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Size matters

Posted by Smokey Stover on February 14, 2008 at 16:10:

In Reply to: Size matters posted by Anthony on February 14, 2008 at 09:58:

: Anyone know the origin of the term "Size matters"? Was this an advertising slogan? Local slang? We hear it all the time but I've yet to figure out where it comes from.

:"Size matters." Although it's a phrase in plain English, which anyone could have said, its present popularity results from one of the peculiarities of the present age, the penetration nearly everywhere of virtually instant communication on every imaginable subject.

"Size matters" is a contrary response to the seemingly ubiquitous phrase, "Size doesn't matter." The latter caught on as a form of reassurance to males that the size of their penis will not determine their sexual worth to females. In turn, this may be a response to the question, "Does size matter?" sometimes asked of extremely frank television sex advisors like Dr. Ruth Westheimer, and currently Sue Johanson, as well as of health advisors in the print media. Even when the question is not asked directly, it appears to lie just under the surface in men's thinking. (Or appears so to sex counselors and advisors.)

For those who wish to explore the question seriously, or even non-seriously, the Internet, a modern Wonder of the World, has a wealth of commentaries on what women really want in the sexual department. There are many serious articles that are meant to be reassuring, but are usually anything but.

Our Archive has a discussion on the subject "Size doesn't matter," which focuses primarily on the connotations of putz, shmuck, shlong and other words used to indicate the human penis. The apparent conclusion is that none of these words actually implies a size factor. (Yiddish spelling derives primarily not from modern Hochdeutsch, but from a 15th-century German vernacular.) See:

www.phrases.org.uk bulletin_board 12 messages 1276.html

As a consequence of seemingly universal interest in the question of how seriously to regard penis size, and therefore the frequent appearance of both "Size doesn't matter," and "Size matters," both phrases have come to be used quasi-humorously in every imaginable context in which the size of a particular object, animate or inanimate, is discussed, and this includes advertising slogans.

One of my favorites is an article entitled, "Size doesn't matter," about Seabiscuit. This famous racehorse was once considered an undersized runt with little chance of winning against champions, in spite of his ancestry as the grandson of Man o' War. When he beat the reigning champion, War Admiral, his place in history and legend was secured. There's a very good book about Seabiscuit, and a movie based on the book.

Sometimes size matters, and sometimes it doesn't.
SS

sports.espn.go.com/ espn/classic/bio/news/story?page=Seabiscuit

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