Speaker 1: Pushkin. Hi, Emily, and I am I have a question
Speaker 1: for you. I'm sleeping with a guy right now and
Speaker 1: his penis is like really really really curved, like really curved.
Speaker 1: The idea of talking about genitals for an hour and
Speaker 1: it really really makes me happy, Like I was thinking
Speaker 1: in the car, like of all the things I want
Speaker 1: to say about penises. I'm Emily Nagaski and this is
Speaker 1: the Come as you Are podcast where I answer questions
Speaker 1: about sex with science. I'm here with mo My, a
Speaker 1: producer extraordinaire. So Emily, we have gotten a lot of
Speaker 1: questions from the hotline, as you know, and today the
Speaker 1: question I'm bringing you is about basically penis anatomy. Yay,
Speaker 1: let's talk about penises. I really did not expect one
Speaker 1: of our first episodes to be about penises. I know
Speaker 1: a lot of your audience is sis women, and I
Speaker 1: really did not expect a huge amount of penis convo
Speaker 1: from the get go. But you know what, here we are.
Speaker 1: You know, a surprising number of women and fems have
Speaker 1: sex with people with penises. I always forget that. I
Speaker 1: always forget a lot of people interact with penises. It's
Speaker 1: a lot of people I'm continuing to remind myself that
Speaker 1: a lot of people have or interact with penises. In fact,
Speaker 1: most people have or interact with penises, and it's not
Speaker 1: even about gender. Some women have penises, genitals do not
Speaker 1: a gender make this is a show where penises are welcome.
Speaker 1: Thank you Emily for saying that. Okay, let's go ahead
Speaker 1: and get into it. So let me play this week's
Speaker 1: question for you. Hi, Emily, I have a question for
Speaker 1: you about the male anatomy, specifically the penis. I'm sleeping
Speaker 1: with a guy right now and his penis is like
Speaker 1: really really really curved, like really curved, and I don't care.
Speaker 1: I mean, he's it gets the job done. He's just
Speaker 1: really embarrassed about it, and like, yeah, I just want
Speaker 1: to know it's that normal. Is there a reason for it?
Speaker 1: Is it because he's like jerking it too hard to
Speaker 1: one side or like, I don't know, it's normal? Can
Speaker 1: I hurt it? Can I break it? Oh? You know? Thanks? Yes,
Speaker 1: it is completely normal. It is common. And if there's
Speaker 1: one thing I want to accomplish with this podcast, it's
Speaker 1: to make sure you can look at your genitals and
Speaker 1: any of your partner's genitals and know that they're all normal.
Speaker 1: They're all normal, they're all beautiful, and I can even
Speaker 1: explain why because the science says so. I just want
Speaker 1: to start by thanking this listener for calling in. There
Speaker 1: is so much to unpack in this call. You know,
Speaker 1: I'm hearing worry, I'm hearing like cultural myths about masturbation,
Speaker 1: wanting to reassure your partner, and also just myths about
Speaker 1: basic anatomy. So let's start with what you just said,
Speaker 1: that a curved penis is totally normal. Can you say
Speaker 1: more about that? I did actually look at the research
Speaker 1: to see if there's like documentation about what proportion of
Speaker 1: people have a penis that points in one direction or
Speaker 1: another that doesn't exist. I'm not actually sure how they
Speaker 1: do it, because how much of a curve counts is
Speaker 1: a curve because some of the curves are just a
Speaker 1: little bit, and some of them are pretty pronounced. But ultimately,
Speaker 1: every single penis is different from every single other penis,
Speaker 1: and there is no normal. They're all normal. The only
Speaker 1: thing that isn't normal is if your genitals are causing
Speaker 1: you pain. If you're not in pain, then the answer
Speaker 1: is yes normal. And if you're experiencing pain, talk to
Speaker 1: a medical provider. Fortunately, with a penis, your doctor is
Speaker 1: likely to take your concerns seriously. So dark and so true.
Speaker 1: Can you explain, like anatomically what causes the curve? It's
Speaker 1: actually the curve part itself is really simple. So most
Speaker 1: of the time when we think about penises, we just
Speaker 1: think about this one shaft with a sort of cap
Speaker 1: on the end of it, right, like a mushroom kind
Speaker 1: of shape. But did you know the shaft is actually
Speaker 1: made of three separate chambers, all enclosed within the shaft.
