November 23, 2022 • 44 mins
A man is embarrassed about his curved penis, and his partner doesn’t know what to say to him because she’s not sure if the curviness is normal. Emily serves up some real talk about sexual anatomy and explains that we all have the same basic genital parts, regardless of the sex we were assigned at birth. Plus, Emily and her producer, Mo, discuss how to combat poisonous cultural messages about what kinds of bodies are "normal."
If you have a question for Emily, call the Come As You Are hotline at (646) 397-8557 or send a voice memo to emily@pushkin.fm. Tell us your pronouns and pseudonym (pick a name, any name!) Your question might be answered on the show.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
Pushkin. Hi, Emily, and I am I have a question
for you. I'm sleeping with a guy right now and
his penis is like really really really curved, like really curved.
(00:38):
The idea of talking about genitals for an hour and
it really really makes me happy, Like I was thinking
in the car, like of all the things I want
to say about penises. I'm Emily Nagaski and this is
the Come as you Are podcast where I answer questions
about sex with science. I'm here with mo My, a
(01:02):
producer extraordinaire. So Emily, we have gotten a lot of
questions from the hotline, as you know, and today the
question I'm bringing you is about basically penis anatomy. Yay,
let's talk about penises. I really did not expect one
of our first episodes to be about penises. I know
(01:24):
a lot of your audience is sis women, and I
really did not expect a huge amount of penis convo
from the get go. But you know what, here we are.
You know, a surprising number of women and fems have
sex with people with penises. I always forget that. I
always forget a lot of people interact with penises. It's
(01:44):
a lot of people I'm continuing to remind myself that
a lot of people have or interact with penises. In fact,
most people have or interact with penises, and it's not
even about gender. Some women have penises, genitals do not
a gender make this is a show where penises are welcome.
Thank you Emily for saying that. Okay, let's go ahead
(02:07):
and get into it. So let me play this week's
question for you. Hi, Emily, I have a question for
you about the male anatomy, specifically the penis. I'm sleeping
with a guy right now and his penis is like
really really really curved, like really curved, and I don't care.
(02:29):
I mean, he's it gets the job done. He's just
really embarrassed about it, and like, yeah, I just want
to know it's that normal. Is there a reason for it?
Is it because he's like jerking it too hard to
one side or like, I don't know, it's normal? Can
I hurt it? Can I break it? Oh? You know? Thanks? Yes,
(02:53):
it is completely normal. It is common. And if there's
one thing I want to accomplish with this podcast, it's
to make sure you can look at your genitals and
any of your partner's genitals and know that they're all normal.
They're all normal, they're all beautiful, and I can even
explain why because the science says so. I just want
(03:13):
to start by thanking this listener for calling in. There
is so much to unpack in this call. You know,
I'm hearing worry, I'm hearing like cultural myths about masturbation,
wanting to reassure your partner, and also just myths about
basic anatomy. So let's start with what you just said,
that a curved penis is totally normal. Can you say
(03:34):
more about that? I did actually look at the research
to see if there's like documentation about what proportion of
people have a penis that points in one direction or
another that doesn't exist. I'm not actually sure how they
do it, because how much of a curve counts is
a curve because some of the curves are just a
little bit, and some of them are pretty pronounced. But ultimately,
every single penis is different from every single other penis,
(03:58):
and there is no normal. They're all normal. The only
thing that isn't normal is if your genitals are causing
you pain. If you're not in pain, then the answer
is yes normal. And if you're experiencing pain, talk to
a medical provider. Fortunately, with a penis, your doctor is
likely to take your concerns seriously. So dark and so true.
(04:22):
Can you explain, like anatomically what causes the curve? It's
actually the curve part itself is really simple. So most
of the time when we think about penises, we just
think about this one shaft with a sort of cap
on the end of it, right, like a mushroom kind
of shape. But did you know the shaft is actually
made of three separate chambers, all enclosed within the shaft.
(04:47):
So there's two corpora cavernosa, the cavernous bodies, and then
there's one corpus spongiosum, which is the one that the
urethra runs through. So when you imagine a shaft, don't
just imagine one solid shaft. Imagine three shafts all wrapped
up together. I like to imagine it as like columns. Great,
(05:11):
so we have like a burrito made out of these
three columns, right, but it's just a burrito with three
hot dogs in it. The three hot dog coco. I
love that if one is shorter than the other, it's
going to curve toward the short one. And if all
three of these chambers of the shaft are the same length,
(05:33):
then the penis is straight. You can't see the hand
gestures I am made, right, So you're saying that if
one of the hot dogs in the whole wrap up
in here, the penis is shorter than the other one,
then the curve is going to bend towards the short
bend in the direction of the shorter one, right, because
(05:55):
they all grow together, and the longer ones will continue
to grow beyond the point that the shorter one has
fully extended already. WHOA Like, It's this very simple, very slight,
anatom comical difference. It's completely normal. It's just a way
people's penises can look. M Okay, Is it kind of
(06:15):
like when you have a lopsided labia, like one of
the labia minora is bigger than the other one, Yeah,
which is very often the case. Right, totally. And I
should say, if this is not clear already, that I
am not a sex educator. Emilie Nagaski is the professional
sex educator, and I am just a lesbian podcast producer.
(06:36):
So my reactions are very much based on my non
scientific but prolific personal experiences that labia labia's they're very
rarely symmetrical. They are very rarely symmetrical. And labia is
the plural. Wait, labia is plural. One of my labia
is this size, but my other labium is this other size.
(07:00):
Uh huh, Okay, this is a little grammar lesson you
did not get in school. Yeah, And I think culturally
we spend a bunch of time trying to help people
with Volva's understand that their anatomy is normal. That's what
it's supposed to look like like. They have hair, they
have inner labia, they have outer labia. The size of
(07:22):
all those parts can vary, and there's no need to
get surgery to correct any of that. If your genitals
are not causing you pain, you're all set. You're not
just all set, you're perfect. And the same thing is
true about penises. If one of the chambers of your
penal shaft is shorter than the others, it's going to
(07:45):
point in at a direction. That is not an indication
of a problem. You don't need to get surgery corrected.
Is just part of the beautiful variety of human sexual anatomy.
I think one of the reasons that we people have
so much embarrassment about their shape or their size or
their lopsidedness. Might be that there's no zero We've never
(08:07):
seen any of that import at all. You know, there
are times when I feel like I was born at
just the right time. Like I saw a partner's penis
in real life before I ever saw a penis in porn,
so I didn't have this big hole like set of
ideas about what penises look like, reinforcing that, like if
(08:29):
there's only this one way that penises can look like.
And anybody younger than me I was in graduated from
high school in nineteen ninety five. I feel like anybody
younger than me was going to have access to porn,
maybe before they ever saw a partner's penis in real life.
I don't even remember which one came first for me.
(08:50):
I was that young, I guess, or I just I
have no idea which one came first, but probably born. Yeah,
porn is such bad sex education. Porn is what it is.
The metaphor I often use is that learning about sex
by watching porn is like learning about driving by watching NASCAR.
Those are trained professionals on a closed course with a
(09:10):
pit crew. That is not a representation of how sex
actually works in real life, and most mainstream porn is
really limited, like there's only one kind of car in Nascar,
Like there's only one right kind of body in porn. Right.
They very much value the long, thick, straight penis in
porn as if that's the only erotic kind of penis
(09:31):
there is. It is not right exactly. In real life.
There's diversity, there's variety, there is messiness. There are curious, surprising, funny, noisy, wet,
sticky things that happen, and that's fun and good. I
love it. Okay, So I have a personal experience with
(09:53):
a curved penis, which was that my high school boyfriend,
one of my high school boyfriends. It was the first
penis I had ever seen, and it was his first
time ever, like, you know, showing his penis to anyone
besides I guess the doctor. And it was extreme curved,
now I know, extremely curved. And he was like, is
this normal? And I was like, I don't know, bro,
(10:15):
I really don't know. And now imagine if your high
school sex ed class had shown the three chambers and
had explained very simply that if one of the chambers
is shorter than the others, then there's going to be
a curve and he knows it's normal. That's all it takes.
