An unexpected chat about penis size

It's around midnight and the party is in full swing. I step out of the main area to relax on the seating in the quieter area outside, and soon I'm chatting to two of the other guests who're young women.

"Hi," I say, "I'm GB 🙂. You're P and that F, did I remember that right?"

"Yes, that's right!" replies P, "You're K's boyfriend aren't you?"

"Indeed I am 👍," I confirm, "we've been together for over 9 years now 🙂."

"Wow, I've never managed a relationship for more than 1 year," says P.

We chat a bit about the party and the other guests, but soon we're talking about relationships again.

"You're British, right?" asks P, "so how come you've got an Asian boyfriend instead of British one?"

"I used to have a British boyfriend called S, but I'm a bit of a 'rice queen' now. That's gay slang for a gay westerner who likes Asian men!"

"So you've had lots of Asian boyfriends?"

"Well, I'm not a slut," I lie, "but I have been with a few Asian guys of different nationalities. Chinese, Japanese, Thai, Korean …"

"Oh Korean!" says P with a bit of sheepish tone in her voice, "I've never been with a Korean guy but I've heard about them, is it true?"

For some reason she expects me to understand what she's asking. Although I'm pretty sure that I do know what she means, I simply look at her with a puzzled expression.

"Well, you know," she continues, giving me a knowing look and indicating down to her groin, "I've heard that they're not very big down there, but I don't know whether to believe what I've heard of not."

Hunch confirmed 🤣! I almost burst out laughing, because I can't believe I've suddenly got into a conversation about penis size with a couple of young women who I barely know. I decide to tell the truth.

"Um, well," I say, wondering how to be diplomatic, "I'd say they're definitely smaller than average, but size isn't important for me, what's important is whether they're a good person or not."

"Oh really, so it's true," laughs P, "so I'll believe what I've heard!"

"How do you know what's small and what's big," asks F, who had been quite throughout the conversation. It seems like a strange question to me, so again I look at P quizzically.

"F is still a virgin," explains P in a quiet voice.

"Oh OK, well, let's talk about average first".

"In my experience, I'd say this is average," and I indicate about 15cm with my index fingers.

"This is definitely very large," I say indicating around 20cm, "and this is small". I indicate around 10cm for small.

"I was with a Singaporean guy a while ago," interrupts P, "and he really was very small!"

She raises her hands and indicates around 8cm with her index fingers.

"I had to ask 'Are you inside me yet?' I couldn't feel a thing 😆!"

"That's not small, I'd say that's tiny!" I laugh.

"But they can be this big," says P, indicating 25cm with her index fingers.

"Well, yes," I agree, "but I've only ever seen that in porn photos. I'm talking sizes that I've actually seen."

Before we can start chatting about girth, another party guest comes out of party's main area and interrupts us, so the conversation moves onto other subjects. I thought it was only gay men that were obsessed with penis size!

What’s the gay male equivalent to a “mistress”?

When a married man regularly has sex with a woman who’s not his wife, the English language has a word for it. Any fluent English speaking reader knows that the woman is called a “mistress”. In recent years I’ve been spending some time in Thailand and I now know that there’s a similar word in the Thai language too, namely เมียน้อย which literally means “little wife”. In Thai, the male equivalent to a “little wife” might be a “little husband”, i.e. ผัวน้อย. But in English, calling a single gay man a “mister” if he regularly has sex with a guy in a gay relationship seems a bit odd to me. Can anyone think of a better word?

What's the definition of a gay slut?

It's late at night in a downtown gay bar, and we've all had a bit too much to drink. There's me and boyfriend K, my old friend D his husband W, and a relatively new friend called N with his young boyfriend R.

"R just asked me if you've ever been a slut?" N asks me in a matter-of-fact tone of voice. The tone of voice seems slightly inappropriate given the nature of the question.

"Well," I giggle, unfazed by the personal nature of the question, "it depends when you mean by slut?"

While N is considering his response, I consider my dating and cruising history and can't help volunteering a simple answer to the question.

"Whatever definition you think is appropriate," I continue, "the answer is probably 'Yes'. My relationship with ex-boyfriend S came to an end after 18 years because I couldn't keep my trousers up!"

