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As some of my friends on WordPress and MyFace know, my husband and I recently offered our home to a 42-year-old friend whom I met through a blog about a year ago and her 11-year-old son. For purposes of this post, I will call them Vickie and John.
Vickie has had a life full of challenges. She comes from a dysfunctional family where there was a history of childhood physical, emotional and sexual abuse. Her father abused both her and her younger sister. The younger sister, Vickie’s only sibling, died some years back of cancer at the age of 32. Vickie no longer has any contact with her parents. The dynamics were just too dysfunctional to deal with and she did not want to expose her son to those dynamics.
As is often and sadly the case, Vickie married a man who was abusive. She was married to him for 14 years. The final straw was when he started to beat up on their young son. At that point, Vickie loaded up everything she could into a rundown Toyota Corolla and set off on her own from Fort Worth, eventually settling in San Antonio, Texas.
During the time preceeding her divorce, she met a man through an Internet group who lived in the U.K. A longterm relationship ensued, with Mike making many short visits here to the U.S. and Vickie and John spending six months at one stretch in England with him. However, Vickie and John couldn’t stay in England as much as they wanted to because of custody issues concerning John, a minor, even though his father really had no role in taking care of John. He’s a gameplayer and a manipulator and just wants to make sure that no one else gets what they want. Vickie and John returned to the U.S., leaving Mike in England.
Vickie and Mike married when he was in Texas for a visit a year ago. He’s been back for one visit since then. The plan was to begin the legal immigration process in earnest after the first of this year when Vickie got her income tax refund and could afford to hire an immigration lawyer to help them move this process along with as few glitches as possible. They were trying to get Mike here on a spousal visa, requiring that the U.S. spouse be gainfully employed.
Vickie lost her job the end of January when her company eliminated 300 jobs nationwide due to the severe recession that is going on in our country. She was living paycheck to paycheck with no substantial savings to speak of. She received a month’s severance pay from her employer. That and a tax refund she had yet to receive was what she had to fall back on short-term.
She wanted to leave Texas and put some miles between her and her ex-spouse who is psychopathic and skilled at playing tormenting mind-games, leaving her constantly on edge and vigilant about her and John’s safety and wellbeing. The bottom line is that Dave and I offered her and John our home until she could get on her feet again. Dave flew to San Antonio on February 23, rented a U-Haul truck, and drove Vickie, John and their possessions to Minnesota.
They have been here two weeks now. All is going well. John started school on Monday this week and loves his new school and his classes. Vickie is applying for jobs. We have shopped for interview clothes for her. There have been a steady supply of hugs and “love you’s” in our home. We’re all working together as a family, as a team. For the first time in Vickie and John’s lives, they feel like they have a family, a support system. It’s been an awesome feeling to watch them take all this in, to realize that they’re not alone in the world to struggle with their issues, that there are others right there for them, ready to lend a hand.
The response from family (mostly Dave’s) and friends has been overwhelmingly supportive and positive. However, yesterday I received this email from my 73-year-old cousin in Ohio:
I wrote this little piece about ten years ago. I have taken it from my “archives” and reprinted it here because it addresses another facet of my personality and development as a woman who was born in 1955. It is as follows:
I have been a writer since early adolescence. That was when I began to express my fears, anxieties, and frustrations about my chaotic homelife, and just the generally chaotic business of growing up, by way of short-story fiction. I needed a strong, guiding figure in my life so I created my own “parent” in the fictional guise of Michael James Peters, a pediatrician who was at that time in his early 40s with a wife and six kids. I started out writing about his interactions with his adolescent patients, adolescent medicine being his specialty area, and left no area off-limits. (I seemed to be particularly fascinated with 16-year-olds contracting STDs. Considering that this was 1969, I was a little before my time!) I delved into a highly sensitive area when I created one of Mike Peters’ patients, a 13-year-old boy by the name of Randy Kelly who was in an abusive home and took Mike into his confidence. When Randy was assaulted by his stepfather and required hospitalization, it was Mike and his wife, Gloria, who stepped up to the plate to take Randy in as a foster son. (Can you imagine my mother’s horror when she discovered this story, penciled in a school notebook by her eighth grade daughter? The original draft somehow just *vanished!*)
I made many discoveries about myself through this writing over the years and let my therapist read some of those stories some years back. Since my own self-esteem issues were part of the therapeutic discussions, he asked me, “Why did you make Gloria this nonexistent character? What’s up with that?” This is what I wrote in response to that question:
In the original “Behind Door #3″ story, Gloria is a nonexistent character. All the interaction takes place between Mike (her husband) and Randy while Gloria typically sleeps through these major episodes. Bruce [my therapist] was the one who pointed this out to me. He observed that Mike is this strong, sensitive, professional, intelligent (and good-looking) man, and he’s married to this woman who apparently has no personality and no major contributions to make. Bruce asked me if I really thought that a man such as Mike Peters would be married to such a nondescript woman. He further pressed me to think about why I had developed her that way to begin with.