And it would have been life changing for him because
he was so ashamed. And he went to the doctor
(10:36):
and the doctor basically dismissed his feelings and was like, yeah,
it's normal whatever. And he was like, yeah, but is
no one ever gonna love me? Am I never gonna
be but I have good sex, Like am I do?
I have a defective penis. And he was so upset
about it, and I really couldn't comfort him because I
didn't know anything about penises. I didn't know what to say, Like,
(10:58):
it didn't look normal to me, but I didn't know,
like it didn't look normal compared to what I saw
in the medical diagram. Yeah. I also have a personal story.
In my twenties, many moons ago, I had a partner
with quite a curved penis. But I already knew this,
and I could explain to him, Oh why, And it
(11:20):
made so much of a difference in his own relationship
with his genitals. Oh my god, that is so great.
Holy moly, You're like the better, You're the better version
of my story. The adult sex educator version of the
nightmare that my poor high school boyfriend went through. Yeah,
ten years passed and I got two degrees worth of
(11:41):
education about sexuality, so I knew enough to explain, and like,
it's this small piece of knowledge that can totally change
how a person thinks about their own genitals and recognizing
not just that they are normal, but why they're normal,
how the shape of their genitals is just part of
(12:02):
the great panoply a variety that is the world of
human genitalia. Speaking of the great panoply of human genitalia.
That's our queue to take a break. And when we
get back, I want you, Emily, to basically give us
the updated anatomy one a one lesson the one that
(12:23):
we never got in high school. And particularly I want
you to talk about the same parts organized differently theory,
because it's one of those concepts that when I very
first heard it, it was like, holy shit, how did
I not know this? But it also felt like I
always knew it. I pitty the commercial that breaks up
a conversation about penal anatomy. All right, Emily, So we
(13:00):
started this episode by answering an anonymous listeners question about
someone they're sleeping with having a curved dick, and you
explained the three hot dog taco that is the basic
anatomy of the penis, and that it's super normal for
one of those three columns to be shorter than the
other two, and then if one is shorter, then the
(13:22):
penis curves towards that side, which amazing obvious, but somehow
I never knew that now. I put this question early
on in the series because basically, I am begging you
to re educate us about anatomy one oh one. So
can you start by explaining the same parts organized differently theory? Yeah.
(13:46):
So one of the things that's valuable about understanding where
curved penises come from is the idea that, oh, the
shaft of the penis is not just one thing, it's
these three chambers separately. And all human bodies are made
of the same parts, but in some cases those parts
(14:07):
are organized in different ways. Like on the day a
person is born, the adults around them look at their
body and based on the shape of their genitals decide
it's a boy or it's a girl generally, which is
you can get into the bullshit of that some other episode,
I'm sure that we will, But that package of stuff
(14:28):
that we identify as being one thing or the other
is actually all the same stuff, just organize in a
slightly different way. So the most obvious example for me
when a baby is born is the scrotum. So when
a human with a scrotum grows into adulthood, they've got
(14:49):
this stretchy skin on the outside of their body and
hair grows on it whether they remove it or not.
Right and on a person with an it's a girl
type of body, when that person gets to adulthood, they've
got this external body part of stretchy skin where hair
grows on it. One is scrotum and one is the labia.
(15:12):
In fact, in utero, this tissue is called the labio
scrotal tissue because it comes from the same basic parts
in embryonic and fetal development. In fact, one of my
favorite things about scrotums. If you get up close and
personal with a scrotum, you look real close and you'll
(15:32):
see a seam running down the center of it. It's
called the scrotal raife, and that is where the scrotum
knit together. And if things have been a little different
with the chromosomes or the hormonal environments in the womb,
then that tissue would not have knit together and it
would have just become labia. Truly, all the same parts,
(15:53):
just organized in different ways. I just want to clarify,
like you're saying that the ball sac seam, the seam
that runs down the ball sac, yes, is the same
parts as the split of the labia, but just organized
like it just was developed differently based on different hormonal
(16:14):
inputs hormonal in the uterus, and it was when the
baby was a fetus. Wow, Okay, why I'm so mind
blown by this and I cannot believe I was like
twenty five before I ever knew that this was how
it worked, that those two things were the same bits,
just organized differently or developed differently because we think of
(16:34):
them as being so different. But once you understand that
it's all the same parts organized in different ways, you
can look at any package of genitals and see that
it's really just all the same thing, and that like
the group of genitals we label one way very so
much from each other, and the group of genitals we
label a different way vary so much from each other.
(16:58):
It is often when I think about and look at
I have to look at pictures of genitals on a
pretty regular basis of part of my job. Yeah, there
are times when I feel like there are more difference
is within the it's a gruel batch of genitals. Then
there are between it's a girl and it's a boy
type genitals, Like they all vary so much from each other.
(17:20):
Each one is unique, like a little snowflake, and yet
we like cluster them all together like they're all the same.
They're not the same, but they are. They're all the same.
It's all the same parts organized in different ways. Okay,
So are you about to tell me that the clitters
and the penis are the same parts organized differently, right? Okay,
the clitterest does not have the same functions as the penis,
(17:42):
except that they're both really good at pleasure. But it's
made of the same parts as the penis, which is
why it's really important that we know that there's all
these internal parts of a penis. Right, So there's these
three chambers, two corpora cavernosa, the cavernous bodies, and then
there's one corpus spongiosum. The same thing is true about
(18:04):
the clitteris. Oh my god, The really big difference, apart
from just like size of the clitterest, is that the
only part of the clitterest that is outside the body
is the equivalent of the head of the penis or
the glands. So if you imagine, and like if you again,
if you're up close and personal with an erect penis,
(18:26):
you can press down along the sides into the person's
body and feel how deeply the shaft goes into the
person's body. So if you just imagine that, the whole
shaft retracts back into that person's body so that only
the head is visible. Yeah, that's more or less what
a clitterest is, the clitteral glands, the external part. Does
(18:46):
that make sense? Wow? Yes, okay, it does make sense,
And I did not realize, Like I I've heard about
the internal clitterest and it has that sort of wishbone structure.
It has those two roots almost that go into the
body wrap around the vagina, like I've seen that the
legs and bulbs of the vestib Yeah. Yeah, so I've
(19:10):
seen that image before, and I think there was a
movement a few years ago, you know, to really educate
people that, hey, the clitteris is an entire internal structure
that is much bigger than just the thing we see outside. Yeah, imagine,
like the change that happens between a non erect penis
and an erect penis, how much change happens in sort
(19:31):
of the shape and size and presence of a penis.
All that same change is happening inside evolva. So when
you look at that wishbone shape, the two bulbs of
the vestibule that make the sort of wishbone shape, those
are the corpora cavernosa, those cavernous bodies that are the
same parts as in the shaft of the penis, aka
(19:53):
the hot dog, just internalment. The hot dogs make the
little cars making the inside of the penis. Got it. Sorry,
I'm literally functioning on like a fifth grade level on
the understanding of this. I thought it was one, you know, big,
one big flesh knob. Yeah, basically I didn't realize that
(20:15):
there were multiple columns and that those translated directly to
the legs of the internal clitterus. So I want to
talk to you about something. The technical term is anatomical homologues.
So we know what anatomy is, right. Homologue means having
(20:35):
the same origin. The origin of the human body is
the development in the beautterus sper meats egg. We know
if that happens, and then development begins blasticist an embryo, yeah,
eventually a fetus, and there is this really complex cascade
(20:59):
of hormonal and developmental events. But in that embryonic blast
assist early fetal development stage, bodies look exactly alike. It
isn't until six and a half weeks into gestation, when
there is a wave of hormones that anything is different.
