You Must Respect The C*ck

How can masculinity "evolve" when its core tenants are so f'n baked?

I have almost too many anecdotes I could open this one with. Let me roll with a few different ones:

1. Two years ago, I was in this men’s group and we had “lunches” every month. For the first four weeks, we pretended to discuss religious things but were really discussing wealth and material acquisition, so that was fun, and then we shifted to peer-led groups. I did one on sexuality and masculinity. Most of these guys were married with three kids, so you’d assume they had sex at least 10 times (I’m counting three kids, maybe a miscarriage or two in there, and a few birthdays). None of them could comment on the questions I was asking. Most looked at the floor. It was pretty funny. One guy, Colin, did say of his wife: “When she turns off the spigot, I get pretty mad.” It was interesting to refer to one’s wife’s sexuality as “a spigot,” but hey, in the name of three kids, whatever works.

2. I have a friend that works in (ha) HR in Ohio. She’s been married forever. Sometimes if I text her, “Hey, how’s it going?” she’ll respond with “You know, jobs and shit and a little light cock worship to keep my marriage on the rails.” I laugh, but I mean, it’s true. If you’ve ever read any Cosmopolitan article about “making him mad for you” or whatever, or if you’re a devotee of HAWK TUAH, you know that guys love to indulge in some light/heavy cock worship from time to time, because it makes them feel relevant in a world where their boss is Hitler in a suit, their mile time isn’t as fast anymore, and their wife (who is theoretically doing the cock worship) long ago replaced them time-wise with the kids.

3. Ah, the old infertility spiral. A good topic for me for years now, sigh. Well, here’s a funny anecdote to infertility. Here and there, you will meet couples who try for 1–3 years. Semantically speaking for the fertility-gifted among you, “infertility” means you tried for one year and it didn’t work, so you pivoted to procedures or whatever. OK, so back to my old point. Sometimes you’ll meet a couple that tries for three years, let’s say. They have a few miscarriages and a bunch of horrible other shit happens to them, and they’re depressed, and in a way you almost feel perversely glad because at least someone is going through this at the same time as you and you can talk to them about it, and then naturally they end up “getting over the mountain.” Nice. What almost always happens in this situation is that the guy will downshift how long the challenge was. If it was 3 years, he will say 1 year. If it was 2 years, he will say, “Well, we struggled for six months.” It’s like, you cannot question this dick, baby. I am a virile man. It happens almost like clockwork.

Alright, so there’s three examples for you. I guess maybe they are closer to “anecdotes.” Can we then infer anything from this? A little bit. Let me go back to a numbered list here:

1. A guy’s dick is important to him for any number of reasons, much like I’m sure a woman’s uterus is for similar reasons. Womb, maybe? I dunno, I think I failed sex ed. There’s a whole subclass of Pat McAfee / Joe Rogan guys who call their dick “a baby cannon” and stuff like that, so you know it’s important to those guys. One of the saddest things about humanity is that guys like that never go through infertility. Their dick is a baby cannon. It just works for them. Some of that is an overlap with gym bro culture, but some is just accidental luck.

2. Guys don’t want their dick disparaged at any cost. Look at what happens if each gender cheats. If a man cheats, what does the woman ask him? “Did you love her?” If a woman cheats, the man asks: “Was he bigger or better than me?” Not true in all relationships, no, but true in many. Guys don’t like the dick being questioned. It’s maybe Rule 1 or 2 for many guys.

3. Here’s another anecdote: I had a friend years back, conventionally-hot blond girl. She slept around a bit in her 20s. No judgement. In her 30s, she ended up with a guy long-term, but they did break up and restart a bunch of times, and I think she had some dalliances in those breakups. Anyway, she texted me once and said that even tho her main guy’s wee-wee was on the smaller side, she could instantly finish sex within three seconds if she purred something about “huge cock” or “big cock” as they were going at it. He’d just finish. She thought that was unique. It’s absolutely not unique, and I bet 59% of guys finish within 10 seconds of a woman praising their manhood. Goes to the same point above.

So yes, I don’t think we need to scientifically prove any of this, but treating the dick like a king is what guys want more often than not. And what happens in a lot of longer-term relationships, based on my life and other discussions, is that they start out with some form of mutual worship of bodies and condition, and over time they fade to black on that, and it’s more about getting Kevin to Little League, which isn’t as fun as being told you have a big member. That’s where things can erode and crack. It’s tough.

And honestly, I wrote this thing once —

— and it did better than I figured it would. I think it’s because it speaks to sex as obligation, and women come to feel sex is obligation, and that’s a turning point in a marriage for sure. (Or any relationship, really.) And it’s only a turning point because one of the worst things you can do to a guy is disparage the dick, even if we don’t say it out loud. Guys will change their fucking fertility timelines to praise their own dick. They expect the same from their lass, no?

It’s a sad dance sometimes out there, but we need to at least be honest about it.