Bodies.
More about the micropenis. Plus: Still no sign of Simon.
My name is not Naomi. It’s a nom de plume to protect my identity. Though names have been changed, all the stories in Gen XXX are true. My anonymity means that I rely on word of mouth to grow my subscriber base, so if you’re enjoying what you’re reading, I encourage you to share with friends. And if you’re already subscribed, won’t you please consider a paid subscription?
I have a second date with the guy I met at Edendale the other week, Jacob, the polyamorous dude who just opened up his marriage after going for years without sex. I’m looking forward to it. He’s responsive and present and smart and adult. But I’m also a little hesitant. Towards the end of our time at Edendale, when Jacob leaves to use the bathroom, I notice that he has a flat, square butt, and somewhat wide hips, which I don’t love. It all looks a little…female. Then again, who am I to judge? I’m 52 now, and it isn’t like my butt is so great either.
Speaking of bodies, I’m completely torn as to what to do about the micropenis. Or, rather, about Ari, the guy to whom it is attached. I’m not a size queen, and Ari is a really great guy, but his penis is a problem. The question is: How much of a problem?
My friend Rosalie says that if I liked Ari more then I probably wouldn’t have such an issue with his penis size.
“I suspect if you were super into him you might not be so quick to throw in the towel,” she says over text. “So maybe it’s more a sign that you’re not feeling it in general?”
“Maybe,” I say. “But I don’t think it can be overcome. It’s just one of those deal breakers.”
Astrid thinks that Ari should have disclosed the existence of his micropenis up front. Actually, Astrid’s boyfriend, Benji, thinks that, and she agrees.
“I mentioned some of the details to Benji and without my prompting he said ‘He should’ve disclosed this,’” she says.
“What?!” I say. “How is that supposed to happen?”
“I can’t answer that,” Astrid says.
“Well, I’d like to game this out at some point,” I say.
“I think both of us would argue the bedroom isn’t for huge surprises like that,” she says. “But that’s assuming he thinks he’s different. He might not. TBC.”
“He’s got to know that his dick is tiny,” I say. “He just has to.”
I tell the group of my friends on a WhatsApp group what Astrid has to say, that she thinks that Ari should have disclosed his dick status.
“What? Lol no,” says Evie. “’Hey, just so you know, my dick is tiny.’”
“Yeah I’m surprised,” I say. “Also, stumped,”
“It’s not, like, a material adverse condition in a merger,” says Evie. “Or idk, maybe it is!”
“I don’t know what a material adverse condition is,” I say.
“It’s a legal thing that, if not disclosed, means you can back out of a merger,” Evie explains.
“Ah, thanks,” I say. “I still can’t get over how small it was. What a bummer!”
“Such a bummer!” she says.
The next day, my friend Lauren comes onto the thread.
“I too have experienced a lovely man with a micro penis during a spate of time between the last long term BF and my husband,” she writes. “He was a fantastic kisser and diner-outter as one might say — and perhaps that could make up for things, but it didn’t with me and I ultimately ended it with him because I knew I’d never be satisfied with a penis which at best, was as thin as a Sharpie and short as a tube of lipstick at full mast (and virtually invisible when not).”
Ouch! Ari’s penis is not as thin as a Sharpie, and it’s maybe half an inch longer than a tube of lipstick when erect, but that’s about it.
I called it off with Matthew. The Belle and Sebastian guy. I just couldn’t get past the way he petted me during the screening of “Eddington.” A few days after the movie, he texts me to check in.
“I got the feeling from that date that we’re not really into dating one another, but rather having wide ranging conversations?” he writes. “Or did I misread the room?”
I can’t tell whether the sentence “Or did I misread the room?” is Matthew saying that he’s still open to more. Though I’m not sure why that matters.
“Agree,” I say. “I don’t think we’re a romantic fit. But I’m always open for wide ranging conversations with you!”
Matthew responds with an emoji of praying hands. I don’t know what that’s supposed to mean, so I leave well enough alone.
Simon is still nowhere to be found. I want him to show up and ask for a fourth date just so I can tell him that I don’t want to engage with someone who isn’t actually that into me. Maybe this is immature. But I suspect that saying something like this will also feel freeing.
There’s another guy, Jason, a 29-year-old European with whom I’ve been corresponding for a week. He lives in the South Bay and he’s a writer and an actor, which sets off alarm bells a bit. So does his age. So does a comment he makes about how he’s always wanted to make an erotic film.
“Americans don’t like them here lol,” he ways. “Too many limitations, etc.”
“I wonder why that is,” I say. “I guess a lot of Americans are prudes?”
“Probably,” he says. “And too many laws. Me Too, feminism and all that.”
Me Too, feminism and all that.
“Mother Nature is out of fashion right now lol,” he continues. “But it’s a phase, it will pass.”
Mother Nature. Phases.
“I don’t think feminism has anything to do with Americans being prudes or being uncomfortable with erotic films,” I say.
All he says in response is “Ok.”
He probably knows he’s stepped in it.
I go back and look at his profile. He’s changed it a bit since I first saw it.
“6’1”, fit, hung,” it now reads. “If I like you, I will need you and keep you for long-term, twice a week.”
“Keep you.” I start laughing and tell Jason that I have to go, that I have a dinner date with a friend. The next morning he writes me and asks me how the date was.
“Did you have a good fuck, baby? I like when my girl gets attention and pleasure.”
I burst out laughing again.
At him, that is.
I hit “disconnect.”
