https://www.cosmopolitan.com/sex-love/news/a28397/i-wore-a-fake-bulge/
It's surprisingly difficult to get objectified as a man. JUL 9, 2014
Cosmo loves bulges. Like really, really, really loves bulges. And men love them too. Those guys walking around with their skinny jeans/tighty-whities combo to show off the lumpy mass of their tangled up penis and balls know exactly what they're doing; it's the male equivalent of a low-cut top and push-up bra.
But do women actually really care about an enormous pants-ham? I decided to find out.
I've already got a penis, but for the sake of full disclosure, it's not a Mark Wahlberg in Boogie Nights, you're a rock star-size dong. I also wear jeans that are considerably looser than, say, a wetsuit or a catsuit or skinny jeans. You're just not going to get a lot of detail up in there. Which is how I found myself ordering one of those "bulge enhancers," basically a foam nut cup, online.
When that wasn't obvious enough (I really wanted to get some Jon Hamm-style attention here), I fashioned some socks into a makeshift penis roughly the same size as a Chipotlé burrito, pinned it into my underwear, and slid it down my right leg. It looked like I either had mammoth balls or my penis was so huge I had to fold it multiple times to fit in my pants. Or like I had elephantiasis of the entire crotch.
My crotch now having grown three sizes that day, I ran some errands around New York City. I pictured myself being a D-list celebrity: tourists stopping for pictures; a small group of people gawking as I try to pick up some groceries.
I've never been more cognizant of everyone's gaze than when I was walking around with a bulge made of socks unceremoniously wedged between my actual penis and my underwear. But there's a gender-specific horizon of gazes, and crotches fall right into everyone's blind spot. I noticed immediately that women would actually look at me and make eye contact like normal human beings; men shamefully gazed at the sidewalk as they went about their day.
The first person I caught looking at my faux peen was a guy sitting on a bench who did a double-take — one of the bolder reactions I got. But he tried to play it off like he saw a bird or something off in the distance that was cool enough to warrant looking at twice. I guess he found my bulge more of a thrift shop curio than anything else.
After that, I went out of my way to get my crotch at eye level as often as possible. I rode a crowded subway and faced sitting passengers. Men, women, children, I didn't care. I just wanted someone to react to the sauna that was currently going on in my pants. I needed someone to give me a reason to say that flaunting a bulge is worthwhile, even if just for the sake of fashion gender equality.
There were two guys whose eyes, while staring at the ground, inadvertently found their way to my sock penis. When they looked up to see whom it belonged to, their faces were slightly puzzled, like they'd just woken quickly from a nap they didn't mean to take. One woman sitting down listening to music did briefly glance at it, and then closed her eyes and let her sweet tunes carry her away to a place that, I'm presuming, didn't involve some dude on the subway with a whale penis. At one point, I thought a guy tried to sneak a picture of it, but it turned out he was just taking pictures of the ground.
I figured it was time to leave the subway and try my chances outside. Around me, men were checking women out with fervor. Deciding to up the ante, I side-shimmied my way through an area that was uncomfortably narrow due to sidewalk construction, hoping someone would be impressed by my bulge in an effort to navigate the curvature of my jeans. Discomfortingly, everyone squeezing by looked right at my face, into my eyes, in fact. They knew it was fake. I could sense it. But like Abraham Lincoln once said, "It's not the size of your penis, but the content of your character." I soldiered on.
I stood at streetlights waiting for the light to change like an urban cowboy, thumbs in my belt loops like arrows calling attention to my crotch. No one cared. No cars whizzed by and then slammed on their brakes. I went into a frozen yogurt shop where everyone was sitting down and stood around, hoping someone would be like, "Yo, what's up with that guy's penis? I'm over here trying to eat ice cream and his pants are going crazy." All they did was eat their ice cream and ignore the apparent circus freak with three legs.
My grand finale was to follow some woman in a tight dress who had tons of men checking her out. I figured the stares would get me a few residual glances. Still, no one looked at my fake penis. They didn't even look. Their gaze would follow her, and the second my crotch popped into their field of view they just went back to what they were doing. Dejected, I deemed it a bulge double standard.
I didn't expect to have a group of construction workers whistle and shout, "Nice penis, man. I'd like to take that home and do stuff to it." But my (fake) body part — so obvious and disproportionate to the human average — didn't elicit a second glance, while the woman in a tight dress had everyone in her periphery following the bouncing ball. Are there too many bulges in pop culture? Have we saturated the bulge market? Are we suffering from bulge fatigue? Is pornography diluting the scintillating sight of a man's penis underneath his trousers? Is it just really awkward and obvious to stare at someone's crotch in real life, where there's a chance to make awkward eye-contact?
My gut reaction was disappointment, but if I actually was that #blessed in the crotch, I think I'd be relieved that no one had the gall to holler at my huge penis. The most I got was mild bemusement and curiosity and, honestly, if I'd gone about my routine without looking for someone to stare at me, I probably wouldn't have even noticed. I never felt objectified, despite going far out of my way to attract negative attention. No one leered. No one hooted.
So actually, I think my bulge did prove something today. How was my bulge different than a woman in a short dress or a push-up bra? It wasn't. Next time you think about judging a woman by her body shape, or by how she's dressed, or by the way she's accentuating her assets, just ask yourself: WWYSTAB? (What Would You Say To A Bulge, obviously.) Just give it a glance, maybe a slight nod of quiet respect, and then carry on with your day.
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