You have a small dick.
No, average.
No, closer to average.
You don’t even know anymore.
You fear you will never be respected by your partner. You don’t even know when exactly you started feeling this way about your dick. It certainly wasn’t during childhood when you run wild and free around the streets in Teshie-Nungua with your friends; your milk tins propelled on slipper wheels, racing before you. Or when you played Chaskele or Ͻware or Pilolo. Definitely not then. Nor the beginning of your teenage years when you made it to Mac’ Johns Senior High school. No. Because you felt free in your skin. You didn’t need to care about your dick. You don’t remember ever even looking at it.
The beginning of senior high was sheer bliss. You remember when all your Dorm A mates would line up and file into the bathroom like soldiers and then break out and wiggle like drunken masters as you’d all pour water from your buckets around your man parts. The water would be cold and refreshing but would never retire you all from innocence. Even now, every time you think to those days, you would laugh so hard, you would feel your belly rumble.
Back then, Ato Manful was your best buddy and he would always wiggle his dick and waist as he imitated Fally Ipupa, his mentor. Manful always said he’d grow up to surpass Ipupa. He was quite the leader too and as he would wiggle, your roommates in Dorm A would move in similar fashion, fluid, unashamed of their bodies; freshers in other dorms who happened to be bathing even joining in. Just teenagers, goofing around before the house prefect would walk in and smack Manful on the head and demand that he show better behavior. Yes, Senior Oteng knew that whenever he caught freshers wiggling their dicks about in the bathroom, Manful was always the initiate. Back then, you were as skinny as a twig and your dorm mates would always jokingly mock at you; that your ass was as flat as paper and your arms never steadied. You were an airplane lost in flight, caught up in space, struggling to find gravity. You never really cared about their comments; you always laughed it off and off you went. But when Adwubi Owusu, a girl in SHS 3 with glinting charcoal skin and pearly eyes that you adored, blatantly rejected your advances because in her words, you were too tiny of a man and not good enough for her, you began to question everything about yourself. And wondered whether maybe your mates who joked about your looks subliminally meant you were freaking ugly. Adwubi’s words would always lace your thoughts like poison to a chalice. She had even said your eyes were droopy and froggy. That even with your glasses, nothing was hidden. Your plainness was in full sight. This period birthed a burden in you. You began to shrink into yourself and your friends noticed it. They stopped joking as much around you. And whenever you sat at your table at the dining hall, your shoulders slumped heavier than usual and the table head always asked if you were okay. You always replied in the affirmative and were left off the hook but whenever your spoonful of porridge or tea dipped into your mouth, you seemed present yet your eyes spoke of a different story, drifting off into a different plane, dancing in frenzy to an alien tune.
During the summer break of your junior year, you wanted to see the kind of men women wanted. You searched out porn for the first time. And what you saw shocked you. You saw women desired all races of men but there was a common denominator in the types of Black men women seemed to want. Big dicks. Men swinging with dicks that were quadruple your size. It was crazy. You even saw teenage-looking men that packed enormity like it was an inheritance, an appendage that forever made them desirable to women.
You were stunned at your discovery. And you don’t know what came over you. But when you entered your second year in senior high, you never swung your dick with the boys again. You always found a reason to bathe before everyone and leave for chapel early. You also began lifting weights with the boys in senior year so much so when you hit your senior year, you towered like a mannequin. You worked out because you had seen that muscular men were also presented as the ideal choice for women. Not just even in porn. It was all over TV, social media, ads. The muscular man always got the girl. You also cried to your mom that you needed contact lenses. And since you were Mummy’s darling boy, she obliged. Of course, girls never looked at you the same. The ugly duckling had turned into a swan, the fresh leaf had been plucked and on it meandered into the sky, every beast beholding its flight. Interestingly, you also noticed that puberty seemed to be working a later magic for you because your voice had started getting even deeper and your facial hair was breaking out like crazy. Coupled with the workouts, contacts and a blossoming puberty that you thanked God for every morning, girls swarmed around you like a colony of ants surrounding a sugar cube. They came hard after you and you took as many as you liked. By the time you had fully come into your own, you were in your second term of your final year and Adwubi had graduated. You knew she would have eaten her words if she saw you then. Her school daughter, Mansa had even begun sending you love letters during prep. Ha! You enjoyed all this attention from girls. But you never parlayed to sex with the girls you actually dated through high school, though a couple were persistent. You would kiss and fondle, hidden beneath the bushes after entertainment, but never actually fuck.
When you gained admission to study Communications at African University College of Communications (A.U.C.C), female attention persisted. You were a happy man. It filled this deep need in your soul that the rejection by Adwubi in high school left. Your looks were even getting you attention beyond women. You were approached by a modeling agent when you were running errands for your mum around Spintex. The agent had said you looked like a million bucks and would want to use you to help brands make sales. You assented. Some extra cash would be great. And the modeling work seemed to come easy to you. You were a photo model and your looks were utilized to sell sports attire, undergarments and the like. You thrived in the commercial, fitness and glamor ads. You made their products desirable because you were desirable. You sold fantasy. And were marketed in this niche category. You hated runway anyway – you were never a graceful walker, so stayed put in photo modeling. When you graduated, you pursued PR at a finance firm and did modeling at the side.
