Body Shaming 101: Here’s the Long and Short of Penis Insecurities

Of the pressures of ‘measuring up’: when will there be penis positivity drives for men shamed for their size?

The body positivity movement has empowered plus-sized women worldwide to embrace their cellulite, as much as their curves. It has taken the pressure off new moms to shed their baby weight in 30 days or less! Yet, we continue to have a glaring lack of body positivity drives for men! Where are the "Peanut, And Proud Of It", the "Chota Packet, Bada Dhamaka" and the "Tiny, But Just Ask Your Mom How Potent" movements for men who struggle with debilitating penis-envy and crippling insecurity over size?

We, as a culture, have always glorified size. Be it breasts, penises or burritos, bigger is always better. (Except in the case of burritos, bigger is indeed better, and don’t you dare suggest otherwise!) The size-focused world we live in has given birth to massive (pun unintended) insecurities among phallus-owners.

We talk of body positivity, but lately body positivity seems to be centred around, and is almost exclusive to, plus-size women. While that’s awesome, and a step in the right direction, we need to be more inclusive of men too.

A Glaring Lack of Penis-Positivity Drives

The body positivity movement has embraced plus-sized women, women of colour, women with small breasts and large, and in some cases, men in crop tops. But what of the scores of people out there who struggle with penis-insecurity everyday? Why aren’t we, as a culture, scrambling to reassure men that a small size is desirable too? If ‘big can be beautiful’, when it comes to dress sizes, why can’t ‘small be sexy’, in regard to men?

Studies have proven, time and again, that the length of a penis doesn’t have much to do with pleasure during coitus. It is technique, rather than size that matters, in most cases. That being common knowledge, penis-shaming is still, largely prevalent in most cultures. In locker rooms everywhere, young boys are being pointed at and laughed, being called “baby carrot” or “tiny pecker”, and are letting that dictate who they grow up to be. This can cause immense harm to the psyches of young men, and is just as harmful and outrageous as slut-shaming is for women. Penis-shaming is the new victim-blaming, and needs to be addressed.

Women are often shamed for having breasts that are too big, or too small, and are increasingly standing up to the abuse and owning it. However, we still continue to have a glaring lack of penis-positivity drives.

If we can have pride parades where people of every identity and orientation come out and proudly proclaim their love for themselves, why can’t we have pride parades for what popular culture terms “little willies’’? To paraphrase Sheldon Cooper, small or little, all penises are aesthetically pleasing, and functional (hopefully).

Social media and popular culture have largely failed to address this glaring gap in the net of body-positivity inclusion. It is time men with micro-penises stepped up and owned the label. It is time we learnt to embrace the fact that penises come in a variety of sizes, colours and textures, and realised that being “hung like a mosquito” is nothing to be ashamed of.

Men are taught from a very young age to keep their feelings to themselves, and to never, ever share or express their fears, and popular culture represents a very tiny part of the population – with big, unattainable penises being the norm.

We may be aeons away from the day ‘less-blessed’ men pose proudly with their “teeny-weenies” and reclaim the word ‘micro-penis’, but we sure can make a difference, starting now.