Rosalie wonders whether heterosexual women have a double standard for men with small penises while feeling that we ourselves should not be judged by our outsides.
I think about it. I mean, it’s possible. Even likely. One difference, perhaps, is that women are constantly being judged by our outsides because the majority of our secondary sex characteristics are visible for others to see. Breasts and butts can be difficult to hide. (Though in my fatter moments, I certainly tried.) We go through our lives being judged by what we look like on the outside; we’re constantly being eyeballed.
The only way to find out a man has a small penis, however — save him making it a topic of discussion before getting intimate — is to engage with it directly. This takes some work, and some time, and even getting to the point of the reveal suggests that there’s a certain amount of intimacy that’s already taken place. It’s not that I want men to post pictures of their dicks on their dating profiles — I hate dick pics — but the visibility of heterosexual women vis a vis that of men feels a little asymmetrical.
But this is immaterial to the question Rosalie has posed. And I realize I feel defensive about the idea that I am, as my other friend Margaret puts it, “part of the problem.” I like to think of myself as open minded, and non-judgmental. But the fact is that I skip over the profiles of guys on the apps who look overweight or skinny. I recoil at sloping shoulders, or weak chins and I make judgments, and then write about, men’s “feminine” butts and hips.
Margot texts me from Seoul, where she’s visiting her parents. “I judge men by their outsides,” she writes. “And I expect I’m constantly judged by men (and women) for my outsides. Is Rosalie saying women don’t judge men for their outsides but will judge them for their penis size? So what do women screen for, then? Wallet size? Listen, I am equally judging their physical beauty and their penis and their financial stability (and intelligence, humor, kindness). I judge for all the things. So yeah, I’m single.”
“Lol,” I write. “Me too.”
“I wouldn’t be able to take a man like that seriously,” she says. “Like Samantha on SATC with the perfect guy with a gherkin for a dick.”
I don’t know that it’s that I don’t take Ari seriously, but that I don’t take him seriously with regards to having any sort of physical future with him, casual or not.
“I’d be so sad and disappointed,” Margot says. “You can fix bald, fat, bad teeth. You can’t fix small dick.”
“But fat and bad teeth suggest something that is actually within a man’s control (and he’s chosen not to deal with) whereas a small dick is the luck (or lack thereof) of the draw,” I say.
“So we should mercy fuck them?” she asks. “Listen, I mercy blew a guy with a micropenis. It was humiliating for us both.”
“Oh god, Margot!” I write.
“He was a British singer who sounded like a black woman, he sang so well,” she continues. “So the micropenis made sense. Like castrati.”
“I can’t with this!” I say.
“I’m glad I’m making you laugh,” she says. “I was so worried my son had a micropenis, I took him to the doctor.”
“This is TMI,” I say.
“I know!” she says. “But I’m relieved to say that with puberty I think he’s taking after his dad.”
“TMI,” I say again.
“I wanted to write about this when he was a toddler for the New York Times,” she says. “And the editor said, ‘Respectfully, I think your son won’t appreciate this when he’s older.’ But I really wanted to take the angle of this is helicopter/tigermomming to the nth degree.”
Just then, Lauren texts me.
“If you’re comparing small tits to small cock it’s not the same,” she says. “Women need to be able to feel something inside them — it’s not just an aesthetic thing. Men can get off with a woman with small tits. I don’t see it as equal.”
“Also, even if it’s a double standard, it’s your body and your taste and if it’s not appealing it’s not appealing, so, hard pass.”
“Hard” pass!
Poor Ari.
Max and I have a phone call to check in, and I catch her up on the situation. It’s clear that she’s feeling protective of Ari, and flummoxed as to why I think his small penis is a dealbreaker. Maybe, she says, this is an opportunity for me to open up a productive and interesting discussion with him.
“Get sexually creative,” she says. “Maybe something like, ‘I’ve never had sex with a penis like yours.’”
“That would sound condescending,” I say.
She tries a different tack
“Maybe he’s the world’s best at cunnilingus, or a master with his hands,” she says.
“Doesn’t matter,” I say.
Max admits that its been a long time since she’s had sex with a penis; so long that it feels “optional” to her.
“When you said he had a small penis, I thought, ‘Why don’t you just buy a bigger one?’” she says. She’s not joking.
“I’m not interested in dildos!” I say.
I understand that Max is pushing back against giving primacy to cocks in terms of how I (and others) have sex. I understand that cocks are just one of many ways that people fuck one another. I understand that, as she puts it, “there are so many creative ways to have sex with so much different stuff.”
“I like dicks,” I say.
She sighs.
“This is a queer person talking to a straight person,” she says. “It’s never going to work!”
I appreciate Max’s attempts to complicate the situation; to interrogate what appear to be fixed ideas and expectations about bodies, and what they “should” look like, or feel like, and how we react (or succumb) to those ideas. I understand that I am not necessarily being “fair” about Ari, although I’m being honest.
“How are you going to break it off?” she asks.
“I don’t know what reason to give,” I say quietly.
I tell Max that I have two weeks to come up with a plan; Ari is away in Canada with his kid until mid-August.
“What if you say, ‘I’m sorry if this sounds insensitive but I’m sort of a size queen because, sexually speaking, it’s my kink,’” she says. “I think he might appreciate the honesty because I’m sure he’s been ghosted before.”
I tell Max I have no intention of ghosting Ari.
“This way, you make it about what you need, not about what’s wrong with him,” she continues. “You’re giving him a chance to have his own agency by you taking yours.”