All the while, you never really took your girlfriends seriously all through college and even after. You felt like they fetishized your good looks and body. Like they were only with you because you were hot. Nothing seemed to linger beyond their lustful gazes. Porn was still your friend and you wanted to shag but were so scared of being rejected by your girlfriends at the time because of your dick size. You remember when you dated Angel and she once even groped your dick playfully and you recoiled and pelted away. You got mad and shouted at her for touching you inappropriately although you knew you were just scared that she felt how small you were. Whenever you wanted to shag and were scared of rejection, you beat your meat. It was momentary comfort, fleeting, but did the job. However, one day in your third year in college, you got so sexually frustrated and didn’t want the shame of being called small by your girlfriend so you called up a hook-up girl to satisfy you. Amy. A soft body with a coarse tongue. She seemed very pleased that she was going to sleep with an attractive man and gave it her all. She kissed you so deep you almost felt your tongue slip off. Then she slid her palms across your chest and cupped your dick and said, “It’s all mine. Oops. Guess Daddy’s packing on the lower end but it’s all mine, still. I’ve tasted even smaller and it did the job.” Then laughed, kissed your chest and bent down to slurp. Immediately you heard the words ‘lower end’, all the desire that had been burning for a release snaked out of your dick. It shriveled to its original size. And you pulled up your boxers, grabbed your tank top at the foot of the bed and stormed out, your trousers puddling around your knees, trailing you.
“Stupid bitch,” you screamed out the door.
Yes, you were livid. But more so, terrified. You felt your niggling worries had materialized. You had been called a version of small by a woman on your first sexual experience. You decided porn would officially be your woman and you dated her till you met who became your wife. Deanne. You met Deanne at a local food store and immediately your eyes met, you felt something shift in you. You just felt that she would be different. So, you introduced yourself to her. That you were a sweet guy, worked in PR, thus were a responsible man and you didn’t know why but felt she was a good person and would like to be her friend. She laughed. And gave you her number. Subsequent nights would find you talking endlessly for hours and sometimes even dozing off together on phone. She agreed to be your girlfriend and though you had dated many girls before, Deanne superseded them. She saw you beyond your looks. Understood your quirks. That you didn’t love video games. That you were a neat freak. That you were intense, so she always lightened up the mood with her sense of humor. That you loved cooking and when you finally became a married man, you would cook for the home sometimes. No, every time if given the chance. Lol. That yes, you still worked out to maintain your physique but cheat days were your favorite, when you’d take her out for pizza or tacos or kelewele and you would all gorge on them till your bellies could take no more. That you were desired by so many but still sometimes felt like a loner. That though she was older than you by three years, you didn’t mind. You loved her beyond her years. And you told her that every day. So, you knew you had found your soulmate. You didn’t know how sex would work out in the relationship but you knew you couldn’t lose her. You needed her.
You got married after 10 months of dating and on your wedding night, you were nervous as hell as you had never had sex before. You didn’t tell her that but you did your best that night. You resorted to a lot of tongue work on her clit to make up. She smiled and seemed happy but you still sensed discomfort brooding over her. You were happy to have gotten through the night nonetheless. Two weeks later, she mouthed that she loved what your dick had been doing to her all through the honeymoon. You were the shit. You were confused and wondered whether she was pandering but the validation opened up a well of unparalleled joy in you. The following night, it was like magic ripped through you. You were a different man. You were a beast on heat ready to please its partner, no matter what it took. And you seemed to have mastered her body, like it was yours, in this short space of time. You traced the contours of her figure, plunged a finger down her thighs, running it back up her taut belly, then up her neck and softly bristling against her earlobes. You found the curve of her left ear and kissed it whole. Your fingers continued their ascent to her temples, where you twirled them to the music of your desire. You heard her stifle a moan and smiled. You couldn’t take it anymore and tongued her temples then came sloshing down, into her lips, back onto her neck, then down to the delicate flower of her womanhood. You cradled it, caressed. Licked, bit, teased and entered fully with your dick. You plunged, stilled, plunged, stilled. You knew exactly what you were doing. It was like you were another man.
You were home.
You spooned and slept in each other’s arms that night and you knew that your marriage would have a chance right before you dozed off.
The next day, which happened to be the last day of your honeymoon, you opened up to her about your internal wounds. About how you felt ugly when you were younger but right after late puberty and working out, your looks blossomed. About how now, the very thing that you craved that adorned you – good looks, felt like a web of shackles. People only saw you as a piece of meat. Not only women but more so men. Yes. A lot of men were flooding your DMs and beginning to send ass and dick picks too from all over the world, in addition to the women already sending full frontal nude pics. It was as if all anybody saw was honey waiting to be licked in a moment. But you were salt that could preserve too, you know. Couldn’t they see that? You told her about Adwubi in senior high and how her rejection of you scarred you for life. Told her that you were the first born and had to look out for your three younger brothers in college and high school and though you supported them financially, it sometimes felt overwhelming since your mum and dad were way past pension.
