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Men have been trying to enlarge their penises since the dawn of time.
“Cavemen were having snakes bite their penis so it would temporarily swell,” claims Daniel Lombroso, the director of a new documentary about dicks — and the lengths men will go for a bigger one.
Premiering at SXSW on March 14, “Manhood” follows an OnlyFans model and a father of five as they undergo below-the-waist cosmetic procedures — and a Dallas entrepreneur hoping to make penis enlargement as normal as lip filler. “Now, for the first time, you can do it,” Lombroso says of the age-old dream of obtaining a bigger schlong. (The documentary focuses on “girth enhancement”; there’s currently no safe way to add inches in length.)
Lombroso previously covered the rise of right-wing extremist groups for The Atlantic and embedded with neo-Nazis for his debut documentary, “White Noise.” He approached “Manhood” with the same urgent sense of political curiosity: “It felt like a way to talk about what was happening in our country and a lot of the pain that men feel.”
To start the project, Lombroso booked a one-way flight to Texas and hung out in the waiting room of Dallas’ PhalloFILL clinic, talking to patients about their insecurities. “I met so many different types of guys,” he says. “I met a megachurch pastor getting his penis enlarged. I met a border patrol agent who may be an ICE agent.”
The film captures men at their most vulnerable: naked on a hospital bed while a med spa practitioner injects filler into their penises. Lombroso says the key to getting his subjects comfortable was patience. Plus, his production team, composed entirely of women, gave the process a “gentle touch.”
“Some of the men said, ‘I just want to film from my nose down.’ Some said, ‘I want to be blurred.’ And we honored that completely,” he says. Lombroso agreed to alter the face of David Smith, a pseudonymous porn actor coping with a botched penis enlargement procedure. But by the end of shooting, Smith agreed to show his real face.
The average PhalloFILL patient books four to six sessions, which cost between $2,500 and $4,000 a pop, per the doc. Bill Moore, the clinic’s co-founder, says it’s common for patients to “drop $15,000, $20,000 on the spot because they’re so unhappy with their manhood.”
While studies show that about half of all men wish their penis was bigger, almost 90% of women are comfortable with their partner’s size. This discrepancy is exemplified by one of the subjects of “Manhood,” Ruben Ramirez, who accrues thousands of dollars in penis-enlargement debt and moves his children and partner in with his ex — and then his mother. In one awkward moment at the kitchen table, Ramirez’s partner says, “I argued that he shouldn’t do [the procedure]. I was perfectly happy with his member as it was.”
One of the striking things about “Manhood” is that — aside from one memorable micropenis — the equipment on display is not all that small. “All the other guys are already pretty well endowed,” says Lombroso. “Most of them don’t need it.”
So where does the pressure come from? Porn is the obvious culprit, and Smith admits that he felt inadequate about his penis size after comparing himself with his OnlyFans co-stars.
Lombroso argues the growth of the “manosphere” has also pushed an extreme brand of masculinity into the mainstream. Male self-optimization content used to be relegated to muscle magazines; now, the world’s most-watched podcast is hosted by Joe Rogan, whom Ramirez is repeatedly seen watching in “Manhood.” Ramirez tells Lombroso he heard about the girth enhancement procedure when Moore was a guest on Tom Segura’s podcast. Ramirez says he didn’t have issues with his size until he gained weight after having kids. He hoped his new appendage would spice up his sex life.
If there’s one takeaway from “Manhood,” it’s that a bigger penis might give you a boost of confidence, but it won’t fix all your problems. “I can fill your penis with filler,” says a doctor fixing a botched procedure, “but I cannot fill the hole in your heart.”
For the men spending tens of thousands of dollars to add a couple inches of girth to their genitals, there is always a deeper insecurity not being directly addressed. Smith, for example, cannot find peace until he comes to terms with his sexuality and confronts his relationship with his mother.
“It’s always connected to something bigger,” Lombroso says. “No pun intended.”
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