EVERYONE knows the Covid lockdowns were hard on our mental health. So much soul-searching and rumination. Where’s my life going? Is this the person I want to spend the rest of my life with? But London-based consultant urologist Gordon Muir noticed something else – a lot of men started examining themselves in the bathroom mirror and asking: is this the penis I want to spend the rest of my life with?
“During Covid a lot of young men were watching hours and hours of porn and, at the same time, not being properly socialised. As a result they were comparing themselves with porn stars who, statistically, are outliers.
“It’s like watching basketball all day and then deciding, ‘I should be 6ft 6in [198,12cm] tall’. Next thing is, they’re booking themselves in for penis-enlargement surgery. Of course, with the recovery time afforded by working from home, it led to a lot of misguided butchery.”
The International Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgery has reported a significant rise in both surgical and non-surgical procedures globally since the pandemic. More breast implants and butt lifts. More surgical and non-surgical penile enlargement too.
One well-known clinic in London, Moorgate Andrology, says demand for “fillers” has been huge. “Lockdown closed us for a bit but when we reopened, demand for fillers went through the roof,” the clinic’s Michael Mills says.
Most days Muir is helping men with serious post-cancer or erectile-dysfunction treatments. But his other job is flying all over the world fixing disastrous cosmetic penis work.
“The tragedy is there’s usually nothing unusual about their genitalia in the first place,” he says. “5,2 inches [13,2cm] erect; 3,6 inches [9,1cm] when flaccid. That’s average. But lockdown convinced a