(21:21):
All the prefab hardware of what a human body is
made of is there, regardless of the chromosomes. We know
that like traditionally we call xx is and it's a
girl type person an XY, it's a boy type person, right,
But up until six and a half weeks, it's identical.
It's all the same parts. It's only after that wash
(21:43):
of hormones that anything begins to change. So all that
same prefabricated hardware begins to organize itself into slightly different shapes.
But then the clitteress and the penis do do you
know the external part of the clitteress, the part that
is visible that you can touch with your hand, is
(22:05):
the homologue of the head of the penis. So imagine
that a penis gets sort of retracted into a person's body,
and all that's visible is the head, right, you can
imagine that. It's a little silly, but all that internal structure,
all three of those chambers are still there. They're just
(22:26):
deep inside the body. Oh my god, I wish you
could see my face right now. My hands are over
my mouth, like as if someone just exploded the world
for me. Like, basically, the penis is a very large
clitterings or vice versa, and it's outside the body, but
in a different world with different you know, hormonal inputs.
(22:47):
They are the same materials, that's what you're saying. Yeah,
I want you to imagine all the changes that happen
to a penis when it gets erect. Like, here's this
thing outside of a person's body. It starts out sort
of squishy. You can squeeze a really hard, you can
stretch in and pull it. As it fills with blood,
it gets firmer and it extends and swells. Now, imagine
(23:12):
if that shaft is all retracted deep into the body.
All that same swelling and firming up, All of that
is happening inside of a vulva, in the internal clitterus. Yes. Wait,
so if you're listening and you're confused, I would recommend
like just typing into Google the words clitteris and penis,
(23:38):
same clitteris and penis, same press and turbot on those
four words, and take a gander at the Google image results.
You get image results. Oh it's the dinosaur images. I
love these. I love these two. Why do you call
it the dinosaur images because it looks it's like how
a muppet would be a dinosaur. Oh, I'm glad you
(24:02):
like these diagrams. I mean, I think this is a
really helpful image. Yeah. It helps people to understand both
that there's way more to the clearest, but also there
is way more to the penis exactly. Yeah. Yeah, And
this science is used to help people who transition, who
either have hormonal or surgical interventions to change the shape
(24:23):
of their genitals to be more concordant with their identity.
It's so helpful that we know this, that we have
this science, because the science means that we have readier
access to tools to have gender affirming medical interventions so
the people's genitals can align with their identity. Yes, yes, yes,
(24:46):
I'm just absolutely gobsmacked by this information. Like, on one hand,
I it's weirdly empowering to me. But I'm also angry
that so many of us were taught the biological differences,
you know, diagrams of genitals, and we were not taught. Hey,
(25:08):
this is the same struck, sure, just organized differently. Yeah.
People get really attached to the idea that there are
two and they're not the same. Yeah. Some people are
bizarrely emotionally and politically invested, literally invested in this idea
of biological difference. So just gonna leave our listeners to
(25:28):
ruminate on that, and let's take a break. When we
get back, I think we should talk about like stigma
and myths about genital shape and size and symmetry, all
that kind of stuff. And we're also going to talk
about that one myth that the caller brought up about
jerking it too hard, Emily. I have been waiting all
(25:58):
episode to say this, so I'm just gonna say it now.
And you might not know about this because you don't
consume a lot of pop culture, But there is an
entire song by Megan a Stallion about curved dicks being hot.
It's called Captain Hookah. That is amazing. Wait have you
heard it? I've never heard of it. Okay, Megan is
(26:20):
an absolute icon right now. And in this song Captain Hook,
she has a line where she literally says, I like
a dick with a little bit of curve. Considering that
you have never heard this, I need to play a
clip for you. You deserved that, a little bit of curve.
Palid pal that's amazing. Yes, it is a watershed moment
(26:44):
for curved penis visibility. Couldn't let this episode happen without
mentioning No, that is an extremely important edition. I didn't
realize that curve penises had made it to the mainstream
in so big a way, curve penis adoration in fact. Yeah, yeah, anyway,
So one of the things this caller, and they didn't
give their name, but one of the things they brought
(27:06):
up was what could have caused this curve? And actually,
I'm just going to play the clip because it's gold.
Is there a reason for it? Is it because he's
like jerking it too hard to one side or like
so could occur in a penis be caused by someone
(27:27):
jerking it too hard or jerking it too hard to
one side? Quote unquote yeah definitely not I want it,
but it's a thing I run into, like I've been
asked that before. That is the thing people are worried
about when their penis is vary from their expectations of
what a penis is supposed to be. They worry that
they made it happen by masturbating. And that's often because
(27:51):
they started masturbating and really paying close attention to their
penis at about the same time that their penis hits
puberty and starts to look the way it's going to look,
and so they think that it look. Correlation is not causation.
Just because two things happen at the same time doesn't
mean that one caused the other. You're masturbating in the
(28:14):
same direction as your penis because that's how it's comfortable
and pleasurable to masturbate. But the curve was there before
you ever started masturbate. But the myth of the idea
that you could masturbate too hard or too much and
it can permanently damage the hardware is like a pretty
(28:34):
pervasive myth. Like you know, I'm assist woman, I have
a cliter is. I had the cultural imagery that like
I could damage it forever, I could burn it off,
Like I was probably fourteen or fifteen, and I saw
an episode of Sex in the City where Samantha is
shopping for a vibrator and another woman who's shopping next
to her points at one of them and says, Oh,
(28:56):
don't buy that one because it'll burn your clitteress off.
And I after I saw that episode, I probably spent
four years having a fear that I could burn my
clitteress off, like literally cauterize your clarteres. Yes exactly, Oh,
(29:18):
I know, and now I know better. But like, and
probably all the meant is that it overheats, yeah, or
that it gets like really intense. But I do think
there's like a lot of cultural messaging that masturbation is
bad and if you do it too much or too hard,
you're going to damage your business forever, and that's gonna
(29:39):
be it. Yeah, And the only thing that's true is, like, again,
if you experience pain, that might be a sign that
something has gone sideways. And I don't mean that in
the penis pointing direction. I mean that, like, you may
have injured yourself if something hurts, but otherwise, if it
doesn't hurt, you are fine. If you experience numbness, that's temporary,
(30:02):
in the same way that like if you fall asleep
on your foot and it gets numb and tingly. Does
your foot stay that way forever? No, If your foot
stayed that way forever, you would tell me right, because
that's not the way it was yet there'd be something
wrong if it stayed that way forever. But it doesn't.
It's just very temporary. I think the worst thing masturbating
(30:24):
can do is teach you to get to orgasm so
efficiently that when you are having any sort of sexual
connection with another person, your body only knows how to
get to orgasm really efficiently, as opposed to like taking
your time and engaging with your partner. So really, what
(30:45):
I recommend is masturbating in a greater variety of ways
and really taking your time and enjoying it. That is
really really good advice. I want to bring up one
more thing from the listeners call. They said that their
partner's penis quote gets the job done. Like, no judgment
on the person who's using this language. This is the
(31:07):
language we are taught as a culture to use about penises,
to see them as strong and hard and like they
can last forever and they're never weak. It's absolutely a
metaphor for masculinity itself. This trap of masculinity. I am
(31:28):
just realizing right now that we like culturally apply the
words hand job and blowjob pretty much exclusively to penises,
Like we never talk about clitoral stimulation as a hand
job or kind of lingus as a blowjob. That's true.
Listeners should let us know if that's not true in
their experience. I had this revelation when I was actually
(31:51):
looking at a Instagram post and somebody used the phrase
thigh job, like in the queer context of like when
you're pressing your thigh against someone's volva basically yeah, And
when I when I heard the word thigh job, I
was like, I love that phrase. Number one and two.
