BY JOEL PERRY

Are you kidding? I get a subject like this and then the editor says do it in only 700 words. That’s like saying, “Sorry, Kate Moss, but you can only have a little cocaine today.” OK, there’s no way we’re gonna cover this adequately in 700 words, so I’m gonna concentrate on just two reasons, both of which relate directly to the fine piece of porn you’re pawing through right now, as well as reasons to get past those lies

Reason Men Lie No. 1

Our need for external validation is so acute -- not to mention pathetic -- that we will say anything to get it.

We are so desperate to be accepted, whether for sex, for partners, or someone who will make us look hot-by-association in a club, that we will make up whatever shit we think the other person wants us to be. That is how 4x3 inches becomes 7x5, that’s how “a young 40s” turns out to be 58 with a cane, and how retouched heads get Photoshopped onto Colton Ford’s torso in online personals. Who do you think you’re kidding?

But OK, that gets you the first meeting. And you arrive at it ready-packed with all this bullshit baggage you gotta peddle like mad to pass off as believable. We’re so busy doing this devil’s dance that a real meeting between human beings becomes impossible. There’s no time for anything but frantic upkeep until the inevitable happens and the truth is revealed. “You call that a swimmer’s body?” Then he goes home feeling insulted and cheated, and you’re left feeling hurt and worthless. Again. And what do we learn from this? Do we learn to be authentically ourselves and cultivate the maturity to know if we get rejected for that, it’s about them and not us? No! We dig in and say, “Next time I’ll lie better!”

Haven’t 12-step programs taught us that an addiction demands more and more of what doesn’t work? Guess what, Sparky? Lying ain’t working! I firmly believe that if everybody cut the crap and embraced the fact that we’re all human and that therefore everybody has flaws, there’d not only be a lot more fucking going on, but the quality would soar because we could enjoy it instead of worrying about what he’s gonna think if you stop holding in your gut. Even Martha would call that “a good thing.”

Reason Men Lie No. 2

Porn stars, God love ’em, are physical freaks of nature. Just like basketball player Yao Ming at 7'6" is a freak because he’s so tall, porn stars got the job because they had certain size-related characteristics that takes them out of the norm, too. The reality is that very few people have 9-inch dicks. It’s the genital equivalent of sporting a nose the size of an Italian squash. But because we see only monster cocks in our porn -- and we watch a lotttttttttttt of porn -- that is the size we’ve come to think of as normal and that we must measure up to. So we lie -- to each other and to ourselves. “Why, it cannot be possible that I possess a mere 5-inch dick, it must be at least 8 inches!” That’s Porn Damage. And gay men suffer from it like crazy.

Get this: if you’re normal, than your dick’s between 4.5 and 6 inches long. Stop lying about it in your online stats and embrace (as it were) your average-sized dick. Claim it, own it, and flog it for all it’s worth! You should by-damn celebrate that fucker and I’ll tell you why.

I write a monthly advice column for Instinct magazine. There’s not a month that goes by that I don’t get letters from gays whining about their puny peckers. In the same mail, I also get at least one poor guy writing about not being able to get it up at all. I want to send that guy’s letter to the dinky-dicks with a scrawled note saying, “So you have a button-in-a-fur-patch, be grateful the damn thing works! These E.D. guys would kill for your fully functional phallus. Now shut the fuck up, beat off to some porn, and leave me alone!” You officially have no more reasons for lying about your dick.

Joel Perry is the author of That’s Why They’re In Cages, People!, a Lambda Award finalist in humor. Joel lives in Los Angeles where he has frequent occasion to use his fully functional and, yes, average dick, thank you.