It Hurts So Good, One Man’s SPH (small penis) Journey

*Note*
I large number of my clients have fetishes, kinks, and concern about their genitals. Good therapy often includes hearing and acknowledging specific sexual issues and assuring my clients that they aren’t alone, perverted, or unusual in feeling the way they do. Hearing about a sexual worry (or a turn on) in therapy is often the first step to finding a way to feel better about one’s sexuality. Feeling like you are weird or have something “off sexually” can feel all-consuming. Small penis for example is a very common issue presented in my office. Here is one person’s perspective about his the work on his issue pf penis size and his desire for SPH in the hopes of helping other men.
By CL, guest writer
Next, she told me to pull down my shorts. As they fell at my feet and I stood naked before her, she laughed a loud wicked laugh, lay back on the bed, and said: “Definitely not a man, you’re practically dickless; my girlfriends are all going to hear about this, and there’s no way I’m ever letting you fuck me with that tiny little thimble between your legs.” I knelt at her feet, and she parted her knees. Just before burying my face between her thighs, I smiled and asked her to say it again, and again….
What’s in a Kink?
This is actually reflective of a fairly common kink among men, regardless of their actual size. Small penis humiliation (SPH) is probably not one they’d ever mention to guy friends. They may not even be able to discuss it with an intimate partner. If they did, experience would tell them that most women aren’t naturally inclined to go there, some even if it’s clear that he wants or needs this as part of mutually satisfying bedroom play.
I used the word “kink”, but any of these will do:
Predilection
Proclivity
Kink
Fetish
According to their dictionary definitions, I’ve listed them in ascending order of intensity or reference specifically to sexual gratification. A predilection is simply a preference, and a fetish at the other end of the spectrum is an object or body part that’s necessary for sexual gratification and it can be a harmful preoccupation. I actually favor the first two. They’re G-rated words, but they convey the meaning in context, and they go well together.
This posting is the second part of a two-part series. The first part dealt with practical and realistic considerations while dating for a man with a small penis: https://www.sexwithsue.com/fear-dating-mans-little-secret/
Like that first posting, it’s my experience, and intended to help others move past fear, shame, and insecurity, or at least find a productive and positive time and place for those old companions to be called upon to spice things up. It would be fair to say that there’s a cultural obsession with penis size, particularly among men and boys, and size insecurity is a lingering and persistent issue, resulting in negative self-image and a lack of confidence for many males throughout their lives. In the first part, I addressed dating. In this second part, I address harnessing all of that old negative energy and channeling it for erotic pleasure.
Beginning that Journey
For me, it didn’t happen overnight. I wish my journey to this point had been more direct, like a straight line. It wasn’t. I first observed at age 6 that my penis was much smaller than those of other boys my age. That was when I first felt a sense of shame about being sexually under-endowed and dread at what might lay ahead for me if it didn’t grow. Although I expected it would grow, I started hiding my nakedness from others’ eyes as best I could. It turns out it never did grow. At age 19, I realized that I had reached my full adult height, and that my penis would probably remain unusually small. The early humiliations in social and sexual situations would likely be repeated or occur in new ways. They were, and they did. Over time, and entering full adulthood, what I gained was control. The occasional medical procedure excepted, I got to decide when to be naked in the presence of others, and who would learn about my physical anomaly.
Taking Control
I was in my 30s and married for the second time before I understood that the fears and insecurities could be put to controlled use. They were based on my actual experiences and cultural references, and they had fueled the vast majority of my masturbatory fantasies since puberty, and my immature sexual thoughts beginning years before puberty. I experimented, read from an increasing body of research and erotic literature, and learned what I could from others. By my 40s, I finally came to accept what I had once considered a curse had actually been a blessing. I have one significant kink, finally the ability to understand it, and the physical equipment to make it more than a fantasy role play. SPH or its kinder, gentler kin, small penis teasing (SPT), is what I need in order to be most satisfied. It’s what I need for full and genuine sexual expression.