But you didn’t tell her about your small penis syndrome, even though you’d gotten even closer during the honeymoon.
Of course, that’s what you had. You had Googled like a mad man about it in your college years and it had shown you its true form:
People with small penis syndrome do not have a physical condition but experience persistent anxiety about the size of their penis. These individuals worry that their penis is too small or that others will judge them for its size (Medical News Today).
So, there you have it. Further reading supplemented knowledge. An irrational feeling you’re sick down there and it’s not enough. That you are not enough. Even though you might not even have a micro penis to substantiate the fact.
That last night during your honeymoon, you had stared fearlessly into Deanne’s eyes as you whispered secrets but left the most important one out. You couldn’t tell Deanne. You just couldn’t. It was too painful to share. So, when she asked you one time after you had sex six months later, back in your three-bedroom apartment at New Legon, whether you were ashamed of your dick size, you were so stunned that she had clocked you. You denied it immediately and walked to the kitchen and pretended to cook to divert attention. But she asked again a month later and you squirmed within as you replied:
“You keep asking this. Why do you think I am ashamed of my size?”
“Babe, we’re a team. You know you can always talk to me.”
She hesitated then continued. “You always insist we make love in the dark. From the first night of our honeymoon till now, you’ve been so sensitive when I reach for it. You recoil even. And when your towel slipped off the other day, you were so quick to put it back on, like you had something to hide. Please, talk to me. Our sex life is supposed to be fluid.”
“So, you’ve been lying to me.”
“What do you mean?”
“Our honeymoon, when you said you loved what my dick had been doing to you. And even now. Every late Friday afternoon text when I’m at work and you praise me like crazy. ’Twas all a lie.”
“I didn’t –”
You clutched your forehead. “Damn! It was all performance.”
“Kwakye, I – I just want what’s best for –”
“You think our sex is not fluid. My dick is not making it fluid.”
“I didn’t say that. I just want to get to the root of –”
“This problem. The me problem, right? Fuck!”
“Kwakye –” Deanne reached for you but you tossed her palms aside.
You stormed out the door, and broke out in cold sweat outside. Weirdly, the soft winds were working up an itch on your back – or perhaps it was your sheer disgust at yourself – but you didn’t care so you opened the gate, walked the dirt path before you and welcomed them even more. The tiny flowers poking out painted the ground with specks of pink and yellow yet all you saw was pitch black. You screamed into thin air although it was way past 10 pm and you knew that your nosy neighbors would peek out their windows to ascertain the source of all the commotion. But you didn’t care. You needed a release.
Of all the problems of a 21st century man, dick anxiety shouldn’t have to be one of them, you mused. You were freaking Ghanaian too, who would get your woes? You’d just be mocked at and seen as less of a man. Too feminine. Too-in-his-feelings.
“Just get over it. It’s just a dick,” they would say. “Man up.”
The main street was a few miles ahead. Where you stood, there were houses and kiosks flanking you. But you were alone on the dirt path. You should have felt fear boiling up a storm in your belly and gushing out your limbs as you run for safety but a bitter sadness unspooled instead. You walked to the nearest tree and beat your chest, slapped yourself.
“So sorry I’m disappointing you Deanne,” you whispered as tears bubbled out of you, morphing into wails.
That night you walked back home with a sense of shame you had never felt before. Shame had always been resident in your soul since adolescence but the intensity of it this time almost crippled you. Resolve flung to the surface too, burning up the thicket of your ambivalence.
You’ll do it. Tonight. You’ll let it all out to Deanne, no pretense.
You’ll show her the true Kwakye.
Deanne has always been home.
DAVID AGYEI-YEBOAH is a poet, writer and musician from Accra, Ghana. He holds an MA in Communication Studies from the University of Ghana and graduated with first-class honors in English and Theatre Arts for his BA. His work has been published in many print and online journals across Africa, North America, Australia and Europe. His manuscript, OUR SPIRITS YEARN FOR HOME won the 2023 Kofi Awoonor Literary Prize. It was also nominated for the Totally Free Best of the Bottom Drawer Global Writing Prize from the Black Spring Press Group, UK. David has also won the Webmaster Award in 2025 for being nominated in the Kene Offor-Teambooktu competitions twice; in both fiction and poetry categories. His short story, ‘Kiin Kiin Kiin’ was chosen and included in the Top Ten Stories of All Time list at Literally Stories from a pool of over 3000 stories published over a decade, and his flash fiction, ‘Desi’ was shortlisted for the EU Delegation Prize. Dogs make him smile, always.