I thought long and hard about it and realized that I did not have a very positive impression of womanhood. I really didn’t have positive female role models in my personal life when I was growing up. I wanted to be exactly the opposite of my mother, as a matter of fact! My father was my supportive parent, the one I turned to for understanding, comfort and strength.
The social climate at the time I was growing up further reinforced my impression of women as ornamental rather than functional, as weak rather than competent. Of course, a lot of it was gleaned from television: the early sit-coms of “The Donna Reed Show,” “Leave It To Beaver,” “Ozzie & Harriet,” “Father Knows Best.” The husband and father was always going off to work at the office to accomplish great things and provide for his family, while his wife just stayed at home in her dress, high heels, and pearls and put wonderful meals on the table for her family to enjoy when they came home. If anything serious happened on the show, “Dad/Dear” had to be called in to the rescue to deal with the crisis.
The commercials, however, were the worst of all. Women fretted about such important things in life as “ring around the collar” and “ugly wax build-up” on their kitchen floors. They were devastated if their husbands complained about stale sandwiches in their lunchboxes because she didn’t use the right plastic wrap or their glassware came out of the dishwasher with water spots. My personal feeling was, “If this is what women do with their lives, just take me out and shoot me now!”
Likewise, my upbringing and my Catholic schooling reinforced this message that women were weak and dependent. Even though I was a straight-A student and began talking about being a doctor when I was about twelve, my mother would look at me like I had my head up my butt and advise, “You’d better take typing and shorthand, anyway….just in case your husband is ever out of work. Then you’ll have something to fall back on.”
Of course, the nuns thought it great when a Catholic girl had the noble aspirations to be a good wife and mother. Academic performance didn’t really count for much. The straight-A college preppies got no more encouragement towards career goals and personal achievements than their average counterparts in Home Ec and Secretarial Skills 101.
I realize that I did not like the messages I was getting about women’s roles in our culture. Unconsciously, I aligned myself with the male world where I felt more emotionally comfortable, where individuals were encouraged to achieve and succeed, where it was expected that one would show strength and competency.
It took me quite awhile to realize that women are strong, competent, intelligent people, too. That was when I consciously began to work on developing the character of Gloria Peters, trying to turn her into a woman I could be proud of. Of course, in the process, I was trying to change my own attitudes about myself and my perception of the female role…
This latest incident — meeting someone, enjoying the experience of meeting them, only to have the next date abruptly cancelled because “I can’t do this!” — brings back a lot of memories. I’ve been down this road before.
In my early 20s, I was actively dating women in the handful of years immediately following our move here to the BiCities. After all, I was prime dating material from the aspects that I was a twenty-something and very attractive! (I’d post a pic from that era to back up that claim, but that would ruin my anonymity, although I don’t think anyone who didn’t already know me would recognize my pics from 1978 or so. Maybe sometime….)
I was doing something similar to what I am now in terms of meeting women — the “personals,” although at that time, there was no Internet. There were Personals printed in the weekly publications, like The Twin Cities Reader and City Pages, that you could pick up in the wire bins in the lobbies of restaurants and bars, student hang-outs at the colleges, other business establishments. At that time, one would write up a Personals ad, fee usually charged by the number of words, and either deliver it in person or mail it to the newspaper. They would print it for the specified number of weeks you paid for. They would assign you an anonymous box number, and you could either have your snail-mail forwarded to an address for a fee or go to the newspaper office and pick it up. You then communicated with your respondents in one of two ways: a telephone call or a written letter, depending on the information they gave you.
