Insecure about penis size

My dear, you didn't even leave a made-up name for me to address you by. I like to make my answers as personal as possible.

You sound almost exasperated by your husband's fixation on his penis size. You want to help him out of his obsession, as much in self-defense as anything else! It seems to me that you have a good life together; apart from this problem he thinks he has.

The facts are of course on your side. A woman's main pleasure center is the clitoris, and stimulation there is unaffected by penis size. There is a secondary erogenous zone just inside the vagina, on the front part, but the depths are sparsely equipped with sensory nerves. Just as well: childbirth is painful enough as it is.

So, how far he can go is actually irrelevant. A woman's pleasure is caused mostly by what goes on in her head, rather than in her body. If there is a loving relationship, and the two partners are out to please each other, and each attends to the minute signals coming from the other so that they can adapt their actions to the other's need, then both will have enjoyment. After all, lesbians can give each other orgasms, and they don't have a penis at all.

However, as you have found out, facts have nothing to do with hang-ups. No anatomy lesson or reasoned presentation of evidence is going to liberate him from his distress. He is a little like the anorexic teenager who looks at her skeleton-like body in the mirror and sees fat.

For your husband, his penis is a symbol. I am certain that when he was young, perhaps in his early teenage years, he was teased about it by other boys, made to feel wanting and inadequate about his physique and in particular his penis size. Almost certainly, his tormentors were older. He might have been slower than them in entering puberty. My guess is that his actual size is no different from most other men.

Ask him about that time of his life: between say 11 and 16 years. How old was he when his voice broke? Was he the subject of chronic victimization like I suggested?

When I have a client with body image problems that are the leftovers of bullying, I ask the person if he is now strong enough to stand up to the bullies. Back then he was smaller, one against several, powerless. Is he willing to spend the rest of his life tortured by these cruel idiots? NO! It's time to banish them, to reject the false ideas they put into his head, to go proudly forward into a new and self-respecting life.

He can do this, because he is fortunate in having a loving helper in you.

Bob Rich