“Let’s go back to my room,” he said as he grabbed my hand and led me across the Keystone Light infused floor of his fraternity basement. We stumbled up the stairs, tripping over alternate steps in a synchronized routine that could have only looked like bad physical comedy, and we eventually found ourselves in a cinder-block, sparsely decorated room that could only be described as prison-meets-privileged-yet-angsty-teen-boy. We began the romantic courtship ritual of drunken 19-year-olds. There was not a moment to spare for conversation or niceties; rather it was time to get down to business (or for my more confused readers, do the dirty). Rolling into his bed clothes slowly piled up on his floor, I reached my hand downward, only to make physical contact with his completely flaccid penis, just small enough to take up the space of a third of my hand. “Yeah, sorry it’s not happening,” he mumbled, clearly embarrassed, and I was left at the crossroads of sexual dissatisfaction.
I have never quite known how to respond to a guy getting the colloquially known phenomenon of whisky dick (PSA: not just caused by whisky and can be induced by a fuckboy’s precious Keystone Light) while on the brink of having sex. For those of you lucky enough to have never dealt with this situation, whisky dick occurs when an owner of a penis has become so drunk that he cannot become erect. For the other person involved, it is an uncomfortable reality.
In fact, my responses have varied across a range of emotions, each worse than the next. One solution was just trying to have sex anyway, while another was ordering the guy in question to go down on me — my justification for this was the notion that, just because he couldn’t have a good time didn’t mean I needed to be deprived. My best response, unquestionably, was with a more long-term hookup. Blackout drunk as I watched him fail to get it up, I apparently cried and repeated the phrase, “I’m not hot enough for you, am I?” (PSA: This is not in fact a tactic I would recommend at all. Do not try this at home, kids.) The next morning he calmly informed that it wasn’t the case that I wasn’t hot enough — it was just that “girls don’t know how dicks work.” Unconvinced, this article is the culmination of my quest to investigate the truth behind whisky dick, and remedy the sad nights of sexual dissatisfaction brought on by the scary potential of attempting to shove a shrunken and limp penis into an unresponsive vagina.
Essentially it turns out that there isn’t much scientific research on the subject of whisky dick beyond: If you think it’s a problem, just don’t drink. While this is the exact response I would expect from the scientific community — logical, cold, calculated and disinterested in young-adult shenanigans — I wanted more. Essentially, some people believe that alcohol causing your blood vessels to dilate can affect the way that blood moves in and out of the penis. So while the blood may be going in, hypothetically it may be leaving too fast (mind you I am gathering this information from a Thrillist article so I can’t do enough to emphasize how unreliable it may be). The other potential cause of whisky dick is discoordination in your nervous system as your nervous system essentially becomes as sloppily drunk as you are. Finally, whisky dick can have nothing to do with alcohol whatsoever, and instead be a result of anxiety or nerves.
The hard truth of it all is that there’s nothing to be embarrassed about for either party. Whisky dick is usually the cause of things totally beyond one’s control. Nonetheless here are the tried and true solutions for this problem, which I personally can endorse as leaving you without totally awkward feelings about your hookup (although there will still be some — I’m just here to do a little damage control. Thank me later):
For the newfound owner of a shockingly flaccid penis who does not want to disappoint their hookup partner: provide oral sex. If you do not want to provide oral sex, you don’t deserve to be getting laid anyway. I firmly believe right to orgasm should be the 28th Amendment, but I’m a Cornell student, not a congresswoman.
For the person forced to engage with a penis that now hangs like a limp sock and is potentially smaller than your index finger: do your best to be cool. Obviously as mentioned before it’s easy to take it personally, but recognize that more often than not whisky dick has nothing to do with you. More often than not you have to move on and just act like everything is going to be okay. Essentially: definitely don’t cry.
That being said, as someone who doesn’t own a penis I cannot claim to understand the truth behind whisky dick. Maybe I just really wasn’t that hot. Maybe there is a true scientific explanation for the causes of this phenomenon. In fact, Cornell pre-med students, I’m waiting on you. Figure it out and let me know.
Jackie Daniels is a student at Cornell. Comments may be sent to [email protected]. Guest Room appears periodically this semester.