This is how I met Rae in the fall of 1978. She was four years older than me, an R.N. with a very intense position of being a neonatal ICU nurse in our large county hospital in downtown Minneapolis, and she lived only half-a-dozen blocks from me. She was living with her male lover who was in his last year of medical school at the University of Minnesota. She had never had a sexual relationship with a woman before but was interested in exploring her attraction.
We got along very well and a sexual relationship did ensue. She even posted a notification in the Twin Cities Reader at one point, saying, “K — I’ve never met anyone as warm and wonderful as you. I think I’m falling in love. Love, R., R.N.” I carried that little scrap of paper with me in my wallet for a long time!
But then things got “funny.” I felt it coming on. The end of that phase of our relationship came on the evening of our six-month “anniversary,” when we went out to a very nice Japanese restaurant and I gave her a card and small gift in celebration. I was driving, and when I took her back to her apartment (she was now living alone, having broke up with the med school guy very recently), she gave me a quick peck, thanked me for the nice evening, said that it was a work night and she had to get some rest, and hopped out of the car. I shrugged, decided then and there that she would call me next; I would make no further invitations.
I did not hear from her. Six months later or so after our date at the Japanese restaurant, another notification appeared in the Twin Cities Reader. It said, “K — Bisexuality is for me a very confusing place to be, but I will always remember and cherish our time together. R., R.N.” Since I was her first woman and she had had a longstanding history with men, including a brief marriage and divorce, I assumed that she had returned to the heterosexual lifestyle and left the unconventionality of bisexuality behind.
More than a year went by since that notification she put in the Reader. Then I got a Christmas greeting from her in December 1980, explaining that she had been in an uncomfortable spot with me a year-and-a-half earlier, but she seemed to be in a better place. She’d like to see me and “catch up.” We then talked on the phone a couple of times and she invited me over to her apartment for a visit. We had a lovely evening together. Just fun! We talked, laughed, caught up with each other, had some hot apple cider laced with a little “holiday cheer.” Just had a nice evening together. As the evening wore on, we sat closer to each other on the couch, and I think there were a couple of rather chaste kisses as the evening drew to a close. Nothing heavy. We wanted to see each other again and talked about doing so.
We talked on the phone a few more times and made plans to get together after the first of the year for a girls-afternoon at a St. Paul former strip club that had stopped featuring “exotic female dancers” but had gone the route of male strippers. We were going to go and laughed at the prospect! I was looking forward to it, just for the lighthearted silliness of it. I needed that in a life that was pretty bogged down with full-time college courses and part-time jobs.
The day before we were scheduled to go to the Payne Reliever (on Payne Ave. in St. Paul), I received a letter from her. (No email then, remember?) She said, “I can’t see you again. I thought I could but I can’t.” I don’t remember what all it said, but it was all kind of crazy. I’ve never had anything affect me like that letter did. It was like a sharp slap in the face, and I burst into tears. I sat there at my desk and cried for quite awhile. Of course, I wrote her back and said that I was fine with being friends; I hadn’t gone into it expecting that we’d be lovers again. I enjoyed her company, and what was so complicated about that that she couldn’t see me again, enjoy being friends with me? I didn’t get any response to that.
THIRTEEN YEARS goes by. A letter arrives. I was still living at the same address I was when we had known each other in the late ’70s, early 80s. (Same address, same husband. Talk about stability!) It had one of those absurd beginnings: “Remember me?” That is such a crazy introduction to a letter when of course you remember this person! It would be like your high school best friend or your ex-fiance in college beginning a letter that way after a lengthy absence. Of course you remember who they are! But anyway, she went on to say that she had actually left Minnesota for quite awhile back in the 80s, had been overseas with some medical group, had been working in California, etc., etc. She had had a couple of lesbian relationships and had been “out” as a lesbian for all that time, much to my surprise. However, she had moved back to the Twin Cities, had gotten involved with a Buddhist Temple (we were alike in that — ex-Catholics who became more Buddhist than anything), met a man at the Temple and married him recently, much to her friends’ surprise. She was reconnecting with a “bisexual” side of herself.
