This column may contain strong language, sexual content, adult humor, and other themes that may not be suitable for minors. Parental guidance is strongly advised.

“Women hold up half the sky,” Mao Zedong famously declared, referring to his revolutionary belief that men and women were comrades, equal partners in all things in the eyes of the law and society.

Sometimes it seems, however, that women hold up ALL of the sky, while men like the current clutch of Republican presidential hopefuls bicker about the size of their dicks. Clearly, they’re too busy comparing their hand measurements and imputing the length of their penises to actually do their part in holding up the damn sky. Which would explain why it appears to be falling down on us. Rumors that the end of the world is nigh may not be far-fetched; the nomination of the one buffoon who primps the most extravagantly, insults others the most egregiously, lies the most blatantly, and screeches in the jungle the most stridently would perhaps doom civilization as we know it.

Overcompensating, much?

As we’ve noted before, a man’s true Achilles heel isn’t his pride, it’s his penis. The proof is as blindingly obvious as the fake orange branded-by-the-sunbed glow on Donald Trump’s face. And his curiously un-orange hands.

While rules of decency forbid the nudity of any sort during the Republican debates, Trump’s strategy seemingly revels in the obscene and vulgar, the bombastic, and misogynistic. So last week his opponents decided to step up their game and sink to his level. And, as it turns out, the secret weapon was right in the palm of Trump’s hands.

And Trump played right into their hands. Because you can insult his lack of breeding and his lack of integrity and his shocking lack of respect for the facts, but not for all the media mileage in the world would Trump like to be called out for his hands, creepily out of proportion with the rest of his beefy, bloated body.

The man who once dismissed Heidi Klum as no longer being a “10”—notwithstanding the fact that if not for his money, he himself looks no more attractive than a lizard—went into full attack mode, thundering against Marco Rubio, who had mocked “The Donald” by calling him “Little Marco.”

Rubio retaliated by pointing out how surprisingly small Trump’s hands were—“He’s 6’2” and I don’t understand why his hands are the size of someone who’s 5’2”… And you know what they say about men with small hands…”

So Trump used the Republican debate as his personal platform to defend his manhood against Rubio: “He referred to my hands and said, if they’re small, something else must be small. I guarantee you there’s no problem. I guarantee you.”

The problem is, a guarantee from Donald Trump is as authentic as a degree from Trump University.

Any hope of civility soon dissipated as the debate degenerated into a playground brawl, prompting Samantha Bee to observe brilliantly on her show, Full Frontal, “I don’t mean to be sexist, but men are just too emotional to be President.”

And viewers were left with completely unwanted visions of Trump’s penis disproportionately miniscule in comparison with his oversized ego. John Oliver surmised on Last Week Tonight that, considering his “cocktail-weiner-size fingers,” it must look like “a Cheeto with the cheese dust rubbed off.”

Ewww.

Penis size has long been held to be a major marker of how a man measures his worth, competence, and prowess in comparison to others, suggests Cosmpolitan magazine.

Fair enough. But there’s something to be said about males who feel the need to project such larger-than-life representations of themselves. Classic narcissistic personality disorder, yes, but also classic overcompensation, I would suspect. With someone like Trump, it’s not enough to have the affirmations of his virility—the serial wives, all seemingly emerging from the same mold—but the very symbols of his self-perceived alpha-male power have to be gargantuan in scale, with extravagant excess the defining design aesthetic. And they have to have his name on everything: Trump Tower, Trump casinos, Trump steaks, Trump this, Trump that.

Oooh, why oh why is masculinity so fragile?

Contrast Trump’s juvenile outbursts with a man so clearly confident in his masculinity, and the man he hopes to succeed as president: Barack Obama. At the risk of pandering to racial stereotypes, it is probably safe to say that size will never be an issue with POTUS. And Trump would never dream of taking Obama on in that department. I mean, have you seen the size of Barack’s hands?

With a similar comedy freak show vibe characterizing the upcoming Philippine elections, let’s just say size isn’t expected to be an issue. I mean, in this corner we have an adulterous Dirty Harry wannabe, a lifeless cardboard cut-out of what a president should be, a diminutive thief who has raised a son who somehow needs his aides to hold an umbrella over his head in the middle of a dry, moonlit night, a once-pugnacious woman who thinks her countrymen are all stupid and proves it by running with the unrepentant son of a dictator who plundered the country like it was his personal piggy bank for 20 years, and a briefly stateless foundling who proved that she was slyer and savvier than anyone ever gave her credit for by teaming up with one of the sleaziest senators ever—and that’s a title many of his colleagues are vying for.

Discounting the women running for office, let’s focus on the men. When you consider that the average penis length in its flaccid state for Filipino men is around three to four inches, there’s really not that much to brag about. But overcompensation can come in many forms—the number of girlfriends being paraded, the number of bodyguards being flaunted, the size of the cars that make up their fleet… In the absence of certain endowments, there are always ways to assert one’s masculinity.

As a friend of mine said the other day, “I don’t care how big or how small it is, if he can’t find my clit, he’s not worth shit.”

B. Wiser is the author of Making Love in Spanish, a novel published earlier this year by Anvil Publishing and available in National Book Store and Powerbooks, as well as online. When not assuming her Sasha Fierce alter-ego, she takes on the role of serious journalist and media consultant. 

For comments and questions, e-mail [email protected].

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are solely those of the author in her private capacity and do not in any way represent the views of Preen.ph, or any other entity of the Inquirer Group of Companies.

Art by Dorothy Guya