Words by JJ Croucher
Design by Yosef Phelan

I am fourteen and I come across a website that allows you to input the dimensions of your penis. For length, it tells me that best practice is to measure “bone pressed” to ensure that you catch any stray inches at the base. For girth, they suggest wrapping a piece of string around the point of maximal thickness, marking the overlap and then measuring the string itself. 

Once I tentatively input my metrics, an ugly simulacrum of my penis is created (both flaccid and erect) which I can pit against various world averages, custom sizes, and the pornstars’ measurements on a graph. My penis’ avatar appears in a line up next to Ecuador's looming entry – a respectable 7-inches. There are the ghostly CGI members of my European counterparts, somewhere in the middle. The entries from East Asia are slightly smaller on average, though this comes as no surprise to me. We talk about penis size a lot at school - I read enough on the internet to know that dick talk is racialised. 

There are various bell curves on the website's information page. I study to what percentile my length, my girth, my overall volume belongs. The whole thing does nothing to assuage my fears of coming up short; these are mere numbers on a page and I’ve barely seen a penis in real life. The ones on the internet come at me in disorienting POV shots and are set against the bodies of diminutive women. They are seldom flaccid. The numerical data does not touch the sides and I feel no more normal, no more comfortable with this thing hidden between my legs.

Fourteen years later, I am standing in the gym showers talking to an acquaintance. He is an older gay man and is confusingly athletic for his age. He is quick to remind me that he does not take testosterone supplements: his workouts are fueled by a two-litre bottle of cold filter coffee he sips between sets of his esoteric exercises. 

As I shampoo my hair, I absent-mindedly tell him that I am going to a penis enlargement clinic the next day. He laughs, but I can’t hear what he says over the metallic scream of the pipes. 

Later that evening I receive an email from him: