MR. PINK: Let me tell ya what “Like a Virgin“‘s about. It’s about some cooze who’s a regular fuck machine. I mean all the time, morning, day, night, afternoon, dick, dick, dick, dick, dick, dick, dick, dick, dick, dick, dick.
MR. BLUE: How many dicks was that?
MR. WHITE: A lot.
MR. PINK: Then one day she meets a John Holmes motherfucker, and it’s like, whoa baby. This mother fucker’s like Charles Bronson in “The Great Escape.” He’s diggin tunnels. Now she’s gettin this serious dick action, she’s feelin something she ain’t felt since forever. Pain. (...) It hurts. It hurts her. It shouldn’t hurt. Her pussy should be Bubble-Yum by now. But when this cat fucks her, it hurts. It hurts like the first time. The pain is reminding a fuck machine what is was like to be a virgin. Hence, “Like a Virgin.”
Since romance novels primarily cater to female fantasies, are we ladies really such size queens? One researchers says yes, but has found that width seems to matter more than length. There are quite a few flaws with this study, including small sample size (only 50 women interviewed), sampling method (the subjects were all acquaintances of the interviewers’) and the fact that the sample is non-representative (the women were young, between 18 and 25, college-educated, and no word was said about their ethnicity) so I’m not sure how seriously to take it. Masters and Johnson pointed out that since the vagina is elastic, penis size in all likelihood shouldn’t matter--but then shouldn’t and doesn’t are two entirely different things, of course; sex involves psychology every bit as much as physiology, and while a bigger penis may in fact make no difference in performance, that won’t matter if most people believe that it does. A large survey conducted by Psychology Today magazine in 1993 found that women seem evenly divided: half want big schlongs, the other half don’t care about size or like smaller penises. It also seems that women are adaptable about their preferences and often adjust their ideals to match their current mates.
Given the conflicted data about preferences for penis size, the legion of massively be-wanged romance novel heroes may very well serve as some sort of sexual ideal for all us romance novel readers (most of whom are lonely, love-starved, bon-bon munching housewives, right? SNORT) but I also think there’s more to it than that. I think that the large penises serve pretty much the same purpose as put forward by Mr. Pink: to make the sexual experience with the hero stand out in stark relief for the heroine, even if she’s not a virgin. I talked briefly about the appeal of the untouched heroine in “A Pox on This Herd of Tiresome Virgins”, and I think the big dickery is yet another device (huh huh, device) used to indicate that the heroine has truly found The One. Not only is his sexual performance superlative, but his penis size usually is, too. Mr. Right is Mr. Enormous.
This is why I don’t think we’ll be seeing many heroes with small (or even average-sized) penises any time soon, just as we won’t see too many heroes with beer bellies, love handles, acne or backhair.
Above and beyond that, most romance novel heroes also serve as an archetype for manliness, virility and masculinity. Almost all of the earmarks for good providers, protectors and sexinators (is TOO a word, because I just made it up) are present in romance novel heroes. They’re often taller than average, more muscular than average, more wealthy than average (if not at the begining of the book, then almost certainly by the end), have over-developed protective instincts and are definitely better-than-average lovers, even the virgins. The peener is seen as THE symbol of masculinity and virility, what separates girls from boys, and it’s only natural that their size is inflated (huh huh, inflated) in romances.
What do you think? And I’m going to try and conduct and informal survey here: Do you like big dicks? Small dicks? Dicks that are neither big nor small? Or don’t you care? To be honest, I like them bigger than average. Not so big that I feel like I need a winch to help get it in position, because those just make me think “Ouch,” but I definitely like ‘em a bit large. Not that I’d ever reject somebody solely because of dick size, because it’s not that important to me, but I consider any extra inches a happy bonus. (Huh huh, bonus.)
BONUS: Some links on the Wonderful World of the Willy
Erection Photos - WARNING: NOT WORK SAFE. This is a pretty fascinating website documenting penis size, curve and angle from a clinical perspective. Check out the research section for some interesting figures on penis size and curvature.
Discovery Health Sex Center: The Penis
The Beefcaking of America