Speaker 1: So there's two corpora cavernosa, the cavernous bodies, and then
Speaker 1: there's one corpus spongiosum, which is the one that the
Speaker 1: urethra runs through. So when you imagine a shaft, don't
Speaker 1: just imagine one solid shaft. Imagine three shafts all wrapped
Speaker 1: up together. I like to imagine it as like columns. Great,
Speaker 1: so we have like a burrito made out of these
Speaker 1: three columns, right, but it's just a burrito with three
Speaker 1: hot dogs in it. The three hot dog coco. I
Speaker 1: love that if one is shorter than the other, it's
Speaker 1: going to curve toward the short one. And if all
Speaker 1: three of these chambers of the shaft are the same length,
Speaker 1: then the penis is straight. You can't see the hand
Speaker 1: gestures I am made, right, So you're saying that if
Speaker 1: one of the hot dogs in the whole wrap up
Speaker 1: in here, the penis is shorter than the other one,
Speaker 1: then the curve is going to bend towards the short
Speaker 1: bend in the direction of the shorter one, right, because
Speaker 1: they all grow together, and the longer ones will continue
Speaker 1: to grow beyond the point that the shorter one has
Speaker 1: fully extended already. WHOA Like, It's this very simple, very slight,
Speaker 1: anatom comical difference. It's completely normal. It's just a way
Speaker 1: people's penises can look. M Okay, Is it kind of
Speaker 1: like when you have a lopsided labia, like one of
Speaker 1: the labia minora is bigger than the other one, Yeah,
Speaker 1: which is very often the case. Right, totally. And I
Speaker 1: should say, if this is not clear already, that I
Speaker 1: am not a sex educator. Emilie Nagaski is the professional
Speaker 1: sex educator, and I am just a lesbian podcast producer.
Speaker 1: So my reactions are very much based on my non
Speaker 1: scientific but prolific personal experiences that labia labia's they're very
Speaker 1: rarely symmetrical. They are very rarely symmetrical. And labia is
Speaker 1: the plural. Wait, labia is plural. One of my labia
Speaker 1: is this size, but my other labium is this other size.
Speaker 1: Uh huh, Okay, this is a little grammar lesson you
Speaker 1: did not get in school. Yeah, And I think culturally
Speaker 1: we spend a bunch of time trying to help people
Speaker 1: with Volva's understand that their anatomy is normal. That's what
Speaker 1: it's supposed to look like like. They have hair, they
Speaker 1: have inner labia, they have outer labia. The size of
Speaker 1: all those parts can vary, and there's no need to
Speaker 1: get surgery to correct any of that. If your genitals
Speaker 1: are not causing you pain, you're all set. You're not
Speaker 1: just all set, you're perfect. And the same thing is
Speaker 1: true about penises. If one of the chambers of your
Speaker 1: penal shaft is shorter than the others, it's going to
Speaker 1: point in at a direction. That is not an indication
Speaker 1: of a problem. You don't need to get surgery corrected.
Speaker 1: Is just part of the beautiful variety of human sexual anatomy.
Speaker 1: I think one of the reasons that we people have
Speaker 1: so much embarrassment about their shape or their size or
Speaker 1: their lopsidedness. Might be that there's no zero We've never
Speaker 1: seen any of that import at all. You know, there
Speaker 1: are times when I feel like I was born at
Speaker 1: just the right time. Like I saw a partner's penis
Speaker 1: in real life before I ever saw a penis in porn,
Speaker 1: so I didn't have this big hole like set of
Speaker 1: ideas about what penises look like, reinforcing that, like if
Speaker 1: there's only this one way that penises can look like.
Speaker 1: And anybody younger than me I was in graduated from
Speaker 1: high school in nineteen ninety five. I feel like anybody
Speaker 1: younger than me was going to have access to porn,
Speaker 1: maybe before they ever saw a partner's penis in real life.
Speaker 1: I don't even remember which one came first for me.
Speaker 1: I was that young, I guess, or I just I
Speaker 1: have no idea which one came first, but probably born. Yeah,
Speaker 1: porn is such bad sex education. Porn is what it is.
Speaker 1: The metaphor I often use is that learning about sex
Speaker 1: by watching porn is like learning about driving by watching NASCAR.
Speaker 1: Those are trained professionals on a closed course with a
Speaker 1: pit crew. That is not a representation of how sex
Speaker 1: actually works in real life, and most mainstream porn is
Speaker 1: really limited, like there's only one kind of car in Nascar,
Speaker 1: Like there's only one right kind of body in porn. Right.
Speaker 1: They very much value the long, thick, straight penis in
Speaker 1: porn as if that's the only erotic kind of penis
Speaker 1: there is. It is not right exactly. In real life.
Speaker 1: There's diversity, there's variety, there is messiness. There are curious, surprising, funny, noisy, wet,
Speaker 1: sticky things that happen, and that's fun and good. I
Speaker 1: love it. Okay, So I have a personal experience with
Speaker 1: a curved penis, which was that my high school boyfriend,
Speaker 1: one of my high school boyfriends. It was the first
Speaker 1: penis I had ever seen, and it was his first
Speaker 1: time ever, like, you know, showing his penis to anyone
Speaker 1: besides I guess the doctor. And it was extreme curved,
Speaker 1: now I know, extremely curved. And he was like, is
Speaker 1: this normal? And I was like, I don't know, bro,
Speaker 1: I really don't know. And now imagine if your high
Speaker 1: school sex ed class had shown the three chambers and
Speaker 1: had explained very simply that if one of the chambers
Speaker 1: is shorter than the others, then there's going to be
Speaker 1: a curve and he knows it's normal. That's all it takes.
Speaker 1: And it would have been life changing for him because
Speaker 1: he was so ashamed. And he went to the doctor
Speaker 1: and the doctor basically dismissed his feelings and was like, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's normal whatever. And he was like, yeah, but is
Speaker 1: no one ever gonna love me? Am I never gonna
Speaker 1: be but I have good sex, Like am I do?
