Um, You're Gonna Read About My Penis Now, K?

Everybody thinks that guys are obsessed with pussy. And we sort of are-- it's not like I'm going to sit here and deny that. We think about pussy a lot. I'm thinking about it right now. (Obvs.) If we had as much sex as we think about, our heads would probably pop off and there would simply be no time to iron trousers or go to the supermarket.

Of course, as obsessed as most heterosexual gentlemen may very well be with pussy, we are, I would posit, far more invested in thoughts about our own penises.

When you have external genitals, it's hard not to think about them. For instance, right now, principally to keep warm, I'm sitting with my legs wrapped around each other, twice-- twisted all up like a corduroy pretzel. As such, my dicknballz are seriously constricted, and, yes, it's uncomfortable, but it's warm. And I like to be warm. Besides-- it's much cheaper than turning up the heat to 62.

(We're Jews-- remember?)

In high school, we all used to joke around in same-gender peer groups about masturbation-- only, we weren't joking at all-- really. We were testing the waters to see what others our age did with their dicks and how often they did it and with the assistance of which, um, stimulant.

We were obsessed. OBSESSED, I TELL YA.

And we still are. We're just better, as we grow older, at concealing it.

I remember once, in middle school, one of probably three times I forced myself to use the school bathroom, I was standing at the urinal, attempting to squeeze a few miserable drops of urine out that absolutely and stalwartly refused to exit due to my profound and unaddressed anxiety.

A young, mildly-retarded peer wearing a turqouise sweatsuit entered the bathroom and went to the urinal right next to mine. "Oh, God," I thought. No urine would ever exit my urethra now. As if it wasn't bad enough that this young lad did not understand the accepted every-other-urinal protocol, instead of just pulling his penis out just enough to use the urinal, he completely dropped trou-- all the way down to his ankles. I stared straight ahead at the wall, hoping for some interior muscle to relax enough to let one drop come out-- just one-- when I heard, in a slightly slurred, slightly too loud voice,

"Nice watch!"

I'm fairly confident that my penis is average-sized, so I don't stress about that. I haven't measured it since middle school (and, because I am an idiot, I used a metal ruler and ended up poking myself in my mons pubis) because I'm fairly certain that it's not a good thing to be thirty years old, married, and measuring your penis. I accept it for what it is. I hope you can, too.

At the mental hospital where I work, I've seen more than my fair share of penises. I haven't seen a single vagina, and that's not a complaint, it's just a fact. When you do rounds, you are obligated to look into each patient's room to see if they're hanging from the ceiling and lacerating themselves with a broken eyeglass lens. Once, when doing rounds, I happened to look into a room where a not terribly unattractive 19-year-old female patient was either changing into or changing out of a shirt, and I saw her in her bra. I looked away so fast I almost got whiplash-- I was petrified of being accused of being a pervert.

Because, I'm so. not.

N'yah mean?

Penises tend to be small where I work. I wonder if there's some sort of correlation between chronic mental illness and the size of one's doinger. You know, New England Journal of Medicine type stuff. Come on, you'd read it. I mean, hell-- you're reading this.

One day last week, at 7:20 in the morning, I was sitting in the day room, quietly writing some reports, and two patients were in the room with me. One patient, Olga, a short, squat Russian woman with curly hair and lipstick on her cheeks, was sitting at a table. She wears the same thing every day: a men's polo shirt, men's basketball shorts, white tube socks, pulled all the way up past her knees, and white Converse sneaks. She speaks to Donald Trump, but I don't think he hears. Another patient, Judith, a religiously preoccupied Jewish patient who is convinced that, at age 42, she is a survivor of the Holocaust (aren't we all?) was sitting next to me, her eyes closed, rocking gently in her wicker chair. Out of nowhere, Olga spoke up, to the thin air.

"Donald Trump: it's okay, sweetie. You don't have to be ashamed. It's not the size of a man's penis that gives a woman orgasms. It's the PASSION!"

There followed a full minute of silence as that consolation hung in the air like a fart in Buckingham Palace. Judith leaned in close to me.

"She's right, you know. But I know the secret to organic male enhancement. Would you like to hear it?"

I thought for a moment about what the appropriate, theraputic response would be.

"Sure, Judith," I said, "hit it."

"Crushed pumpkin seeds. My boyfriend tried it. He got so huge, I couldn't even believe it. They grow these things in Brazil. They call them 'pepitas.'"

Silence. Judith and I looked at each other. She glanced at my clipboard and said,

"You can write it down. It's okay."