Issue 16 - August 2008

The Fifth Dimension by Stan Ridge

Does size matter? I don’t need to tell you what size I mean (that is, the size of what).

Sexologists and medical professionals (some of whom are sexologists) tell us no, a penis of any size within the normal range for the human male affords as much – or as little – pleasure as any other to its owner and his partners. Any perceived difference is purely psychological. The biggest human sex organ, we are told, is the brain. If that is true, then I can boast of having been endowed with an exceptionally large one, and you would do well to give serious consideration to these musings.

Since by far the most important psychological factor is one’s feelings for one’s partner, we can conclude that penile size only plays a role in anonymous casual encounters and in the self-image of the gentleman who sports it. But the psyche is a powerful presence and of no little interest to us writers.

Ah, the human psyche! Unless you only read to get off, a story whose characters are one- or two dimensional isn’t worth much. As a writer I try to create real characters people will care about, three-dimensional and multilayered. I also pay attention to that fourth dimension – the historical period in which my story is set, how long a time span it covers, pacing and how long it takes to read, and the times I and my readers live in. But what about the fifth dimension, cock size? That it is of no consequence in real life doesn’t mean it has no role to play in fiction. After all, that the size of a man’s penis makes a difference is also a fiction.

It all began with a contest. No, not a “Who has the biggest dick” contest – a writing, or rather a reading contest. Several friends and I all contributed a short piece on a given topic, and we tried to identify who wrote what based on writing style, and explained our choices. I must say I did fairly well, no doubt thanks to my larger-than-average sexual organ.

I had no trouble correctly identifying certain erotic passages as the work of a particular author, who wrote to ask what elements in those passages I found so recognizable. I explained that “when she writes about phalluses she never mentions such things as dimensions”, and she replied, “What a giveaway that a woman is writing! We don't care about things like that.”

Well, I’m not a woman, but I don’t give a hoot about size either. To me a penis is a thing of beauty and a joy forever, but what attracts me is proportions, shape and how it harmonizes with the rest of the body, whether I’m looking at a miniature or a larger-than-life statue. Yet when I write I occasionally, though certainly not always, give some measurements, usually phrased as a simile.

Whether or not we care how big someone’s penis is, many men do. If one of our characters sets store by things like that, is it out of place to supply the details? It lets the reader know what kind of person that character is. Some of my characters care; others don’t. To create only characters who are indifferent to size is simply unrealistic. And men do notice things like that, and make a mental note of what they see, whether it matters to them or not.

A character may boast about the size of his member and about his sexual prowess, or he may feel inadequate because of it, or make some remark to another man to pay him a compliment, or think about what it would be like to have sex with someone whom he knows or suspects is above average size. I’m sure you can think of any number of other contexts in which specifying size is relevant and revealing.

You may say, “Well, it doesn’t interest me.” I quite agree with you; it doesn’t interest me either. But somewhere in the back of your mind a picture of that character’s personality will be taking shape that will affect your opinion of him and the degree of empathy you have for him. Surely a few words quickly passed over is a small price to pay for a deeper understanding of what makes the characters tick.

My narrators have a personality of their own too. The different voices I assume to tell my stories are definitely not me. Some are liberal, others homophobic. They can be bright, stupid, more or less well-informed of what happens in the story, prudish, lewd, stable, neurotic, humane, indifferent to human suffering or downright cruel. And then there’s the obsessive scientific type who measures everything.

We must also take into account the conventions of the genre, though an author is free to pick and choose, and need not follow them blindly. Specifying seven, eight, nine or more inches lets one’s reader know what to expect. I don’t mean what to expect if he or she got into bed with the character in question. How an author describes a penis – in fact, whether or not it is described at all – is a surer marker of what kind of story one is reading than whether it is called a penis, a member, a cock, a schlong, a parsnip, or whatever. Readers understand and appreciate a piece of writing in the context of other works like it. I believe I have demonstrated that there are other, better reasons to follow the conventions than pandering to the baser instincts of one’s readers.

If the characters’ or narrator’s interest in penises is irrelevant to the story, there remain many other reasons to include or not include such details besides making the reader’s eyes bulge or giving him a little sexual stimulation he can beat off to. Humor is one. Take, for example, this passage from a verse translation of a medieval French fabliau, The Blacksmith of Creil:

... he was endowed with a prick,
the most colossal slab of meat
that’s served to women as a treat,
God’s honest truth – one shaped so fair
that Nature must have lavished care
to make it, and surpassed her craft:
around the bottom of the shaft
two palms in length, wide as a fist.
A hole, though shaped like an ellipse,
in which this well-hung stud had placed it
would look as if a compass traced it,
so very round would it become.
About his balls I’ll not keep mum,
hanging between his ass and pizzle
like mallets sculpted with a chisel,
befitting such a master tool.
Ready for action, as a rule
on the qui vive his member stood,
its head uncovered, with its hood
thrown back, like monks who harvest pears
(these words are true, your author swears!),
red as an onion grown in Spain,
its one eye open wide to drain
off a great quantity of juice,
and you could toss inside and lose
a fava bean from Lombardy
and still not stop its flow of pee.
A grain of barley in her gullet
would no more gag a goose or pullet,
I’m sure, than the bean would engorge
the lad who stoked the blacksmith’s forge.

True, no numerical measurements are given – but are they really needed?

In short I do not tell how big a penis one of my characters has to titillate myself. Nor do I do so so my readers can get their jollies... except when I’m writing smut.

Or, think you, doth the gentleman protest too much?

Stanley Ridge

Stanley Ridge, a native New Yorker, has for over 30 years made his home in the Midwest, where he teaches in a small liberal arts college.  He also works as a literary translator.  His life as a professor and scholor, father of two wayward sons, owner of a large, friendly dog, and for over five years partner of a beautiful man, keep him very very busy.  He devotes much of the little spare time he has to writing and somewhat less of it to his duties on the editorial team of two m2m on-line literary magazines.  He likes to travel and has spent nearly a quarter of his life abroad, mostly in French-speaking countries.

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