Speaker 1: I have a defective penis. And he was so upset
Speaker 1: about it, and I really couldn't comfort him because I
Speaker 1: didn't know anything about penises. I didn't know what to say, Like,
Speaker 1: it didn't look normal to me, but I didn't know,
Speaker 1: like it didn't look normal compared to what I saw
Speaker 1: in the medical diagram. Yeah. I also have a personal story.
Speaker 1: In my twenties, many moons ago, I had a partner
Speaker 1: with quite a curved penis. But I already knew this,
Speaker 1: and I could explain to him, Oh why, And it
Speaker 1: made so much of a difference in his own relationship
Speaker 1: with his genitals. Oh my god, that is so great.
Speaker 1: Holy moly, You're like the better, You're the better version
Speaker 1: of my story. The adult sex educator version of the
Speaker 1: nightmare that my poor high school boyfriend went through. Yeah,
Speaker 1: ten years passed and I got two degrees worth of
Speaker 1: education about sexuality, so I knew enough to explain, and like,
Speaker 1: it's this small piece of knowledge that can totally change
Speaker 1: how a person thinks about their own genitals and recognizing
Speaker 1: not just that they are normal, but why they're normal,
Speaker 1: how the shape of their genitals is just part of
Speaker 1: the great panoply a variety that is the world of
Speaker 1: human genitalia. Speaking of the great panoply of human genitalia.
Speaker 1: That's our queue to take a break. And when we
Speaker 1: get back, I want you, Emily, to basically give us
Speaker 1: the updated anatomy one a one lesson the one that
Speaker 1: we never got in high school. And particularly I want
Speaker 1: you to talk about the same parts organized differently theory,
Speaker 1: because it's one of those concepts that when I very
Speaker 1: first heard it, it was like, holy shit, how did
Speaker 1: I not know this? But it also felt like I
Speaker 1: always knew it. I pitty the commercial that breaks up
Speaker 1: a conversation about penal anatomy. All right, Emily, So we
Speaker 1: started this episode by answering an anonymous listeners question about
Speaker 1: someone they're sleeping with having a curved dick, and you
Speaker 1: explained the three hot dog taco that is the basic
Speaker 1: anatomy of the penis, and that it's super normal for
Speaker 1: one of those three columns to be shorter than the
Speaker 1: other two, and then if one is shorter, then the
Speaker 1: penis curves towards that side, which amazing obvious, but somehow
Speaker 1: I never knew that now. I put this question early
Speaker 1: on in the series because basically, I am begging you
Speaker 1: to re educate us about anatomy one oh one. So
Speaker 1: can you start by explaining the same parts organized differently theory? Yeah.
Speaker 1: So one of the things that's valuable about understanding where
Speaker 1: curved penises come from is the idea that, oh, the
Speaker 1: shaft of the penis is not just one thing, it's
Speaker 1: these three chambers separately. And all human bodies are made
Speaker 1: of the same parts, but in some cases those parts
Speaker 1: are organized in different ways. Like on the day a
Speaker 1: person is born, the adults around them look at their
Speaker 1: body and based on the shape of their genitals decide
Speaker 1: it's a boy or it's a girl generally, which is
Speaker 1: you can get into the bullshit of that some other episode,
Speaker 1: I'm sure that we will, But that package of stuff
Speaker 1: that we identify as being one thing or the other
Speaker 1: is actually all the same stuff, just organize in a
Speaker 1: slightly different way. So the most obvious example for me
Speaker 1: when a baby is born is the scrotum. So when
Speaker 1: a human with a scrotum grows into adulthood, they've got
Speaker 1: this stretchy skin on the outside of their body and
Speaker 1: hair grows on it whether they remove it or not.
Speaker 1: Right and on a person with an it's a girl
Speaker 1: type of body, when that person gets to adulthood, they've
Speaker 1: got this external body part of stretchy skin where hair
Speaker 1: grows on it. One is scrotum and one is the labia.
Speaker 1: In fact, in utero, this tissue is called the labio
Speaker 1: scrotal tissue because it comes from the same basic parts
Speaker 1: in embryonic and fetal development. In fact, one of my
Speaker 1: favorite things about scrotums. If you get up close and
Speaker 1: personal with a scrotum, you look real close and you'll
Speaker 1: see a seam running down the center of it. It's
Speaker 1: called the scrotal raife, and that is where the scrotum
Speaker 1: knit together. And if things have been a little different
Speaker 1: with the chromosomes or the hormonal environments in the womb,
Speaker 1: then that tissue would not have knit together and it
Speaker 1: would have just become labia. Truly, all the same parts,
Speaker 1: just organized in different ways. I just want to clarify,
Speaker 1: like you're saying that the ball sac seam, the seam
Speaker 1: that runs down the ball sac, yes, is the same
Speaker 1: parts as the split of the labia, but just organized
Speaker 1: like it just was developed differently based on different hormonal
Speaker 1: inputs hormonal in the uterus, and it was when the
Speaker 1: baby was a fetus. Wow, Okay, why I'm so mind
Speaker 1: blown by this and I cannot believe I was like
Speaker 1: twenty five before I ever knew that this was how
Speaker 1: it worked, that those two things were the same bits,
Speaker 1: just organized differently or developed differently because we think of
Speaker 1: them as being so different. But once you understand that
Speaker 1: it's all the same parts organized in different ways, you
Speaker 1: can look at any package of genitals and see that
Speaker 1: it's really just all the same thing, and that like
Speaker 1: the group of genitals we label one way very so
Speaker 1: much from each other, and the group of genitals we
Speaker 1: label a different way vary so much from each other.
