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does size matter?

Dominant Discourses about Penises
in We s t e rn Culture AL AN MC K E E

— The joys of a large penis

Ally McBeal and her friends are discussing the massive penis of a nude model at their sculpt-
ing class. Georgia’s husband, Billy, is not happy about this:
Elaine: Ally has a date with Long John Silver!
Ally: Elaine!
Billy: Look at you all! Can I ask you something? Does size really matter?
Ally: No.
G e o rgia: No.
Elaine: No.
Renee [cocking her little finger]: All I need.
[They all smile.]
Billy: So bigger is better?
Ally: No.
G e o rgia: No.
Elaine: Of course not.
[Renee simply holds up her little finger again.]
Billy: Bunch of schoolgirls.
[He leaves; the women burst into laughter.]1

No means no. Sometimes. But not when the question is ‘Does size matter?’ The man knows
that he shouldn’t even ask this question. When he does ask, the answer is an emphatic ‘No’,

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and yet he continues the conversation as though the answer had been an explicit ‘Yes’. Ally
McBeal is not alone, and ‘Cro-magnon’ is not an isolated example of this rhetorical move;
rather, I take it to be, as I will argue in this article, exemplary. Surrounding us in We s t e rn
c u l t u res we can find examples of this line—‘size doesn’t matter’—always inflected to mean
‘size does matter; the size of a penis matters; the size of a penis matters to women because
a larger penis means greater sexual satisfaction’.
The information that size d o e s n ’t matter, but that in the saying we insist that it d o e s, is
commonsense. It is widely known. It grounds jokes like the trailer that advertised the Holly-
wood production of G o d z i l l a in the same year as Ally disavowed her interest in Long John
Silver: ‘Size does matter’ was the tagline for that film, making the audience I saw it with laugh
p recisely because they knew it was not the size of monsters from the deep, made large by
c a reless nuclear testing, that was being re f e renced here. The commonsense understanding
that size doesn’t matter (meaning that size d o e s matter) similarly explains the hysterical
o v e remphasis on the size of their penises by men writing into pornographic magazines ex-
plicitly to make public the fact that they have nothing to worry about:

I’m writing to ask if you need any sex men to photograph for your magazine. My 8” prick is
a d m i red by many people, especially the women who have been privileged to feel its electrify-
ing sexual eff e c t s .2

It explains why the heroine of an erotic novel, written by women for women, can defeat an
attacker simply by drawing attention to his genitalia:

Marisa’s mind crept tantalisingly over all the backstreet cant she knew by way of re v e n g e ,
but she rejected it all as being too subtle a form of insult. Instead she said pityingly, ‘I mean,
of course, that it’s quite evident that you must have a very small penis.’ His face seemed to
blaze. 3

In short, the fact that a large penis is important for giving women sexual pleasure is a
dominant discourse—even though it must never be spoken—in Western cultures. And this
is an interesting fact, for many reasons. It is interesting for making us think about how dis-
courses work, and how we may know them to be dominant. It suggests that a discourse that
is almost never spoken publicly may still be a dominant one. It suggests that there is at least
one dominant discourse in We s t e rnculture that is in the hands of women, and that can be
extremely powerful against men when used correctly. And it suggests—to me, at least—that
in cultural studies we should pay more attention to the discursive re s o u rces in the culture s

A L A N M C K E E —DOES SIZE MATTER? 169

 that surround us, and the ways in which they might be used, rather than insistently looking
only to academic writing for ways to pro g ress particular political ends.

— Who puts the ‘dominant’ i n to ‘ d o m i nant discours e ’ ?

The Foucauldian concept of ‘discourse’, where discourses are understood to be regimes of

sense-making associated with particular institutions, has proven a useful one for cultural
studies, as it does not rely on the centralised and unitary models of culture implied by
concepts such as ‘ideology’ and ‘hegemony’. But in order to retain a focus on the functions
of power, it is common to speak of ‘dominant discourses’ in society as though it were obvious
that certain groups still in some way control the circulation of discourses in a dispropor-
tionately powerful way.4 But how does one spot a dominant discourse? What makes it domi-
nant? How many examples must one find, by whom must they be spoken, in order to make
a discourse dominant?
I tell my students, as a rough guide, that the degree of difficulty in arguing the opposite
position to a proposition can be used to measure degrees of dominance. It is possible to argue
against right-wing politics in Australia, but extremely difficult to argue that economics is not
a good measure of a nation’s health. Two levels of difficulty are relevant here. First, it is dif-
ficult to find the discursive re s o u rces to make the argument against the importance of econ-
omics: there ’s no simple statement within much public debate that expressly denies the
importance of economics and which rings with the convincing sound of commonsense. And
second, there are very convincing resources easily available and generally circulated to mock
and dismiss those who attempt to make counter arguments: ‘not living in the real world’ and,
in Australia, the phrases ‘chattering classes’ and ‘intellectual elites’.
But even here, what interests me is that there a re, despite the power of economics in the
Australian public sphere, still d o m i n a n t discourses available in Australian culture that con-
tradict economic rationalism. It isn’t always easy to see them, as the link is rarely made as
explicitly as it might be, and the areas of the public sphere in which they function are rather
diff e rent. But these discursive re s o u rces do exist, and they are available. For we all know,
and we all see repeated to us in the public sphere (both in entertainment and in factual
debate), that ‘money can’t buy you happiness’. Not all dominant discourses support each
other. Not all dominant discourses are contradictory to the political projects of cultural
studies. And no dominant discourse has a single essential meaning that cannot be changed
by resituating and deforming it.
Ally McBeal on penis size makes me think about the dominant discourses that curre n t l y
c i rculate about gender roles and about power. For what does this tells us about gender in
Western cultures that one of the dominant discourses of the area is that most men’s penises

