My lover’s appendage was so large I gave it a three-word pet name… but still I couldn’t psych myself up to go all the way. Then we found a novel solution, writes SCOUT WEST

Here’s something the average man may not know: women don’t really think about your penis. 

For the majority of us, it plays a minor role in achieving an orgasm, and, to speak plainly, it’s nothing much to look at anyway.

But there comes a moment in the lives of some women (or maybe just me) when they may have no other choice but to consider the penis.

My moment came in 2015, when I was a junior at a university in Nashville, Tennessee.

I was absently watching a tennis match on campus having been pressured by my mother to ‘take advantage of that beautiful school’.

The match was 30-love, we were up. ‘Sports!’ I cheered whenever the crowd did, never taking my eyes off my phone screen. I had recently downloaded Tinder and had been shopping for boys all morning.

‘Look at him,’ I said, turning my phone toward my friend’s face. I showed her a man I would describe as Vin Diesel-esq: strong arms, warm eyes, muscular chest, passing knowledge of cars, and all about family.

Perhaps I should add here that I am, tragically, a boring cisgender heterosexual woman. I like strong men with deep voices, beefy forearms, an appreciation of football, and a working knowledge of car repair.

 After a couple of days of conversation with him, I concluded that he met my criteria.

Our first date was the classic dinner and a movie. He was funny, kind, easy to talk to, and distractingly handsome. We’d had a few glasses of wine, and I was resisting the base urge to eat popcorn by the handful.

Perhaps I knew he was boyfriend material even then, because I was doing my best to be as charming and light as possible.

He lived in an apartment on the outskirts of campus. Chatting non-stop, he poured us both a glass of wine, and we put on a movie.

Over dinner, I had told him my favorite was The Departed, which led him into a long-winded speech about Scorsese’s other opus, Goodfellas. I had seen it, but he evidently had more to say, so we settled down and pressed play.

The camera was still winding through the Copacabana nightclub, Ray Liotta’s voiceover introducing various mobsters and antiheroes, when things started to heat up off-screen, too.

Clothing was removed gradually and his hands came to his pants…

Remember what I said about considering the penis? It doesn’t happen often, but when it does, things come to an abrupt halt, rather like my rental car, the first time I ever returned one and drove over the spikes.

In the dim, moody light of his living room, I was met with an appendage that, for the first time in my then 20 years, left me considering the limits of my own physiology.

For several minutes, my only reaction was to allow my mouth to remain agape. 

‘Firstly,’ I said, opting for a diplomatic course. ‘Well done. Truly, a blue-ribbon hog.’

A smile played on his face as if to say, yes, this is not the first time I’ve heard this. And I would believe that. There’s no way this action-hero-come-to-life had not been given this feedback, and, based on his smile, he wasn’t opposed to it.

‘You must be… very proud,’ I breathed.

He laughed a little awkwardly: ‘Thank you.’

By that point in my life, I had conquered my fair share of men and seen my fair share of penises. I had sampled a wide variety with the same enthusiasm with which I approach a board of assorted cheeses. But never had I been met with such a challenge.

Instead of making a wild guess about its length in inches (though I could tell it was a couple more in length, and slightly more in circumference, than I was used to), I will say that I’d have to zoom out on my iPad screen to get a photo of it in the frame.

‘You are very well-endowed. But unfortunately, I don’t think I can… accommodate… you,’ I said, gesturing toward my general pelvic area.

‘Actually,’ he said, ‘it’s not the first time I’ve been told that.’

He pulled me closer and the evening proceeded as if nothing had gone awry. 

We sidestepped the penetrative aspect of sex and still had a satisfying experience, proving once again that the penis is but one of several tools for achieving orgasm. (I’m sure attendees of band and/or church camps in their youth would back me up on this.)

I was fortunate enough to be with a man who knew that most women do not reach orgasm through penetrative sex alone – only 18 percent, according to the research. 

Afterward, I thought pityingly of some of the first women who’d encountered a version of this man when he knew nothing of foreplay—and I gave thanks that I wasn’t one of them!

More men need to be well-versed in foreplay. Although I wouldn’t run for office on that platform, I will continue to lobby for it.

At the end of the night, he walked me back to my dorm. 

We talked all the way – any modicum of awkwardness that I had felt in that moment of initial shock had dissipated soon after.

And when we got to my door and he said: ‘So when can I see you again?’