Penis Insecurities

[confusedhuman]

As the subject says, I've had some insecurities with my equipment. I'm about 8.5 inches hard and it's made life a pain. Everything I do and everywhere I go I'm worried that people are staring at my bulge. Whenever I hear laughing at school or in public I always think that it's because the outline is clearly visible. My friends and I all express affection mainly through hugs and snuggling, so that's not excellent, but they are really great about it, they've been really supportive and are really the only people I'm comfortable around and don't constantly worry about that. The main problem is my parents. They're generally leftists but sex is an exception for whatever reason (sort of, they did explain it to me as a toddler and I personally think that helped because it helped me accept it as just another part of life). My parents at one point took my phone away for a year because I was "bragging to a girl about my size." (I wasn't, I was asking for help with this same insecurity and I'd made sure she was okay with it and frankly I don't see a breach of etiquette). My parents (especially my mom) have also made multiple comments about my size in relation to how I interact with other people. Stuff like "you can't wear that, it's obscene" or rules like "no tight underwear" which makes absolutely no sense because tight underwear helps hide bulges. I wear a lot of athletic shorts because they're comfortable, but with loose underwear it just flops around and is very visible regardless of whether I'm hard or not. My parents have also imposed a rule that I can't wear pajamas whenever there are girls over; I've been shouted at to go change when stumbling out of my room at 9 to eat breakfast on the weekends because my sister always has friends over. Because of all this I'm ashamed of anything about me that could possibly be sexual (I know rationally it's fine but that doesn't change anything). I can't even accept that chest dysphoria isn't somehow a sex thing (I'm agender). Does anybody have any advice or something that's worked for them? I'm also planning to talk to my therapist about this but I'm not comfortable discussing this with him just yet.

[Sam W]

Hi confusedhuman,

That sounds like a stressful situation, and I'm sorry you're dealing with it. I think raising this issue with your therapist is a good plan, and if you want help figuring out how to broach that topic that's definitely something we can help with.

Would it be helpful to talk about some ways people unlearn shameful messages around sex? And would you want to brainstorm some ways to maybe set boundaries with your parents around the comments they're making about your body and your clothes? Because how they're talking is over the line (and I'd be curious as to whether they talk to your sister the same way about her body and clothes).

[confusedhuman]

Thanks for the reply! I would love some help figuring out how to bring that up, and also how to unlearn some of the stuff I've been taught about sex. I've avoided confronting my parents seriously about it because whenever I say they're being unreasonable I usually get something like "too bad" or "nobody wants to see that, stop being selfish/unreasonable/whatever". I haven't noticed them saying anything like that to my sister.

[Sam W]

Okay! This article is a good starting place: Undoing Sexual Shame. It can also help to drill down a bit on what the shameful messages are connected to. For example, do you feel like got messages that sex was bad or taboo in general, or that certain actions or desires were bad? Or was it tied to comments about your body, sort of framing the sexuality of someone who has a penis as being inherently negative?

Ick, they're not doing a great job listening to you OR modeling good conflict resolution skills with those responses. That can make this situation trickier to navigate, but I think there's still room to push back a bit. One would be to point out that this is how your body us shaped right now, and treating that as something inherently bad or obscene (or assuming you wearing things that are comfortable is automatically about showing your penis) doesn't make any sense and isn't actually helpful to you or anyone else.

Depending on how comfortable you are pointing this out, you could make the comparison to someone with a large chest getting told that they're being "provocative" no matter what they wear. You mention you're parents are left-leaning, so I'd hope they'd be able to recognize for the sexist garbage it is and realize that they're functionally doing the same thing to you.

Speaking of clothes, do you feel comfortable pushing back on some of their demands around how you dress? For instance, you mentioned the no tight underwear rule and why it's counter-intuitive given their worries. Do you think you could point that out to them?

[confusedhuman]

First of all, that article has been really helpful. I intend to push back next time they bring it up, though it probably won't come up for a while because we're all stuck inside and. I want to go along the lines of "this is just how my body is, you guys saying things like that are really causing me harm and while I understand your intentions are good, I'm just trying to be comfortable and this is what is comfortable." Obviously I'll refine it a bit more and make it more approachable for them but that's the basic idea. I definitely have thought about using the comparison to someone with a large chest and if it makes sense with how the conversation is going I'll definitely use it. As for the tight underwear rule, I've just been ignoring it and they're none the wiser.

[Sam W]

I'm glad it was helpful! And that sounds like a really good script to use when you have that conversation with them.