170 VOLUME10 NUMBER2 S E P2004

 a re too small to pleasure a woman, and that men should be worried, embarrassed and
ashamed of that fact?

— P ot e n c y

Cultural studies has long held a fond interest in penises, thanks to its use of psychoanalysis
and the question of the relationship between the phallus and the penis. But most of our think-
ing on this topic has focused on the nature of the phallus: there is, actually, remarkably little
re s e a rch into how penises are re p resented in everyday culture. What we notice when we
begin to examine such re p resentations is the range of diff e rent discourses about the penis
that circulate in diff e rent cultural venues. Popular culture, like psychoanalytic theory, is
fascinated by the relationship between penises and power. In certain areas in Western cul-
tures the equation of penis and potency is insisted upon—they tell us that possessing a penis
is the same thing as being powerful. These are, by and large, the areas where men speak to
other men, in contexts that are not about sex. I am thinking here, in part i c u l a r, of business
communities. In an article in C l e o magazine, John Davidson suggests that:

a ‘big swinging dick’—that was what the biggest deal makers on Wall Street started calling
each other in the 80s. Now whenever you listen to pro p e rty developers, brokers, movie
moguls—people concerned with power—you will eventually hear someone say ‘Well, it just
comes down to who’s got the biggest dick’. 5

Similarly, in a sketch from the Australian comedy show Fast Forw a rd two businessmen are
p reparing for a meeting. They wear business suits—and strapped to their groins, larg e
f e a t h e red penis sheaths. ‘As I’ve told you before’, says one, ‘this is the very latest in power
dressing. I got them from the New Guinea natives … it re p resents power, youthfulness, ambi-
tion’. They go into their meeting, only to be confronted with another businessman, wearing
an even bigger sheath (about three-feet long). The latter whops his sheath onto the desk,
saying ‘Quite frankly, I don’t think your company is … big enough’.6
Here, possessing a penis is the same thing as being powerful. And this is spoken quite
openly. But also openly shown—here, between men—is what is otherwise hidden in our cul-
t u re. Or rather, what is insistently spoken into existence by its very denial. Size, it seems,
does matter. One does not become powerful simply by having any old penis: rather, one
must possess an extraord i n a ry penis, a penis big enough to swing, a penis three-feet long that
can be shown without shame in public. In short, even here, men tell other men that having
a penis doesn’t make you powerf u l .

A L A N M C K E E —DOES SIZE MATTER? 171

— Unspeakable

It is when women speak that we find the ambivalence of the relationship between penis and
power becoming most apparent. For it is women who are endlessly enjoined to say ‘size doesn’t
matter’, which, every time it is spoken, means ‘size does matter’. In forums where women
speak to women, we hear the insistent repetition of ambivalence: size doesn’t matter; do not
say anything else; everyone knows that it’s not true, but that doesn’t stop it being tru e …
Magazines aimed at younger women—C o s m o p o l i t a n and C l e o— i n s t ruct their readers in
precisely how this discourse operates. A front cover story in the May 1998 Australian edi-
tion of Cosmopolitan is entitled ‘ “Is It In Yet?” (And 10 Other Things N e v e r to Say in Bed)’.
This re p resents well the tone of these magazines. Obviously there is an issue here — t h e
discourse of penis size has made its mark—but it is, emphatically, unspeakable:

‘The first time I was with my husband’, recalls Alison, 24 … ‘we were having sex sort of lying
sideways, and I couldn’t really feel it. So I asked, “Is it in yet?” He totally lost his erection …
I didn’t mean that it was so small that I couldn’t feel it, but I can see why he took it that way.
I felt really bad.’7

