No, I don't suffer from it. Well, except when it comes to the purely plumbing-related aspects. Penises are certainly convenient when you have to take a pee in the forest or alongside the highway!
Really, this is going to be a post about romance novels, I promise. But first, I have to tell you the story that got me started thinking about this topic.
Last night, I was getting my almost-5yo son out of the bathtub when he started repeating, in a sing-songy sort of voice, "Oh penis, oh penis, I love you so much."
Naturally, this made me laugh which encouraged him to repeat the phrase several more times, much to the amusement of his 7yo sister. After reflecting that most men probably feel this way about their penises to at least some extent, I finally thought to ask him why he loved his penis so much.
His response, delivered instantly and without a hint of irony, was, "Because it's so big."
People, he's four! No four-year-old on the planet has a big penis, okay?
But of course, this whole episode got me thinking about penises and, well, size. Courtney blogged a while back about the tendency toward "dick inflation" in romance novels: the hero always seems to have larger-than-average equipment to go along with all his other larger-than-life attributes. And perhaps there's some truth to the notion that size does matter. I know it matters to men. But do women really prefer men with...er, bigger packages? Or is that more of a masculine fantasy?
At this point, I will interject with my personal opinion: It's not the pen, it's the penmanship. And guys who are convinced they have awesome pens, in my admittedly somewhat limited experience, tend to have lousy penmanship.
Question is, am I in a minority of women here? The emphasis on the impressive size of the sex organs of the heros of romance novels would imply that I am. Most romance readers are female, after all, and if big dicks weren't popular with women, it's hard to imagine writers would keep sticking them in their books (or their heroines, for that matter). If women don't care one way or the other, then it seems to me that romance writers are feeding the male obsession with making their penises larger, which is in turn responsible for a large portion of the spam that winds up in my email. And frankly, it seems to me that even men with substantially more there there than the average guy still all want to be John Holmes.
When I write love scenes, I try to concentrate on emotion and physical sensations in addition to stage direction. What I don't dwell on so much is describing my characters' physical attributes. There's really nothing less erotic, in my humble opinion, than a heroine who's getting out her mental ruler to assess the size of her guy's erection before doing the nasty.
So, please, if you don't care how big the hero's dick is as long as its sexy and emotionally satisfying when he gets it on with the heroine, will you let the romance publishing industry know? Take a stand against penis envy in all its forms, I say, including the ones that drive insecure men to watch videos like this one (shudder) or consider cosmetic surgery (bigger shudder).
Believe me, you'll be doing society (and my inbox) a favor!
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11 comments:
Well, if the heroine hasn't done it in a while, her goodies will be smaller from lack of use, thus making an average sized peen feel bigger to HER. Doesn't mean he's hung like Holmes, just that she's tight. Most of my heroines tend not to have gotten laid for a while. ;)
Annie, you are hereby barred from making posts to my blog when I am sipping hot tea.
/Wipes keyboard
I take your point. Still, I've read too many where the heroine's eyes get wide at the largess of the hero's thingy, even when she's never SEEN one before and therefore has no basis for comparison!
Oh my LORD!!! What a hoot. I must say that I don't know if I'd like to read that it was average or small(a hero with a small dick, hmmm, nope not feeling it). So in the same token, does that mean that authors can't write how tight and small she is? If we can't write "his massively engorged phallus" or "his sizeable erection" what can we write? :)
I'm still ROFL at "...her goodies will be smaller from lack of use..."
Of course, I'm not suggesting that we write small dicks on our heroes, LOL. More, I'd just like the question of size to be a bit more vague. I ASSUME the guy's package is big enough to do the job and, if the heroine's hot and bothered and he's doing his part correctly, it's gonna be good. I just don't care to hear that he's hung like a horse, thanks!
As to the heroine's corresponding attributes, well, she FEELS tight to the hero (or feels stretched by him), but that's a FEELING, not an objective measurement, so it's okay by me. What I don't want the hero doing is measuring her boobs and thinking "Yep, D cup."
And both "massively engorged phallus" and "sizeable erection" strike me as wandering into purple prose territory. I'd recommend staying away from them regardless *g.
LOL!!!! This is too much fun. I felt a little naughty just typing it.
Ah, people...you are dangerous!
Ok, first of all you killed me with your inarguable logic that if the heroine hasn't seen one then she's hardly qualified to judge. Ahem.
I refrain from offering my opinion any further ;-)
And submit to you a shameless plug for my friend Shannon's new release: Venus Envy!
What I think is funny and interesting, is that your son, at the age of four, believes it's a good thing to have a big penis. Is that inate in our males? Or does the outside world have to do with it?
I have caught myself thinking about this lately when I get to the portion of my books where I'm writing sex. I realized that this means that somewhere, sometime, it's been drilled into me (no comments from the peanuts, thenk yew) that size does matter.
And I'm rebelling. I consciously leave it out. I don't think I've ever had a heroine exclaim about the size of her soon-to-be-partner or had him waggling around, proud of his girth. Don't intend to any time in the future, either, thanks.
*giggles* I'm so writing a scene where the heroine GETS OUT A RULER and pronounces proudly, "Yep, 6.5 inches, Thomas, you are the most delightfully average man I have ever boinked."
And I'm dedicatin' it to you lot.
OMG, Annie, you slay me.
But do consider a tape measure instead. That way, she can determine circumference as well as length...
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