Internalizing Failed Manhood: Size and Performance Anxieties among Members of the Penis Health Club

• In Event: 289 - Regular Session. Masculinities

Abstract

This paper examines men who have joined the online Penis Health Club in hopes of improving their penis size and sexual performance, and ultimately trying to repair their broken masculinity. A sweeping array of structural and cultural changes has elevated the importance of men’s bodies as a source of masculine identity. Men’s bodies are a key medium through which they can exhibit and enact power and control. Heterosexual competence, as measured by penis size and performance, is of foremost importance for boys’ and men’s sense of masculine selves. Anxiety-producing locker room experiences around other boys and men, devastating comments by peers and sexual partners, racial stereotypes, inconsistent sexual performances, and distorted images from pornography produce in many boys and men an internalized sense of body failure. That most of these men are of at least average size matters little. Their perceptions of inadequacy are socially and psychologically harmful, and occasionally debilitating. They conceal their bodies, avoid sex and relationships, and in some cases suffer from depression and suicidal thoughts. They join the Penis Health Club to repair and restore their masculine selves.

Author

• Scott Melzer, Albion College