This is so sad. I think there is an underdiscussed crisis with some segments of men.
It’s definitely quite different in that everyone in public sees a girl’s face and the shape of her body, whereas penises are hidden by default. Also the “toxic” standard for women is everywhere across media, whereas excepting pure pornography penises are rarely and briefly shown.
But these stories are so sad. These men feel ashamed of their bodies for not “measuring up” — is this phrase itself perhaps a link between penis size and masculinity/value that is ingrained into our very language?
There has been a big effort for years to call out the harms of, e.g., airbrushing in advertising, to push for including more plus-sized models, and to generally expand the notion of beauty for women.
I don’t think there’s any such effort to claim that, say, all penises are beautiful, all men are attractive, and so on. The mere suggestion seems utterly foreign to our conception of manhood. We have billionaires and presidents still boasting about their penises. What a crazy thing to make a point of pride and shame.
[0]https://www.healthline.com/health-news/young-adults-especial...
I've certainly had to course correct over that sort of thing before. Fortunately good sex can be had without penetration. Though I appreciate that it could be socially costly for a straight man to suggest such a thing in public. But it might be good if it happens more often? The number of times that article mentioned suicide is deeply disheartening.
I confess that after reading it I began to feel that it is even unethical to be in the penis-enlargement field.
This isn't a "double standard," it's what feminists have been saying for a long time, that these rigid gender roles hurt everyone (though women in particular do bear the brunt of it).
Here, I'll give you a segment of a Netflix special where a woman makes fun of a past boyfriend with a micropenis, does that count? Some of the audience laughs but it doesn't kill TBF. Starts at the 2 minute mark.
I'm sure I've heard men and women make "compensating" jokes, I don't remember any particular instances and have no idea about the proportion.
Experiences will differ, but I think it's a mistake to attribute the policing of masculinity to women primarily. I'm sure there is far too much of that, but a lot of it (in my personal experience, most) comes from other men, and at any rate blaming women is unproductive. The culprit is suffocatingly rigid ideas about gender, and it's a problem for all of us.