Speaker 1: It is often when I think about and look at
Speaker 1: I have to look at pictures of genitals on a
Speaker 1: pretty regular basis of part of my job. Yeah, there
Speaker 1: are times when I feel like there are more difference
Speaker 1: is within the it's a gruel batch of genitals. Then
Speaker 1: there are between it's a girl and it's a boy
Speaker 1: type genitals, Like they all vary so much from each other.
Speaker 1: Each one is unique, like a little snowflake, and yet
Speaker 1: we like cluster them all together like they're all the same.
Speaker 1: They're not the same, but they are. They're all the same.
Speaker 1: It's all the same parts organized in different ways. Okay,
Speaker 1: So are you about to tell me that the clitters
Speaker 1: and the penis are the same parts organized differently, right? Okay,
Speaker 1: the clitterest does not have the same functions as the penis,
Speaker 1: except that they're both really good at pleasure. But it's
Speaker 1: made of the same parts as the penis, which is
Speaker 1: why it's really important that we know that there's all
Speaker 1: these internal parts of a penis. Right, So there's these
Speaker 1: three chambers, two corpora cavernosa, the cavernous bodies, and then
Speaker 1: there's one corpus spongiosum. The same thing is true about
Speaker 1: the clitteris. Oh my god, The really big difference, apart
Speaker 1: from just like size of the clitterest, is that the
Speaker 1: only part of the clitterest that is outside the body
Speaker 1: is the equivalent of the head of the penis or
Speaker 1: the glands. So if you imagine, and like if you again,
Speaker 1: if you're up close and personal with an erect penis,
Speaker 1: you can press down along the sides into the person's
Speaker 1: body and feel how deeply the shaft goes into the
Speaker 1: person's body. So if you just imagine that, the whole
Speaker 1: shaft retracts back into that person's body so that only
Speaker 1: the head is visible. Yeah, that's more or less what
Speaker 1: a clitterest is, the clitteral glands, the external part. Does
Speaker 1: that make sense? Wow? Yes, okay, it does make sense,
Speaker 1: And I did not realize, Like I I've heard about
Speaker 1: the internal clitterest and it has that sort of wishbone structure.
Speaker 1: It has those two roots almost that go into the
Speaker 1: body wrap around the vagina, like I've seen that the
Speaker 1: legs and bulbs of the vestib Yeah. Yeah, so I've
Speaker 1: seen that image before, and I think there was a
Speaker 1: movement a few years ago, you know, to really educate
Speaker 1: people that, hey, the clitteris is an entire internal structure
Speaker 1: that is much bigger than just the thing we see outside. Yeah, imagine,
Speaker 1: like the change that happens between a non erect penis
Speaker 1: and an erect penis, how much change happens in sort
Speaker 1: of the shape and size and presence of a penis.
Speaker 1: All that same change is happening inside evolva. So when
Speaker 1: you look at that wishbone shape, the two bulbs of
Speaker 1: the vestibule that make the sort of wishbone shape, those
Speaker 1: are the corpora cavernosa, those cavernous bodies that are the
Speaker 1: same parts as in the shaft of the penis, aka
Speaker 1: the hot dog, just internalment. The hot dogs make the
Speaker 1: little cars making the inside of the penis. Got it. Sorry,
Speaker 1: I'm literally functioning on like a fifth grade level on
Speaker 1: the understanding of this. I thought it was one, you know, big,
Speaker 1: one big flesh knob. Yeah, basically I didn't realize that
Speaker 1: there were multiple columns and that those translated directly to
Speaker 1: the legs of the internal clitterus. So I want to
Speaker 1: talk to you about something. The technical term is anatomical homologues.
Speaker 1: So we know what anatomy is, right. Homologue means having
Speaker 1: the same origin. The origin of the human body is
Speaker 1: the development in the beautterus sper meats egg. We know
Speaker 1: if that happens, and then development begins blasticist an embryo, yeah,
Speaker 1: eventually a fetus, and there is this really complex cascade
Speaker 1: of hormonal and developmental events. But in that embryonic blast
Speaker 1: assist early fetal development stage, bodies look exactly alike. It
Speaker 1: isn't until six and a half weeks into gestation, when
Speaker 1: there is a wave of hormones that anything is different.
Speaker 1: All the prefab hardware of what a human body is
Speaker 1: made of is there, regardless of the chromosomes. We know
Speaker 1: that like traditionally we call xx is and it's a
Speaker 1: girl type person an XY, it's a boy type person, right,
Speaker 1: But up until six and a half weeks, it's identical.
Speaker 1: It's all the same parts. It's only after that wash
Speaker 1: of hormones that anything begins to change. So all that
Speaker 1: same prefabricated hardware begins to organize itself into slightly different shapes.