We made plans to meet once again. We went to the May Day celebration at Powderhorn Park in my neighborhood, a celebration that always draws a large GLBT gathering. We went out to lunch a couple of times after that. Talked on the phone. We were estabishing a relationship again after 13 years apart, although a platonic relationship, I presumed.
Then…nothing after a couple of months. No return phone calls. No response to the notes and cards I sent. I wasn’t surprised. I didn’t cry. I had become kind of callused by that point.
Looking in the phone book a year or so later, I noted that her husband was still at the same address she had given me but had reverted to his “maiden” name. They had hyphenated their last names when they got married and both of them then went by the hyphenated name. He was back to being just plain old “Johnson” instead of Robins-Johnson, as they had been listed before, and there was no listing for her. Furthermore, I knew she had changed jobs because I recently had accepted a position at the HMO she was working for, and I knew from checking the employee roster that she wasn’t there. She had done a “disappearing act” again. Taken a powder.
So, yeah, the long and the short of it is that this crazy kind of thing has happened before, the “I can’t see you again” on the basis of a pleasant lunch or a nice evening. For some people, connecting with someone and enjoying a friendship has to be a very complicated thing. For some people, accepting the fluidity of their sexual orientation has to be a very traumatic and confusing thing.
….sigh….
I think I’ve probably run my course on this last topic of interest: penis size and how it should be irrelevant in a sexual relationship. I think I’ve milked it for all it’s worth now. That’s too bad in a way because I’ve gotten many more hits on my blog in the last few days than I have in quite awhile. I used the tag “penis size” on those blog entries. People apparently use that a lot as a search term and I’m getting hits on my blog. That’s quite amusing, actually, and just a further symptom of this size preoccupation I’ve discussed. Perhaps I’ll just put “penis size” as a tag on all of my posts, regardless of whether it’s about home mortgages, travel plans, or work-related stresses and enjoy more traffic on my blog!
“I have always considered myself as having an average ‘package..’ This statement was rendered by my long-time email correspondent, a man of Italian descent who could give any porn star a run for his money in terms of size of his “package” (provided that the porn star’s anatomy is not in the freak size range!) My friend gives the expression ”hiding the salami” a whole new meaning! He’s as well-hung as the proverbial “circus pony,” although probably not as well-trained!
I mentioned to my husband, the email correspondent’s college housemate from the 70s, that The Italian Circus Pony expressed this opinion about having an “average package.” I asked Dave if he thought that our friend was sincerely this ignorant about his own size. Dave made choking noises and answered in the negative.
My correspondent is not alone in either this false modesty or plain ignorance of size. There is one man in my sexual history who I would have to say probaby trumps The Italian Circus Pony by an inch at least in circumference — which in my estimation is what a woman really senses inside her vagina rather than length. This was so damn funny in a way because this guy was a scrawny little guy. Probably 5′6″ or 5′7″ inches in height and 125 pounds soaking wet. He had a concave chest and actually a rather frail, sickly appearance. Yet, when he attained an erection, it was this fat sucker about as big around as a pop can. (Okay, I’m exaggerating a little….) You know what he said to me when my eyes got huge upon that revelation? “I’m about average, I guess.”
On the other hand, one man whose cock I had a nodding acquaintance with and who was almost as big as The ICP was worried that it wasn’t big enough! He voiced his concern that it was too small on the night he, his wife, and I celebrated their 5th wedding anniversary and I saw what he had. His wife told me that he has always been worried about that and no amount of reassurance on her part — and he’s her third husband! – has convinced him that he’s “just fine” in the size deparment. And I thought, “My god, you’ve got to be kidding me! What’s WITH this guy?” He was 47-years-old — no adolescent anymore! — and was perfectly normal to above-average on the scale and was worried about being too small! Pure craziness!
