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Sara Barron writes on www.thefrisky.com – I am a writer.

Having said that, I ask that you bear in mind how broad that category is. I call myself a writer, and so does Philip Roth. So does my personal public enemy #1, a young woman I met in college who writes lip gloss reviews for a living. My point is that being a writer can mean a wide variety of things, and this week, for me, it meant getting in touch with male porn stars. Or rather, trying and mostly failing to get in touch with male porn stars.

The story started as all good stories do: With a penis. Surely you’ve heard the saying that you can judge a penis just by looking at the feet. Well, the other day I was sitting around bored and aimless, trying to decide what to write, when I started thinking about penises.

This happens often, but on this specific occasion, the penises I’d started thinking about were The Penises That I Have Known. (I used CAPS just then because when you write about The Penises That You Have Known, it is important to be respectful.) Anyway, there I was thinking about The Penises That I Have Known, and as I continued thinking about them, I wondered if maybe there wasn’t a story there, a story in investigating whether the saying is true.

Alas: Although I could bring to mind the penises, I couldn’t remember the feet. It occurred to me then that thing to do would be to prove/disprove the idea, not with reference to my own experience, but by using male porn stars. Their penises are available to view, of course, so all I’d have to do was find the shoe size.

My current project lay before me. Was it ridiculous? It was. But remember: I’m a writer. And not in the vein of Philip Roth.

My first order of business was to familiarize myself with male porn stars. This would take some doing, as I’m not a big one for porn-watching. And that, in turn, is because A) I find it too rough to be much of a turn on, and B) When I do see porn, I can’t ever shake the feeling that the woman’s being raped. Which is dark, I know. But that is how I see it.

The issues overlap, of course. Anyway, the point for this particular piece is that I didn’t know the names of any male porn stars. So fine. I’d have to Google them.

I Googled “Well-endowed male porn stars.”

Why I wrote “well-endowed,” I’m not so sure. Reflecting on it now, I probably wanted to keep things interesting, to see some stuff I hadn’t seen before.

“Well-endowed male porn stars” led me to “StripperWeb” where I found a helpful plethora of names. The list included – but was not limited to! – the following: Mandingo, Jack Napier, Shane Diesel, Castro Supreme, Lexington Steele, Peter North, Frederick LaMont, Billy Glide, Danny Dong, James Deen, John Holmes, Jonny Wadd, Sledge Hammer, Blackzilla, Dick Shagswell, Ron Jeremy, Rocco Siffred, Seymour Butts, Buttman, Preston Parker, Shorty Mac, Jez Christ, White Pony and Vick from Teenburg.

Some of these guys were dead and some were way too famous. I took my time, carefully weeding my list down to 12.

“The lucky 12,” I called them.

I attempted correspondence. Which, as a process, raised the question of exactly how one goes about contacting a porn star for the sole purpose of learning his shoe size. I knew Facebook and Twitter would be a help, but even so, I’d have to drum up a message. I’d have to figure out the way to ask. I went with formal, professional, direct. I messaged them on Facebook first.

Dear Mr. Glide/Steele/Dong/Supreme, etc.,

I hope you’ll pardon the email from a total stranger, but I’m writing to request an interview. I’m a writer for various women’s websites, and I’m currently working on a piece wherein I investigate the correlation between penis size and shoe size … to see if there is, in fact, truth to the saying that you can judge one by the other. My investigation, as it were, consists of contacting gentleman in the adult entertainment industry to see if they will share their shoe size. If you have a quick moment in which to share yours, I’d be so very grateful.

Warm regards,

Sara Barron

I don’t mean to boast, but I was impressed with myself for having written the email but avoided the phrase “your penis.” I knew these gents would’ve confronted bolder things than that in their line of work. But bawdy as I am when writing publicly, I’m quite prudish where interpersonal communication is concerned. I would sooner do a load of laundry than sext, you see, so for me, “your penis” was too much.

