The ferry ride into Seattle was gorgeous. The spring sun was rising over the Cascade Range, painting the clouds orange, pink, and purple. There was just a little warm moisture in the air, and I could hear the rhythmic lapping of the wake on the steel sides of the ferry. I liked to ride downstairs on the car deck when it was warm enough, put my elbows up on the rail and look off to the north, toward Mt. Baker. It seemed to be always covered with a thick blanket of white, soft snow.
My thoughts were with Sally again. It’d been several weeks since we’d talked and I missed her voice: warm, sometimes raspy, always tender, even when she was saying goodbye. I was just getting past most of the resentment of her leaving, and with that anger out of the way, I was just feeling the void, the emptiness beside me, like a ghost limb.
I walked into the KSID studios with a little anxiety, not knowing what to expect. Elaine greeted me with a warm smile and immediately invited me into the studio. We entered a small, cluttered room with glass on three sides, looking into a larger studio full of microphones, wires, electronic panels, stools, chairs, and laptops. I have never seen so many knobs, buttons, levers, and lights in one place in my life. On top of the tables, consoles, and chairs were pieces of paper, some balled up and discarded, pens, pencils, earphones, and empty coffee cups.
“Don’t worry,” Elaine said. “These are not for you to play with. Your engineer will take care of all this. All you have to do is worry about this mike, your headphones, and your own voice.”
I looked at the large, foam-covered mike, suspended from a long metal arm, and at the oversized headphones lying in the chair in front of me.
“So all I do is talk?”
Elaine laughed. “Well, you talk and you listen, and you can read and refer to books or whatever. You will hear the callers, and you will be able to hear your engineer when he wants to cut in. We’re going to operate with a fifteen-second delay so that you can censor any language you need to. We expect there might be some things we don’t want on the air.”
“Yeah. How will I know what that is? I mean this is a show about sex.”
“Yeah, sure, but there are some obscenities that we cannot allow on the air or the FCC will be all over us.” Elaine paused. “We can’t allow the f-word, for instance. We’ll just have to come up with a list for you of words that we’ll want you to cut. Your engineer will be able to bleep them for you too.”
“OK, I get that. I think I should tell my listeners that right out of the box and give them some words they can use.”
“What d’ya mean?” She pursed her lips and looked puzzled.
“Well, to say intercourse instead of fucking, penis instead of cock, vagina instead of …” Elaine raised both hands and broke in.
“Yeah, yeah, OK. Just give them the front end of that, the words they can use.”
“Of course,” I smiled.
“All right, let’s take a little test run,” Elaine said, moving me with her hand toward the chair. “I’d like you to field a couple of questions from me. I’ll be in the room with Stan, your engineer. By the way, that’s Stan,” she said, pointing into the larger glass-lined room. “He’s been around a long time and knows what he’s doing. You’re in good hands with Stan.”
Stan looked over his large black glasses from the bigger studio and gave me a thumbs-up through the not-so-clean glass window. He wore a loose, long-sleeved maroon shirt that looked two sizes too big, an elephant hair bracelet on his left wrist, and a four-day growth that was black and gray. His mostly gray hair, longer than most, looked as if it had been combed yesterday and left to cure. I smiled and sat down.
“I’m just going to call in from our phone, and you’ll punch the flashing light on this set here and begin talking,” Elaine said. She paused and wrinkled her brow. “By the way, what are you going to say when you first pick up the phone?”
“I… I’ll have an intro, won’t I?”
“Sure, we’ve got that written for the beginning of the show, and we’ve got a five-second announcement we’d like you to read every fifteen minutes or so, just to ID the show and the station. But I mean when you pick up and first talk to your callers. Remember Frazier? ‘I’m listening.’”
“Yeah. Ummm.”
“Haven’t thought about it, huh?”
“I have actually. I think I’m just a little unsure of it.”
“Yeah, what? Just say it.”
“This is Rex, the sex guy.” I said it quickly and studied Elaine’s face for a reaction.
“Hey, I like it. We can use that. Rex, you surprise me.” She smiled and slugged me on the shoulder with her fist. “I thought you’d be a little more, you know, formal, but this I like.”
“I also thought about saying ‘What’s keeping you up?’”
“Yeah, clever. Maybe you can try them both, but let’s start with the first one.”
‘OK, so… Good evening, this is Rex, the sex guy.”
Elaine looked up to the ceiling for a moment. “How about just ‘Hi, this is Rex, the sex guy.’ I don’t know. Let’s think on that. OK?” Without waiting for a reply, Elaine turned and walked through two doors to the larger studio. She talked briefly with Stan, who laughed, and then sat down in front of one of three phones on a table. A light flashed on the phone in front of me, and at the same moment, Elaine started motioning to me to get my headphones on. I slipped the black plastic and leather headphones over both ears and punched the flashing button.
“Hi, this is Rex, the sex guy. How can I help you?”
Elaine pursed her lips and nodded, as if to say “yeah, maybe that’s OK” and spoke into the phone.