One guy from my late teens and early 20s whom I thought was pretty damn nice in the size department — probably the same size as the insecure guy above — actually agreed with me. He had his measurements recorded, both length and circumference, and knew exactly what they were. (A lot of guys do, I think, although they won’t admit it.) He wasn’t too proud to say, “Yeah, I think I’m a cut above average. Here are my stats!” Aside from his brief foray into “bisexuality” as a teen, he was gay. My personal opinion is that most guys sort of really know where they measure up with their peers, but to admit that you’re “well hung” is to admit that you notice male genitalia, and you wouldn’t want anyone to think you’re queer for that! Better to shrug and say, “I’m just average…” even if you know better. That way, you don’t have to be accused of being either arrogant or gay — unless you’re truly either or both!
Are men really as ignorant about all this as they act? Do they develop distorted perceptions from getting most of their size comparisons from pornography? This could be when it comes to heterosexual men. I would venture a guess when it comes to straight men, they don’t actually see a lot of erect penises from your Average Joe. They’ve seen their own erections, most have seen a porn flick or two where the actors are actually chosen for their large size, and the rest of what they’ve seen are flaccid penises in Physical Education showers and locker rooms and health clubs. Flaccid penises are not a true indicator of size because erection can change those dimensions a great deal. There is not enough good “education” out there for your average straight guy to know what is actually “normal” and what isn’t!
It might be nice if guys had a realistic perspective on this matter. Do you think we need a new “reality” TV show? Who’s the Biggest Dick? Hosted by Peter Johnson….
In the post, “He Said…She Said,” I was forced to fill in my own comment for the last “He Said” entry. As of yesterday afternoon, it can now officially be replaced with this:
He: You are quite right that many men have an anxiety about their penis size. I assure you that I am not one of them. I have what I have and I am content with the fact. I hope this is oil on the water for you and calms you down. I didn’t attack you, but merely asserted that I am not one those penis anxious men. I don’t think of myself as large or small. I’m just ME. WYSIWYG.
Me: I never insinuated that you were one of those insecure males in anything I said. I never said any personally directed towards you at all regarding the size obsession discussion. I was discussing the situation in general terms, inspired by some recent comments by both of us, and yes, there are many, many men who are concerned and obsessed about their size. I didn’t “miss the mark a bit” on that at all in my “diatribe.” You missed the mark if you thought that any of it was personally directed towards you.
Why should you be one of those men concerned about his size? You know you’re “well hung.” You’ve known that since you were a boy, since you were an adolescent, since you were a college student at the student house, flouncing down the stairs in only a t-shirt and no pants, forcing Morris The “Housemother” to admonish, “Man, cover yourself up! We don’t need to be seeing your weiner bouncing around!” To worry about being too small in your case would be the same severity of body image distortion as what an anorexic, starving-at-her-own-hands woman has when she sees herself as too fat. You know full well where you measure up. We both know that.
[End of email excerpts]
This is just another form of male insecurity at play. I write a discourse about penis size and how men should quit playing this game and learn what really counts and this well-hung man immediately jumps to the conclusion that it’s all about him! He gets defensive and jumps in right away with “assertive” assurances that he’s NOT one of THOSE men who are concerned with his penis size!
Well, duh. Why should he be?
Men…. [sadly shakes head]
I have just spent several posts coming across as a person who has her sexual self-esteem and sex life together. I have a confession to make. I sound really good on paper. When it comes to my own personal life, I have difficulty talking to my own husband of 35 years about these situations in more than abstract terms. Talking with him directly about how some of these issues and situations affect our very own sex life is a very daunting task for me and one that I staunchly avoid unless forced into it because something has bothered me to that extreme. I live in fear of evoking his defensivness and making him feel threatened, of wounding his perceived male ego, of distancing him because I’ve brought up a potentially sensitive subject, and I handle him with kid gloves to the extent of remaining silent when I’d really like to talk about something with him.
This is my problem. Anyone have any advice for the “advice columnist?”
A friend of mine sent me an email response to my post, “Bigger is Better.” She said: I like what you have written. I would add a few thoughts of my own. The only size that matters is the size and quality of the brain that is attached to the said member… Human sexual relations is not about biology. Sex is so much more than about creating babies. As someone who has created two outstanding babies I know a thing or two about that. One thing I have to say about waiting to have sexual intercourse until one has reached sexual maturity is that the experimentation of different ways of having sex is invaluable. Straight people who ask me, “But how can two women or two men have sex? “ I just have to think that they must not be having very good sex! The point of this rambling is that sex is good and it can be great, but it is so much more than intercourse.
