And yet. Walker’s is a serious line of scientific inquiry that is worth pursuing, and it is now not taking place because the public couldn’t take it seriously. “I’ve talked to men who haven’t been to the doctor for a physical in over a decade because they don’t want to be naked in front of their doctor,” she told Vice. “I’ve talked to men who have never even approached anyone for a romantic relationship because they don’t believe anyone would be interested in them because of their size. I’ve talked to men who have attempted suicide because of their size.”
“From the moment a boy is born it’s drilled into him that size matters. And not just the size of his penis: it’s also the size of his muscles and the size of his wallet,” Chris Hemmings, author of Be a Man tells me. “The general size of our being becomes inextricably linked to our sense of self-worth, and with it comes shame and embarrassment when we don’t stack up. This study was a great opportunity to find out how damaging that correlation can be, but instead it’s been hijacked by the very people the researcher was trying to help the world understand. Until we, as men, accept that tropes about our body can damage our psyche, we’ll continue to be trapped within the very system most of us would like to escape.”
You can’t have it both ways, fellas. You can’t keep insisting to feminists that the ways in which men suffer are gendered, too, that we need to pay more attention to male mental health, and then play silly buggers when someone tries to help. Was it significant that media coverage of Walker’s “dick pic” request was accompanied by pictures of her looking attractive, blonde, youngish, in lipstick? Would the reaction to an older male professor have been the same? Or did her appearance make men feel even more insecure? Or are dicks just so funny that it overrules serious mental health consequences, even suicide?
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