Cosmo o ffers a ‘face saving strategy’: ‘make it clear that you were re f e rring to position, not
size (even if you were ) ’ .8 Whatever you do, says C o s m o, do not say that size matters. This is
an explicit instruction in a woman’s lifestyle magazine. With a diff e rent tone, C l e o’s art i c l e
on penis size, in 1992, is headlined ‘Does Penis Size Really Matter? We Dare to Ask’. This
language of ‘dare’—of transgression, of saying that which should not be said—seems slightly
odd in a magazine that regularly runs cover stories with titles such as ‘Sure - f i re Org a s m
S e c rets: How to Come like a Man Every Ti m e ’9 and ‘Do Nice Girls Swallow?’10 To discuss
penis size is to ‘dare’. The dominant discourse—that penis size matters—is transgre s s i v e
even to speak. For women, as this discourse should never be spoken, the ‘factual’ basis of
the question—does size matter?—is always answered, insistently, as ‘Yes, of course!’ and as
‘No, of course not!’

Is it true all black men have ‘whoppers’? Are Italians ‘hung’ like horses? … And does any-
body really care? Well, until re c e n t l y, the last question was the only one to which we re a l l y
had any answer—yes, oh yes. Some people certainly do care about penis size: men … Where
do women stand on the issue? All over the place, it seems. In a sizzling article called ‘The
Big Bang Theory’, Julie Burchill declared that ‘The myth of all penises being equal is just
that: started no doubt by a sexologist who had the misfortune to be hung like a hamster’.
Australian women seem to disagree: a very in-depth survey taken in 1992 by the Sun-Herald
found that only 35 per cent said penis size matters … But sometimes figures only serve to
fog things up entire l y.11

172 VOLUME10 NUMBER2 S E P2004

 Thirty-five per cent of women say that size matters—but evenC o s m o p o l i t a n re c o g n i s e s
what this means—that thirty-five per cent of women say that size matters. This tone of un-
c e rtainty and ambivalence is repeated with amazing stability in the numerous articles on this
topic aimed at women. As Cleo explains:

A c c o rding to popular myth, women are n ’t supposed to care about, or even notice, the size
of a man’s appendage—after all, expert opinion assures us that when it comes to making
love, ‘Size doesn’t matter’. The only trouble is that most of the experts offering these words
of wisdom are men. Large penises are supposed to be a sign of virility. However, there is
no scientific evidence available to suggest that men with big dicks are capable of having
more erections, are more fertile, or that their sex urge is any greater than that of their less
well-endowed counterparts … making love to a man with a very small penis … can be
less satisfying because his penis doesn’t rub against as much of your vaginal walls. Put it this
way—you can grip around a tampon, but does it turn you on? … In a purely subjective vox
pop we found that, in general, women would rather make love to a man with a penis that
is short and wide than one that is like a pencil … women do not, in fact, like men of massive
porno-movie proportions … but that, given the choice, they would rather not need a mag-
nifying glass to appreciate it either. Basically, when it comes to penises, too big ain’t gre a t ,
very small is a disappointment, and good old Mr Average is best of all. There, we said it!12

This ambivalence about what women should say about penis size even extends to the
social sciences—to sexology itself. The work of Alfred Kinsey, William Masters and Vi rg i n i a
Johnson, and Shere Hite put the role penises on the public agenda by making feminine
p l e a s u re visible. Sexological re s e a rch ‘discovered’ female pleasure, and more than this, sug-
gested that maybe men’s sexual ability could itself be a problem:

B rought to the public attention by Kinsey and under scored by the expert s’ revelation that
female sexuality outdistanced male performance in the same way that, physicians confirm e d ,
the female body outlasted the male’s, male sexual inadequacy became increasingly visible
t h roughout the decade. 13

Does size matter? Matter for what? What kind of power does the possession of a penis
confer? In men’s culture, the ‘big swinging dick’ is related to business power, the power to
c o n t rol, to earn money, to provide for others. But sexology and its children (the women’s
magazines cited above) offer another dominant discourse about power, suggesting that the
question of a penis’s adequacy can be measured in terms of its ability to provide women with
p l e a s u re. This is the ‘power’ of which the question can be asked: ‘Does size matter?’ And yet
even here, the question of penis size is dealt with in ambivalent ways. Sexual Behaviour in the
Human Male does not mention penis size.14 The companion volume on female sexuality,

A L A N M C K E E —DOES SIZE MATTER? 173

Sexual Behaviour in the Human Female, asks women for various pre f e rences—do they pre f e r
sex with no part n e r, with male or female partners, with fantasies, in certain coital positions—
but does not ask the women if size is important to them.15 In the work of Masters and Johnson,
penis size begins to enter sexology, inflected in particular ways. In this work, what will be
commonsensical in sexologically informed popular culture for the next thirty years is pre-
sented as unproblematic fact: penis size bears no relation to female pleasure. Just don’t ask
the women about it.
Masters and Johnson do not present any research on whether, in fact, penis size does have
any relation to female pleasure. They do not ask the women they survey this question. Instead,
they set the terms in which most sexological work will proceed for the next thirty years: they
insist that there exists a common myth that size matters—and that this is not tru e :