Speaker 1: But then the clitteress and the penis do do you
Speaker 1: know the external part of the clitteress, the part that
Speaker 1: is visible that you can touch with your hand, is
Speaker 1: the homologue of the head of the penis. So imagine
Speaker 1: that a penis gets sort of retracted into a person's body,
Speaker 1: and all that's visible is the head, right, you can
Speaker 1: imagine that. It's a little silly, but all that internal structure,
Speaker 1: all three of those chambers are still there. They're just
Speaker 1: deep inside the body. Oh my god, I wish you
Speaker 1: could see my face right now. My hands are over
Speaker 1: my mouth, like as if someone just exploded the world
Speaker 1: for me. Like, basically, the penis is a very large
Speaker 1: clitterings or vice versa, and it's outside the body, but
Speaker 1: in a different world with different you know, hormonal inputs.
Speaker 1: They are the same materials, that's what you're saying. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I want you to imagine all the changes that happen
Speaker 1: to a penis when it gets erect. Like, here's this
Speaker 1: thing outside of a person's body. It starts out sort
Speaker 1: of squishy. You can squeeze a really hard, you can
Speaker 1: stretch in and pull it. As it fills with blood,
Speaker 1: it gets firmer and it extends and swells. Now, imagine
Speaker 1: if that shaft is all retracted deep into the body.
Speaker 1: All that same swelling and firming up, All of that
Speaker 1: is happening inside of a vulva, in the internal clitterus. Yes. Wait,
Speaker 1: so if you're listening and you're confused, I would recommend
Speaker 1: like just typing into Google the words clitteris and penis,
Speaker 1: same clitteris and penis, same press and turbot on those
Speaker 1: four words, and take a gander at the Google image results.
Speaker 1: You get image results. Oh it's the dinosaur images. I
Speaker 1: love these. I love these two. Why do you call
Speaker 1: it the dinosaur images because it looks it's like how
Speaker 1: a muppet would be a dinosaur. Oh, I'm glad you
Speaker 1: like these diagrams. I mean, I think this is a
Speaker 1: really helpful image. Yeah. It helps people to understand both
Speaker 1: that there's way more to the clearest, but also there
Speaker 1: is way more to the penis exactly. Yeah. Yeah, And
Speaker 1: this science is used to help people who transition, who
Speaker 1: either have hormonal or surgical interventions to change the shape
Speaker 1: of their genitals to be more concordant with their identity.
Speaker 1: It's so helpful that we know this, that we have
Speaker 1: this science, because the science means that we have readier
Speaker 1: access to tools to have gender affirming medical interventions so
Speaker 1: the people's genitals can align with their identity. Yes, yes, yes,
Speaker 1: I'm just absolutely gobsmacked by this information. Like, on one hand,
Speaker 1: I it's weirdly empowering to me. But I'm also angry
Speaker 1: that so many of us were taught the biological differences,
Speaker 1: you know, diagrams of genitals, and we were not taught. Hey,
Speaker 1: this is the same struck, sure, just organized differently. Yeah.
Speaker 1: People get really attached to the idea that there are
Speaker 1: two and they're not the same. Yeah. Some people are
Speaker 1: bizarrely emotionally and politically invested, literally invested in this idea
Speaker 1: of biological difference. So just gonna leave our listeners to
Speaker 1: ruminate on that, and let's take a break. When we
Speaker 1: get back, I think we should talk about like stigma
Speaker 1: and myths about genital shape and size and symmetry, all
Speaker 1: that kind of stuff. And we're also going to talk
Speaker 1: about that one myth that the caller brought up about
Speaker 1: jerking it too hard, Emily. I have been waiting all
Speaker 1: episode to say this, so I'm just gonna say it now.
Speaker 1: And you might not know about this because you don't
Speaker 1: consume a lot of pop culture, But there is an
Speaker 1: entire song by Megan a Stallion about curved dicks being hot.
Speaker 1: It's called Captain Hookah. That is amazing. Wait have you
Speaker 1: heard it? I've never heard of it. Okay, Megan is
Speaker 1: an absolute icon right now. And in this song Captain Hook,
Speaker 1: she has a line where she literally says, I like
Speaker 1: a dick with a little bit of curve. Considering that
Speaker 1: you have never heard this, I need to play a
Speaker 1: clip for you. You deserved that, a little bit of curve.
Speaker 1: Palid pal that's amazing. Yes, it is a watershed moment
Speaker 1: for curved penis visibility. Couldn't let this episode happen without
Speaker 1: mentioning No, that is an extremely important edition. I didn't
Speaker 1: realize that curve penises had made it to the mainstream
Speaker 1: in so big a way, curve penis adoration in fact. Yeah, yeah, anyway,
Speaker 1: So one of the things this caller, and they didn't
Speaker 1: give their name, but one of the things they brought
Speaker 1: up was what could have caused this curve? And actually,
Speaker 1: I'm just going to play the clip because it's gold.
