LIKE many people, I get about a dozen emails a day bearing news good and bad. The bad is that my penis is too small, too soft and lacking the endurance to satisfy a fruit fly. The good is I can build a longer, stronger and everlasting erection for a few hundred dollars by taking miracle pills.
Example: "Get ready to be stopped by women in the street. Your entire image will emanate increased size! This is what you always needed to lead a happier, more fulfilling life."
What's being promised is akin to Jack's magic beans, except penis-enlargement pills don't work so spectacularly. To get the extra inches requires at least a six-month commitment. But the pills need to be taken with an exercise program "jelqing" including drills similar to stretching hamstrings before jogging. To see what it takes to become a Mr Big, go to enlargepenisguide.com. You'll find a nude man, a fairly happy man one imagines, pretending to be a clock, with what appears to be a baby's arm grafted to his pubic bone as the minute hand.
By the time I found this impressive fellow, I'd already paid $106 for a month's supply of ProSolutions (chosen because of its professional-sounding name) and followed these instructions: "Type your name, the number of inches you want to gain, and the reason(s) you want to gain those inches in the blanks below. And read the completed statement out loud to reinforce the commitment that will lead to your ultimate success."
And so my colleagues heard me pledge earnestly: "I, John Elder, have decided I want to gain two inches in length and one inch in girth (I felt modest ambition would minimise disappointment). My reasons are vanity. And I'm committed to a good penis-pill system until I reach my desired gains."
If I hadn't made this pledge, I could have abandoned the project particularly after spotting Mr Baby Arm, whom I presume is also trying to improve himself. And that's the rub. If you're born with one of these ridiculous organs, there are times when just about every man feels short-changed.
The average size of an erect penis is about 15.24 centimetres six inches in the old money. (When talking about penis size, it's traditional to use inches.) The sad thing is it seems there are many men living fretfully with a ruler in one hand and a world of hope in the other. To meet some of these people, return to enlargepenisguide.com and log on to the "progress reports" forum. You'll find men apparently taking the pills, diligently jelqing (stretching a flaccid penis) and sharing how it's hanging. Like Nicky: "I'm 21, and, measured from the pelvic bone, the length of my penis is around 7.5 inches, but I've always wanted to be large like a porn star. I've been doing the exercise a few days now "
Occasionally, someone claims spectacular results. The simple reason is that the pills herbal aphrodisiacs, not muscle-building proteins give little more than an illusion of growth by concentrating blood in the otherwise shrivelled underbelly. But the real joke is that the more anxious one becomes about penis size, the more it is likely to shrink.
"The curious thing about our society, most of the time we pretend that the penis doesn't shrink," says David Mitchell, a doctor and a medical anthropologist. "In fact, the penis doesn't have a set flaccid size. It's actually meaningless to measure the size of the penis because it varies from minute to minute according to the temperature and one's state of mind. The trouble is, if you get anxious, it only makes it smaller, to the point where it can disappear in cases where anxiety spirals into a panic attack."
Dr Mitchell has researched a recent outbreak of these attacks known as "shrinking penis disease" on the Indonesian island of Flores, where black magic is widely practised. In these instances, the sufferer believes he will die if his penis disappears. The last outbreak in a modern society occurred in Singapore in 1962, following a rumour that eating pork vaccinated against swine fever would cause shrinking penis disease.
"There were people rushing through the streets holding their penises some of them using chopsticks," Dr Mitchell says. "As soon as they hit the hospital and started to relax, they came back to normal."
Dr Mitchell says the disease could re-emerge in the Western world. "It could come back again in our society if someone spread the right stories around," he says.
Chris Fox, of La Trobe University, is doing a PhD on penis size and its role in body image. So far, he has interviewed 15 men aged 20 to 75. "The short answer is that every man at some point in his life worries about the size of his penis," Mr Fox says. "If we don't like our penis we won't enjoy sex. For people with a pathological issue with penis size, it will affect their sex life.
"In some cases it will affect how they behave around other men. And one has to remember that most people make their comparison with a flaccid penis at the urinal or in a change room. The only erections we tend to see are the very big penises on porn stars and my interview subjects didn't feel threatened by these giant penises because they felt they weren't real. It's in the real world that anxiety takes root."
Mr Fox's research is still in its early days, but one of the intriguing findings is that "a good penis size can compensate for other character flaws".