[A] widely accepted ‘phal lic fallacy’ is the concept that the larger the penis the more eff e c-
tive the male as a partner in coital connection. The size of the male organ both in flaccid and
e rect state has been presumed by many cultures to reflect directly the sexual prowess of the
individual male.16

Women are not surveyed about the fact that size doesn’t matter. It is simply presented as
the obverse of a common myth. The same is true of The Hite Report.17 A late entrant in the
sexology tradition, T h e E s q u i re R e p o rt: Men on Sex, is particularly interesting as a publica-
tion re p resenting a distinctly male inflection of the sexological tradition. This book does state
on the back cover that one of the questions it will address is ‘Does size matter?’—and goes
on to answer this by surveying m e n: ‘Does size matter? Not according to 60 percent of the
men … [Men who combine socialising with fantasy] are least likely to say that size is impor-
tant to women. ’18
We are surrounded by evidence that women know that it is unspeakable to say that a large
penis is better—for their pleasure, which is presented as being an important measure of the
potency of a member—but that they would like to do so. The women in Ally McBeal m a n-
age to spend an entire episode centred around a large penis without ever saying the words
‘large penis’. When the model first disrobes, we see Ally and Renee staring at his groin in a
series of reaction shots: Renee finally says, ‘I might need a touch more clay’. They later dis-
cuss ‘it’ over lunch, as Ally waves a sausage around. According to Elaine, the model has ‘a
t runk like Dumbo’s’. When Billy threatens to close down the ambivalence (‘That’s what
this is about. This model has a big …’), Georgia cuts him off (‘Nose’).
In the video Yards and Yards of Dick, we hear women talking about penises.19 This video
shows endless shots of male members, while disembodied women’s voices discuss penises.
T h e re is a sense of informality and spontaneity to the voices and it does indeed sound, as the

174 VOLUME10 NUMBER2 S E P2004

 video cover promises, like ‘the wildest hen night’. Most of these women agree that size does
matter, but they are almost apologetic about this:

‘I’ve experienced good and bad in both ways and I think it’s what they do with them … yeah,
there’s something about the size and the width and the shape, but you can have big dick,
if he didn’t know what to do with it …’ ‘I don’t care what anyone says, but size DOES matter.’
‘Anyone ever had one that was too big?’ ‘Yeah.’ ‘Yeah.’ ‘Yeaaahhhhh.’ ‘I think size does
matter actual ly. It’s got to be fairly thick, and you’ve to feel what’s going on.’ ‘At least seven
inches.’ ‘Any man who says that size doesn’t matter has a small one. Cos size is import a n t . ’

All of these comments are accompanied by hysterical laughter—supporting the sense that
something is being said which does not quite belong in the public sphere.20
Size does matter, but size doesn’t matter. It is true, but unspeakable, and also not tru e .

— Effects

One might suspect that such a discourse—one that is dominant, but also unspeakable—
must be very powerful in order to be so strongly policed. If all women already know that
size does matter—that a penis must be large in order to have any potency—then the fact that
they are endlessly enjoined not to speak it surely suggests that this dominant discourse puts
in the hands of women some kind of power. And indeed, when we examine popular culture
for evidence about the effects of speaking this unspeakable truth, we find that this dominant
discourse seems to be extremely powerful in its effects. The story of Alison, mentioned above,
who rendered her new husband flaccid just by speaking of size, represents a common under-
standing of the effect on the male body of speaking such a thing. This dominant discourse
tells men that not only should their possession of a penis render them powerful and potent,
but it never actually does. The penis is never big enough to be powerful. Consider the case
of Black Lace, a very successful series of sexually explicit erotic novels by women, for women,
released by Vi rgin Publishing. These books, rejecting the delicate circumlocutions of Mills
and Boon, re p resent something quite different from the kinds of culture discussed above.
This is culture aimed at women which is forthright, sexually explicit and—uniquely—not
afraid to reject the ambivalences of discourses about penis size. Indeed, these books are
obsessed with penis size. Some re p resentative examples come from Vivienne LaFay’s The
Mistress:

it was evident from the satisfying fullness of her vagina that Stephen was parti cularly well-
endowed’ … Emma shivered with pleasure as she viewed the full extent of his organ as it
reared between her legs, the purple glans enlarged almost to the size of a billiard ball …
Emma gasped as the thick penis plunged into her wet and ready cunt, thrilling her to the

A L A N M C K E E —DOES SIZE MATTER? 175

 c o re of her being … Eagerly she touched the Marquis’ thick shaft, so much more warm and
velvet smooth than the ivory fake, and her loins shuddered … His penis thrust eagerly upward
as it was freed, and Emma could not resist taking it by the sturdy root and examining it with
a smile. It was so elegantly shaped, long and straight. 21