I have never heard job blank, job be applied to
anything related to the clitterists or the bulba. Yeah. So,
(32:14):
but when the color says it gets the job done,
I assume they mean it's pleasurable to them in penetrative
sex and it doesn't hurt. But that's really what I
want to know as well, Like this callor is calling
in from their perspective having sex with this person with
the scurved penis, Like is it pleasurable? That's so interesting
because what I assumed and like, our assumptions are always
(32:35):
just our assumptions. But my assumption was I have orgasms
from penetration. My assumption was it gets hard and we're
able to have penetrative sex. M. That is a much
more pessimistic interpretation, but I think you could be right. Yeah.
I hope listeners will comment with their opinions of what
(32:57):
counts as like it gets the job done. Is it
just penetration pain free or is it orgasm from fashional stimulation? Okay, so, Emily,
I feel like we have covered a lot lot of
ground in this episode, and we started out talking about
a crooked penis, but we have also now covered the
internal genital structures and how all genitals are the same parts,
(33:21):
just organized differently. Also, I learned the word homologues. So
can you just recap it all for me? Please? I
would love to you. That's a great idea. So we'll
start with the answer to the actual question, which is yes,
bendy or curvy penises normal. And the reason they're normal
(33:44):
is that a penis is made of these three chambers
or like columns, and it's very common for one of
those columns to be slightly shorter than the other. Two,
and if that happens, and the penis will bend to
one side. But again, it is not a sign that
you've done anything wrong. It's not anything you've caused or
(34:04):
anything you could cause. It's just the way some penises
are built. And as long as it's not causing you
any pain, it's perfect. So that's first. Second, onto those
genital structures for simplicity. Right now, I'm going to focus
on the clitteress and the penis. In the first few
weeks of embryonic development, all of us have the same
(34:28):
basic hardware. It's around week six that the embryo receives
a hormonal signal and that hardware begins to take a
certain shape that when that person is born we would
label that shape it's a girl or it's a boy.
We all start out with the same parts, they just
get organized differently. So the penis and the clitteress are homologues.
(34:53):
They have the same origin. They are made of the
same material. Third, to get a little more specific, the
legs and the bulbs of the internal clitterests are the
same as the parts of those three chambers in the penis.
The head of the clitterests is the same as the
head of the penis. It just developed a little differently,
(35:15):
responding to the hormones based on this body's chromosomes and
other aspects of their environment in utero. And just like
the penis, the clitterests, including all of its internal parts,
gets erect and swells when you're aroused, which I just
love me too, array for clitteral arousal. So basically, the
(35:40):
way many of us are taught about genitals and sex
ed is this tiny fragment of the full picture, and
the reality is so much less binary than what we're taught.
Every set of genitals is unique, just like every person's
sexual orientation and gender identity and desires are all unique.
(36:02):
People vary and they change, and all of that is normal,
which leads us to fourth and most important. The reality
of our genitals is not what we were shown, either
in our textbooks or in porn. It is much more
(36:22):
asymmetrical and beautiful and curvy and delightful and enticing and
all the way down the alphabet. I don't have to
know what your genitals look like to know that they
are already perfect just as they are. This is the
difference between ladies sitting around at brunch talking about their
(36:44):
experiences and having a professional sex education. Yes, exactly. It's
the difference between your experience in high school with a
boy with a crooked penis and my experience in grad
school with a boy with a crooked penis. Rock and
be like, here's exactly why this is normal and can
actually be an assets night and day. Turns out, information
(37:05):
can make all the difference. Yep. Confidence comes from knowing
what is true. I mean, this is what I always say.
My job is to teach people to live with confidence
and enjoying their bodies. And confidence is knowing what is true.
And joy is loving what is true, and joy is
the hard part. Do you have advice for the caller
(37:27):
or the caller's partner, advice for doing that very hard part?
Like finding joy in your body as it exists right now.
We've all been trained from really early on to have
an idea about what is right and what is wrong
about sexuality, including the shape and size of our body parts,
(37:47):
all of our body parts. Just because it's normal doesn't
mean it's acceptable. Really, we have to change our opinion,
and that means going against every message we have received
from really early on in our lives. Reinforced through our
formal education, our moral education, our interactions with medical practitioners.
(38:12):
It has been reinforced that there is a right body
and a wrong body. And it takes a leap to
decide that your body, whatever it is, is already perfect
and beautiful and fully lovable and deserving of pleasure. That's
a choice that people need to make. And yeah, there's
a cost that comes with that kind of choice, because
(38:34):
other people will judge you for being willing to accept
and welcome your body precisely as it is. But it's
a daily practice of taking a tonic to strengthen your
immunity against those poisonous messages like what's do you have
a tonic that you take? What do you mean? Oh? Yeah,
(38:59):
so the literal tonic here is. Suppose a person with
a curved penis who has had complicated feelings about their
curved penis. Every day, just for three minutes, you think about,
you visualize, or you look at your penis, and you
send your penis loving supportive messages about like you are
(39:21):
perfect exactly the way you are. You are a normal
variation on the way human beings bodies look, and you
can be an asset and a gift. You're capable of
experiencing enormous pleasure. You're capable of providing pleasure to your partners.
You are a gorgeous, beautiful toy in the play that
(39:44):
is erotic connection. When I hear you talking about it,
like I feel it radiating from you in a way
that I know this sounds really woo woo, but like
it feels like once someone has made that shift where
they're unconditionally loving their body as it is right now,
(40:05):
Like everyone who they interact with everyone and can feel
that shift, Like everyone knows that there's someone who loves
their body instead of someone who is hiding or hating
their body. Yeah, that confidence and that acceptance. Your partner
can feel that, and it helps them to experience your
(40:29):
body with your confidence and your acceptance. Like, Nope, this
is just normal. Any feelings you have about the fact
that this might not be normal, that's you. And like,
here is this body right in front of you, ready
to be sexy with you, and you can either judge
it or you can be sexy with this body. What
(40:51):
do you think it works? Knowledge and self love totally
improve your sex life, and it helps other people improve
their sex lives. Because if they can see you loving
your body exactly as it is, it opens the question
(41:12):
of like, but could I love my body exactly as
it is? If there's someone who has moved through this process,
who has genitals that don't conform to like the porn ideal,
(41:35):
and you've made your way to a place of really
loving the shape of your genitals, let us know how
you did that. Not every call has to be a question.
I would love to hear the process that people have
been through in order to get there, because every story
like that is going to help other people who are
at the beginning of that journey. Call and tell us
(41:55):
about it. The phone number is six four six three
nine seven eight five five seven, or you can send
a voice memo on email to Emily at Pushkin dot Fm.
Next week we have a question from a listener about
desire and if you're feeling like I wanna want my
partner or I wanna want sex, but I'm just I
(42:17):
don't know, I'm not really in the mood. This Responsive
Desire episode has been made specifically for you. Come as
You Are is a production of Pushkin Industries and Madison Wells.
It's hosted by Emily Nagosky. You can find Emily on
Instagram at e Nagowski and on Twitter at Emily Nagowski.
(42:42):
You can also sign up for her newsletter at Emily
Nagosky dot com, where she writes about everything from the
clitteriest in your mind to orgasm after having hysterected me.
It's an incredible newsletter. Highly recommended. This show is co
hosted and lead produced by me Mola Board. You can
find me online at Mola Board and on TikTok at
(43:03):
podcast dot slut Sorry mom. My. Co producer on this
show is the fabulous Britney Brown. Our editor is Kate
Parkinson Morgan. Sound design and mix by Anne Pope. Executive
producers are Mia LaBelle and Leetal Mallad at Pushkin. Thanks
to Heather Fane, Carl Migliori, Sophie Crane, Courtney Guarino, Jason Gambrel,
(43:27):
Julia Barton, John Schnars, and Jacob Weisberg at Madison Wells.
Thanks to Kylie Williams, Elizabeth Goodstein and Gg Pritzker. Additional
thanks to Rich Stevens, Lindsay Edgecombe, Frolick Media, and Peter
Acker at Armadillo Audio Group. Original music for this series
(43:47):
was composed by Amelia Nagoski and arranged and recorded by
Alexandra Kalinovsky. Additional music from Epidemic Sound. You can find
Pushkin on all social platforms at pushkin Pods, and you
can sign up for our newsletter at pushkin dot fm.
