don’t they warn you about the colour? And the gloss finish?
As far as Maggie Paley (
The Book of the Penis
) is concerned, you can say that in spades: ‘it was as ugly as a monster from outer space, and it seemed to have him in its power’. Kinsey (
Sexual Behavior in the Human Female
) found that a very small number of women are so repulsed by the aroused member that their erotic response is forever inhibited, an unhappy situation in which the advice given to a character in Alan Ayckbourn’s
Bedroom Farce
might be apposite: ‘My mother used to say, Delia, if S E X ever rears its ugly head, close your eyes before you see the rest of it.’ The vast majority of women, of course, come to terms with the reality of masculine sexual mechanics: a rite of passage. Being practical by nature, they see an erection for what it is, the reflex of a body part that is fit for purpose: having sex – even if they are likely to be in agreement with Esther Vilar in thinking that ‘It seems incredible . . . that a man cannot withdraw his penis after use and make it disappear like the aerial on a portable radio.’ Yet, as Susan Bordo (
The Male Body
) observes, ‘What other feature of the human body is as capable of making the welling of desire, the overtaking of the body by desire, so manifest to another?’ It is a matter of constant fascination, and flattery, that they themselves are instrumental in conjuring the penis into life.
Unsurprisingly women are intrigued to know what having an erection feels like from penis-possessors’ side of the sexual equation and penis-possessors find that almost impossible to explain. ‘It seems light and heavy at the same time, like a piece of lead piping with wings on it,’ suggested Henry Miller (
Tropic of Cancer);
‘On the borderline of substance and illusion,’ offered John Updike (
Bech: A Book)
. Most men would say that words are inadequate. At its greatest intensity a man may feel he is all erection and, perhaps, like Boswell, feel a ‘godlike vigour’ in its possession. In her night-time reverie, Molly Bloom ponders what it would be like to be a man ‘just to try with that thing they have swelling upon you’. It isn’t really a serious proposition – penises are for women to share, and give back. A few years ago, a publisher asked thirty women to contribute to a book entitled
Dick for a Day
and Germaine Greer in her response spoke for womankind in writing: ‘The best bit would be getting rid of it.’
Is penis size important to women? This female contributor to
FHM
magazine was in no doubt:
In case you’re one of those guys who’s been mollycoddled by a sympathetic girlfriend, the question ‘Does Size Matter?’ is not up for debate. The jury delivered its verdict on that long ago, and yes – it bloody well does. Cocks don’t do handstands, cook gourmet meals or speak Urdu. They go in-out, in-out. Size matters!
The corollary, of course, is that some women positively dislike the large penis, like Sandra Corleone in Mario Puzo’s
The Godfather:
When I saw that pole of Sonny’s for the first time and realised he was going to stick it into
me
, I yelled bloody murder . . . when I heard he was doing the job on other girls I went to church and lit a candle.
But what of the majority of women? Da Vinci thought that ‘woman’s desire is the opposite of man’s. She wishes the size of the man’s member to be as large as possible, while the man desires the opposite for the woman’s genital parts.’ Leaving the second observation aside, da Vinci was contradicted on the first by Masters and Johnson, who in the 1970s concluded that size was unimportant to a woman’s sexual satisfaction. Researchers, now, are in some disagreement with that finding. If a penis is bulky (as opposed to lengthy), it makes greater contact with the outer parts of the vagina and therefore, it’s thought, sends vibrations to the clitoris, the trigger of female sexual gratification. The ongoing
As far as Maggie Paley (
The Book of the Penis
) is concerned, you can say that in spades: ‘it was as ugly as a monster from outer space, and it seemed to have him in its power’. Kinsey (
Sexual Behavior in the Human Female
) found that a very small number of women are so repulsed by the aroused member that their erotic response is forever inhibited, an unhappy situation in which the advice given to a character in Alan Ayckbourn’s
Bedroom Farce
might be apposite: ‘My mother used to say, Delia, if S E X ever rears its ugly head, close your eyes before you see the rest of it.’ The vast majority of women, of course, come to terms with the reality of masculine sexual mechanics: a rite of passage. Being practical by nature, they see an erection for what it is, the reflex of a body part that is fit for purpose: having sex – even if they are likely to be in agreement with Esther Vilar in thinking that ‘It seems incredible . . . that a man cannot withdraw his penis after use and make it disappear like the aerial on a portable radio.’ Yet, as Susan Bordo (
The Male Body
) observes, ‘What other feature of the human body is as capable of making the welling of desire, the overtaking of the body by desire, so manifest to another?’ It is a matter of constant fascination, and flattery, that they themselves are instrumental in conjuring the penis into life.
Unsurprisingly women are intrigued to know what having an erection feels like from penis-possessors’ side of the sexual equation and penis-possessors find that almost impossible to explain. ‘It seems light and heavy at the same time, like a piece of lead piping with wings on it,’ suggested Henry Miller (
Tropic of Cancer);
‘On the borderline of substance and illusion,’ offered John Updike (
Bech: A Book)
. Most men would say that words are inadequate. At its greatest intensity a man may feel he is all erection and, perhaps, like Boswell, feel a ‘godlike vigour’ in its possession. In her night-time reverie, Molly Bloom ponders what it would be like to be a man ‘just to try with that thing they have swelling upon you’. It isn’t really a serious proposition – penises are for women to share, and give back. A few years ago, a publisher asked thirty women to contribute to a book entitled
Dick for a Day
and Germaine Greer in her response spoke for womankind in writing: ‘The best bit would be getting rid of it.’
Is penis size important to women? This female contributor to
FHM
magazine was in no doubt:
In case you’re one of those guys who’s been mollycoddled by a sympathetic girlfriend, the question ‘Does Size Matter?’ is not up for debate. The jury delivered its verdict on that long ago, and yes – it bloody well does. Cocks don’t do handstands, cook gourmet meals or speak Urdu. They go in-out, in-out. Size matters!
The corollary, of course, is that some women positively dislike the large penis, like Sandra Corleone in Mario Puzo’s
The Godfather:
When I saw that pole of Sonny’s for the first time and realised he was going to stick it into
me
, I yelled bloody murder . . . when I heard he was doing the job on other girls I went to church and lit a candle.
But what of the majority of women? Da Vinci thought that ‘woman’s desire is the opposite of man’s. She wishes the size of the man’s member to be as large as possible, while the man desires the opposite for the woman’s genital parts.’ Leaving the second observation aside, da Vinci was contradicted on the first by Masters and Johnson, who in the 1970s concluded that size was unimportant to a woman’s sexual satisfaction. Researchers, now, are in some disagreement with that finding. If a penis is bulky (as opposed to lengthy), it makes greater contact with the outer parts of the vagina and therefore, it’s thought, sends vibrations to the clitoris, the trigger of female sexual gratification. The ongoing
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