This is writing, by women and for women, linking large penises with female pleasure.22
And the heroines, unafraid to speak what C l e o and C o s m o enjoin them to be silent about,
discover the power of saying, in a straightforw a rd way: size does matter. In Ace of Hearts,
when facing down the major villain of the piece, the heroine draws on this dominant, but
unspeakable, discourse: ‘Marisa gazed at Ormond with scornful deliberation. “I thought you
w e re the one into secret rutting. It’s common knowledge, I believe, that you can’t get your
rather inadequate penis to stand proud unless someone gives you a beating.” ’23
This is reminiscent of other sites where pornographic discourse is made available to women.
For example, in a section of Australian Women’s Forum entitled ‘Erotica: The Wet Spot. All
Your Good, Bad and Ridiculous Real-life Lust Tales’ is this story, ‘Te rrible Two’:

Late last summer I had a very exciting sexual experience that I’ll never forget. My friend
Dana and I were walking through a park that led down to a coastal path … I looked over
and saw a young guy sunbathing in the nude … He looked up, obviously embarr a s s e d
and reached for his Speedos … ‘Hey, what are you doing?’, he yelled as we both ran at
him. Dana grabbed his arms and I dragged him to the ground. ‘Rip them off!’ Dana screamed
hysterically … [they rape him] … ‘Yo u ’ regonna eat my pussy’ [Dana] said, ‘or we’ll thro w
all your clothes into the water and a lot of other women will get the pleasure of seeing
your penis. And it’s nothing to be proud of, either.’24

This dominant discourse is available to women who wish to take it up, and its effects in
this area of the feminine imagination are to render men powerless. And indeed, there is a
fear there to be played upon. Surveys suggest that most men’s experience of having a penis
is one of ‘lack’:

Real men with real penises compare themselves to the models and find themselves woe-
fully lacking. Most men believe that their penises are not what they ought to be. They are
not long enough or wide enough or hard enough, they do not spring forth with the requisite
s u rging and throbbing, and they do not last long enough or recover fast enough. A re c e n t
magazine survey of over a thousand men found that ‘all male respondents, with the excep-
tion of the most extraordinarily endowed, expressed doubts about their own sexuality based
on their penile size’ … The problem is that we think we should measure up to what are
basically impossible standards … Accepting your own merely human penis can be difficult.

176 VOLUME10 NUMBER2 S E P2004

 You know it is somewhat unpredictable, and, even when functioning at its best, looks and
feels more like a human penis than a battering ram, or mountain of stone. Not much
when compared to the fantasies you are brought up on.25

In their book, Sexuality: A Boy’s Guide, Jay Gale and John Porter suggest that ‘in a sexual-
ity survey conducted in America, over seven thousand men were asked their feelings about
the size of their penises, and “only a few were not concerned with size” ’.26 The Hite Report
similarly notes that ‘Most men, in answering this question [Do you think your penis is a good
size?] wished over and over again that their penis could be just a little larger … only a few
men were not concerned with size’.27 Responses to this discourse—the insistence that the
penis could be powerful, if only it were large enough, but that it was not currently so—vary.
Some men, it appears, respond with a hysterical insistence that their own member is big
enough to be powerful, as the editor of the porn magazine Razzle suggests:

Cock size. Men were petrified about being found wanting. Vi rtually every other letter we
received at Razzle mentioned it somewhere. These men were all proud eight-inchers, they
had women trembling with the sheer size of their members … Men are always boasting of
their weapons. If the truth is known, they often get frightened. 28

Bernard Zilbergeld suggests, jokingly, that ‘unless you are contemplating a transplant from
a horse, it’s the only penis you’ll ever have’.29 Although inter-species transplants may be some
way off, the phenomenon of penis-extension surgery means that men can now attempt to
recreate their bodies in the image of the penis-as-phallus-as-power:

Since a recent television segment on an unnamed lifestyle program, specialist Dr Colin Moore
has been inundated by calls from all across Australia seeking penis enlargement surg e ry.
Thousands of enquiries have caused a three month waiting list at all the doctor’s surg e r i e s
in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane.30

As Cosmopolitan magazine puts it, ‘If the demand for penis enlargements is anything to go
by, maybe size does matter’.31 Two Australian prime-time lifestyle programs in 1998 pre-
sented features on penis-enlargement surgery: Good Medicine and Sex/Life. In the former, the
doctor interviewed refers to the growth in the number of men asking for the operation as
‘exponential’, and suggests that, in his view, over ninety per cent of the men who have the
operation have penises that are already of a normal size. The program interviews one satis-
fied customer: ‘I looked down and it looked so wonderful’. Penis extensions are the medical
expression of a desire for bodily reformulation that also has less official variants (‘The Penis—
Renowned sex doctor Dick Richards tells how YOU can have a bigger COCK in just six weeks