Speaker 1: Is there a reason for it? Is it because he's
Speaker 1: like jerking it too hard to one side or like
Speaker 1: so could occur in a penis be caused by someone
Speaker 1: jerking it too hard or jerking it too hard to
Speaker 1: one side? Quote unquote yeah definitely not I want it,
Speaker 1: but it's a thing I run into, like I've been
Speaker 1: asked that before. That is the thing people are worried
Speaker 1: about when their penis is vary from their expectations of
Speaker 1: what a penis is supposed to be. They worry that
Speaker 1: they made it happen by masturbating. And that's often because
Speaker 1: they started masturbating and really paying close attention to their
Speaker 1: penis at about the same time that their penis hits
Speaker 1: puberty and starts to look the way it's going to look,
Speaker 1: and so they think that it look. Correlation is not causation.
Speaker 1: Just because two things happen at the same time doesn't
Speaker 1: mean that one caused the other. You're masturbating in the
Speaker 1: same direction as your penis because that's how it's comfortable
Speaker 1: and pleasurable to masturbate. But the curve was there before
Speaker 1: you ever started masturbate. But the myth of the idea
Speaker 1: that you could masturbate too hard or too much and
Speaker 1: it can permanently damage the hardware is like a pretty
Speaker 1: pervasive myth. Like you know, I'm assist woman, I have
Speaker 1: a cliter is. I had the cultural imagery that like
Speaker 1: I could damage it forever, I could burn it off,
Speaker 1: Like I was probably fourteen or fifteen, and I saw
Speaker 1: an episode of Sex in the City where Samantha is
Speaker 1: shopping for a vibrator and another woman who's shopping next
Speaker 1: to her points at one of them and says, Oh,
Speaker 1: don't buy that one because it'll burn your clitteress off.
Speaker 1: And I after I saw that episode, I probably spent
Speaker 1: four years having a fear that I could burn my
Speaker 1: clitteress off, like literally cauterize your clarteres. Yes exactly, Oh,
Speaker 1: I know, and now I know better. But like, and
Speaker 1: probably all the meant is that it overheats, yeah, or
Speaker 1: that it gets like really intense. But I do think
Speaker 1: there's like a lot of cultural messaging that masturbation is
Speaker 1: bad and if you do it too much or too hard,
Speaker 1: you're going to damage your business forever, and that's gonna
Speaker 1: be it. Yeah, And the only thing that's true is, like, again,
Speaker 1: if you experience pain, that might be a sign that
Speaker 1: something has gone sideways. And I don't mean that in
Speaker 1: the penis pointing direction. I mean that, like, you may
Speaker 1: have injured yourself if something hurts, but otherwise, if it
Speaker 1: doesn't hurt, you are fine. If you experience numbness, that's temporary,
Speaker 1: in the same way that like if you fall asleep
Speaker 1: on your foot and it gets numb and tingly. Does
Speaker 1: your foot stay that way forever? No, If your foot
Speaker 1: stayed that way forever, you would tell me right, because
Speaker 1: that's not the way it was yet there'd be something
Speaker 1: wrong if it stayed that way forever. But it doesn't.
Speaker 1: It's just very temporary. I think the worst thing masturbating
Speaker 1: can do is teach you to get to orgasm so
Speaker 1: efficiently that when you are having any sort of sexual
Speaker 1: connection with another person, your body only knows how to
Speaker 1: get to orgasm really efficiently, as opposed to like taking
Speaker 1: your time and engaging with your partner. So really, what
Speaker 1: I recommend is masturbating in a greater variety of ways
Speaker 1: and really taking your time and enjoying it. That is
Speaker 1: really really good advice. I want to bring up one
Speaker 1: more thing from the listeners call. They said that their
Speaker 1: partner's penis quote gets the job done. Like, no judgment
Speaker 1: on the person who's using this language. This is the
Speaker 1: language we are taught as a culture to use about penises,
Speaker 1: to see them as strong and hard and like they
Speaker 1: can last forever and they're never weak. It's absolutely a
Speaker 1: metaphor for masculinity itself. This trap of masculinity. I am
Speaker 1: just realizing right now that we like culturally apply the
Speaker 1: words hand job and blowjob pretty much exclusively to penises,
Speaker 1: Like we never talk about clitoral stimulation as a hand
Speaker 1: job or kind of lingus as a blowjob. That's true.
Speaker 1: Listeners should let us know if that's not true in
Speaker 1: their experience. I had this revelation when I was actually
Speaker 1: looking at a Instagram post and somebody used the phrase
Speaker 1: thigh job, like in the queer context of like when
Speaker 1: you're pressing your thigh against someone's volva basically yeah, And
Speaker 1: when I when I heard the word thigh job, I
Speaker 1: was like, I love that phrase. Number one and two.