"I think a slut is a guy who's had two different cocks on the same day," says N, ignoring my confession, but answering my request for a definition of slut :-).

"Shouldn't that be 'two or more'?" I query with another giggle.

I glance over at D and W who had been listening to this conversation, and having heard N's definition, they've both got guilty looks on their face.

"I'm not a slut because I'm a virgin," says boyfriend K playfully. Everyone laughs, because boyfriend K is most certainly NOT a virgin!

Although N's definition of a gay slut is ostensibly quite a good one, it strikes me that most gay men go through a promiscuous phase during which they're likely to have two (or more!) cocks on the same day. And a definition of slut which includes pretty much all gay men seems a bit unhelpful.

Even though I doubt that I have any blog readers anymore, if anyone happens to see this post and has a better definition of slut, then please leave a comment :-).

Email from a reader who's single again

How many times a year, does a blogger need to blog so that they can call themselves a blogger? I still like to think of myself as a blogger, but at present I'm only managing one or two a year, which probably isn't enough!

In any case, last month I got a "Dear GB" email from a reader who had emailed me three times previously. The new email was as follows:

Dear GB,

I hope you're well. How's retirement? And boyfriend K?

I can't believe it has been 9 years since my first email to you (here) and a couple of years since the subsequent ones (here and here). I recently saw you post a reply to an email and figured I'd share this on the off chance that you might see it and respond.

Interestingly, a couple of months after my last email to you (in 2014), I got into a relationship that would last 5 years. We broke up late last year and I've found myself dating again. Much of the behaviour that I mentioned to you in 2014 (i.e. pushing people away, finding faults in them, and mistrust) is re-appearing. Notably, during the 5 year relationship, my ex mentioned multiple times that he felt as if he was a placeholder and I was always looking for someone better.

What I've learnt since then (which was the focus 2014 email) is that I have a dismissive-avoidant attachment style. I've traced it to childhood experiences, moving around often and being raised by a single parent (who was often travelling for work) which resulted in me taking care of myself and avoiding close emotional attachments. Toxic masculinity and being a bookish misfit may have contributed to repressing my emotional needs. It goes without saying that I should be seeing a therapist (which I'll likely do once the pandemic is over).

Anyway, 6 years since we last spoke and newly single, I'm curious about the following (considering your vast experience with long-term committed relationships and as an agony uncle for gay men):

1. What made you decide that Boyfriend K was the one? How have you stuck by that belief?;
2. What do you look for in a long term partner? Were those expectations ever fully met?;
3. Any tips pertaining to my situation? :)

It may be noteworthy that I currently live in a country that criminalizes homosexuality (and has no anti-discrimination provisions), which means that most men are seeking instant gratification and see relationships as liabilities. Then there's the prevalence of transactional relationships in both gay and straight dating scenes, which does nothing to ease my mistrust. I've considered moving to a more liberal environment. However, part of me wonders whether that's a form of self-sabotage in itself (by chasing an arguably less attainable goal that simply finding someone nice where I am; plus I've spent years in the gay scenes of European cities while I was studying, it's not particularly easy to get into a relationship there either).

Your advice is (as always) very much appreciated. Regards.

It's always nice to get emails like this, and looking at the email in detail, the reader asks a lot of questions. The first question he asks is "How's retirement?". My blog post two years ago said that I was happily retired from banking, however I'm still not retired from work in general. Otherwise I'd probably find time to blog more! In any case, without doubt, life after banking is good :-).

The second question that the reader asks is "And boyfriend K?". I'm happy to report that we're still together after almost 7 years :-). So the answer to that question is "Still wonderful :-)".

The other questions that the reader asks are a bit more serious. He asks "What made you decide that Boyfriend K was the one?", "How have you stuck by that belief?", "What do you look for in a long term partner?" and "Were those expectations ever fully met?". However, I think those questions imply an inappropriate selfishness, because the questions are all about whether the needs of the questioner are fulfilled or not. I think good long term relationships happen when a couple work well together, compensating for each other's weaknesses as well as fulfilling each other's needs. I don't have a set of criteria against which I evaluated potential boyfriends, or against which I now evaluate boyfriend K.

