Unhung Hero (4 Stars)

At Christmas 2011 Patrick Moote proposed to his girlfriend at a UCLA baseball game. After only a short hesitation she replied No and left the stadium. The video of 30-year-old Patrick's rejection was posted on YouTube and had 10 million views within four days. The original version of the video was censored to hide his girlfriend's face, but this is a link to the uncensored version.

This wasn't the end of Patrick's story. It was only the beginning. A few days later he asked his girlfriend why she had turned him down, and she said it was because his penis was too small. Patrick already knew that he was below average, but he didn't think it would be a problem. He decided to make a documentary about whether size matters, hoping to find vindication. He went back to his home town to interview his first lovers, and they all said they remembered his small penis. Thinking it was just the taunts of spiteful ex-girlfriends he travelled across America to get the opinions of other men and women. Some of the replies were less than helpful. For instance, a gay man that he interviewed replied, "You have a small penis? Take a knife to your throat and end it all right now".

Dale Dabone has no doubt that it's important to have a big penis.

Axel Braun says that big penises are better for films, but small penises are better for sex. Allie Haze seems to find that amusing.

Ron Jeremy says that a big penis is an advantage, but not essential.

Dr. Annie Sprinkle (ex-prostitute, ex-porn star) says that it's more important to treat the Earth as our lover.

Jonah Falcon considers his big penis a curse. He's unable to have a lasting relationship because that's all women want him for.

Still confused by all of the conflicting opinions, Patrick decided to extend the scope of the documentary. Instead of just gathering opinions about whether size matters he decided to try out penis enlargement techniques. None of the methods worked – maybe because he was doing them all at once? – so he travelled across Asia, to Malaysia, Korea, Taiwan and Papua New Guinea, in order to find a way to make his penis grow. He's amazed to discover that Korea is  a country obsessed with penises. There are even penis parks, i.e. public parks full of statues of penises.

Strangely, Koreans find parks like this normal.

But Korean children still find it funny when Patrick is invited to their school to talk about his small penis.

This tastes bad.

This tastes even worse.

But this is okay, it tastes like chicken. Oh wait, it is chicken!

Does this really work? Would any sane man try it?

Obviously Patrick isn't sane.

They have to check that everything is still attached.

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That's my pictorial report on the documentary. But what do I think of it? On the one hand Patrick can be praised for making this documentary and effectively telling the whole world he has a small penis. On the other hand, he still has a certain shyness. During the film we see several penises, but never Patrick's. He can't overcome his reluctance to show his penis on camera, which would be appropriate, since it's the subject of the documentary. For most of the film he goes around telling people he is "a bit below average", but when he's in Malaysia we finally find out that his penis is 6.1 cm long. That's less than two and a half inches, hardly what I would call a bit below average. At the end of the film the claim is made that the average size of an erection is 4.4 inches, but that disagrees with everything I've ever read. Estimates of the average size usually vary between 6 and 6.5 inches. Patrick is trying to twist the facts in his own favour.

Does size matter? It's more important to step back and ask why we are asking that question. 20 years ago it was something that wasn't considered. It's not that we were more prude back then. The reason is the proliferation of pornography through the Internet. In particular, more teenage girls watch pornography than at any other time in history. It's estimated that over 80% of 16-year-olds have watched pornography at least once. Most teenagers watch pornography before they lose their virginity. This is where the problem lies. Pornography raises expectations by presenting an unreal form of sex. The minimum penis size for American porn stars is nine inches, so girls grow up thinking that the average size is about 10 inches. When a girl's first lover pulls out his penis and it's only six inches long her face drops and she thinks to herself, "The next one will be bigger". She might never meet anyone who lives up to the porn stars, but she can't be happy until she finds someone who at least comes close.

Pornography can be harmful to children, especially if it functions as their first sex education. I'm of the opinion that it ought to be kept away from children, but since it's impossible to do so in the Internet age we should at least educate children about pornography. They should be informed that porn stars aren't normal people, they're comparable with top athletes. The very well hung men in the porn films are about as common as the 6'10" men that we see in wrestling matches.

I still haven't answered the question. Does size matter? That depends what you mean. If it's a matter of sexual satisfaction, any man bigger than four inches should be able to satisfy a woman if he has some skill. 95% of men are between four and eight inches, so that's practically all of them. The few men who fall below that line will have problems, but they can find solutions with the help of a good partner.

But it's not just a matter of sexual satisfaction, it's a matter of taste. If a woman only likes men with large penises the answer is Yes, size matters to her, and it's useless for any man to try to talk her out of it. In the same way, many men only like women with large breasts. This makes some women feel inferior, but they shouldn't worry about it because there are many other men who either prefer small-breasted women or don't care about size.

And if you're a man you have to ask whether your own size matters to yourself. Whether you're small or large, does it matter to the extent that you feel it's what defines you? If that's the case, you have a very low opinion of yourself. The documentary has a happy ending. Patrick ends up dating Kasha, a girl that he met while making the documentary. She thinks he's strange because he's obsessed with his penis size. She loves him and doesn't care how small his penis is.