If you love this show and others from Pushkin Industries,
(44:09):
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(44:32):
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to listen.
Pushkin. Hi, Emily, and I am I have a question
for you. I'm sleeping with a guy right now and
his penis is like really really really curved, like really curved.
(00:38):
The idea of talking about genitals for an hour and
it really really makes me happy, Like I was thinking
in the car, like of all the things I want
to say about penises. I'm Emily Nagaski and this is
the Come as you Are podcast where I answer questions
about sex with science. I'm here with mo My, a
(01:02):
producer extraordinaire. So Emily, we have gotten a lot of
questions from the hotline, as you know, and today the
question I'm bringing you is about basically penis anatomy. Yay,
let's talk about penises. I really did not expect one
of our first episodes to be about penises. I know
(01:24):
a lot of your audience is sis women, and I
really did not expect a huge amount of penis convo
from the get go. But you know what, here we are.
You know, a surprising number of women and fems have
sex with people with penises. I always forget that. I
always forget a lot of people interact with penises. It's
(01:44):
a lot of people I'm continuing to remind myself that
a lot of people have or interact with penises. In fact,
most people have or interact with penises, and it's not
even about gender. Some women have penises, genitals do not
a gender make this is a show where penises are welcome.
Thank you Emily for saying that. Okay, let's go ahead
(02:07):
and get into it. So let me play this week's
question for you. Hi, Emily, I have a question for
you about the male anatomy, specifically the penis. I'm sleeping
with a guy right now and his penis is like
really really really curved, like really curved, and I don't care.
(02:29):
I mean, he's it gets the job done. He's just
really embarrassed about it, and like, yeah, I just want
to know it's that normal. Is there a reason for it?
Is it because he's like jerking it too hard to
one side or like, I don't know, it's normal? Can
I hurt it? Can I break it? Oh? You know? Thanks? Yes,
(02:53):
it is completely normal. It is common. And if there's
one thing I want to accomplish with this podcast, it's
to make sure you can look at your genitals and
any of your partner's genitals and know that they're all normal.
They're all normal, they're all beautiful, and I can even
explain why because the science says so. I just want
(03:13):
to start by thanking this listener for calling in. There
is so much to unpack in this call. You know,
I'm hearing worry, I'm hearing like cultural myths about masturbation,
wanting to reassure your partner, and also just myths about
basic anatomy. So let's start with what you just said,
that a curved penis is totally normal. Can you say
(03:34):
more about that? I did actually look at the research
to see if there's like documentation about what proportion of
people have a penis that points in one direction or
another that doesn't exist. I'm not actually sure how they
do it, because how much of a curve counts is
a curve because some of the curves are just a
little bit, and some of them are pretty pronounced. But ultimately,
every single penis is different from every single other penis,
(03:58):
and there is no normal. They're all normal. The only
thing that isn't normal is if your genitals are causing
you pain. If you're not in pain, then the answer
is yes normal. And if you're experiencing pain, talk to
a medical provider. Fortunately, with a penis, your doctor is
likely to take your concerns seriously. So dark and so true.
(04:22):
Can you explain, like anatomically what causes the curve? It's
actually the curve part itself is really simple. So most
of the time when we think about penises, we just
think about this one shaft with a sort of cap
on the end of it, right, like a mushroom kind
of shape. But did you know the shaft is actually
made of three separate chambers, all enclosed within the shaft.
(04:47):
So there's two corpora cavernosa, the cavernous bodies, and then
there's one corpus spongiosum, which is the one that the
urethra runs through. So when you imagine a shaft, don't
just imagine one solid shaft. Imagine three shafts all wrapped
up together. I like to imagine it as like columns. Great,
(05:11):
so we have like a burrito made out of these
three columns, right, but it's just a burrito with three
hot dogs in it. The three hot dog coco. I
love that if one is shorter than the other, it's
going to curve toward the short one. And if all
three of these chambers of the shaft are the same length,
(05:33):
then the penis is straight. You can't see the hand
gestures I am made, right, So you're saying that if
one of the hot dogs in the whole wrap up
in here, the penis is shorter than the other one,
then the curve is going to bend towards the short
bend in the direction of the shorter one, right, because
(05:55):
they all grow together, and the longer ones will continue
to grow beyond the point that the shorter one has
fully extended already. WHOA Like, It's this very simple, very slight,
anatom comical difference. It's completely normal. It's just a way
people's penises can look. M Okay, Is it kind of
(06:15):
like when you have a lopsided labia, like one of
the labia minora is bigger than the other one, Yeah,
which is very often the case. Right, totally. And I
should say, if this is not clear already, that I
am not a sex educator. Emilie Nagaski is the professional
sex educator, and I am just a lesbian podcast producer.
(06:36):
So my reactions are very much based on my non
scientific but prolific personal experiences that labia labia's they're very
rarely symmetrical. They are very rarely symmetrical. And labia is
the plural. Wait, labia is plural. One of my labia
is this size, but my other labium is this other size.
(07:00):
Uh huh, Okay, this is a little grammar lesson you
did not get in school. Yeah, And I think culturally
we spend a bunch of time trying to help people
with Volva's understand that their anatomy is normal. That's what
it's supposed to look like like. They have hair, they
have inner labia, they have outer labia. The size of
(07:22):
all those parts can vary, and there's no need to
get surgery to correct any of that. If your genitals
are not causing you pain, you're all set. You're not
just all set, you're perfect. And the same thing is
true about penises. If one of the chambers of your
penal shaft is shorter than the others, it's going to
(07:45):
point in at a direction. That is not an indication
of a problem. You don't need to get surgery corrected.
Is just part of the beautiful variety of human sexual anatomy.
I think one of the reasons that we people have
so much embarrassment about their shape or their size or
their lopsidedness. Might be that there's no zero We've never
(08:07):
seen any of that import at all. You know, there
are times when I feel like I was born at
just the right time. Like I saw a partner's penis
in real life before I ever saw a penis in porn,
so I didn't have this big hole like set of
ideas about what penises look like, reinforcing that, like if
(08:29):
there's only this one way that penises can look like.
And anybody younger than me I was in graduated from
high school in nineteen ninety five. I feel like anybody
younger than me was going to have access to porn,
maybe before they ever saw a partner's penis in real life.
I don't even remember which one came first for me.
(08:50):
I was that young, I guess, or I just I
have no idea which one came first, but probably born. Yeah,
porn is such bad sex education. Porn is what it is.
The metaphor I often use is that learning about sex
by watching porn is like learning about driving by watching NASCAR.
Those are trained professionals on a closed course with a
(09:10):
pit crew. That is not a representation of how sex
actually works in real life, and most mainstream porn is
really limited, like there's only one kind of car in Nascar,
Like there's only one right kind of body in porn. Right.
They very much value the long, thick, straight penis in
porn as if that's the only erotic kind of penis
(09:31):
there is. It is not right exactly. In real life.
There's diversity, there's variety, there is messiness. There are curious, surprising, funny, noisy, wet,
sticky things that happen, and that's fun and good. I
love it. Okay, So I have a personal experience with
(09:53):
a curved penis, which was that my high school boyfriend,
one of my high school boyfriends. It was the first
penis I had ever seen, and it was his first
time ever, like, you know, showing his penis to anyone
besides I guess the doctor. And it was extreme curved,
now I know, extremely curved. And he was like, is
this normal? And I was like, I don't know, bro,
(10:15):
I really don't know. And now imagine if your high
school sex ed class had shown the three chambers and
had explained very simply that if one of the chambers
is shorter than the others, then there's going to be
a curve and he knows it's normal. That's all it takes.
And it would have been life changing for him because
he was so ashamed. And he went to the doctor
(10:36):
and the doctor basically dismissed his feelings and was like, yeah,
it's normal whatever. And he was like, yeah, but is
no one ever gonna love me? Am I never gonna
be but I have good sex, Like am I do?
