I generally like The Good Men Project. They’re doing a good job on the important task of helping to redefine what masculinity is in the modern world. This is no mean feat; women have consciously and forcefully worked to expand the definition of feminine to include athletes as well as cheerleaders, CEOs as well as homemakers, politicians as well as PTA chairs. Men, contrawise, have generally avoided doing the hard work of similarly expanding maleness. And so it’s good that an online magazine will take a look at what it is to be a man in the 21st century, and give the answer that it’s more than just liking sports, drinking beer, and sleeping around.
But while The Good Men Project has its heart in the right place, it still will occasionally go wildly off the rails. As it did today, with this map.
Yes, that’s a map of the world, color-coded by average penis size.
Now, there are two serious problems with this. The first is simple. As someone familiar with the care and operation of this equipment, I can tell you that it’s not the same size under all conditions. This makes an apples-to-apples comparison of size somewhat problematic, for obvious reasons. Unless these measurements were all done using the same methodology under similar laboratory conditions, they’re pretty meaningless. And somehow I doubt that.
But even if all measurements were conducted in the same way, at similar states of arousal, in every country, so what? Who cares whose national penises are larger and whose are smaller? Am I supposed to look down on China or India because they have a low average penis size? Billions of Asians are testament to the fact that whatever the average penis size in that part of the world, they’re working just fine. Am I supposed to bow down in awe at the men of Congo, who have the world’s largest penises? Folks, I don’t care if I’d be endowed with one six feet long, I wouldn’t want to live in the Congo for any reason, and I’m willing to bet most Congolese men would agree with me.
The fact is that penis size is as irrelevant to maleness as ear size, or index finger size. And ranking the size of penises around the world simply reinforces tired old myths. Just as I’m not going to measure the worth of nations based on the average woman’s bra size, I’m not going to measure them based on the average man’s penis size. There are far more important metrics — life expectancy, education, poverty — than this. This is a swing and a miss.
Who cares whose national penises are larger and whose are smaller?
Size queens on vacation, obviously.
I’m not sure if there was any methodology other than the Make Shit Up variety for this. GMP didn’t provide a source.
These people apparently haven’t taken R&B 101. While they were talking about women, it’s my experience that it’s even more like this for women (originally recorded by The Swallows in 1951, covered by lots of people):
Should have been
“While they were talking about the male perspective, it’s my experience it’s even more this way for women …”
Ron
How did they get away with that in 1951? It’s just dirty talk to a tune. And you say it was performed by ‘The Swallows’?
April 1st is more than a week away.
I saw that linked on the side of another GMP article I was reading, and I assumed it must be from another website and being dragged in by some content aggregator. Caring what countries have the biggest penises is exactly the type of outdated masculinity that I thought GMP was supposed to be opposing.
Is it “hey folks, we should care about dick size because it makes you more manly?”
Or it is “hey folks: have you noticed how those dick swinging ‘manly’ Americans have smaller dicks than the much-maligned French? guess it doesn’t matter that much, and it’s time to remove dick size from masculinity constructs, hmm?”
I think they re-used the tree-ring data cited by global warming activists…
The “good men” project? That sounds suspiciously sexist to
me,because the name implies that most men aren’t good.
What if there were a “good women” or “good blacks” project,implying that most women and most blacks weren’t good?
Goodness or badness have absolutely nothing to do with race or gender.
Speaking of global warming, Ben, you never addressed the many errors you made in the recent global warming thread. Please address the points I made in this comment. Thanks.
GMP is overall fantastic, but I am frequently disappointed by the blog. Such is life, I suppose.
To be fair, there’s not actually anything in the blog post that suggests that you should. Any conclusions you draw are your own.
Well…sort of. There are six nations or semi-autonomous regions in eastern Asia which could reasonably be considered wealthy: Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, Singapore, Hong Kong, and Macau. These six are in fact dead last in terms of fertility rate. China’s pretty low, too. I doubt very much that it has anything to do with penis size, but them’s the facts.
You do realize that this is a strawman, right? I sometimes get the impression that feminists really do believe that men spent all of history running around bonking each other over the heads and raping women until feminists came along to show us a better way. In reality, traditional ideals of masculinity have long included values like being a provider and protector, and restraint and wisdom in the use of force, particularly against women.
I get that feminists aren’t too big on traditional ideals of masculinity, largely because they tend to go hand-in-hand with traditional ideals of femininity, but they are at least more defensible than the caricature about beer and sports and bedpost-notches. Really, that sort of man is more often than not portrayed as a buffoon in popular culture.
Robert:
Five dollars says there’s already a movie with that title.
Equal time:
http://www.targetmap.com/viewer.aspx?reportId=5285