A New Size Obsession?
Looksmaxxing Throughout History
Hi horny readers! Thank you so, so much for reading ADULT SEX ED, a newsletter about the stories behind our sexual beliefs—where they came from, who invented them, and why they stuck.
I’m Dani Faith Leonard, a filmmaker, writer, and performer. A while back, I started to ask myself a question: why do we think what we think about sex? Expect investigative articles, weird sex history, and sharp humor, delivered to your inbox every week. Ready to plug the holes in your education? Okay, let’s go!
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One of the joys of writing this newsletter is that when a particularly fun news item comes out about sex, at least 15 friends send it to me. That’s exactly what happened yesterday when New York Magazine published a feature called “The Big Little Penis Panic.”
Through interviews with several men, the article argues that anxiety about penis size is intensifying because of social media, porn, and the “looksmaxxing” trend. Just like women, men are comparing themselves to the curated images they see online. Most of the men in the article don’t see many “normal” penises in person, so their view of their own size is distorted too.
The article introduces a fun TikTok trend called “catching print.” The trend encourages people to guess penis size based on how someone looks in clothing. While dating coach Anwar White says he came up with the method as a way to empower women, the trend is singled out as worsening the insecurity.
In case you haven’t heard of “looksmaxxing,” it’s an internet subculture focused on extreme appearance optimization. Some men are pursuing risky or obsessive routines, including controversial penis-enhancement practices, to try to improve attractiveness and status. Cosmetic procedures related to male genitals are becoming more common, including injecting filler into the shaft for girth, and sometimes the balls too. This particular quote from the article really stuck with me:
“[T]he so-called looksmaxxer Clavicular, who was once accused by Drake of having a micropenis, shared that he’s recently started doing “dick-ups”: wrapping a shopping bag filled with books around his wrist and using the weight to tug on his penis.”
As several commenters on Reddit wrote: are men ok? Probably not.
It’s not a coincidence that looksmaxxing grew out of a larger far-right misogynistic movement online. What a wonderful way to control men. It’s been well known throughout history that harmful beauty trends have greatly affected the lives of young women. Now, it’s clear that modern trends are distorting cultural expectations around masculinity and body image. The thing is, these concepts aren’t new at all.
The concept of cock and balls filler reminded me of a specifc period in history that I’ve written about frequently. Exactly a century ago, in the ‘20s, there was a concept floating around that men may be able to rejuvenate their health by getting a new set of balls. Or by adding another set of balls to the set they already had.
A physician named John Brinkley became known as the “goat-gland doctor” after he implanted goat testicles into male patients. Goats snowballed into human cadavers, and then things escalated to live humans. Men were getting kidnapped in Chicago, drugged with chloroform, and waking up with empty scrota. According to some medical historians, this actually marks the beginning of modern organ trafficking, which most people associate with kidneys, not testes. Newspapers went wild, calling it “Gland Larceny.” All of that work to be more “manly.”
Much earlier than that, in the Stone Age, people started drawing lots of big dicks in their cave drawings. The large phalluses usually signified fertility. In Ancient Greek art, smaller flaccid penises became the norm. Christianity adopted small penises in religious art too—can you imagine the Sistine Chapel with big ol’ dicks on the ceiling?
Despite the detour in art, bigger penises have always been associated with “manliness” and “manhood.” Competitions between men are called “dick-swinging contests.” Long before the current president, commenting on penis size was fair game in elections. During the election of 1800, Jefferson’s friend James Callendar, an influential journalist at the time, accused John Adams of having a “hideous hermaphroditical character, which has neither the force and firmness of a man, nor the gentleness and sensibility of a woman.” In other words, he was accusing Adams of having a small, deformed dick.
How can men today not be anxious? This size anxiety isn’t new at all. It’s entirely historical. But Thomas Jefferson didn’t have an iPhone, and it’s going to be hard to cut through the shit online to remind men that size isn’t everything.
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