Hung: The Black Man and His Member

In this piece, writer E. Lynn Harris reviews “Hung,” a new book by Scott Poulson-Bryant about the centuries-long controversy of the black man’s penis. Black pride and white anxiety have surrounded the “myth” since the first interactions between Africans and Europeans.

“Poulson-Bryant’s obsession with all this began when an older cousin told him that the size of his penis went a long way to determining his status as a man. (Funny thing - I was told the same thing by an uncle when I reached puberty.) He recalls a night from college when he was feeling “cooler than cool” and was approached by a white girl at a bar. They talk. Laugh. Dance. And, for the first time, he sleeps with a woman of a different race. After they’ve finished, she tells him he was pretty good . . . but she was surprised he wasn’t bigger. When he asks why, she responds, “Because you’re black.”"