It’s Saturday evening around 7pm, and after only one gin and tonic, I
find myself surrounded by a handful of completely naked men. Some are
young, some are old. Some are fat, some are thin. Some are dancing. One
has an elaborate network of chains dangling from his goolies. But they
all have one thing in common.
They all have small penises.
I’m at the Big Small Penis Party in East London, the first event staged to celebrate men whose cocks are smaller than average
– that is, since you ask, shorter than five inches when in party mode.
That’s right, there’s an actual conference for men not over-burdened by
penis size, promising poetry, performance and piss-up, not to mention
wine, women and song.
But wait, aren’t these men supposed to be
embarrassed about this? Aren’t they supposed to hide away in shame and
self-loathing? Surely getting drunk and striding around in their
birthday suits is just not on?
Early arrivals hug the walls of the
room, seemingly terrified of the space in front of the stage, empty
except for Peter, a hirsute chap, naked but for a pair of Timberland
boots and wielding a tin of small ginger biscuits shaped like dicks.
“Help yourself,” he says cheerfully, proffering the stash.
I take one and bite a testicle off. “That is really good…” I raise what remains of my phallic confection in toast.
Peter tells me they were made by poet Ant Smith, the party’s host.
Smith’s poem, Little Dick, detailing his anxieties over his physical shortcomings, was picked up in the national press (AskMen included), leading to other men from all over the world getting in touch with him to share their own stories of small penises.
Tonight
Smith is not naked. He is wearing a tartan Mackintosh and a pork pie
hat. I ambush him when he is outside having a smoke. He explains that
although he is now the ambassador of this unlikely movement, it has only
been in the last couple of years that he has been able to speak to his
own wife of 17 years about how he feels: he spent much of their
relationship hopping into bed with his pants on, only removing them once
he was safely under the blankets.
I suggest that she must have known what size his penis was, blankets or no blankets?
“Yes, but as long as you are not talking about something you can pretend it’s not there,” he says.
However,
I imagine it’s hard to luxuriate in a landscape of complete denial when
other men openly laugh at the size of your knob in public urinals.
He
readily admits his penis has shaped his personality and that he’d be an
“arrogant bastard” if he were better endowed, so for that reason he
wouldn’t change a thing.
Anyway, it’s not just men with small penises that worry about them. In fact, men who are average sized (between five and six inches when erect) are more likely to suffer from anxiety over their genitals. That’s a hell of a lot of worry for a hell of a lot of men.
This
kind of image neurosis is typically considered a female issue: we’re
always being told either directly or via the media that we are too fat
or too thin or too hairy or too flat-bottomed. We are told we have
man-hands or cankles. We pose like I’m A Little Tea Pot in
photographs so no one will realise we have bingo wings. We agonise about
whether one breast is bigger than the other, and will anyone notice if
we are lying down? Lots of us will only have sex in a bra so our lovers
won’t think we have saggy udders attached to our chests. We worry about
whether what we have constitutes as “muff cabbage” or “beef curtains”.
The
list is soul destroying. But for the most part, society thinks body
shaming is something that only really affects women.
I put all of this to Smith. He hopes that his efforts to highlight male anxiety
over penis size will result in some transference: “We should be able to
empathise as a species – we can work together on body shaming.”
Back
inside the audience has grown. The vibe is part cabaret, part nudist
colony with a pinch of working men’s club. The start of the performances
are marked by Ant Smith charging onto stage and, with the gusto of a
seaside town crier, reciting a bombastic ode to scaly hands and being
beautiful and having scars on his cock. Everyone is thrilled and baying
for more.
I realise then that I’ve been expecting a pity party for
men with teeny weenies. I’ve been expecting a freak show. I couldn’t
comprehend that this issue could be celebrated with laughter and
honesty.
We think there is no greater insult than suggesting
someone has a small penis. This appendage is the last word in
masculinity. It is what makes you male, so the bigger the better, right?
Anecdotal evidence (straw poll of six voluble women throwing Sauvignon Blanc in and around their mouths) suggests not.
“I’m
scared of big ones,” says one, her friends nodding in agreement. They
discuss how attributes like kindness, reliability and humour are
infinitely more important than having a Pringles tube in your pants.
Speaking
to clothed male guests at the party (“Hi there, do you have a small
penis?”) they almost all agreed that men worried far more about todger
size than women did. They also agreed that while having a small penis
can be a source of great angst it also must be seen as a source of
humour.
Performance poetry is, in many cases, a license to
activate life's ejector seat but in this environment – where there is
such a clear unified message, I feel pleasantly surprised.
Following
on from a man accessorized by a tweed trilby and a diamond studded
cock-ring sassing about respect and rivalry, is Tom Smith, someone I
spoke to earlier, performing a rather wonderful poem about disastrous
sexual encounters, complete with actions
“When you are naked with someone it’s hard sometimes to convince yourself that it’s going to be OK,” he had said.
Why
then, could he take his clothes off in front of a room full of
strangers? Why could any of these men, who were teetering on the
knife-edge between crippling anxiety and supreme confidence?
“Because
it’s easier than worrying about what to wear,” he had said, before
adding that if the world had seen him naked then he has nothing left to
worry about and if he talks about it in his poetry no one can throw it
back in his face.
I look around again, as Sarah-Jane Miller starts
to perform a folk song about farm animals during which every time she
mentions cocks the audience is bidden to join in.
No one was
embarrassed and no one was shy. The Big Small Penis Party is actually
much more than the climax of a support network. It’s just one part of a
story of bravery: It takes guts to wander around a bar with your
one-inch pecker winking from underneath a turquoise lamé camisole. The
story of the small penis seeks to completely disarm, and in doing so,
appeals for humility as well as laughter.
The story of the small penis is kind of a big deal.
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