A L A N M C K E E —DOES SIZE MATTER? 177

 with his proven exerc i s e s ’ ) .32 The sales of vacuum pump machines that claim to impro v e
penis size attest to a sense of inadequacy with which many men approach their penises.
And yet even when men feel unhappy with their penis size, the articulation of the penis
and power that s h o u l d be there—but isn’t—makes it difficult for men even to express this
dissatisfaction. Another article in C l e o notes how difficult it is for men to have such penis
implants, because they can’t even admit that they need them. One man, for example, insists
‘Not that I was small to begin with—my penis was a bit over seven and a half inches long
when erect … But to be honest, every guy would like to be bigger.’33 But of course, ‘not that
I was small to begin with’ …
And the worst thing with which men have to contend is the fact that no matter how big
their penis is, it will still n e v e r be big enough to convey real power. The ideal penis—for
which all women long, we know, even though it is absolutely not true and size doesn’t
matter to women—is, as Bern a rd Zilbergeld puts it, ‘two feet long, hard as steel, and can
go all night … Women, we are given to believe, crave nothing so much as a penis that might
be mistaken for a telegraph pole.’34 And even when a penis is extraordinarily large and thick
and has the ability to stay up for hours at end—even then, this machine for pleasuring women
still turns out n o t to be the ideal. It guarantees nothing of any kind of power other than
pleasuring women, no matter how much culture now seems to have set this up as the
dominant criterion on which to measure how much a penis ‘matters’, to what degree it is
potent and does its job. We see this clearly in the film Boogie Nights, and in the life of porn
star John Holmes on which it was based. His penis was almost two feet long, it was certainly
hard as steel and it went all night; and yet John Holmes and Dirk Diggler (the character based
on Holmes in Boogie Nights) are shown to be pathetic and powerless characters: drug addicts
and failures.35 The dominant discourse—size does matter, size doesn’t matter—insists that
the penis should be the source of a man’s power, that it could be if only it were big enough,
but that for you, the individual man, it never will be. Even with a fourteen-inch penis (which
is what John Holmes possessed), the penis never guarantees any kind of power.36

— Conclusion: the political use of available discourses

The hysterical nature of the insistence that women must not say that size matters seems to
me a signal of the potency of this discourse. As a political re s o u rce, I think it has potential.
The very fact that it matters to men whether or not they can pleasure a woman seems to
me to be a remarkable sign of the success of feminism (via sexology). I still remember the
old joke (seeming older by the day): How do you give a woman an orgasm? Who cares? The
fact that the potency of a penis might be measured by whether or not it is big enough to
give a woman pleasure shows a remarkable evolution in thinking about gender and sexual

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roles, one which challenges the way in which we think about the relationship between body
and power.
As I noted at the start of this article, cultural studies has traditionally been more intere s t e d
in the phallus than in the penis. A lack of re s e a rch on how penises are re p resented in popu-
lar culture has lead us to assume that, as Kaja Silverman puts it:

Our dominant fiction calls upon the male subject to see himself … only through the media-
tion of an unimpaired masculinity … by believing in the commensurability of the penis and
p h a l l u s . 37

But what if this isn’t the case? What if, indeed, one of the dominant fictions in popular cul-
t u re suggests quite the opposite: that the penis can never be the phallus? Does this perh a p s
open up a space where feminist politics might insert itself?
This is a dominant discourse—size does matter/size doesn’t matter—whose ambivalent
status tells us something about the emergent power of women’s discourses. It actually matters
whether or not this discourse is spoken in public, and the fact that it matters, to me, sug-
gests that it would be a worthwhile cultural experiment to start saying it, saying it publicly,
and saying it loud.
H e re ’s a Cosmopolitan magazine story on penis enlarg e m e n t s :

Cosmetic surgeon Dr Colin Moore, director of surg e ry at the Australian Centre for Cosmetic
and Penile Surgery, has witnessed an increase in the demand for penis enlargements since
the early ’90s. Previously the operations that were perf o rmed were used to correct birt h
defects. Dr Moore now does 180 to 200 operations a year.38

Western culture is changing. In part we must acknowledge that bodies are becoming more
mutable, that the constant improvement in living conditions for the working classes under
capitalism has greatly increased the pool of people who can aff o rd plastic surg e ry, that capi-
talism itself has turned the body increasingly into a commodity: all of these points are
undoubtedly true. But it is also true that men care what women think of their penises.
That in attempting to gain the status of the phallus, it is at least in part the degree to which
the penis functions to pleasure women that measures its success or failure .
Cultural theory has worried that the ‘dominant fiction’ in popular culture has been that
the penis and the phallus should be seen as the same. This survey of contemporary discourses
on penis size suggests a more nuanced situation, and one with interesting political pos-
sibilities. The penis, insists popular culture, is not the phallus, but it should be. And it could
be, if only your penis were larger. Then you could really pleasure women, and there would
no longer be the need to keep it silent, to keep endlessly attempting to police the speaking

