Size Doesn't Matter When You're in Jail (or does it?)

It was just the kind of story that makes reading the newspaper worthwhile – a tale full of pathos, pain and genitalia references.

And there it was, right on the front page of section B in yesterday’s Philadelphia Inquirer.

Unhappy over surgery,
he now faces jail term.

A man mailed a bomb to a doctor
whom he paid to enlarge his penis.

(Although for some reason, the internet version has the headline: “Quest for larger equipment leads him toward jail.” )

As Inquirer writer John Shiffman put it:

This is the story of how a man's wayward quest to enlarge his penis landed him in federal court yesterday, pleading guilty to weapons of mass destruction
charges.

His offense: building a tiny bomb and mailing it to the cosmetic
surgeon who had promised - but failed - to deliver big results. He faces a likely prison sentence of four years or more on a charge more commonly used against terrorists than dissatisfied customers.

It all began in early 2004 at the home of Brett R. Steidler, a 25-year-old factory worker from a devout Christian family in Reamstown, Lancaster County. Eager to find a cosmetic surgeon who could enlarge his penis, Steidler logged onto the Internet, located one in Chicago, and traveled there for the roughly $8,000 procedure.

To put it mildly, there were complications. Steidler was "extremely unhappy with the results," Assistant U.S. Attorney Jennifer Arbittier Williams said in a court filing.

It obvious from the start that the unfortunate dude in question is crazy, if only that:

1) He willingly paid a plastic surgeon $8,000 for the privilege of having his weewee worked on.
2) He built a tiny bomb.
3) He came from a devout Christian family, which is generally a fertile breeding ground for crazy.

Overlooking the fact that somehow a 25-year-old had a spare eight-grand lying around (devout Christian church collection?) and that he’s obviously crazy, I find myself with more sympathy towards him than I would for your average mail-bomber.

If only he had talked to me beforehand, I could have saved him from this whole heapa trouble. I mean, by all rights, there should have been virgins running amok in his hometown. At least among the devout Christian contingent.

And unless he was dealing with a micro-penis, your basic inexperienced young lady is not going to be able to discern the inch or so of difference between small-average and average.

Case in point: my college boyfriend was stupid enough to (come to think of it, that sentence could be finished in any number of ways…) point out to me that he was not very well-endowed.

Honestly, I would have never known if he hadn’t been dumb enough to tell me. I really had no point of reference to which to compare him – except the monstrously-hung nude model in my Introduction to Drawing course -- and even being inexperienced I knew that guy was either a freak of nature or simply a fine example of what they say about black men. Either way, my coursework compelled me to render, in full-anatomical accuracy, several charcoal portraits of the young man, which I happily brought home to show my parents just how great freshman year of college can be. The very large sketch pad remains in my basement to this very day.

Um, where was I?

Oh yeah. The peni-bomber should have considered settling down with a sweet virgin and the whole size thing would have been a non-issue.

Not to dismiss the whole “Does size matter?” thing. To which I can answer a resounding… um…er… well…yes, kinda. But only kinda. I mean, we ladies are very willing to work within the normal range.

And truly, a Boogie-Nights-Dirk-Diggler-prosthesis size is just as undesirable to the average woman as an EEE cup is to the average man.

(I will resist the urge to digress into my theory that men should be compelled to wear something akin to a codpiece to make their manhood size as obvious to the casual viewer as a woman’s breast size is. All in the name of fairness and equality, mind you. Don’t worry, in my evil plan there would also be “Victor’s Secret” stores where guys could buy their padded-push-up pouches.)

In the long run, there’s probably a fetishist for every physical variation outside of the norm. Maybe even one for guys who’ve had their unit mutilated by an evil plastic surgeon.

That’s what the internet is for, isn’t it? No need for bomb-making, my little (oops -- bad choice of adjectives) Lancaster County friend!

By the way, no enlargement surgeons were harmed in the making of this story. Our mangled lad had second thoughts and alerted the authorities before the explosive letter was able to reach its intended target.