I’m 35 years old, in very good shape, I don’t take steroids, and I’ve been very careful handling knives and scissors while naked. So what’s the deal? Is it a condition? My diet? The soy-based (i.e. estrogen-laced) hand cream I use to masturbate? I am a little perplexed. —Michael
Dear Michael,
My understanding of biology and the complexity of hormones is obviously limited, but it seems to me the item most likely to shrink from overexposure to estrogen would be the one that produces 95 percent of the male hormones in your body—your nutsack. I figured a good person to ask about this would be someone who started off biologically male but then became female—or more appropriately, shemale—so I e-mailed my friend Amanda Taylor.
She said that there was no penis shrinkage with her estrogen therapy, and in no other cases she knew of. She did confirm nutsack shrinkage, though, but keep in mind that hormone therapy for transwomen involves a lot more than soy-based creams used during self-pollution.
I then spoke to penile elongation surgeon Dr. Robert Stubbs. Here’s what he had to say: “Both penises and vaginas can “shrink” with age and/or lack of use—if you do not use it, you lose it. Young men have multiple erections in their sleep. This exercise keeps it stretched. Medical problems with older men, like the effects of smoking, diabetes and fibrosis can directly or indirectly reduce the size.” This is likely not what’s happening to you, given your age and the fact that you participate in recreational activities both in and out of the bedroom.
Dr. Stubbs then mentioned a condition that I had already begun researching, called Koro, or Genital Retraction Syndrome. Koro happens, though not without exception, in cultures with a less Western scientific approach to physiology and biology. Wikipedia says that GRS “is a condition in which an individual is overcome with the belief that his/her external genitals or also, in females, breasts, are retracting into the body, shrinking, or in some male cases, may be imminently removed or disappear. A penis panic is sometimes a mass hysteria event or panic where males in a population suddenly exhibit symptoms of genital retraction syndrome,” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penis_panic for the full poop).
Given the timeline of your alleged shrinkage, this is also an unlikely possibility. I do see a variety of penis panics in my own line of work though, since the Internet and its vast prospects for misdiagnosis seem to illicit similar reactions to any scrupulously observed minor change.
Naturopath Dr. Alexander Hall corroborated some of Dr. Stubbs’ points—but also added a few possibilities, some of which will not relate to you, but possibly other men who have noticed the change. “The most common contributing factors are weight gain and age,” he says. “The base of the penis may actually become obscured with the deposition of abdominal fat tissue, thus giving the illusion of shrinkage. As we age sexual activity typically, but not as a rule, decreases. Lack of use contributes to softer, less firm erections and therefore shorter measurements.”
And as for the issue of soy and estrogen, Dr. Hall shed some more detailed light: “Soy does not actually contain any estrogens, nor does any food that we regularly eat in significant quantities. It does, however, contain phytoestrogens, which are natural chemical compounds that exhibit weak estrogen-like activity. This means that they can weakly stimulate estrogen receptors in the human body. This is why women experiencing menopausal discomfort often benefit from diets rich in soy and other legumes.” Dr. Hall was unaware of any studies that support the speculation that soy-based cream is shrinking your penis, or anyone else’s for that matter. “Even if your reader got a hold of, pun intended, actual estrogen cream and used it very frequently for a long period of time,” he said, “I speculate that his testicles and possibly libido, if anything, might experience shrinkage, but not his actual penis.” Dr. Hall recommended—and this is where I think the culprit lies in your case—checking tape measures or metric-imperial conversion tables and said, “Biological structures are notoriously difficult to measure due to their non-linear shapes, especially the non-bony variety, such as penises.”
