The Big Little Penis Panic

A 30-year-old aspiring actor describes feeling blessed in many ways except for his penis size. He talks about his anxiety during dinner in downtown Manhattan, where he struggles to finish sentences and sometimes giggles when details become graphic. He believes his penis is small and that this disappoints him, especially because others have high expectations based on his appearance and presence. He avoids using numbers because they make him mentally check out, and he does not focus on labels like micropenis or statistics. He says he has worried about his size for as long as he has known his body, and he notes that more men are becoming preoccupied with similar concerns.

"God blessed me in a lot of ways except for one, Jon, a 30-year-old aspiring actor, tells me one night in April over dinner. He made me big in a lot of ways, except for the one very important way. We are sitting in a booth at an old-school steakhouse in downtown Manhattan, and Jon is opening up to me about his penis. It's an ideal environment for such a sensitive conversation all the gray-haired regulars having already headed home with their doggy bags and enough jazz music tinkling through the speakers that the last remaining diners, in the next booth, can't hear us."

"My dick is small, he says, once the liquor starts flowing, and that is disappointing. It doesn't help that people tend to have large expectations about Jon. He is broad, bearded, and very handsome. He also wears leather jackets, drinks whiskey, and, at almost six-foot-six, lords over most rooms he enters. He strikes me as a gentle giant, and his not-so-giant secret clearly weighs on him."

"We do not talk about his size in inches, because, he explains, numbers make him check out mentally. He does not call what he has a micropenis a rare condition that affects 0.015 percent of males in the U.S. but a proper diagnosis (generally speaking: an erect penis under three inches) doesn't really matter. He knows he's small, as does anyone who's ever slept with him. It's just so disappointing, he tells me again."

"Like probably all men since the dawn of time and measuring tape, Jon has worried about his size for as long as he's had a sense of his own body. Lately, though, the preoccupation has taken on a new tenor, and he isn't the only man who feels that way. I haven't talked to anyone about this, but I've been obsessed with p"

Read at nymag.com