It’s a form of emotional or erotic masochism, and it can pair well with a physical component, but it doesn’t have to do any harm. For me, it isn’t maladaptive at all. It never comes up, except among consenting and trusting adults. I seek its expression only in socially acceptable and inoffensive ways. It’s never interfered with work, made me a neglectful parent, nor involved breaking any law. It won’t ruin my liver or my lungs. It doesn’t stop me from being interested in indulging another’s kinks or satisfying my wife’s needs. On the contrary, what I lack in one sexual attribute makes me more eager and determined to give pleasure in other ways. The more we call attention to the stark and glaring insufficiency of my penis, the more energetic my efforts, and the better the results for both of us.
Mars Men and Venus Women, Yet Again
I mentioned that this is mainly a kink for men. Sexual arousal and expression that’s rooted in longstanding fears and insecurities tend to be strong ones. As Sue McGarvie can attest from her therapy practice and experience in the field, penis-size insecurity among men is practically an epidemic. More than being judged by others, we judge ourselves, compare ourselves to pornographic images, and hear frequently: “size does matter.” Well, it does, but not nearly as much as men think it does.
There are women who prefer a husband or boyfriend with a small penis, say significantly smaller than average, because of the erotic pleasure of teasing him about it. They’re out there, but exceptionally rare. Unicorn, anyone? More commonly, it’s the male partner’s kink and she may enjoy it or not. Like any deeply-rooted kink that’s not openly talked about, and perhaps difficult for even the kinkster to understand or to express in words, mismatches are common. The phenomenon sparked by the popularity of the 2011 book, “Fifty Shades of Grey” by E.L. James, included droves of women who suddenly confided in partners that they’d secretly craved for years or decades to be dominated. For a pair in an exclusive marriage or other long-term relationship, this posed a problem for many. She may crave the sub experience, but he may not be a Dom by nature, nor mentally and emotionally wired for it, even as bedroom play. The problem isn’t what she wants, but that she thinks it should be easy for him to adapt to and adjust based on this new disclosure of hers.
Similarly, when a man confesses years or decades into a relationship that he wants to be teased or humiliated for having a small penis, and for his wife or girlfriend to tell him how much better endowed and more sexually satisfying her previous partners have been, this can pose an obvious problem in a relationship. Often, women aren’t wired for this. Even if they wouldn’t mind an extra couple of inches or something more girthy down there, it can seem objectionably cruel, shallow, or superficial, to tell a man she’s committed to share long term intimacy with that his penis is too small to satisfy her sexual needs. We all have body insecurities of one kind or another, and it seems counter-intuitive to be asked to berate a man for a physical attribute he can’t change, even if it clearly arouses him and he asks for it. The problem isn’t in what he wants, but that he thinks it should be easy to adapt and adjust to this new disclosure of his. Good girls don’t make fun of a man’s junk, not right in front of him anyway, and what might this lead to – him asking to watch her have sex with other men? It can be difficult, and no matter how harmless the activity, disclosing longstanding and intense secret fantasies to a long-term partner, can have the effect of breaking down trust rather than building it. However it goes, trust is the lifeblood of all human relationships.
Back to my Journey – The Measure of a Man
My own journey toward SPH wasn’t a direct, straight line. It was probably around age 30 that I even knew it could be a real destination. It’s something I had to discover. It’s actually an advantage in this one area of kink that my penis is very small. The fear that I didn’t and wouldn’t measure up sexually has been a persistent feature of my erotic thoughts and masturbatory fantasies. Whether changing clothes in a locker room, stripping-off with a group of friends for a nude swim or dip in a hot tub, or undressing for the first time with a new romantic partner, it’s conspicuously obvious that I’m not like other men. A urologist MD informed me in early adulthood that I have a micropenis. It’s the medical term, whatever the cause, and there are many causes, for a penis sized in the bottom one half of one percent, relative to age, adult in my case. With increasingly reliable information about what average size is, an adult micropenis is one with a length of 2 ½ inches (6 1/3 cm) or less. That doctor further described the size of my penis as being “infantile.” It remains so today.
The anxiety that I later sexualized began with trying to hide myself from others as a child. Hiding wasn’t always possible, and being teased by male peers or having them inform female peers reinforced and intensified my sense shame. Seeing pornographic images, male siblings’ and peers’ pubertal development, and observing that the rest of me was growing but my penis remained tiny and my testes and scrotum also small added to my diminishing hope of growth.
