far more about human anatomy than you.
Again, I have no doubt that women face the brunt of these ridiculous expectations, but men–and their wallets–seem to be now falling under the same spell. I just ask that, maybe, those who fight for a more realistic body image don’t forget the so-called stronger sex. And then let’s all tell the Penis Industry to go fuck itself. Pun intended.
Have you considered Subscribing to all of this madness?