After messaging on Facebook, I followed up on Twitter. As you can’t message someone on Twitter unless he/she is following you already, I had to tweet the gentlemen directly. Most of them had XXX in their name. Which, over the course of a day, meant my Twitter feed began to look like this:

@shaneXXXdiesel Hey ho, Mr. Diesel! Just messaged you on FB. Love to see if you’re free for an interview. Let me know! All best, Sara B.

@BillyGlideXXX Hi ho, Billy! Just messaged you on FB. Let me know if you’d be available for a quick, pain-free interview! Thanks! – Sara B.

@DannyDXXX Hidey ho, Danny D.! Just hit you up via your website. I’d love to trouble you for a quick interview if you’ve got a free moment!

@PornSpider Hi Porn Spider. I’m a writer, and I’m trying to find a few brave male porn actors for a few brief interviews…

A day went by, and though none of the gentleman had written back, several of them had favorited my tweets. My tweets to them. And yet they weren’t responding.

Another day went by, and two of the gentleman started following me (in the Twitter sense of the word, of course). It was Castro Supreme and ShaneXXXdiesel. Then Castro Supreme messaged me directly.

“What’s ur phone #?” he wrote. “Email pictures to me and Skype me.”

So I responded.

In direct message #1 I wrote:

“Oh! So I’m just a writer. No photos to offer, I’m afraid! I was hoping you could just provide me with your shoe size as well as your…

And then in direct message #2:

“ …penis size? In inches? Sorry to be so bold! I’m working on a piece about figuring out whether there’s a correspondence between the two!”

There it was. The phrase “penis size.” But my feeling was that if he’d thrown down the gauntlet with asking me for photos, I might as well shave a few minutes off my own research methods by asking him directly for his penis size.

But Castro Supreme did not write back.

ShaneXXXDiesel was still in play, though, now that he’d started following me. I decided to message him as well.

In direct message #1 I wrote:

“Mr. Diesel! I’d love to interview you for a piece I’m writing for a women’s website. If you’ve got a quick second, please let me know your…”

And then in direct message #2:

“… shoe size & penis size. The piece is about trying to prove whether the old saying is true, that you can tell one from the other. Thanks!”

Once you’ve bit the bullet and asked one man his penis size, it’s as though you’ve asked all men their penis size. It ceases to embarrass you.

A day went by, and ShaneXXXDiesel wrote back.

“Sure,” he wrote. “Ask always ”

Which was weird, I thought, since I had already asked. Perhaps I needed to be clearer.

I responded, “Thank u for being so available! In which case: Can you please share: a) What size shoe you wear? and b) How many inches your penis is? Thnx!”

Another day went by. Again, Shane Diesel responded.“Shoe ten-and-a-half,” he wrote. “Penis ten and a half.”

I Googled Shane Diesel [pictured] to remind myself what he looked like and to verify his claim. And what I saw was, well, a very large penis. A very large penis. Every inch of ten inches, it was. I suppose on some visceral level this aroused me, but mostly I just felt afraid. For my vagina, and the vaginas of women everywhere.

In the end, I never heard back from any of the other male porn stars. Which (lest it bears mention), means I didn’t do so well in terms of verifying or debunking a myth. However, I did succeed in convincing my mother that my Twitter account had been hacked. She regularly checks it when she’s feeling bored, and she saw all those XXXs and the phrase “PornSpider”, and she felt compelled to text me directly.

“Have u been hacked?” she wrote.

“No,” I wrote. “I’m trying to get info from male porn stars for a piece I’m writing. I’ve been trying to get them via Twitter.”

“Oy vey,” she wrote. “Pls b careful. OK? Pls meet them in a public spce?”

“I can’t promise you that,” I wrote back. “I have work to do as a writer, Mom, and if it involves bringing unknown men back to my apartment, then so be it.”

I was kidding, of course. But after enough exposure to male porn stars, you do have to wonder if perhaps your own life couldn’t stand for some livening up. Even if it comes from the simple things, like tormenting your own mom.

Update 2/28/13 , 2:33 P.M.:

After this article was published, Castro Supreme direct messaged me twice.

The first message said: “Ok.”

The second: “Let’s fuck.”

How satisfying an epilogue is that?