is bigger better or is badder good?
a philosophical reflection on whether size really matters.
Is Bigger Better immediately brings me back to my year studying abroad in Berlin between Fall 2012 - Summer 2013. I had been accepted into a dance intensive program at a dance organization called Tanzfabrik (that is still running btw!) and said yes to attending.
Prior to moving for these studies, I had had some practice traveling internationally to places like Ecuador, which had been preceded by occasional family trips to Guatemala and followed by Winter Study journeys (again while studying at Williams) to Nicaragua.
Saying yes to the dance intensive program at Tanzfabrik was the first time I would be crossing over the Atlantic and into the dance ecosystem of Europe and tbh I had no idea what I was getting myself into.
My time at Williams had exposed me to somatic practices, experimental choreography, performance art, and performance-based visual art installations via guest artist, Hana van der Kolk, who taught courses within the Dance Department while I was a student there. Learning about the ways choreography and dance performance could extend beyond the traditional 5,6,7,8 phrase work paradigm genuinely blew my mind.
Initially within Hana’s courses, I experienced utter confusion at what was actually being taught because growing up in Union City (although just a 20-ish min bus ride from Manhattan) exposure to experimental anything and performance theory were not really accessible. It took me a LONG time to comprehend that choreographic infrastructures, frameworks, and scores existed everywhere; within and through and outside of the field of dance itself.
After graduating from Williams, people that were curious about what I was planning on doing with my dance degree would usually round out their question with, “Oh, so you’re interested in being on Broadway” or “So you do something like So-You-Think-You-Can-Dance?” and I would kindly yet blankly stare back at these folks frustrated that this was the singular mainstream understanding of dance as a form within an American context; these two and the form of ballet of course
By the time I began moving through the Tanzfabrik program, what I had been learning with Hana at Williams became more and more clear. I began to understand how choreographic systems and scores operated in service of generating performances or rather could be used within rehearsal contexts to generate performance material that could be further dramaturgically synthesized and fine tuned.
After returning to the U.S. at the end of the program, I could notice a clear difference between the way choreographers who were based in / solely making work within the U.S. dance field held space vs. those who had had some experience and time training abroad, whether in Europe or elsewhere. There seemed to be more entry points into the ecosystem that comprised performance crafting and live arts and even clear distinctions between Dance and Choreography (even though the latter are heavily intertwined).
No shade on the mainstream forms of dance as that is also where I started with respect to my dance training, but I genuinely felt more at home once I encountered movement improvisation, somatics, and experimental choreography. I could sense that there was more room for me to to play and stretch myself within and I felt empowered knowing I could craft a performance from any node of inspiration that struck my heart.
And of course, I understood then (and now) that no matter what kind of performance work I decided to craft and share with the world I would always be read as a politicized Brown body. This did not mean, however, that I was always interested in making politically situated dance works. If I did employ these motifs or life experiences, I promised myself I would be aware of who my audience was and would work to fuck around with any fixed mode of representation.
Interestingly enough, what I enjoyed about living in Berlin was that my American identity (whatever that was) became foregrounded and was the identity people were most curious about or rather this was the initial lens through which I realized I was making my work as a choreographer. This was interesting to me. I am sure foregrounding of another identity of mine had everything to do with the how successful of a marketing machine is the USA via Hollywood, social media, and media, in general.
I believe everything is political by nature because of the systems we currently exist within, but I do not always want or desire or need to make work about my identities (even though these identities are always running in the underground foundation of the works I create). It is not about erasing who I am, but about creating what I want period and avoiding creating trauma porn for a predominantly white audience, unless that is exactly what I want to do.
When I returned to Berlin in 2015 to do another summer-long intensive at a different institution (that no longer exists), I remember one of the instructors telling me that he did not see color when it came to race. I cannot remember why we had had this conversation in the first place, but I think it had to do with being one of two QTBIPOC students within a predominantly white cohort and how that was fucking with my sense of self.
I also cannot remember what I said in response to his colorblindness comment, but I knew that that would be the last conversation we were going to have. I did not have the capacity back then to hold multiple truths and I did not want to have further dialogue with someone who did not understand that we are not all starting off on the same playing field. I could, however, understand that growing up in a place like Spain (I think that is where he was from) was radically different from growing up in the U.S. where the historical contexts we are born into directly inform how we literally see and move through the world, often to our own detriment.
But I digress…
As I round out this point, it was beautiful to know that I could craft my inner child’s 5,6,7,8 wannabe pop star dance, a dance comprised of only my voice, a dance in the form of testimony, a dance with no bodies, a dance expressing my fascination with the forces that make up our universe, and so on and so forth.