I really hate the expression "follow your heart" because it's so glib, but perhaps it does describe the way I ended up with all of my boyfriends. More concretely, I think what I was always looking for was mutual empathy, but I never sat back and thought about it in those terms. When I meet any guy for the first time, after a short while I usually know whether we're on the same wavelength or not. If so, I'd wonder whether we can become friends, and when I was single I'd also wonder whether we might become boyfriends. Of course, after just one meeting I'd never know whether a relationship could possibly work. But if I felt we were on the same wavelength then it would be worth trying getting to know them better, and trying to work out how they felt about me. Ultimately one never knows whether a relationship will work until one tries. However, I'm the sort of guy who likes having a boyfriend, so I'd always like to give it a try instead of overthinking it.

I won't pretend that I never quarrel with boyfriend K because sometimes we do. However, when we've resolved the situation after a big disagreement, I usually look back and feel that the final outcome is better that what would have happened to either of us on our own. In most situations, two heads are better than one.

After a big quarrel with boyfriend K last year, I remember him asking me why I wanted to stay with him. My answer was that whoever my boyfriend is, we're bound to quarrel from time to time. When there are so many good things in a relationship, it's pointless ending the relationship just because there are occasional bad things. A different boyfriend would just mean that the occasional bad things would be different. It's important to accept that none of us are perfect, and that perfect boyfriends don't exist.

Regarding the reader's situation, I was curious about his comment that he lives in a country that criminalizes homosexuality, so I sent him an email to ask him which country he lives in. Eventually the reader replied, and it turns out that a gay male friend of mine married a man from that country and the two of them now live in Europe. They were married in Europe too, and without thinking about it, some of their friends who were at the wedding posted some wedding photographs on Facebook. Those photographs were then accidentally seen by some of the man's friends back in his home country, and the photographs attracted a huge amount of homophobic abuse :-( . So I am tempted to suggest that, if at all possible, the reader should try and move to a different country where homosexuality is legal and tolerated. I find myself wondering, how many happy gay couples does the reader know who live in the country? If the answer is very few, and if the reader wants a long term boyfriend or husband, it suggests to me that he won't find one in the country where he's living at the moment.

Apart from that, based on my own approach to relationships, I would just suggest one thing. When he's interested in a guy as a potential boyfriend, he shouldn't just think about himself. Try thinking about what would make the other guy happy as well :-).

Do any other readers have any thoughts about this reader's situation?

The unexpected ladyboy

"No GB," says boyfriend K, "it's the woman over there that is O's brother!"

We're at a large house in a small village to the west of Bangkok in Thailand. It's the 60th birthday party of O's father, and all of O's family are here. Judging from how busy it, everyone from the village are probably here too. O is the eldest and only daughter and I'd been told that she has two brothers, so I'd been trying to work out who they are.

"Umm, brothers are normally male," I say looking confused, "or am I missing something?"

"He's transgender," says boyfriend K laughing, "and that's his twin brother over there, the guy with the white shirt with the purple collar."

Looking at the beefy guy that boyfriend K is indicating, it seems completely implausible that he's any kind of twin with the woman on the stage.

"Born 5 minutes apart," says O, joining the conversation.

Both boyfriend K and O nod at me, so I have to accept the truth about what they're saying.

"But not identical twins, surely?" I ask.

"Actually yes, they're identical twins," answers O calmly, "although they don't look much like each other now. When they were growing up, only family members could tell them apart!"

Over the years I've met several transgender people, including a male colleague who eventually became female. Nonetheless, I feel slightly stupid that I had no idea the woman on the stage had been a man.

"So was he a ladyboy before he became a woman :-)?" I ask, trying to sound knowledgeable about ladyboys and transgender people.

"He still is a ladyboy," says O laughing, and she holds her hands in front of her, palms facing each other about 8 inches apart. "It is this big!" She says grinning at me.

I burst out laughing, amazed that O knows such an intimate fact about her brother. I want to know how she can be so confident about her brother's size, but I decide not to ask. I've had enough surprises for one night!