I have a defective penis. And he was so upset
about it, and I really couldn't comfort him because I
didn't know anything about penises. I didn't know what to say, Like,
(10:58):
it didn't look normal to me, but I didn't know,
like it didn't look normal compared to what I saw
in the medical diagram. Yeah. I also have a personal story.
In my twenties, many moons ago, I had a partner
with quite a curved penis. But I already knew this,
and I could explain to him, Oh why, And it
(11:20):
made so much of a difference in his own relationship
with his genitals. Oh my god, that is so great.
Holy moly, You're like the better, You're the better version
of my story. The adult sex educator version of the
nightmare that my poor high school boyfriend went through. Yeah,
ten years passed and I got two degrees worth of
(11:41):
education about sexuality, so I knew enough to explain, and like,
it's this small piece of knowledge that can totally change
how a person thinks about their own genitals and recognizing
not just that they are normal, but why they're normal,
how the shape of their genitals is just part of
(12:02):
the great panoply a variety that is the world of
human genitalia. Speaking of the great panoply of human genitalia.
That's our queue to take a break. And when we
get back, I want you, Emily, to basically give us
the updated anatomy one a one lesson the one that
(12:23):
we never got in high school. And particularly I want
you to talk about the same parts organized differently theory,
because it's one of those concepts that when I very
first heard it, it was like, holy shit, how did
I not know this? But it also felt like I
always knew it. I pitty the commercial that breaks up
a conversation about penal anatomy. All right, Emily, So we
(13:00):
started this episode by answering an anonymous listeners question about
someone they're sleeping with having a curved dick, and you
explained the three hot dog taco that is the basic
anatomy of the penis, and that it's super normal for
one of those three columns to be shorter than the
other two, and then if one is shorter, then the
(13:22):
penis curves towards that side, which amazing obvious, but somehow
I never knew that now. I put this question early
on in the series because basically, I am begging you
to re educate us about anatomy one oh one. So
can you start by explaining the same parts organized differently theory? Yeah.
(13:46):
So one of the things that's valuable about understanding where
curved penises come from is the idea that, oh, the
shaft of the penis is not just one thing, it's
these three chambers separately. And all human bodies are made
of the same parts, but in some cases those parts
(14:07):
are organized in different ways. Like on the day a
person is born, the adults around them look at their
body and based on the shape of their genitals decide
it's a boy or it's a girl generally, which is
you can get into the bullshit of that some other episode,
I'm sure that we will, But that package of stuff
(14:28):
that we identify as being one thing or the other
is actually all the same stuff, just organize in a
slightly different way. So the most obvious example for me
when a baby is born is the scrotum. So when
a human with a scrotum grows into adulthood, they've got
(14:49):
this stretchy skin on the outside of their body and
hair grows on it whether they remove it or not.
Right and on a person with an it's a girl
type of body, when that person gets to adulthood, they've
got this external body part of stretchy skin where hair
grows on it. One is scrotum and one is the labia.
(15:12):
In fact, in utero, this tissue is called the labio
scrotal tissue because it comes from the same basic parts
in embryonic and fetal development. In fact, one of my
favorite things about scrotums. If you get up close and
personal with a scrotum, you look real close and you'll
(15:32):
see a seam running down the center of it. It's
called the scrotal raife, and that is where the scrotum
knit together. And if things have been a little different
with the chromosomes or the hormonal environments in the womb,
then that tissue would not have knit together and it
would have just become labia. Truly, all the same parts,
(15:53):
just organized in different ways. I just want to clarify,
like you're saying that the ball sac seam, the seam
that runs down the ball sac, yes, is the same
parts as the split of the labia, but just organized
like it just was developed differently based on different hormonal
(16:14):
inputs hormonal in the uterus, and it was when the
baby was a fetus. Wow, Okay, why I'm so mind
blown by this and I cannot believe I was like
twenty five before I ever knew that this was how
it worked, that those two things were the same bits,
just organized differently or developed differently because we think of
(16:34):
them as being so different. But once you understand that
it's all the same parts organized in different ways, you
can look at any package of genitals and see that
it's really just all the same thing, and that like
the group of genitals we label one way very so
much from each other, and the group of genitals we
label a different way vary so much from each other.
(16:58):
It is often when I think about and look at
I have to look at pictures of genitals on a
pretty regular basis of part of my job. Yeah, there
are times when I feel like there are more difference
is within the it's a gruel batch of genitals. Then
there are between it's a girl and it's a boy
type genitals, Like they all vary so much from each other.
(17:20):
Each one is unique, like a little snowflake, and yet
we like cluster them all together like they're all the same.
They're not the same, but they are. They're all the same.
It's all the same parts organized in different ways. Okay,
So are you about to tell me that the clitters
and the penis are the same parts organized differently, right? Okay,
the clitterest does not have the same functions as the penis,
(17:42):
except that they're both really good at pleasure. But it's
made of the same parts as the penis, which is
why it's really important that we know that there's all
these internal parts of a penis. Right, So there's these
three chambers, two corpora cavernosa, the cavernous bodies, and then
there's one corpus spongiosum. The same thing is true about
(18:04):
the clitteris. Oh my god, The really big difference, apart
from just like size of the clitterest, is that the
only part of the clitterest that is outside the body
is the equivalent of the head of the penis or
the glands. So if you imagine, and like if you again,
if you're up close and personal with an erect penis,
(18:26):
you can press down along the sides into the person's
body and feel how deeply the shaft goes into the
person's body. So if you just imagine that, the whole
shaft retracts back into that person's body so that only
the head is visible. Yeah, that's more or less what
a clitterest is, the clitteral glands, the external part. Does
(18:46):
that make sense? Wow? Yes, okay, it does make sense,
And I did not realize, Like I I've heard about
the internal clitterest and it has that sort of wishbone structure.
It has those two roots almost that go into the
body wrap around the vagina, like I've seen that the
legs and bulbs of the vestib Yeah. Yeah, so I've
(19:10):
seen that image before, and I think there was a
movement a few years ago, you know, to really educate
people that, hey, the clitteris is an entire internal structure
that is much bigger than just the thing we see outside. Yeah, imagine,
like the change that happens between a non erect penis
and an erect penis, how much change happens in sort
(19:31):
of the shape and size and presence of a penis.
All that same change is happening inside evolva. So when
you look at that wishbone shape, the two bulbs of
the vestibule that make the sort of wishbone shape, those
are the corpora cavernosa, those cavernous bodies that are the
same parts as in the shaft of the penis, aka
(19:53):
the hot dog, just internalment. The hot dogs make the
little cars making the inside of the penis. Got it. Sorry,
I'm literally functioning on like a fifth grade level on
the understanding of this. I thought it was one, you know, big,
one big flesh knob. Yeah, basically I didn't realize that
(20:15):
there were multiple columns and that those translated directly to
the legs of the internal clitterus. So I want to
talk to you about something. The technical term is anatomical homologues.
So we know what anatomy is, right. Homologue means having
(20:35):
the same origin. The origin of the human body is
the development in the beautterus sper meats egg. We know
if that happens, and then development begins blasticist an embryo, yeah,
eventually a fetus, and there is this really complex cascade
(20:59):
of hormonal and developmental events. But in that embryonic blast
assist early fetal development stage, bodies look exactly alike. It
isn't until six and a half weeks into gestation, when
there is a wave of hormones that anything is different.
(21:21):
All the prefab hardware of what a human body is
made of is there, regardless of the chromosomes. We know
that like traditionally we call xx is and it's a
girl type person an XY, it's a boy type person, right,
But up until six and a half weeks, it's identical.
It's all the same parts. It's only after that wash
(21:43):
of hormones that anything begins to change. So all that
same prefabricated hardware begins to organize itself into slightly different shapes.
