Thursday, March 28

I have a small penis, will I ever be able to ‘measure up’? | relationships


the question I have a small penis. When I was 14 or so I was called out by a boy in the school changing rooms for “having a little one”. I felt humiliated. It had never occurred to me up to that point that it mattered.

It seems to be something which, according to the media, is laughable and makes me less of a man. The word “manhood” is used as a euphemism that equates desirable masculine traits with a big willy.

I am 55, a father of three and in a happy and loving relationship with a great sex life. No doubt you would say to me that if my partner is satisfied, then I should get over my insecurity. I have much to be grateful for. I am not likely to be “playing the field” any more. But I worry, fret and get depressed about this and have done for 40 years.

My upbringing was one where I was expected to “fail” and I did develop a deep-rooted low self-worth and a sense of shame of not being enough as a person. So “evidence” such as this for “coming up short” reinforces my feelings of inadequacy. Yo had counselling, but didn’t feel I was taken seriously. I am still so heartbroken I can’t “measure up” in the way that I would ideally like to. I carry a sense of real anger that it seems broadly OK to deride the half of all men with smaller-than-average penises. “Oh, he has a big car with a long bonnet – what is he trying to make up for [titter].” How do I learn to love myself regardless of this one physical attribute that seems to me to be so crucial (and is stigmatized by most people) and forces me to hide my shame?

Philippa’s answer I know it must have taken courage to write in and I applaud you for doing that. Talking openly about this is a step towards recovery.

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Your upbringing was one where you were expected to fail. It sounds as though you were regularly led to believe you were inadequate. I don’t think it is as much that your penis size gives evidence to this so much that it has come to symbolize how you had always been treated when growing up. It sounds as if you could be suffering from body dysmorphia.

Body dysmorphia is a mental health condition in which you can’t stop thinking about a perceived defect about your body. It doesn’t make any difference if others think it is a flaw or not – you still feel so ashamed and anxious about it that it adversely affects your life. Body dysmorphia can be the result of being teased, bullied, overly criticized or abused when you were a child.

I think your brain made the connection when you were humiliated about how a part of you looked in the changing room at 14 to all the times you were made to feel inadequate. The daily painful insults you had suffered up until then have all been heaped on to this innocent body part. It is a symbol for your psychological pain. Then every time in public or private you hear anything about small penises, it compounds the injury. Until it gets to the point where you fret and obsess about it, probably all the time, sometimes in the background of your mind, but often in the foreground.

You probably think, if only there was a safe plastic surgical procedure, you would be cured. But it wouldn’t be that simple, because you would never be satisfied with the outcome: with body dysmorphia it isn’t the body part that is wrong, it is the body part which is taking the blame for the psychological injuries you suffered growing up. I get that it feels to you as though your body part is at fault, or society is at fault, but really it was how you were made to feel about your whole self when you were growing up that is the fault. And yes, why wouldn’t you be angry about that? It has left you with a difficult legacy to manage.

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Body dysmorphia usually doesn’t get better on its own. If left untreated, it may get worse over time. The usual treatments for it are cognitive behavioral therapy and/or antidepressant medication. You should be able to access these through your GP. Personally, I would favor hypnotherapy (see nationalhypnotherapysociety.org) for body dysmorphia, because you will need to break the connection that you have made to your penis with that old injury of being made to feel as though you will fail. By making a good life for yourself you have proved your tormentors wrong. It is time to have an inner life to match that.

I know it is difficult to talk about, but by taking the step of writing in, you have started that process. The next step will be visiting your GP. If it’s too hard to talk, show them this correspondence.

And I promise I will never again trot out the old cliché about flash cars and penis size. Thank you for educating me.

If you have a question, send a brief email to [email protected]


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