Speaker 1: I have never heard job blank, job be applied to
Speaker 1: anything related to the clitterists or the bulba. Yeah. So,
Speaker 1: but when the color says it gets the job done,
Speaker 1: I assume they mean it's pleasurable to them in penetrative
Speaker 1: sex and it doesn't hurt. But that's really what I
Speaker 1: want to know as well, Like this callor is calling
Speaker 1: in from their perspective having sex with this person with
Speaker 1: the scurved penis, Like is it pleasurable? That's so interesting
Speaker 1: because what I assumed and like, our assumptions are always
Speaker 1: just our assumptions. But my assumption was I have orgasms
Speaker 1: from penetration. My assumption was it gets hard and we're
Speaker 1: able to have penetrative sex. M. That is a much
Speaker 1: more pessimistic interpretation, but I think you could be right. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I hope listeners will comment with their opinions of what
Speaker 1: counts as like it gets the job done. Is it
Speaker 1: just penetration pain free or is it orgasm from fashional stimulation? Okay, so, Emily,
Speaker 1: I feel like we have covered a lot lot of
Speaker 1: ground in this episode, and we started out talking about
Speaker 1: a crooked penis, but we have also now covered the
Speaker 1: internal genital structures and how all genitals are the same parts,
Speaker 1: just organized differently. Also, I learned the word homologues. So
Speaker 1: can you just recap it all for me? Please? I
Speaker 1: would love to you. That's a great idea. So we'll
Speaker 1: start with the answer to the actual question, which is yes,
Speaker 1: bendy or curvy penises normal. And the reason they're normal
Speaker 1: is that a penis is made of these three chambers
Speaker 1: or like columns, and it's very common for one of
Speaker 1: those columns to be slightly shorter than the other. Two,
Speaker 1: and if that happens, and the penis will bend to
Speaker 1: one side. But again, it is not a sign that
Speaker 1: you've done anything wrong. It's not anything you've caused or
Speaker 1: anything you could cause. It's just the way some penises
Speaker 1: are built. And as long as it's not causing you
Speaker 1: any pain, it's perfect. So that's first. Second, onto those
Speaker 1: genital structures for simplicity. Right now, I'm going to focus
Speaker 1: on the clitteress and the penis. In the first few
Speaker 1: weeks of embryonic development, all of us have the same
Speaker 1: basic hardware. It's around week six that the embryo receives
Speaker 1: a hormonal signal and that hardware begins to take a
Speaker 1: certain shape that when that person is born we would
Speaker 1: label that shape it's a girl or it's a boy.
Speaker 1: We all start out with the same parts, they just
Speaker 1: get organized differently. So the penis and the clitteress are homologues.
Speaker 1: They have the same origin. They are made of the
Speaker 1: same material. Third, to get a little more specific, the
Speaker 1: legs and the bulbs of the internal clitterests are the
Speaker 1: same as the parts of those three chambers in the penis.
Speaker 1: The head of the clitterests is the same as the
Speaker 1: head of the penis. It just developed a little differently,
Speaker 1: responding to the hormones based on this body's chromosomes and
Speaker 1: other aspects of their environment in utero. And just like
Speaker 1: the penis, the clitterests, including all of its internal parts,
Speaker 1: gets erect and swells when you're aroused, which I just
Speaker 1: love me too, array for clitteral arousal. So basically, the
Speaker 1: way many of us are taught about genitals and sex
Speaker 1: ed is this tiny fragment of the full picture, and
Speaker 1: the reality is so much less binary than what we're taught.
Speaker 1: Every set of genitals is unique, just like every person's
Speaker 1: sexual orientation and gender identity and desires are all unique.
Speaker 1: People vary and they change, and all of that is normal,
Speaker 1: which leads us to fourth and most important. The reality
Speaker 1: of our genitals is not what we were shown, either
Speaker 1: in our textbooks or in porn. It is much more
Speaker 1: asymmetrical and beautiful and curvy and delightful and enticing and
Speaker 1: all the way down the alphabet. I don't have to
Speaker 1: know what your genitals look like to know that they
Speaker 1: are already perfect just as they are. This is the
Speaker 1: difference between ladies sitting around at brunch talking about their
Speaker 1: experiences and having a professional sex education. Yes, exactly. It's
Speaker 1: the difference between your experience in high school with a
Speaker 1: boy with a crooked penis and my experience in grad
Speaker 1: school with a boy with a crooked penis. Rock and
Speaker 1: be like, here's exactly why this is normal and can
Speaker 1: actually be an assets night and day. Turns out, information
Speaker 1: can make all the difference. Yep. Confidence comes from knowing
Speaker 1: what is true. I mean, this is what I always say.
Speaker 1: My job is to teach people to live with confidence
Speaker 1: and enjoying their bodies. And confidence is knowing what is true.
Speaker 1: And joy is loving what is true, and joy is
Speaker 1: the hard part. Do you have advice for the caller
Speaker 1: or the caller's partner, advice for doing that very hard part?
Speaker 1: Like finding joy in your body as it exists right now.
Speaker 1: We've all been trained from really early on to have
Speaker 1: an idea about what is right and what is wrong
Speaker 1: about sexuality, including the shape and size of our body parts,
Speaker 1: all of our body parts. Just because it's normal doesn't
Speaker 1: mean it's acceptable. Really, we have to change our opinion,
Speaker 1: and that means going against every message we have received
Speaker 1: from really early on in our lives. Reinforced through our
Speaker 1: formal education, our moral education, our interactions with medical practitioners.