“Hi Rex, this is… Wanda. I’d like to ask a question, but first I want to know if this is confidential.”
“Sure, it is.” I paused because I hadn’t considered this. “We have no way of knowing your name, assuming you’re using a real name, and even if we did, we would never disclose that to anyone. You can rest assured that we will hold your confidence closely.” I shook my head. I could have said that better. “I mean if you consider a radio broadcast confidential.”
“OK. I get it. Well, my boyfriend and I have been together about a year. We have a pretty good relationship, at least I think we do.” Elaine was playing a younger woman not as sophisticated as she was. “Well, I’ll just get right into it, and I hope to god he’s not listening. It’s about size, you know the old bugaboo, the size of his… you know, his size.” I looked though the glass pane and smiled at Elaine.
“Yes, I know what you mean, the size of his penis.”
“Wow, yeah, OK, you said it.”
“So what would you like to ask?” Stan caught my eye and moved his hands in toward his mouth, asking me to move the microphone a little closer to my mouth.
“Well,” Elaine/Wanda went on, “he’s just not… god, this is so embarrassing… I’d just like him to be larger. It’s not very satisfying for me. So I guess my question is: ‘Does size really matter?’ Jeez, I feel like I’m been reading Cosmopolitan too much.”
“Wanda, it’s quite all right. It’s a question that women ask and it’s a question that men have, as well. I think—I know—that a lot of men question whether or not they are big enough to satisfy a woman, to really impress her. Some wonder if they are too large—although I think that’s a minority—but it can be a concern. The issue of size is a very legitimate question.”
“Really? Well, what can we do about it?”
“First off, let’s just talk some about size. Men’s organs vary a great deal, in length and in circumference and in appearance. You could walk down the street tomorrow and look at men’s faces and notice all the variation in their appearance. You know, some are old, some are long, some are fat, some are smooth, some are wrinkled, some are dark, some are light… you get the picture?”
“Yeah,” Elaine said tentatively, “in general.”
“Men’s penises vary just as much as their faces. All of us are just a little bit different. And you know what? So are women. Women’s genitals vary in size, shape. and appearance too. Have you thought about that?”
“Not all that much. I actually haven’t seen too much of either sex.” Elaine seemed to drop out of her role as Wanda and fall into the dialogue.
“Well, we all vary. We all bring our unique self to a relationship and hope it’s going to be OK. The same is true of size. Size doesn’t mean a whole lot in the abstract, just as another trait, like body weight or ability to talk about feelings, doesn’t matter much as an isolated characteristic. What matters is how his size, and how your size, match, or fit together, if you will.”
“So maybe it’s me; maybe I’m too big?”
“No. It’s no judgment about either of you. It’s how you fit, or don’t. Each of you is part of this relationship—emotionally, intellectually, spiritually, as well as physically—and there is no objective criteria, no standard to live up to. Again, it’s how, you fit together, or match up as they say in basketball. If it’s good for the two of you, it’s good.”
Elaine sat back in her chair, clearly out of her role as caller now, speaking in her own voice and into the conversation. “So I can’t say ‘my boyfriend’s too small?’”
“Let’s just say he wouldn’t like to hear you say that,” I countered. “The point is he’s not too ‘anything’ and you’re not too ‘anything.’ Maybe you’re just not the right match for each other. Then there’s the whole question of love and caring for him. I am sure that there are millions of couples out there who may not be a perfect size for each other, and they’ve stayed together all of their lives. They’ve made it work because they loved each other. Maybe they looked at their difference as a challenge and got creative.”
“Like what? What could I do?”
“Let me just give you a few ideas. Not that any will be specifically right for you, but maybe it will give you the general idea. Let’s say these couples concentrated on oral sex instead of intercourse. Let’s say they used a dildo or a vibrator to help them out. Let’s say they expressed themselves and their caring for each other with their hands and mouths as much as, or more than, with their genitals. What matters to them is their relationship, their caring, their love, and they found a way to keep that alive.”
“I see. Looks like I have some work to do,” Elaine said.
“Well, Wanda,” I emphasized the name, “you could look at it as fun and as a challenge to your creativity. And I don’t mean to underemphasize your original question. It may be that you two are not a physical match for each other. That can be an issue, along with the rest of your relationship, that will eventually cause you to end it. To some women it’s very important, not so to others. I know it’s a tough call, and you’re the only one who can make it.”
“You’re right, Rex. And you’ve certainly given me something to think about. I just hope I can talk with him about it. And not end up in a huge fight.”
“I hope you can, too. And I’m glad you said that. That discussion will be a challenge. The best thing you can do is not accuse him, or blame him of anything, but just talk about your own experience and what you want. And, if you want to, call back.”
“Thank you.”
I took off my headphones and leaned back in the chair. I looked through the glass and smiled at Elaine. She got up and walked back into the small studio.
“I liked it, Dr. Cohm, I liked it. I think we’re onto something.”
What have I learned?
All of us deeply appreciate it when our ideas and feelings are received.