damian"is that a lamppost in your pocket?"
August 22nd 2008 07:57
I sit, trembling in front of my computer screen. It should be the simplest task. All I have to do is click the mouse and open my inbox, but I physically can't seem to do it. Ok, maybe that's a lie. I do have ten working fingers, but right now they simply don't want to co-operate. How has it got to this stage, you might ask?
In a word: spam.
Not just any spam, mind you. I'm well versed in the techniques used by Mr. Robert Mboko to solicit my assistance in handling the money so graciously left to him by his second aunt fourteen times removed. I also know that I can't have won $1 Million in a lottery I never entered. But there is one kind of spam that still strikes fear right into the deepest recesses of my heart:
"Would you like to be up to five times longer?''
"Give her what she really wants!''
"Enhance your performance!''
These subject lines jump out at me from the screen, grabbing hold of my thoughts and twisting them this way and that, but without fail leading me to the conclusion that I must somehow be... "inadequate".
This is not the only time I have to confront this problem. Giant billboards collar me while I'm driving, asking me if I want longer lasting sex - as if to admonish the obviously rather paltry amount of time I usually spend at the crease. When forced to use a public urinal, I sometimes have fleeting visions of the guy next to me chuckling away as he begins the laborious process of extricating the monstrous appendage he has been forced to wind around his leg and tape in place, lest it drag along the ground as he walks.
Even in my own home I am a prisoner, with late night TV ads reassuring me that if my performance is somewhat sub-par, the Advanced Medical Institute has a variety of treatments that can cater to my every need. I turn off the box and try to sleep, but I’m haunted a recurring nightmare: I’m running the 100 metres final at the Olympics, and in the lane next to me is Matt Shirvington.
In short, it's hard not to feel like I should be dancing around behind a piano, playing the Rach III (and not with my hands), before embarking on a marathon session of lovemaking with a blonde Swedish porn star who can barely make out my identifying features past my flagpole-length manhood. And as if that's not enough, when I am too old to achieve this feat of my own volition I'm supposed to take a hearty dose of Viagra and repeat above process.
But let's be realistic about this for a moment. Do I really want to be "up to five times longer?'' Surely that would be highly impractical at best, and at worst leave me looking like someone in the Star Trek makeup department stuck my tail on back-to-front as a practical joke. Will "enhancing my performance'' in this manner truly "give her what she really wants?''
Sure, if she is some kind of sex-starved plaything, prone to regular bouts of nymphomania and blessed with an abnormally high pain threshold - not a description applicable to the majority of women. In fact, I would hazard a guess that for many women or gay men, the prospect of this kind of enhancement would be - after the novelty value wore off - about as welcome as a dose of the clap.
Reassuring as this thought is, it still does not entirely solve my dilemma. True, a number of studies have concluded that men frequently overestimate what is an 'average size', and there is plenty of evidence to suggest that in the bedroom at least, we men are not quite the wild animals we may like to believe. Yet, in the blokey Australian culture of mateship, there are certainly few worse fates than to be labelled ‘soft' – a tag usually reserved for those who fail to excel in key displays of masculinity, such as on the sporting field, or drinking in the pub.
While it may not always be consciously used in a sexual context, its use as a derogatory term stems from this meaning, i.e. someone who is unable to perform sexually. The obvious implication, therefore, is that your virility determines how much of a ‘man’ you are. Indeed, this concept is so ingrained in our society that to fight it seems almost futile. It is quite simply a case of sink or swim, and as the saying goes, if I want to be successful, I must project the image of success.
What this situation calls for is an action plan of Extreme Makeover proportions. The foil-wrapped cucumber down the pants, a la Derek Smalls from Spinal Tap, could definitely be a good place to start, and perhaps some T-shirts with slogans such as “cut me off at the knees and call me tripod”. I’ll start wearing those boxers with lame jokes about ”packing a large trunk”, or perhaps even make a point of espousing the benefits of going ‘commando’ to allow breathing space.
Sure, all these things make no practical difference whatsoever, but then isn’t that what this issue is all about? This is not about being practical; it’s about the manly image I project in society! Those idiots who sign themselves up for surgery to be bigger, faster, longer and stronger are missing the whole point. Size doesn’t matter, only the perception of size. Really, it’s all just one big game of bluff!
Of course, life would be so much easier if we ‘average’ men didn’t have to worry about this elaborate game of deception, but as they say in the classics, if you can’t beat them, join them.
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