Oh, honey, I couldn’t agree with you more! Lovemaking between two human beings is so much more than penetrating a partner’s body with a penis! That act is enjoyable in its own way, and it is certainly symbolic of an intimate union between lovers, but that intimacy depicted by union of penis and vagina/anus is just that: symbolic. It says nothing about the emotional intimacy and trust, the depth of communication and commitment that exists between a couple engaged in this act. All of those other and more important aspects of sexual and emotional intimacy can exist in the absence of intercourse.
My own experiences with this have taught me some valuable lessons. Of course, my bisexuality has taught me that a penis doesn’t even need to be part of the equation when it comes to sexual pleasure and satisfaction. Two women together possess everything they need to satisfy each other: long, sensuous kisses, caresses, lips, tongues and fingers creatively and expertly applied to all the sensitive, responsive areas of the partner’s body, open communication, uninhibited desire and a willingness to please, humor and playfulness. The most important sex organ that needs to be present is the mind and its attendant imagination! The size and expanse of the human mind is the vital component of a satisfying sexual experience. It doesn’t matter what other sexual organs are present and/or functional in the encounter!
My long-time male email correspondent whose conversations were depicted in the recent post “He Said…She Said, commented that he hates it when he ejaculates in what he considered to be too short a time. He likes to prolong “lovemaking” for one to two hours…. [Edit: When asked to clarify what exactly he meant by “lovemaking,” he said, “Yes, by lovemaking I meant having sex.” He substituted one vague term for another, clarifying nothing as to what he specifically was thinking.] In response to that, I must say that if a man cannot continue lovemaking for the mutually desired time that both partners want in the absence of a firm enough erection to effect penetration, “Ur Doin It Wrong!” It doesn’t matter in the least when ejaculation occurs during a session of lovemaking. This does not prevent a man from continuing to please his partner with caresses, massage, digital penetration, oral sex, the creative use of toys, kissing, snuggling, sexy talk. The sky’s the limit, and only a small percentage of it ever requires an erection!
In my own sexual experiences during a 35-year marriage, the emphasis on intercourse has become less and less with time. This does not imply in the least that we do not have an enjoyable sex life. In fact, I think the overall quality of our sex life has improved with time and age as we’ve let go of these expectations that each act of lovemaking include intercourse and that the man has to “last” long enough to please his partner and bring her to orgasm during penetration. Laying aside those expectation has allowed us to focus on the pleasure involved rather than the performance. There are no longer any performance anxieties. He can have his orgasm first, I can have my orgasm first (and second and third!); it doesn’t matter in the least who does what when as long as the give-and-take exists and the partner is willing to explore and employ all the available avenues to sexual pleasure. The presence or absence of an erection has ceased to be an all-consuming issue and has assumed its more appropriate place in the scheme of things. I’m glad. It’s a step towards the sexual enlightenment that human beings can attain.
Lovemaking between human beings is so much more than what some people have been led to believe!
Like I mentioned in a previous post, I have a long-distance relationship based on email correspondence with a man I’ve known over the span of 38 years. On three separate occasions during the years of this relationship, I have seen this man’s erect penis, the first such occasion occurring in 1971 when I was 15-years-old. Recently, we had this email exchange, and I’ve copied the noteworthy parts directly from those emails so as not to misrepresent anything in the translation.
Me: “When it comes to [your lady friend's] sexual appetite, she may have a craving for a big cock…”
Him: “Big Cock”, thanks for the complement, but then you also said once, “Its not as big as I remembered!”
Me: Yes, you have a big cock. It’s not a compliment; it’s a fact. I’ve never really understood “complimenting” a man about the size of his erect penis when it’s a genetic characteristic that he has no control over, the same as the size of his feet or the color of his eyes. Yet, somehow, this has become a really, really important deal to a lot of men! They’re either proud of the size of their organ or embarrassed or worried that it isn’t big enough. The male anxiety and preoccupation over this inherited physical trait is a waste of energy and certainly has nothing to do with a man’s worth as a human being or a lover.
