This is so sad. I think there is an underdiscussed crisis with some segments of men.
It’s definitely quite different in that everyone in public sees a girl’s face and the shape of her body, whereas penises are hidden by default. Also the “toxic” standard for women is everywhere across media, whereas excepting pure pornography penises are rarely and briefly shown.
But these stories are so sad. These men feel ashamed of their bodies for not “measuring up” — is this phrase itself perhaps a link between penis size and masculinity/value that is ingrained into our very language?
There has been a big effort for years to call out the harms of, e.g., airbrushing in advertising, to push for including more plus-sized models, and to generally expand the notion of beauty for women.
I don’t think there’s any such effort to claim that, say, all penises are beautiful, all men are attractive, and so on. The mere suggestion seems utterly foreign to our conception of manhood. We have billionaires and presidents still boasting about their penises. What a crazy thing to make a point of pride and shame.