"So you may not be the nicest person around, but if you have a big (penis) you'll tend to feel good about yourself " he says.
In fact, the bigger penis may have no other useful role beyond being a comfort to its owner.
"We don't have any real evidence that there is anything gained from a large penis," says Dr Stephen Juan, Sydney University academic and author of The Odd Sex. "The ancient Greeks fought in the nude in combat you reached for anything you could, so having a large penis would have been disadvantageous."
Contrary to Mr Fox's position, Dr Juan says the object of envy is the super-sized male porn star. "Just as men will see a (Hollywood) movie and look at the attractive, suave, charming, athletic male character and want to be like him he will now look at the porno performer and want to be like him. Probably if we didn't have the porno industry, we wouldn't have the extent of this envy."
Meanwhile, my pills are in the mail. But the important thing is not to worry.
With BRYDIE FLYNN
That's about the size of it
Most men are roughly created equal. According to the Institute for Research in Sex, Gender and Reproduction, the erect penis ranges from 12.7 to 17.78 centimetres an average of 15.24 centimetres. Yet within that 5-centimetre variable lies a great deal of anxiety. Even men with penises larger than the average are falling prey to self-doubt. Says Dr Michael Flood, researcher in gender studies at La Trobe University: "The men who are trying to make their penises bigger are playing out the key messages we give men: sex is about your penis. So it's not surprising that some men go to great lengths to fulfil that ideal. The tragedy is these efforts won't improve their sexual lives and they only risk damaging themselves."
Posted by: john ||
08/13/2006 13:03 ||
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running with scissors through the streets holding your penis with chopsticks sounds like a really good way to get a projectile herniation and possibly lose said penis
Posted by: Frank G ||
08/13/2006 13:10 Comments ||
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#2
I'm so glad I'm not a man!
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
08/13/2006 13:24 Comments ||
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lol, a bunch of vids of a guy pulling his crock
CRAWFORD, Texas (AP) -- War protesters extended the olive branch to their new neighbors in President Bush's adopted hometown by hosting a barbecue Saturday - and a few even showed up. "You can have a dialogue, but you'll never agree," said Valerie Duty, a staunch Bush supporter who wore a "This is Bush country, by George!" T-shirt. "Both sides do agree about bringing the troops home safely. The difference is the way we go about that."
Locals have been angry since a man bought five acres last month on behalf of peace activist Cindy Sheehan, who said no one in the area would have sold her any property. Anti-war demonstrator Jim Goodnow said he was glad some area residents - roughly half a dozen - visited the new protest site. "If we can get away from the name calling and see each other as Americans, that will be how we can heal this nation," Goodnow said.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/13/2006 12:33 ||
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I'm betting the Sheehan bots jizzed in the BBQ sauce and all begged off to the locals on the grounds they're veggie-terrians...
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
08/13/2006 14:41 Comments ||
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wow...6..huh? Sounds like a million-crawford-citizen march
Posted by: Frank G ||
08/13/2006 16:25 Comments ||
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If I were GWB, I'd be dropping hints that I was going to Crawford every five minutes just to see all the nutcases jump! Eventually they'd get tired of it and go home.
Two years after a cadre of veterans helped sink the presidential campaign of Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.), they have found a new target in the old steel country of southwestern Pennsylvania: Democratic Rep. John P. Murtha. In a fight that organizers say will feature rallies, TV ads and an aggressive Internet campaign, these activists are promising to make Murtha pay for his criticism of the Iraq war.
"I will do my best to 'Swift boat' John Murtha," retired Navy Capt. Larry Bailey said at a recent news conference here, invoking the 2004 campaign against Kerry that took its name from Vietnam War-era Navy vessels.
Few believe that Murtha, a Vietnam veteran who has represented his district since 1974, is in much danger of being driven from office.
But in the wake of Sen. Joe Lieberman's defeat in Connecticut's Democratic primary last week, Murtha's showdown with an increasingly vocal group of opponents provides more evidence of the prominent role the Iraq war is playing in this year's midterm campaign.
Unlike Lieberman, whose support for the war cost him Democratic voters, Murtha confronts a challenge sparked by his repeated calls for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq.
#1
Get over yourself, LA Times. The reason "swift-boating" works is that it incorporates something you know very little about: The TRUTH. Truth is that Kerry LIED about his record in Vietnam, and LIED about the character of service of his fellow soldiers. Murtha is also LYING about the character of service of our boys in Iraq, and he will suffer the consequences for these LIES. Don't want to be targeted? Don't LIE.