When I said years later (and I’ll take your word at this point that I said this) that your cock wasn’t as big as I remembered it, I was not inferring that the size of your cock had shrunk. It hadn’t. What I was thinking about was my perception as a 15-year-old the first time I saw and touched your erect penis. At that time, I had only seen and touched one other adult penis. In comparison, yours was quite enough to inspire awe and fear in the heart of an inexperienced teenager! Years later, I was not quite as awed and impressed because I had had a lot more experience by then. I had been intimately acquainted with a variety of erect organs of different sizes and shapes, some smaller than you, some the same size as you, and I think at least one a little bit bigger. You were the same size as you were 1971, but I just wasn’t as impressionable as I was in 1971. That was the difference!
[I then directed him to read my blog post, inspired by this email conversation, "It's All In The Genes."]
Him: I gotta begin this with saying that you missed the mark a bit. I was more interested in your perception rather than any “anxiety” I may have. Really, never been concerned with size; much more concerned with skill and giving pleasure to my partner. I’ve been in cavernous vaginas and snug cunnies and I have managed to do well by the lady. Hate it when I ejaculate in what I consider too short a time. I like to stretch out lovemaking for one or two hours; though I have done a quickie in 6 minutes….
Reading that blog was an interesting diatribe.
Me: I gotta begin this by saying I don’t know what subject you’re talking about here by saying I ”missed the mark a bit.” Please explain so that I understand what you’re referring to. Then you said, “I was more interested in your perception rather than any ‘anxiety’ I may have.” My perception of what? And when did I mention any ‘anxiety’ you may have? Go back to my last email and tell me exactly what you’re talking about here so that I can track your train of thought. I’m kind of lost and would like to have a conversation but I don’t know what your comments are referring to.
So, my blog entry was a “diatribe” to you. This is my understanding of the definition “diatribe:”
1 (archaic) : a prolonged discourse
2: a bitter and abusive speech or writing
3: ironic or satirical criticism
None of these definitions, particularly the last two, are complimentary. I put a lot of thought into what I wrote, and my husband and others actually thought it was a good piece of writing. Dave said it was thoughtfully organized, rational, and clearly made a point. He liked it and complimented me on a well-crafted piece. It is insulting that you found my thoughts on the matter to be a “diatribe.”
He: Well, HE hasn’t said anything further yet and may not for awhile since he often reads his email only once a week or so!
Actually, at no time did I say in any of my emails or blogs that this particular man has any insecurities about the size of his penis. Why should he? He’s one of these “cockier” males I mentioned in my post, the ones who know from puberty onward that they’ve got that extra inch or two below the belt. These are the men who will never worry about what they bring to a sexual encounter because they know where they rank in the “pecking order.” Why give it a second thought when you’ve known this about yourself since you were twelve?
No, both my emails and my posts were discussing this situation in general terms rather than pointing out the insecurities of any one man in particular. And I don’t think I “missed the mark a bit” on the observations I made in my emails or posts.
So, I can only assume that this one man actually did take my statements and my post quite personally. Perhaps this one man is a bit miffed that I’m not impressed with the size of his penis and is feeling a bit put out about it!
In my last post, I suggested that men make attempts to overcome their primitive hardwiring and cease playing competition games with the size of their penises, a practice that adversely affects the self-esteem of many of them. I certainly don’t want to come across as a “man basher” because of this sentiment. I’m asking men to see this behavior for what it is because I am strongly pro-male. I’m strongly HUMAN BEING, and I’ve seen firsthand how this social behavior, this size critiquing to determine informally who is the “alpha male,” ultimately degrades a man’s self-esteem and self-confidence from a young age, sometimes never to fully recover even in the face of adult maturity and logical argument.