But then the clitteress and the penis do do you
know the external part of the clitteress, the part that
is visible that you can touch with your hand, is
(22:05):
the homologue of the head of the penis. So imagine
that a penis gets sort of retracted into a person's body,
and all that's visible is the head, right, you can
imagine that. It's a little silly, but all that internal structure,
all three of those chambers are still there. They're just
(22:26):
deep inside the body. Oh my god, I wish you
could see my face right now. My hands are over
my mouth, like as if someone just exploded the world
for me. Like, basically, the penis is a very large
clitterings or vice versa, and it's outside the body, but
in a different world with different you know, hormonal inputs.
(22:47):
They are the same materials, that's what you're saying. Yeah,
I want you to imagine all the changes that happen
to a penis when it gets erect. Like, here's this
thing outside of a person's body. It starts out sort
of squishy. You can squeeze a really hard, you can
stretch in and pull it. As it fills with blood,
it gets firmer and it extends and swells. Now, imagine
(23:12):
if that shaft is all retracted deep into the body.
All that same swelling and firming up, All of that
is happening inside of a vulva, in the internal clitterus. Yes. Wait,
so if you're listening and you're confused, I would recommend
like just typing into Google the words clitteris and penis,
(23:38):
same clitteris and penis, same press and turbot on those
four words, and take a gander at the Google image results.
You get image results. Oh it's the dinosaur images. I
love these. I love these two. Why do you call
it the dinosaur images because it looks it's like how
a muppet would be a dinosaur. Oh, I'm glad you
(24:02):
like these diagrams. I mean, I think this is a
really helpful image. Yeah. It helps people to understand both
that there's way more to the clearest, but also there
is way more to the penis exactly. Yeah. Yeah, And
this science is used to help people who transition, who
either have hormonal or surgical interventions to change the shape
(24:23):
of their genitals to be more concordant with their identity.
It's so helpful that we know this, that we have
this science, because the science means that we have readier
access to tools to have gender affirming medical interventions so
the people's genitals can align with their identity. Yes, yes, yes,
(24:46):
I'm just absolutely gobsmacked by this information. Like, on one hand,
I it's weirdly empowering to me. But I'm also angry
that so many of us were taught the biological differences,
you know, diagrams of genitals, and we were not taught. Hey,
(25:08):
this is the same struck, sure, just organized differently. Yeah.
People get really attached to the idea that there are
two and they're not the same. Yeah. Some people are
bizarrely emotionally and politically invested, literally invested in this idea
of biological difference. So just gonna leave our listeners to
(25:28):
ruminate on that, and let's take a break. When we
get back, I think we should talk about like stigma
and myths about genital shape and size and symmetry, all
that kind of stuff. And we're also going to talk
about that one myth that the caller brought up about
jerking it too hard, Emily. I have been waiting all
(25:58):
episode to say this, so I'm just gonna say it now.
And you might not know about this because you don't
consume a lot of pop culture, But there is an
entire song by Megan a Stallion about curved dicks being hot.
It's called Captain Hookah. That is amazing. Wait have you
heard it? I've never heard of it. Okay, Megan is
(26:20):
an absolute icon right now. And in this song Captain Hook,
she has a line where she literally says, I like
a dick with a little bit of curve. Considering that
you have never heard this, I need to play a
clip for you. You deserved that, a little bit of curve.
Palid pal that's amazing. Yes, it is a watershed moment
(26:44):
for curved penis visibility. Couldn't let this episode happen without
mentioning No, that is an extremely important edition. I didn't
realize that curve penises had made it to the mainstream
in so big a way, curve penis adoration in fact. Yeah, yeah, anyway,
So one of the things this caller, and they didn't
give their name, but one of the things they brought
(27:06):
up was what could have caused this curve? And actually,
I'm just going to play the clip because it's gold.
Is there a reason for it? Is it because he's
like jerking it too hard to one side or like
so could occur in a penis be caused by someone
(27:27):
jerking it too hard or jerking it too hard to
one side? Quote unquote yeah definitely not I want it,
but it's a thing I run into, like I've been
asked that before. That is the thing people are worried
about when their penis is vary from their expectations of
what a penis is supposed to be. They worry that
they made it happen by masturbating. And that's often because
(27:51):
they started masturbating and really paying close attention to their
penis at about the same time that their penis hits
puberty and starts to look the way it's going to look,
and so they think that it look. Correlation is not causation.
Just because two things happen at the same time doesn't
mean that one caused the other. You're masturbating in the
(28:14):
same direction as your penis because that's how it's comfortable
and pleasurable to masturbate. But the curve was there before
you ever started masturbate. But the myth of the idea
that you could masturbate too hard or too much and
it can permanently damage the hardware is like a pretty
(28:34):
pervasive myth. Like you know, I'm assist woman, I have
a cliter is. I had the cultural imagery that like
I could damage it forever, I could burn it off,
Like I was probably fourteen or fifteen, and I saw
an episode of Sex in the City where Samantha is
shopping for a vibrator and another woman who's shopping next
to her points at one of them and says, Oh,
(28:56):
don't buy that one because it'll burn your clitteress off.
And I after I saw that episode, I probably spent
four years having a fear that I could burn my
clitteress off, like literally cauterize your clarteres. Yes exactly, Oh,
(29:18):
I know, and now I know better. But like, and
probably all the meant is that it overheats, yeah, or
that it gets like really intense. But I do think
there's like a lot of cultural messaging that masturbation is
bad and if you do it too much or too hard,
you're going to damage your business forever, and that's gonna
(29:39):
be it. Yeah, And the only thing that's true is, like, again,
if you experience pain, that might be a sign that
something has gone sideways. And I don't mean that in
the penis pointing direction. I mean that, like, you may
have injured yourself if something hurts, but otherwise, if it
doesn't hurt, you are fine. If you experience numbness, that's temporary,
(30:02):
in the same way that like if you fall asleep
on your foot and it gets numb and tingly. Does
your foot stay that way forever? No, If your foot
stayed that way forever, you would tell me right, because
that's not the way it was yet there'd be something
wrong if it stayed that way forever. But it doesn't.
It's just very temporary. I think the worst thing masturbating
(30:24):
can do is teach you to get to orgasm so
efficiently that when you are having any sort of sexual
connection with another person, your body only knows how to
get to orgasm really efficiently, as opposed to like taking
your time and engaging with your partner. So really, what
(30:45):
I recommend is masturbating in a greater variety of ways
and really taking your time and enjoying it. That is
really really good advice. I want to bring up one
more thing from the listeners call. They said that their
partner's penis quote gets the job done. Like, no judgment
on the person who's using this language. This is the
(31:07):
language we are taught as a culture to use about penises,
to see them as strong and hard and like they
can last forever and they're never weak. It's absolutely a
metaphor for masculinity itself. This trap of masculinity. I am
(31:28):
just realizing right now that we like culturally apply the
words hand job and blowjob pretty much exclusively to penises,
Like we never talk about clitoral stimulation as a hand
job or kind of lingus as a blowjob. That's true.
Listeners should let us know if that's not true in
their experience. I had this revelation when I was actually
(31:51):
looking at a Instagram post and somebody used the phrase
thigh job, like in the queer context of like when
you're pressing your thigh against someone's volva basically yeah, And
when I when I heard the word thigh job, I
was like, I love that phrase. Number one and two.
I have never heard job blank, job be applied to
anything related to the clitterists or the bulba. Yeah. So,
(32:14):
but when the color says it gets the job done,
I assume they mean it's pleasurable to them in penetrative
sex and it doesn't hurt. But that's really what I
want to know as well, Like this callor is calling
in from their perspective having sex with this person with
the scurved penis, Like is it pleasurable? That's so interesting
because what I assumed and like, our assumptions are always
(32:35):
just our assumptions. But my assumption was I have orgasms
from penetration. My assumption was it gets hard and we're
able to have penetrative sex. M. That is a much
more pessimistic interpretation, but I think you could be right. Yeah.
