The Evolutionary Advantage of a Commanding Cock

Studying Dick Darwinism

My mom cried a lot when Reagan was elected. I remember watching Carter’s farewell address on our small rabbit-eared Sony Trinitron. Mom was weeping about the horrible things Reagan would do to this country, and my dad was shaking his head in agreement. (They were right, by the way. We now know it always trickles up.)

Eight-year-old me tried to join the conversation saying something like, “Yeah, this country is awful, we should move.” My parents’ response was swift and strong, “No, this is actually the best country, we have the most freedoms, we have checks and balances, we have the Supreme Court protecting our rights, and we have elections. We will win next time.”

I realize that thinking of this as the best country requires reckoning with many horrible parts of our history: slavery, Jim Crow laws, Japanese internment camps, McCarthyism, the Vietnam War, and Abu Ghraib, to name but a few. It’s a long list, and it’s feeling more and more like we’re living through one of those shameful historical moments right now.

Last week, Trump made a mockery of us on the international stage suggesting that Denmark should give the U.S. Greenland—which he accidentally called Iceland four times—all because Norway didn’t give him a Nobel prize.

Then over the weekend, the army that he shares with Kristi Noem killed another person in cold blood. Noem went on TV and lied about it despite videos from multiple angles showing what actually happened (at least she wasn’t wearing a cowboy hat when she did it this time). Even richer, administration talking heads started saying that the victim had it coming because he carried a legal weapon to a protest. I guess they forgot that theirs is the party of Kyle Rittenhouse and the January 6^th protestors who Trump gleefully pardoned.

Honestly, I don’t have anything to add this discussion that we aren’t thinking or reading already, but I do think it’s important that we talk about it. We have to keep reminding ourselves there are lots of people in this country who understand that this is not normal and it isn’t moral. And then we have to remind our elected officials.

I sent messages to my senators and congresspeople this weekend that simply said: DO SOMETHING! In a comment on Susan Collins’ Facebook post, I told her where she could shove her faux concern and suggested that she might be worse than rank and file Republicans because she pretends to have a moral compass but always falls in line. I started writing a screed to Mitch McConnell explaining why I blame him personally for the downfall of our democracy, but I haven’t sent that one yet (there’s too much to say). I also get a chance to vote next week—in a primary to fill the House seat vacated by Governor Mikie Sherrill—and I’m choosing one of the more progressive candidates.

It’s hard to believe my messages—or even my vote—will do much to move the needle, but participating in our democracy feels more important than ever. And we have some signs that the overwhelmingly negative public reaction to what ICE is doing in Minnesota will lead to at least a temporary retreat and that Trump might throw Kristi Noem under the bus in the process (dare to dream guys, dare to dream).

In the meantime, I decided to keep this week’s newsletter light for our collective mental health. So, I did what I do when I need a less-than-serious story to write about: I googled penises and quickly clicked on the news button. It paid off with the following research study about the evolutionary advantage of giant schwanzstucker.

Enjoy.

Anthropologists “Discover” Why Humans Have Big Dicks

Generally speaking, human men have proportionally larger penises than their ape counterparts such as chimpanzees and gorillas. It’s both thicker and longer than it would have to be to get the job of transporting sperm done. If we believe in basic Darwinism, there must be a reason that those with bigger dicks were the ones who passed down their genetic material and shaped the human species moving forward. A team of Australian anthropologists set out to find the evolutionary advantage of sizable schlong.

This is not the first time that this team has looked at penis size from an evolutionary lens. In 2013, they did a study in which they showed women life-size 3-D projections of men of different shapes. The model men varied in height, shoulder-to-hip ratios, and dick dimensions. The researchers asked the women to rate attractiveness of each of the 343 combinations.

They found that women preferred taller men with demanding dongs and more V-shaped bodies (wider shoulders, narrower waists). A larger penis and greater height had the same effect on overall attractiveness, so bigger is better but bigger can come in different layouts. The increasing preference for larger lumber, however, did stop at a certain point, because there is such a thing as too big.

The researchers concluded that “female mate choice could have driven the evolution of larger penises in humans.” In the new study, however, they point out that this is only “half the story.” The evolutionary advantage of a commanding cock isn’t just about whether it appeals to female mates but also whether it scares off male rivals.

The researchers liken it to a deer’s antlers or a lion’s mane: a distinctly masculine trait that demonstrates fighting ability. (Antlers is a tricky analogy, though, since bucks actually use them to do the fighting. I gather we’re supposed to be thinking more about pageantry and less about prehistoric men sword fighting. But I can’t get those images out of my head now, can you?)

To test this part of dick Darwinism, the researchers presented the same 3-D images to a group of men and women. The women confirmed what the first study found over ten years ago: they liked taller men, with V-shaped proportions, and bigger penises up to a point. The men, however, were a little different. For them, bigger was better with no limitations. The researchers concluded: “We now have evidence that the evolution of penis size could have been partly driven by the sexual preferences of females, and as a signal of physical ability used by males.”

Throughout both studies, the researchers remind us that this all happened before we covered the family jewels with loin cloths or Levi’s, so everyone knew exactly who had what. The way they explained it in the 2013 study made me laugh out loud: “The upright body posture and protruding, nonretractable genitalia of male humans make the penis particularly conspicuous, even when flaccid.”

So, if everyone can see your penis, and women think a notable nob makes you a better mate while men think it makes you a more formidable competitor, then the men with the mammoth members get the girl and future generations are better endowed in perpetuity. It jibes with what I’ve learned about the theory of natural selection, but I still question how much “proof” these studies are lending to the hypothesis.

Does the fact that a modern woman likes the 3-D model with the larger penis better really mean that this is what Lucy preferred? (For those of you who did not take Anthropology 103: Human Origins and Variations to fulfill one of their science requirements as I did, Lucy is the name given to a 3.2-million-year-old partial skeleton of a prehistoric female found in Ethiopia in 1974.)

We’ve been conditioned by modern history—and internet porn—to think that titanic tools are preferable, but as we’ve discussed before, this wasn’t always true. In the time of David (the statue), bigger penises were associated with foolish behavior and owners of smaller penises were thought to be more intellectual and rational.

The researchers acknowledge this possibility: “… while our findings were robust across both males and females of various ethnicities, we acknowledge that cultural standards of masculinity vary across the world and change over time.” They also point out that their 3-D models had no facial features or personalities, which are also important in mate selection.

I started to write that these traits might be even more important in modern times as we tend to cover our penises during initial mating rituals, but then I remember how many people meet online and the rise of the dick pic. I guess the nonretractable penis remains conspicuous even today.