Finding Out About Sex, and Being Found Out
It all changed when girls my age began to notice me in a new way, and I began to date, leading eventually to sexual contact. I felt that I was living a lie, pretending to have something I didn’t, and that I was bound to be found out. I was, and the first few sexual experiences included humiliations that added to my bank of shame: condoms slipping off, penis slipping out repeatedly, hearing the words “so small” and “so tiny.” These experiences went not only into a bank of shame, but what one person much later in life referred to as a “permanent spank bank,” a collection of masturbatory thoughts. Alcohol tends to loosen the tongue, and out with friends or work colleagues in my 20s, others made jokes or references to penis size, usually to my secret shame…but also secret arousal.
I’d had to deal in some way with the questions posed to me in the bedroom: “Why is it so small?” and “Can’t you make it bigger?”, but I had no way of initiating or otherwise engaging on the subject. I became a perceptive and giving lover, but I couldn’t yet go there – couldn’t ask for SPH for my pleasure, or guide the activity there when the fact of my size and physical limitations became apparent. I just couldn’t bring myself to lighten up and have some fun with that aspect of the situation. What I was missing was that it wasn’t all frustration and disappointment, and that some of the women who entered my life may have enjoyed exploring the possibilities with me, of exposing my “little secret” to a girlfriend with my knowledge, of measuring me and laughing at the result, of complaining during vaginal penetrative intercourse that she couldn’t feel anything and that my penis was just way too small for sex. Some certainly would have gone there, if I’d asked, especially after they’d commented on our mismatched sexual organs, but I couldn’t yet bring myself to ask.
You’ve Got to Be Prepared to Ask for What You Need and Want
The next step on that journey was in my late 20s, after my first marriage had ended and I was again dating. It was the practical necessity to disclose the situation before sex was immediately imminent. Not only did this help build trust, and give a new romantic partner a graceful exit if my physical deficiency might be a relationship dealbreaker for her, but the conversations were deeply arousing to me. Being able to initiate discussion on the subject and not merely blush and die inside was liberating. It opened the door within a few years to asking for sexual play that made an issue of the small size of my penis, and to guide that play. I’d discovered that pain/pleasure satisfaction of SPH and that I craved it.
The fact that I enjoyed it so much meant that I considered and discovered many ways to indulge it. I came to understand a few things. First, it was the control we have as adults and in relationships based on trust that balance pain and pleasure to produce an overall positive result. When I was 15, there was nothing pleasurable in the instant of having a male peer “out” me to a group of girls our age by referring to me as having a “babydick.” Their knowing giggles and the looks on their faces when my silent embarrassment confirmed an unusually small penis are etched in my mind and memory. The pain at the time was unequivocal, no matter how arousing it has been to think of it ever since.
Now, I have control. I’ll gladly expose the truth when it suits me, and I know when I register to run in a clothing-optional 5K race with hundreds of other nude adults, that people will notice that I’m the only man there whose flaccid penis is completely retracted, appearing to be no more than a nub of skin. I know it’s not a sexual situation, and I’m legitimately a good runner who enjoys the company of nudists as honestly accepting people. However, I can’t deny the secret thrill of it being obvious to any and all who care to look that I’m by far the smallest-endowed man there, something one just doesn’t see every day, especially on a man who’s otherwise fit.
In our private time together, I take special pleasure in having my wife run her finger up and down the length of her labia as she says to me: “You’ll never be able to satisfy me with that little teenie weenie peenie.” I wasted so much time and energy earlier in life trying to hide myself and fearing what would happen when people found out. In order to minimize the anticipated harm, I foreclosed all of the positive sexual energy that I might have experienced and shared.
All a Matter of Perspective
I once used to look up, shake my fist heavenward, and yell: “Hey, you missed a spot down here!” In time, I came to learn that I’m just part of the variety and variation of nature, and that the silent message back was: “That little penis of yours is a gift, so quit complaining and go have some fun with it, but without hurting anyone.”
My message to others who’ve read this far is that, whatever your kink, go have some fun with it, but without hurting anyone. Your kinks are probably not as strange or shameful as you think, but if you have a long-term partner, and you’ve never disclosed this before, be clear and direct but take it slowly and understand if he or she can’t yet, or maybe can’t ever, take that particular path with you.
*Note*
So if this article resonates with you and you need to talk further then it’s time to reach out. Send me an email or fill out the contact form and we can put your fears, concerns at rest and set up an action plan. Be gentle with yourself. Sue