The Burden of Being Well Hung

A man reveals the burden of being well-hung. [View in Browser]( [Esquire Sunday Reads]( [My Dick Is Too Big]( My Dick Is Too Big There is no greater symbolic measure of a man’s masculinity than the size of his penis. If someone is a big shot at work, they’re referred to as a “big swinging dick.” In recent years, the term “big dick energy” has emerged in the lexicon to describe men with a raw, ineffable charisma. A big dick is something men are taught to want from a young age—in both the porn they watch and the cultural messaging they internalize. But in the real world, having a massive member isn’t entirely positive. It comes with its own burdens and discomforts. It turns out there is such a thing as too big when it comes to sex, and people gossiping about your manhood can be demeaning and objectifying. For Black men, having a reputation for having a large penis can carry with it hurtful racial connotations. For our new series on The Secret Lives of Men, Esquire spoke to T, a 19-year-old, Nigerian-British university student, about the weight he carries between his legs and the downside to having what every man thinks he wants. [Read the Full Story]( [MORE FROM ESQUIRE]( [The New “It” Producer for Rock Icons]( The New “It” Producer for Rock Icons Andrew Watt can’t say what he’s working on. It’s mid-December in London, and the record producer behind hits by Justin Bieber, Miley Cyrus, and Post Malone is feeling a little tongue-tied. It’s not his news to share, you see. But it’s important—“the most excited I’ve ever been about anything,” he says about the mysterious project. What can he mention? First off, that it’s freezing outside. Really fucking cold. Every day is just a bundled-up shuffle from the hotel to the studio and back again, keeping quiet when people like me ask what he’s up to in the Big Smoke. Except Watt isn’t feeling stifled by the secrecy. Instead, he’s downright giddy. “It brings me to tears sometimes,” the 32-year-old admits. “It’s overwhelming to work with people who are part of your musical DNA.” The star power of his Rolodex may not have lost its luster for Watt yet, but his high-profile bookings come as no surprise to anyone who’s followed popular music in the past decade. Beyond collaborating with a who’s who of mainstream hit-makers—Selena Gomez, Lana Del Rey, and Camila Cabello also feature on his résumé—Watt serves as the go-to soundboard whiz for rock ’n’ roll legends. Pearl Jam. Morrissey. Elton John. He’s partnered with all of them, and it’s working. In 2021, Watt won a Grammy for Producer of the Year, Non-Classical. Working with the Mount Rushmore of rock gods is a thrill. But for those who think it’s a cushy job, Watt has a convincing reply. The setup: “There are four words you never want to hear a fucking band say when you’re at a concert.” And the punchline: “ ‘Here’s a new one.’ ” (Cue big laugh from both Watt and me.) Turning serious, he continues: “I’m the one making the new music. It’s a big thing to think about.” [Read the Full Story]( [Pedro Pascal's Sneakers Blend Old-School Cool With Modern Sustainability]( Pedro Pascal's Sneakers Blend Old-School Cool With Modern Sustainability Pedro Pascal is—rightfully so—very talked-about right now. When he isn't kicking ass in The Mandalorian, he's kicking ass in The Last of Us. And when he isn't kicking ass in The Last of Us—well, it seems like he's just kicking ass in real life. He's certainly kicking ass in street style. The actor was spotted in Los Angeles and New York recently wearing a pair of sneakers, which, upon further inspection, are even cooler than we first thought. Behold, the Rothy's RS01 Sneaker in Hunter: A timeless yet trendy pair of white and green kicks, sustainably made from a knit material spun using recycled plastic water bottles. Didn't see that coming. I mean, if there's one guy who we want to take style cues from, it's the leading man of the moment. Pascal's choice in shoes is one we can certainly get behind. The RS01s are durable, stylish, and most of all comfortable, with a contoured footbed that doesn't even require a break-in period. The 28 water bottles it takes to make one pair makes us feel a little bit better about our eco practices, and it doesn't hurt that the sneakers are under $200, too; with a washable exterior, it kinda feels like they'll last forever. [Read the Full Story]( [Behind the Scenes of Kal Penn's Big Week at The Daily Show]( Behind the Scenes of Kal Penn's Big Week at The Daily Show In an email to an FBI agent during his background check when Kal Penn first joined the Obama White House as an associate director of the Office of Public Engagement in 2009, he made a joke so innocuous he can no longer remember it. The agent just responded, “OK.” Penn immediately replied to clarify he was kidding. “I’m like, OK, cool, I’m just not going to make any more jokes.” That approach won’t work in the job he’s gunning for these days. Penn told me about his federal faux pas shortly after taping his first show as a guest host of Comedy Central’s long-running fake news program, The Daily Show. It’s probably not fair to describe the job Penn is seeking as “permanent,” since nothing in this business is, but he is unabashedly campaigning to secure it beyond this week. He is the 8th guest host following Trevor Noah’s departure, one of only a couple to signal a real thirst for the job, and there are murmurings he is firmly in the network’s frame. But Comedy Central certainly won’t be giving him the job until they see that he can do it, which leaves him in the position of auditioning for it on air across four consecutive nights. “This week is going to be stressful,” he told his second guest on Monday night, Grover the Muppet. His first guest that night was a former colleague of his named Joe Biden, now the President of the United States. [Read the Full Story]( [What to Watch After 'The Last of Us']( What to Watch After The Last of Us Some people crave emotional devastation in their television. No judgement here! If terminal sadness is your thing, then you probably enjoyed HBO's The Last of Uswhere every episode elicited mass amounts of sobbing. And there were only nine episodes! Could you imagine continuing to go through that every week? Though The Last of Us was able to tell its story of dangerous infections, grief, and loneliness in a remarkably powerful way, it's certainly not the first story of its kind. Creator Neil Druckmann even said that the show's source material—the 2013 video game, The Last of Us—was inspired by films like Alfonso Cuarón's Children of Men and George Romero's 1968 independent horror classic, Night of the Living Dead. But for those ready to go on a TV binge after the Season One finale of The Last of Us, we've rounded up eight shows to watch before the mushroom virus takes us all. [Read the Full Story]( [Songs of Surrender Puts U2's Songwriting Legacy on the Line]( Songs of Surrender Puts U2's Songwriting Legacy on the Line It has been said that you can measure the greatness of a song if it holds up accompanied by just a guitar or a piano. Which is true to a point—but also plays into the idea that music production is somehow cheating, that sonic treatments are there to cover up flaws, not serve as actual compositional tools. If there’s one band whose body of work challenges this rule completely, though, it’s U2, who have always been defined by the totality of their expansive, atmospheric sound more than just their words and notes on a page. Consider the scene in the 2008 guitar documentary It Might Get Loud, when The Edge switches off all his pedals and effects—the rig that Bono once described to me as looking “like Cape Canaveral”—to show that the swaggering introduction to “Elevation” is actually just him plinking two simple chords. But with their new collection Songs of Surrender, their first release in six years, Ireland’s Finest are taking that plunge, reinterpreting forty songs from their catalog with new arrangements that are mostly intimate and acoustic, and frequently replacing Edge’s electric arsenal with quiet keyboards. Inevitably, it’s a bit hit-or-miss, and likely not essential for those who aren’t superfans, but there are many pleasures and discoveries to be found. [Read the Full Story]( Follow Us [Unsubscribe]( | [Privacy Notice/Notice at Collection]( esquire.com ©2023 Hearst Magazine Media, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Hearst Magazines, 300 West 57th Street, New York, NY 10019