A L A N M C K E E —DOES SIZE MATTER? 179

of that terrible phrase: size doesn’t matter. How terrifying to live in a culture surrounded by
iterations of a dominant discourse that means the opposite of what it says, and works
insistently to keep the penis away from the phallus.
We have at our fingertips a discourse already dominant, with proven effectiveness in under-
mining the relationship between phallus and penis. It is only the degree to which women
choose not to hurt men by employing this weapon that keeps its use under control. After
speaking to the girls in Ally McBeal, and hearing them insist that size doesn’t matter, and fully
understanding that this in fact means that size does matter, Billy becomes deeply para-
noid. He wanders around the unisex toilet with his brow wrinkled:

G e o rgia: Richard ’s trying to suck me into this boxing pool.

Billy: Do you mind driving in case I have a beer?
G e o rgia: I’ll drive.
Billy: I thought we could go early, maybe eat some dinner?
G e o rgia: That’s fine.
Billy: Do I satisfy you in bed?
G e o rgia: What was that last one?
Billy: Do I? Sexually? In bed?
G e o rgia [walking up to him]: Where did that come from?
Billy: I don’t know. I don’t like taking anything for granted …
G e o rgia: Our giggling over that model. It’s bothering you.
Billy: No! Why would … yeah.
G e o rgia: Billy. I am a very satisfied woman.
Billy: Don’t you wish that I was …
G e o rgia: No! Of all the things that you have to be insecure about, that’s the least. That
didn’t come out the way I meant it. I am very, very happy in bed [excessive perf o rm a n c e
of sexuality]. Trust me. [She kisses him sexually. Billy smiles and re l a x e s . ]

But supposing that Georgia had been a bad girl? Supposing she had disregarded the instru c-
tions of sexologists and women’s magazines? Supposing she had learned her lessons instead
from Black Lace novels, and discovered a pornographic discourse that refuses the studied
ambivalence of the dominant discourse? Supposing—just supposing—that Georgia had told
Billy another truth: the one that says, ‘Yes. I do wish it was just a little bit bigger. Because
size does matter, you know.’ We don’t have to believe it ourselves. Indeed, whether or not
we do is irrelevant. But as a readily available dominant discourse that works, as we see, to
s u p p o rt a feminist politics by separating the penis and the phallus, it seems silly not

180 VOLUME10 NUMBER2 S E P2004

to t a k e advantage of it and employ it in our cultures. Say it loud and say it proud: size
does matter.

——————————

ALAN McKEE is consulting editor of Continuum: Journal of Media and Cultural Studies. His most
recent book is An Introduction to the Public Sphere, Cambridge University Press, 2004.
<a.mckee@qut.edu.au>