Speaker 1: It has been reinforced that there is a right body
Speaker 1: and a wrong body. And it takes a leap to
Speaker 1: decide that your body, whatever it is, is already perfect
Speaker 1: and beautiful and fully lovable and deserving of pleasure. That's
Speaker 1: a choice that people need to make. And yeah, there's
Speaker 1: a cost that comes with that kind of choice, because
Speaker 1: other people will judge you for being willing to accept
Speaker 1: and welcome your body precisely as it is. But it's
Speaker 1: a daily practice of taking a tonic to strengthen your
Speaker 1: immunity against those poisonous messages like what's do you have
Speaker 1: a tonic that you take? What do you mean? Oh? Yeah,
Speaker 1: so the literal tonic here is. Suppose a person with
Speaker 1: a curved penis who has had complicated feelings about their
Speaker 1: curved penis. Every day, just for three minutes, you think about,
Speaker 1: you visualize, or you look at your penis, and you
Speaker 1: send your penis loving supportive messages about like you are
Speaker 1: perfect exactly the way you are. You are a normal
Speaker 1: variation on the way human beings bodies look, and you
Speaker 1: can be an asset and a gift. You're capable of
Speaker 1: experiencing enormous pleasure. You're capable of providing pleasure to your partners.
Speaker 1: You are a gorgeous, beautiful toy in the play that
Speaker 1: is erotic connection. When I hear you talking about it,
Speaker 1: like I feel it radiating from you in a way
Speaker 1: that I know this sounds really woo woo, but like
Speaker 1: it feels like once someone has made that shift where
Speaker 1: they're unconditionally loving their body as it is right now,
Speaker 1: Like everyone who they interact with everyone and can feel
Speaker 1: that shift, Like everyone knows that there's someone who loves
Speaker 1: their body instead of someone who is hiding or hating
Speaker 1: their body. Yeah, that confidence and that acceptance. Your partner
Speaker 1: can feel that, and it helps them to experience your
Speaker 1: body with your confidence and your acceptance. Like, Nope, this
Speaker 1: is just normal. Any feelings you have about the fact
Speaker 1: that this might not be normal, that's you. And like,
Speaker 1: here is this body right in front of you, ready
Speaker 1: to be sexy with you, and you can either judge
Speaker 1: it or you can be sexy with this body. What
Speaker 1: do you think it works? Knowledge and self love totally
Speaker 1: improve your sex life, and it helps other people improve
Speaker 1: their sex lives. Because if they can see you loving
Speaker 1: your body exactly as it is, it opens the question
Speaker 1: of like, but could I love my body exactly as
Speaker 1: it is? If there's someone who has moved through this process,
Speaker 1: who has genitals that don't conform to like the porn ideal,
Speaker 1: and you've made your way to a place of really
Speaker 1: loving the shape of your genitals, let us know how
Speaker 1: you did that. Not every call has to be a question.
Speaker 1: I would love to hear the process that people have
Speaker 1: been through in order to get there, because every story
Speaker 1: like that is going to help other people who are
Speaker 1: at the beginning of that journey. Call and tell us
Speaker 1: about it. The phone number is six four six three
Speaker 1: nine seven eight five five seven, or you can send
Speaker 1: a voice memo on email to Emily at Pushkin dot Fm.
Speaker 1: Next week we have a question from a listener about
Speaker 1: desire and if you're feeling like I wanna want my
Speaker 1: partner or I wanna want sex, but I'm just I
Speaker 1: don't know, I'm not really in the mood. This Responsive
Speaker 1: Desire episode has been made specifically for you. Come as
Speaker 1: You Are is a production of Pushkin Industries and Madison Wells.
Speaker 1: It's hosted by Emily Nagosky. You can find Emily on
Speaker 1: Instagram at e Nagowski and on Twitter at Emily Nagowski.
Speaker 1: You can also sign up for her newsletter at Emily
Speaker 1: Nagosky dot com, where she writes about everything from the
Speaker 1: clitteriest in your mind to orgasm after having hysterected me.
Speaker 1: It's an incredible newsletter. Highly recommended. This show is co
Speaker 1: hosted and lead produced by me Mola Board. You can
Speaker 1: find me online at Mola Board and on TikTok at
Speaker 1: podcast dot slut Sorry mom. My. Co producer on this
Speaker 1: show is the fabulous Britney Brown. Our editor is Kate
Speaker 1: Parkinson Morgan. Sound design and mix by Anne Pope. Executive
Speaker 1: producers are Mia LaBelle and Leetal Mallad at Pushkin. Thanks
Speaker 1: to Heather Fane, Carl Migliori, Sophie Crane, Courtney Guarino, Jason Gambrel,
Speaker 1: Julia Barton, John Schnars, and Jacob Weisberg at Madison Wells.
Speaker 1: Thanks to Kylie Williams, Elizabeth Goodstein and Gg Pritzker. Additional
Speaker 1: thanks to Rich Stevens, Lindsay Edgecombe, Frolick Media, and Peter
Speaker 1: Acker at Armadillo Audio Group. Original music for this series
Speaker 1: was composed by Amelia Nagoski and arranged and recorded by
Speaker 1: Alexandra Kalinovsky. Additional music from Epidemic Sound. You can find
Speaker 1: Pushkin on all social platforms at pushkin Pods, and you
Speaker 1: can sign up for our newsletter at pushkin dot fm.
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