I’ll even be an “equal opportunity employer” here for a moment since women go through the same thing with the size of their breasts. Even though size has nothing to do with the responsiveness of the breasts and nipples to sexual stimulation and pleasure, small-to-average size women perceive themselves as less sexually attractive than their “well-endowed” sisters. Some suffer low self-esteem over this issue. Many have chosen to have augmentation surgery in order to have the sexually attractive breasts they perceive men and society want. Fortunately, this is a relatively simple (although expensive) option for women since the function of the breasts is not affected by the surgery in the absence of lactation. Let’s face it, the function of the breasts is large ornamental, except for those limited times in some women’s lives when they provide nutrition for an infant. Other than that, breasts sell products of all kinds, support the women’s fashion industry, pad cosmetic surgeons’ wallets, and provide a fertile breeding ground for cancer cells. Women would do well to be a little less preoccupied with their breasts unless it is to provide them with monthly exams and periodic mammograms!
I’d be the last one to say, however, that size is never a factor when it comes to certain kinds of sexual stimulation. There are occasions when certain sizes fit better together during sexual penetration. Bigger can be just as detrimental to sexual pleasure as smaller because not all women are “size queens” and certain dimensions can be downright uncomfortable to some women, depending on their experience level, the position of their pelvic organs, the presence of vaginal or perineal scar tissue due to childbirth, and the woman’s hormonal state. On the other hand, an average to smaller size penis, coupled with a vagina and supporting pelvic ligaments that have been through the effects of childbirth, surgery, and/or aging, may result in a situation where neither partner is getting the full pleasurable benefit from sexual intercourse.
So, what do you do when the the size of the object being inserted doesn’t match the dimensions of the space it’s being inserted into and some lessening of pleasure is the result for one or both partners? There is one answer that is correct no matter what the details are of the particular situation: use the big brain that human beings are blessed with. Human beings have the biggest and most complex brain of any of the animals on earth. It allows them to analyze a situation and consider the array of choices that may be available. It allows them to modify a situation and find ways of solving a problem. Unlike our parrot and orangutan and cheetah counterparts, there isn’t one way and one way only to accomplish sexual pleasure and union. Lay aside preconceived notions and explore the options!
“Exploring the options” may be any one or a combination of many, many different things. Put aside embarrassment and defensiveness and talk to your partner about it. Ask her opinion. Listen to her likes and dislikes. Use your collective big brains to consider all the choices on the list. It may come down to a very reasonable conclusion that intercourse is not the end-all-and-be-all it was once assumed to be. There are many ways to sexual pleasure, and if you’re not trying to make a baby, there is no biological reason for every occasion of lovemaking to include intercourse. There are different kinds of kisses and caresses, the creative use of lips, tongues and fingers. There is the concept of “outercourse” to explore, and an array of playthings and enhancements readily available for consideration. Take her shopping at the Smitten Kitten Boutique or give her a gift certificate to The Blowfish catalog. If it’s G-Spot stimulation she needs or a sensation of deep pressure in her vagina or anus, she shall have it if she wants it with just a little exploration and encouragement. And always remember that sex toys are in no way a replacement for your loving, enthusiastic participation in this pleasurable, creative process!
If correcting the erectile dysfunction that many middle-aged and older men experience would return some pleasure to your sex life, consider what you can do about it. Men commonly experience this as a side-effect of hypertension, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease and the medications that are used to treat these conditions. Would improving your overall health by losing some weight, diet modifications, and exercise help to control these conditions and reduce the amount of medication required to treat these conditions? It’s sound advice, regardless of its effect on E.D. Perhaps you’re a candidate for asking your physician “if Levitra is right for you!” If you think this may improve the sexual experience that you share with your partner, swallow your pride and embarrassment and ask! Thousands upon thousands of these prescriptions are written for men with diminished erectile response, and doctors don’t even blink an eye at the request.
In conclusion, human beings are different from animals. Human beings have the largest, most complex brain of any of the life forms on this Class M planet. In this sense, and in this sense only, bigger is better. Use that big brain to realize that sex is so much more than procreation of the species, that it is an expression of joy, pleasure, trust and sharing in an intimate relationship. There are so, so many ways to do that, and none of them involve the size of a penis or the cup size of a pair of breasts. Use that complex brain wisely to consider all the choices and all the reasons why size doesn’t matter when it comes to sexual love between two human beings. Be a self-confident lover who knows his unique human intelligence, his capacity for love, gives him everything he needs to be a creative, wonderful, satisfying partner.
And that is the bottom line.
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