——————————

1. David E. Kelley, ‘Cro-Magnon’, Ally McBeal season W.B. Saunders Company, Philadelphia and
one, episode 11, 1998. London, 1948.
2. Quoted in Nicholas Whittaker, Blue Period: Notes 15. A l f red C. Kinsey, Wardell B. Pomeroy, Clyde E.
from a Life in the Titillation Trade, Victor Gollanz, Martin and Paul H. Gebhardt, Sexual Behaviour in
London, 1997, p. 97. the Human Female, W.B. Saunders Company,
3. Lisette Allen, Ace of Heart s, Black Lace series, Philadelphia and London, 1953.
Vi rgin Publishing, London, 1996, p. 19. 16. William H. Masters and Vi rginia E. Johnson,
4. See, for example, Maia Boswell, ‘Sexism, Ageism Human Sexual Response, Little, Brown and
and “Disability” ’, Women and Language, vol. 24, Company, Boston, 1966, p. 91; see also James
no. 2, 2001, pp. 47–51; Susan Seizer, ‘Roadwork: Leslie McCary, Sexual Myths and Fallacies, Van
O ffstage with Special Drama Actresses in Nostrand Reinhold Company, New York, 1971,
Tamilnadu, South India’, Cultural Anthro p o l o g y, p. 28; Sarah Litvinoff, The Relate Guide to Sex in
vol. 15, no. 2, 2000, pp. 217–62; Christine Yano, Loving Relationships, Ve rmilion, London, 1992,
‘Inventing Selves: Images and Image-making in a p. 76.
Japanese Popular Music Genre’, Journal of Popular 17. S h e re Hite, The Hite Report on Male Sexuality,
Culture, vol. 31, no. 2, pp. 115–30. second edition, Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 1981,
5. John Davidson, ‘Does Penis Size Really Matter? p. 390.
One Guy Gets Honest’, Cleo, October 1992, 18. John Nicholson and Fiona Thompson, Men on
pp. 69–70. Sex: Everything You Always Wanted to Ask: The
6. Fast Forw a rd’s Funniest Moments, Channel Ten Esquire Report, Ve rmilion, London, 1992, pp. 83,
Australia, 8 June 1998. 102, my emphasis; the same approach is taken in
7. Stephanie Dolgoff, ‘Oops! Yuk! Ouch! How to Anthony Pietropinto and Jacqueline Simenauer,
Bounce Back from Humiliating Bedro o m Beyond the Male Myth: A Nationwide Surv e y, The
Blunders’, C o s m o p o l i t a n,May 1998, pp. 64–8, New York Times Book Company, New York,
p. 64. 1977.
8. D o l g o ff, p. 64. 19. Anon (dir), Yards and Yards of Dick, Revelation
9. C l e o, Febru a ry 1998. Productions for Paradox Films, 1993.
10. C l e o, April 1998. 20. See also the Chippendales video, Jane Ballard
11. Ignatius Jones, ‘Where the Big Boys Hang’, (dir), Tall, Dark and Handsome, Genesis
C o s m o p o l i t a n,December 1995, pp. 84, 87. Productions, 1987.
12. Anne Paris, ‘Does Penis Size Really Matter? The 21. Vivienne LaFay, The Mistre s s, Black Lace series,
Long and the Short of It’, Cleo, October 1992, Vi rgin Publishing, London, 1996, pp. 3, 16, 65,
p. 71; see also Anon, ‘Does Penis Size Really 187, 260.
Matter? “Why Big isn’t Necessarily Better”: One 22. See Kerry Sharp, ‘Black Lace: Guidelines for
Woman’s Painful Story’, C l e o, October 1992, Prospective Authors’, Vi rgin Publishing, 1998;
p. 70. and Vi rgin Publishing, ‘Black Lace: Erotic
13. Steven Cohan, Masked Men: Masculinity and the Fiction for Women, by Women’, press re l e a s e ,
Movies in the Fifites, Bloomington University P re s s , 1995.
Bloomington and Indianapolis, 1997, p. 59. 23. Allen, p. 254.
14. A l f red C. Kinsey, Wardell B. Pomeroy and Clyde 24. ‘Terrible Two’, Australian Women’s Foru m, no. 78,
E. Martin, Sexual Behaviour in the Human Male, May 1998, pp. 58–9.

A L A N M C K E E —DOES SIZE MATTER? 181

25. Bernard Zilbergeld, Men and Sex: A Guide to Sexual c o n s t ruction of penis as phallus can be
Fulfilment, Williams Collins and Sons, Glasgow, d i ff e rentiated in popular culture. The first is the
1980 [1979], pp. 35, 36. black penis: as Kobena Mercer notes the large
26. Jay Gale with John Port e r, Sexuality: A Boy’s Guide, black penis is still not quite the phallus, imagined
McPhee Gribble Publishers, Melbourne, 1989 in popular culture as something powerful but
[1984], p. 18. outside of culture—see Kobena Merc e r, ‘Skin
27. Hite, Male Sexuality, pp. 390, 395. Head Sex Thing: Racial Diff e rence and the
28. Whittaker, pp. 183, 107. H o m o e rotic Imaginary’, in Bad Object Choices
29. Z i l b e rgeld, p. 36. (ed.), How Do I Look? Queer Film and Video, Bay
30. ‘Big Penis’, B ro t h e r / S i s t e r,28 May 1998, p. 4. Press, Seattle, 1991, pp. 169–210. The second is
31. Ylla Wright, ‘Boy’s Toys: Phalloplasty’, the role of the penis in gay male culture: here the
Cosmopolitan, May 1998, p. 96. i m p o rtance of size is spoken far more freely than
32. Quoted in Whittaker, p. 120. is the case in other sexual communities. Indeed,
33. Quoted in Mia Freedman, ‘I Had My Penis we even have a separate identity for people who
E n l a rged’, C l e o, September 1995, pp. 90–3, p. 90. worship large penises: the ‘size queen’—see
34. Z i l b e rgeld, pp. 30, 33. Thomas Waugh, H a rd to Imagine: Gay Male
35. John Heidenry, What Wild Ecstasy: The Rise and Eroticism in Photography and Film from their
Fall of the Sexual Revolution, William Heinemann Beginnings to Stonewall, Columbia University Pre s s ,
Australia, Melbourne, 1997, pp. 236–7; Paul New York, 1996, p. 210.
Anderson (dir), Boogie Nights, 1998. 37. Kaja Silverman, Male Subjectivity at the Marg i n s,
36. Although it is outside the realm of this paper, it is Routledge, London and New York, 1992, p. 42.
worth noting two other axes along which the 38. Wright, p. 96.

182 VOLUME10 NUMBER2 S E P2004