Sexual spam

If we want to gauge current attitudes about gender and sexuality we need only to look in our junk e-mail folders.\nMy Gmail filtered 678 spam e-mails in the last 30 days, and over half promote increased penis size and improved sexual performance. Some subject lines keep the message simple: “Enlarge your penis up to four inches.” Most find fancier attention getters: “Add more male meat to your package!”\nBut the vast majority of the subject lines both reveal and construct sexist and heterosexist cultural attitudes.\nMany messages concoct a demeaning belief that women only need a big penis for ultimate happiness – from the simple and straightforward “Satisfy any woman” to the more creative forms: “All sweet flowers succumb to big rods” or “Don’t you know that girls yearn for big schlongs?” These messages degrade women as sex-crazed creatures with ravenous appetites for penises.\nThe sexist attitudes continue: “Cutest girls will go horny and wild when you pull out your new big python” and “As your dick gets larger, no woman will say ‘no.’” As if women have a mystical sixth-sense about penis size. Add a few inches and suddenly male crotches have a gravitational pull that women cannot escape? Shockingly, I’ve never witnessed this phenomenon.\nThese ads also cultivate heterosexist mindsets. Only straight relationships exist in the world of penis-size spam; the ads wipe gays and lesbians from existence. We’re left to assume that lesbians fall in line with all other penis-loving women, while gay men fade to irrelevance since penises only satisfy women. Unfortunately, the exclusion of gay men seems like a tremendous marketing oversight. A little market research with most gay men (and straight women) might suggest that 4 more inches on most guys would harm your sex life more than help it. I for one would probably turn and run away.\nThese ads damage male identity as well because they directly equate penis size to “true” manliness, masculinity, importance and self-worth. “True masculinity is impossible without a substantial volume of male meat.” “Large and in charge.” We’re left to believe that men are worthless unless they achieve imaginary, unattainable penis standards.\nThe messages breed permanent self-delusion and dissatisfaction, as they adopt belittling, mocking tones that create fears of marginal worth: “Don’t you think it’s time you stopped being a loser with a tiny penis?” Other e-mails promise unreachable immortality – “If you treat your filly as a goddess, why not become a God in her bedroom?”\nThe spam filter regularly keeps these attitudes out of my inbox. If only we could find a social filter with the same function. These messages reveal cultural attitudes that aren’t as conveniently deleted. Instead, these social attitudes circulate and get reconstructed throughout pop culture: in music, movies, sports, even everyday conversation. We’d do well to identify, resist and revise these beliefs that severely limit and restrict our full sexuality and gender expression. And our humanity.\nAs long as these (hetero)sexist mindsets spam our world, none of us will ever measure up.