I remember coming back to NJ from Berlin during the summer of 2013 and was immediately OVER. IT. What the fuck had I done?! I had grown accustomed to the life and people I had met in Berlin, to the slower pace, the different accents, the higher quality of food, more affordable healthcare, the incessant connection to club culture that was always on, and quickly realized how much about the U.S. I disliked upon arrival. That summer also coincided with my coming out to my conservative parents, which will be the core topic for my next post.
This study abroad year in Berlin was also one of the years where I tried out online dating for the first time the OG way aka via my web browser since I did not have a smart phone at the time. I was using a website called Planet Romeo, now called Romeo, and I ended up having some of the best sex of my life with the men I was meeting on there.
Here were some of the encounters I had through the Romeo portal:
A had a micro-penis and he knew how to work it. After being out at a club for what felt like a day and a half, I went over to A’s place to smoke cigarettes, fuck, and chill. I believe A had been in the German military, was balding, white, honestly not that cute, BUT he did make me cum over and over again with whatever magic pelvic thrust he had been practicing at home (or was it just his fingers?!)
In A’s case, it was clear that size did not matter and unbeknownst to him he had completely debunked and subverted my belief that in order to access pleasure I had to have sex with guys who were hung. At this point in my life, I understand very well that sex does not need to involve genitals and/or anal penetration and/or penetration of any kind, but more on this later.
B and I met at a dance workshop that took place at Uferstudios, an additional sister-site of Tanzfabrik in the Wedding neighborhood of Berlin. I did not know that B was gay until I invited him to a party I was hosting at my place and we started making out. He stayed over.
The timing of meeting B was divine in that we had just finished moving through the brutal winter and it felt so cozy to have a warm body next to me after many months of depressive solitude. Needless to say, I fell in love with B as the spring blossomed in Berlin.
When it came to B’s size, however, he was definitely on the slightly under average length and girth and at some point during our timeline, sex with him became too predictable and boring. For some reason, I did start to question whether having a girthier dick would make the sexual experience better and/or if we simply needed to diversify aka un-vanillify our sexual repertoire.
Eventually we parted ways because I decided to return to Williams for my senior year to complete my BA and we eventually fell out of touch.
With C, I am so sad that I drunk lost my phone with his number in it! When I tried finding him on Romeo, he had deleted his profile so I was unable to get in touch with him after that. C was one of the older guys I met up with, I am talking like 10+ age gap difference, and some of the best sex I have had in my entire life. He had a beautiful apartment and each time I came over he would have my favorite bottle of wine ready to go.
We would chat about this and that and he would seduce me with his German/Spanish accent. Then he would lead me to his bedroom and we would fuck all night. His bed was positioned in a way where we could witness ourselves fucking because of mirrors that were hanging off his closet doors and that felt juicy, irreverent, sexy. In the morning, we would fuck some more and then he would make breakfast for us. So sweet.
Size-wise he was slightly above average (lengthwise) and the perfect girth for my body. On top of that, he was also super caring, provided lots of cuddles in the aftermath of our fucking and I seriously and delusionally considered marrying the guy.
D made me realize that maybe I am not a power bottom after all. We had met through a friend who was also doing the dance intensive program and I invited D over to hang out during one of our winter breaks. I remember D being a very gentle kisser and a very strong listener when it came to touch and making physical contact.
D was also the most hung guy I have ever been with to the point that my body resisted him coming inside of me. The biggest dick overwhelmed me and even deep throating presented some challenges.
I know some folks prefer longer dicks for oral and average/smaller dicks for anal and now this designation made a lot of sense to me, especially after my encounter with D. Maybe I needed to be a bit more warmed up by D, but I did not know I could be specific about that as a core need and ask for more foreplay time. After meeting D, I would meet E who was similarly endowed as D, but there were no issues with E. I was also in love with E so I am sure this factored into the differences between these experiences.
All of this to say, I used to be a size queen and now I am more open to leading with my curiosity when it comes to future partners and deciding together the parameters we want to explore each other’s bodies within. Like sex can be 100 times more creative than sticking and poking and these alternative subjectivities of the erotic is what I am seeking to choreograph. I am more interested in creating the conditions where intimacy can be explored in a way where motions can be slowed down or sped up as needed, where our listening skills expand, where the top-bottom- verse-side positions can dissolve (although these can also serve as juicy starting points), where we can give each other permission to discover the delicious contours of one another’s bodies.
So my verdict is: the only size that really matters is the size and texture that best fits the needs and specificities of your body off. IMO, what matters is how present you can be with the partner(s) you are engaging with and how vulnerable you can get with regards to asking for what you truly desire and having fun with meeting each other halfway, even if it means saying no. The commitment needs to revolve around finding ways to make sex more multidimensional and playful while understanding that any sexual encounter is a kind of energetic exchange and I wish I had known this last point sooner.
Who do you truly want in your energetic field and in your body and is the exchange reciprocal or not? How do you know?