I hope listeners will comment with their opinions of what
(32:57):
counts as like it gets the job done. Is it
just penetration pain free or is it orgasm from fashional stimulation? Okay, so, Emily,
I feel like we have covered a lot lot of
ground in this episode, and we started out talking about
a crooked penis, but we have also now covered the
internal genital structures and how all genitals are the same parts,
(33:21):
just organized differently. Also, I learned the word homologues. So
can you just recap it all for me? Please? I
would love to you. That's a great idea. So we'll
start with the answer to the actual question, which is yes,
bendy or curvy penises normal. And the reason they're normal
(33:44):
is that a penis is made of these three chambers
or like columns, and it's very common for one of
those columns to be slightly shorter than the other. Two,
and if that happens, and the penis will bend to
one side. But again, it is not a sign that
you've done anything wrong. It's not anything you've caused or
(34:04):
anything you could cause. It's just the way some penises
are built. And as long as it's not causing you
any pain, it's perfect. So that's first. Second, onto those
genital structures for simplicity. Right now, I'm going to focus
on the clitteress and the penis. In the first few
weeks of embryonic development, all of us have the same
(34:28):
basic hardware. It's around week six that the embryo receives
a hormonal signal and that hardware begins to take a
certain shape that when that person is born we would
label that shape it's a girl or it's a boy.
We all start out with the same parts, they just
get organized differently. So the penis and the clitteress are homologues.
(34:53):
They have the same origin. They are made of the
same material. Third, to get a little more specific, the
legs and the bulbs of the internal clitterests are the
same as the parts of those three chambers in the penis.
The head of the clitterests is the same as the
head of the penis. It just developed a little differently,
(35:15):
responding to the hormones based on this body's chromosomes and
other aspects of their environment in utero. And just like
the penis, the clitterests, including all of its internal parts,
gets erect and swells when you're aroused, which I just
love me too, array for clitteral arousal. So basically, the
(35:40):
way many of us are taught about genitals and sex
ed is this tiny fragment of the full picture, and
the reality is so much less binary than what we're taught.
Every set of genitals is unique, just like every person's
sexual orientation and gender identity and desires are all unique.
(36:02):
People vary and they change, and all of that is normal,
which leads us to fourth and most important. The reality
of our genitals is not what we were shown, either
in our textbooks or in porn. It is much more
(36:22):
asymmetrical and beautiful and curvy and delightful and enticing and
all the way down the alphabet. I don't have to
know what your genitals look like to know that they
are already perfect just as they are. This is the
difference between ladies sitting around at brunch talking about their
(36:44):
experiences and having a professional sex education. Yes, exactly. It's
the difference between your experience in high school with a
boy with a crooked penis and my experience in grad
school with a boy with a crooked penis. Rock and
be like, here's exactly why this is normal and can
actually be an assets night and day. Turns out, information
(37:05):
can make all the difference. Yep. Confidence comes from knowing
what is true. I mean, this is what I always say.
My job is to teach people to live with confidence
and enjoying their bodies. And confidence is knowing what is true.
And joy is loving what is true, and joy is
the hard part. Do you have advice for the caller
(37:27):
or the caller's partner, advice for doing that very hard part?
Like finding joy in your body as it exists right now.
We've all been trained from really early on to have
an idea about what is right and what is wrong
about sexuality, including the shape and size of our body parts,
(37:47):
all of our body parts. Just because it's normal doesn't
mean it's acceptable. Really, we have to change our opinion,
and that means going against every message we have received
from really early on in our lives. Reinforced through our
formal education, our moral education, our interactions with medical practitioners.
(38:12):
It has been reinforced that there is a right body
and a wrong body. And it takes a leap to
decide that your body, whatever it is, is already perfect
and beautiful and fully lovable and deserving of pleasure. That's
a choice that people need to make. And yeah, there's
a cost that comes with that kind of choice, because
(38:34):
other people will judge you for being willing to accept
and welcome your body precisely as it is. But it's
a daily practice of taking a tonic to strengthen your
immunity against those poisonous messages like what's do you have
a tonic that you take? What do you mean? Oh? Yeah,
(38:59):
so the literal tonic here is. Suppose a person with
a curved penis who has had complicated feelings about their
curved penis. Every day, just for three minutes, you think about,
you visualize, or you look at your penis, and you
send your penis loving supportive messages about like you are
(39:21):
perfect exactly the way you are. You are a normal
variation on the way human beings bodies look, and you
can be an asset and a gift. You're capable of
experiencing enormous pleasure. You're capable of providing pleasure to your partners.
You are a gorgeous, beautiful toy in the play that
(39:44):
is erotic connection. When I hear you talking about it,
like I feel it radiating from you in a way
that I know this sounds really woo woo, but like
it feels like once someone has made that shift where
they're unconditionally loving their body as it is right now,
(40:05):
Like everyone who they interact with everyone and can feel
that shift, Like everyone knows that there's someone who loves
their body instead of someone who is hiding or hating
their body. Yeah, that confidence and that acceptance. Your partner
can feel that, and it helps them to experience your
(40:29):
body with your confidence and your acceptance. Like, Nope, this
is just normal. Any feelings you have about the fact
that this might not be normal, that's you. And like,
here is this body right in front of you, ready
to be sexy with you, and you can either judge
it or you can be sexy with this body. What
(40:51):
do you think it works? Knowledge and self love totally
improve your sex life, and it helps other people improve
their sex lives. Because if they can see you loving
your body exactly as it is, it opens the question
(41:12):
of like, but could I love my body exactly as
it is? If there's someone who has moved through this process,
who has genitals that don't conform to like the porn ideal,
(41:35):
and you've made your way to a place of really
loving the shape of your genitals, let us know how
you did that. Not every call has to be a question.
I would love to hear the process that people have
been through in order to get there, because every story
like that is going to help other people who are
at the beginning of that journey. Call and tell us
(41:55):
about it. The phone number is six four six three
nine seven eight five five seven, or you can send
a voice memo on email to Emily at Pushkin dot Fm.
Next week we have a question from a listener about
desire and if you're feeling like I wanna want my
partner or I wanna want sex, but I'm just I
(42:17):
don't know, I'm not really in the mood. This Responsive
Desire episode has been made specifically for you. Come as
You Are is a production of Pushkin Industries and Madison Wells.
It's hosted by Emily Nagosky. You can find Emily on
Instagram at e Nagowski and on Twitter at Emily Nagowski.
(42:42):
You can also sign up for her newsletter at Emily
Nagosky dot com, where she writes about everything from the
clitteriest in your mind to orgasm after having hysterected me.
It's an incredible newsletter. Highly recommended. This show is co
hosted and lead produced by me Mola Board. You can
find me online at Mola Board and on TikTok at
(43:03):
podcast dot slut Sorry mom. My. Co producer on this
show is the fabulous Britney Brown. Our editor is Kate
Parkinson Morgan. Sound design and mix by Anne Pope. Executive
producers are Mia LaBelle and Leetal Mallad at Pushkin. Thanks
to Heather Fane, Carl Migliori, Sophie Crane, Courtney Guarino, Jason Gambrel,
(43:27):
Julia Barton, John Schnars, and Jacob Weisberg at Madison Wells.
Thanks to Kylie Williams, Elizabeth Goodstein and Gg Pritzker. Additional
thanks to Rich Stevens, Lindsay Edgecombe, Frolick Media, and Peter
Acker at Armadillo Audio Group. Original music for this series
(43:47):
was composed by Amelia Nagoski and arranged and recorded by
Alexandra Kalinovsky. Additional music from Epidemic Sound. You can find
Pushkin on all social platforms at pushkin Pods, and you
can sign up for our newsletter at pushkin dot fm.
If you love this show and others from Pushkin Industries,
(44:09):
or subscribing to Pushkin Plus. Pushkin Plus is a podcast
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subscribe to Pushkin Plus, you can hear Come as you
Are and other Pushkin shows add free very Nice, and
(44:32):
you'll get episodes a week early. Sign up on the
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