Posted by: Frank G ||
08/13/2006 16:30 Comments ||
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The guy could have been Sgt York in Vietnam. His problem is what he's going around saying these days.
Kerry's different. He tried to say his wartime experience made him presidential. He made his military record an issue. The Swift Boaters addressed that issue.
Posted by: Baba Tutu ||
08/13/2006 19:29 Comments ||
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Murtha doesn't need the Swift Boat Vets, he's taken self-inflicted fire.
The lawsuit should take good care of him.
Posted by: Captain America ||
08/13/2006 20:55 Comments ||
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ROMULUS, Mich. (AP) - The Customs area at a Detroit airport was briefly shut down Saturday after a passenger claimed he had contaminated everyone on a flight with a biological agent, officials said. At Detroit Metropolitan Airport, a U.S. citizen got of a Northwest Airlines flight and implied to the crew he had a biological agent of some sort and had contaminated the flight, U.S. Customs agent Ron Smith said.
Airport emergency medical technicians examined the man and decided that he did not pose a health risk. He was eventually allowed to leave, Smith said.
Posted by: Steve White ||
08/13/2006 00:00 ||
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He was eventually allowed to leave
Umm....am I missing something? Allowed to leave? No 'filing a false report' or some other related charge?
KARACHI (Reuters) - Authorities in Karachi have ordered the removal of billboards showing film star Amitabh Bachchan in front of Pakistan's flag to promote a telephone quiz contest opening on the country's independence day.
"We are not enemies of Mr. Bachchan. But his picture on our national flag was an objectionable act and we ordered them to remove his picture from the flag," Mirza Asif Baig, a local government official told Reuters on Friday. "This place is reserved only for our own heroes," he added.
Telefun, a private call-in entertainment company, had posted the giant billboards round the city to promote a call-in quiz contest along the lines of an Indian television version of the U.S. quiz show "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire" hosted by Bachchan. The billboards said the show would be aired from August 14 -- the day Pakistan celebrates independence from Britain and partition from India.
Abdul Qadir, Telefun's marketing manager, said the company was complying with the authorities' directive. "We have already started disassociating Bachchan's picture from the national flag," Qadir said. "It was a mistake."
Qadir said Telefun had used Bachchan's image because of the similar format of the quiz.
Bachchan is regarded as the most famous living Indian movie star and is popular on both sides of the border, although there is a long-standing ban on screening of Indian films in cinema halls in Pakistan. Indian films are easily available, however, on pirated CDs and are also aired on cable television channels in Pakistan.
Posted by: john ||
08/13/2006 10:18 ||
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Indian film star Amitabh Bachchan has been voted the greatest star of stage or screen by BBC News Online users.
Mr Bachchan was voted in by a large margin, pushing Sir Laurence Olivier into second place, followed by Sir Alec Guinness in third.
Many people in the western world will not have heard of Amitabh Bachchan, 56, but he remains one of Bollywood's biggest stars, having appeared in more than 100 films in three decades. He made his name in the seventies and eighties as an action hero, a swashbuckling star of Hindi films.
Posted by: john ||
08/13/2006 10:21 Comments ||
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Popular in Iran as well
TEHRAN, Aug. 11 (MNA) A poll by the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcastings (IRIB) Research Center showed that the celebrated Indian movie Sholay has drawn the most audience attention, reported the state TV here Thursday.
Directed by Ramesh Sippy, the movie was aired in the fourth week of the Iranian calendar month Tir (June 22-July 22).
Iranian directors Kiumars Purahmad's Strange Sisters and Kamal Tabrizi's Maternal Love aired in the same period stood second and third respectively.
The 1975 hit Sholay tells the story of a retired police officer, Thakur, who hires two convicts, Veeru and Jai, to capture Gabbar Singh.
Posted by: john ||
08/13/2006 10:23 Comments ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
CRAWFORD, Texas (AP) -- War protesters extended the olive branch to their new neighbors in President Bush's adopted hometown by hosting a barbecue Saturday - and a few even showed up. "You can have a dialogue, but you'll never agree," said Valerie Duty, a staunch Bush supporter who wore a "This is Bush country, by George!" T-shirt. "Both sides do agree about bringing the troops home safely. The difference is the way we go about that."
