The Phallusy, A Penis in Five Parts: Part One: Percentages, an Introduction
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A heads up, this series of essays is about body shaming, particularly how I and other men view our penises. Let’s start with a laugh.
Question: Do you know why doctors slap babies when they’re born?
Answer: To knock the penis off the smart ones.
One of my ex-wife’s favorite jokes. I think it’s pretty funny too.
In the beginning was my body. And my body was perfect.
Dr. Zerfoss was not the doctor who first slapped my freshly-born bottom, but he was the only adult man who knew my young body as well as me or my father. All of us kids had always and only gone to Dr. Z, our much adored family pediatrician. A combination of Mr. Rogers and Tom Selleck. Just make super kind Mr. Rogers a little bit more hip and give him a cool-not-creepy mustache. He was kind, occasionally funny, and super comfortable to be with. Which, on this particular day of my 11 year annual physical, made it not especially uncomfortable or awkward when he casually asked, “Are you happy with your penis?”
Happy? Are you kidding me?
At 11, my penis and I played together like best friends. My penis would bolt upright several times a night, standing tall leaping from my shorts like it was a fun sleepover and he’d just remembered something hilarious he had to tell me, or just couldn’t wait to talk about that cute dark-haired girl in math class. He was always the first up every morning, ready to take on the day. And like a goofy friend, at school or at swim practice, he’d tried to embarrass me with the occasional unannounced stiffy. And I was always surprised and the last to notice, like I’d just discovered a “kick me” sign on my back in lieu of the bulge on my front. We were the best of friends. Always happy to see each other.
Dr. Z: “Are you happy with your penis?”
Me: “Ummm.”
How could I not be happy with my penis? I assume it’s the same for girls and their vaginas. Though maybe not, since around this age for girls, vaginas start “acting up”. So, maybe Dr. Z asks all his young patients at this point in their development if they’re happy with their privates. I prayed to God my penis didn’t start bleeding! Though, to be honest, I didn’t yet know that happened to girls, so I was really just worried about it maybe malfunctioning somehow. Could playing with it break it?! Then mine certainly would have been shattered by now!
This was my 11 year old professionally circumcised penis we were talking about. It was one of my favorite body parts. It did everything I thought it was supposed to and then some. I thought it was perfect. It was perfect.
How could I not like my penis?
I answered, “Yeah, it’s great!”
“That’s good,” he said. “I’m glad.”
But he seemed to say it in an I’m-not-telling-you-everything kind of way. When Mom came in, Dr. Z told her that I was normal and that my penis was in a certain percentile.
I didn’t know that this was the day we’d talk with my MOM about my penis.
I didn’t know that there would EVER be that day.
I wish I’d known in advance. I would have made her drop me off and wait in the car. I would have taken a cab and left Mom at home. I would have skipped out altogether.
But Mom was unfazed and seemed oddly comforted. What the hell was I missing here?
And Percentile? I didn’t know what any of this meant. What’s with the percentile? Since when has my penis had a “percentile” attached to it? I knew my penis like I knew the back of my hand, and the only thing I’d ever seen attached to my penis was the front of my hand! Was there a good percentile and a bad percentile?
Was my penis, with its perfect bell curve head and structurally sound shaft and lovely near-bald early-adolescent scrotum now on some kind of critical bell curve?! A chart of penile perfection I hadn’t prepared for? I didn’t know that today was “Dick Exam Day”. I would have at least given it a pep talk. A “straighten your back”, “hold your head high” kind of thing. Maybe worn boxers instead of briefs.
I don’t remember exactly what that percentage was, but it wasn’t 100%. Was I missing some of my penis? I had the palm tree. I had the coconuts. What else was there supposed to be? Was he talking about those fronds that had started growing around the base? Were there going to be more fronds? A lot more? Like what had started in my armpits? Was I gonna be hairy?! God, I wanted to be hairy. That’d be so cool.
These were questions where I really could have used a sensitive, proactive, engaged father, ready to tackle this big rite-of-passage moment. But we weren’t that throwback, 50s-and-60s-hippy, progressive family. We never talked about sex or our body parts. Yeah, no doubt, that would have been nice, but that just wasn’t my dad. We never had that kind of relationship. He already seemed a little too interested in my body. He used to make me strip naked for haircuts. That never made sense to me and always gave me the willies. And as such, I didn’t want to go to Dad. So, Dad was off the table.
And even though Mom was already at least somewhat in the know, I was, after all, her third son, and I assumed Dr. Z had assigned percentages to my older brothers’ penises as well; I was too embarrassed to go to her. And my brothers and I really didn’t talk about stuff. So, I couldn’t go to them. I would have to figure this out on my own.
I didn’t say much on the drive home. I’d always been such a happy kid, so comfortable with myself and my body. But now, leaving Dr. Z’s office, for the first time I was a little uncertain. I hated thinking that maybe something was wrong with me.
I felt off-balance. Like I’d lost my center. No sooner had we pulled in the drive, than, without a word to Mom, I bolted inside and upstairs to my room. Was something wrong with me?
I slowly scanned the four walls, from my faded gold carpeted floor to the eggshell-white ceiling. My hand-drawn 4 foot tall Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy heads were still on my closet doors. The red, orange, and yellow sunset I’d painted the summer before was still covering the wall by my bed. My cool, blue, round clock-radio I’d won in a swim-a-thon was right where I’d left it on my oak headboard. I looked out my second-story windows into the dense woods behind our house where I went on my wild, secret adventures. Nothing had changed. Yet it felt everything had changed. I locked the door.
I stripped and stood naked in front of my closet mirror, looking down at my penis. What could it tell me? What did Dr. Zerfoss and my mom understand that I didn’t? I stared. I waited. I was in no hurry, dinner wasn’t for another two hours and all I had was some homework for Ms. Burrows’ English class and that could wait. I felt a little flushed thinking about Ms. Burrows. She was kinda hot in a “late 20s-early 30s, new to teaching, thinks all her kids are the greatest” kinda way. I turned my penis’s head to me and locked my gaze on those taut perpendicular lips. If I squeezed, it made the lips part like my penis was taking a pensive breath trying to decide exactly what to say. (This was also essentially the same way I’d make snapdragons talk in my afternoons alone in Mom’s garden. By squeezing the flowers, not my penis.) I squeezed more firmly. The lips spread further. I had never questioned any part of my body before, let alone my penis. What was he trying to tell me? I held him tight. Now swollen and bright red, it was Screaming! Struggling for the right words.
“I’m not a percentile!”
But now I couldn’t stop wondering. Was it not perfect like I’d always believed? What was it supposed to be?
And there was the end of my innocence. Supposed to be.
That’s when my real insecurities began. Right there in those three words. Supposed. To. Be.
It’s taken me nearly 50 years to know that there is no “supposed to be”.
NEXT CHAPTER >>>>>
Part One: Percentages, an Introduction is the first in a five essay series, The Phallusy: A Penis in Five Parts, actor Cooper Thornton’s lifelong journey to accept, love, and celebrate every bit of himself. The WHOLE package, especially including the “package” part of the package.
Thanks for reading. In many of my essays I mention or go into depth about my journey with depression. It’s helped me to know that I’m not alone. If you or someone you know struggles with depression, talk about it. Help remove the stigma. You can call any one of the hotlines out there or visit a very helpful site like youfeellikeshit.com. Please know you deserve care and love and that even though it seems there is no light at the end of the tunnel, the darkness will pass.