“Is it still redeemable? Third time’s the charm” read the message I sent to a guy in my building whom I’d turned down twice before. I then immediately shut off my phone for 10 minutes for fear of the rejection that might follow. If I hadn’t, I would have been tempted to check it every 30 seconds for a reply, or even for just the ellipse typing bubble. Not having sex in a week and a half was enough to constitute a college dry spell for me, and I felt like I was revirginizing. I could not allow that to happen and had to get rid of those spider webs growing in my vagina ASAP. The “sure, I’ll come down right now!” reply was all it took for me to find my solace once again.

In the 15 minutes that followed, I had an anticlimactic college sexual experience so unemotional that even making eye contact would have been deemed inappropriate for the situation. Neither the pretense nor the activity itself were charming, which was why I felt justified in discussing it with my closest friends, penis size and all.

Because my friends and I openly discuss every one of our sexual encounters like high schoolers in a locker room, I had to give them a full breakdown of the mishaps. I had never considered penis size as a factor when deciding whether or not to sleep with someone. As soon as my sexual partner’s penis size became an issue of incompatibility during sex, however, I began to reflect upon dick lengths, even though the idea of dismissing someone because his or her genitalia isn’t mainstream porn-worthy clearly seemed absurd and unrealistic. “At least you didn’t choke, right?” my friend joked as we continued our conversation about ideal penis sizes.

It is hard not to be unsettled by how problematic body shaming has become in our society. Still, I felt comfortable talking about my latest sexual partner’s “mediocrity,“ insulting him based on his penis size. But as my one-night stand walked past me a couple of days later, I got a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach, realizing how ridiculously superficial and cruel all my comments were.

In “Discipline and Punish,” Michel Foucault determines that there is a preconceived notion that we are constantly being watched and judged by society. And boy, is that a fucking difficult way to live. Not only that, but society also propagates what constitutes “good” and whether or not we fit into that category. It has the power to designate whether or not we are worthy and to alter the value we place on ourselves. Because of the emphasis society places on appearances, how others perceive us becomes how we perceive ourselves. Foucault put it best when he wrote, “He who is subjected to a field of visibility … becomes the principle of his own subjection.” We should not imprison ourselves, and we should not determine our worth by how others perceive us, especially if that perception is based purely on physical attributes. No one’s physique should be what is primarily evaluated — not Jen Selter’s butt and certainly not someone’s dick size.

As of Sunday, there are 73,050 Instagram posts with the hashtag “bodygoals.” Clearly, there is a social media trend of users worshiping particular body types. But you should know that even though you may post a picture of your favorite celeb’s body and hashtag it as “goals,” you are probably never going to look like that, and that’s all right. We all have our own unique perfections to achieve, and attempting to look like someone else is an impossible mission. All any one of us can do is strive to be the best version of ourself, and that best version is not going to be the same as any specific celebrity’s. How ridiculous would it be for my hookup to post a picture of a pornstar’s penis with the hashtag #dickgoals?

It is never OK to shame anyone’s gender or body. It is no more acceptable for me to place a value on someone based on his penis than it is for anyone to insult a female’s physique. According to the National Association for Anorexia Nervosa and Associated Disorders, “women are much more likely than men to develop an eating disorder. Only an estimated 5 to 15 percent of people with anorexia or bulimia are male.” Even though there is a larger societal opposition to body-shaming women, body-shaming men is just as inappropriate and certainly just as hurtful. I never commented directly to the person whose penis size I discussed, but the effects of the comments remain as influential as ever. By playing into societal norms of judgment, I have increased the acceptability of trash-talking. As in Foucault’s idea of self-subjection and self-imprisonment, by imprisoning others, we are creating a prison in which we will ultimately trap ourselves. By not denouncing body shaming, I allow it to continue to exist and grow. Even in a private conversation, mutual respect should be maintained, free of labels and metaphorical prison bars.

Whether or not you choose to judge others by society’s conception of ideal body image is what’s important at the end of the day, not dick size. Lowering someone’s self-esteem through thoughtless and insensitive comments — that, my friends, is unredeemable.

“Off the beat” columns are written by Daily Cal staff members until the summer’s regular opinion writers are selected.

Contact the opinion desk at [email protected] or follow us on Twitter @dailycalopinion.

Correction(s):

A previous version of this article misidentified the book “Discipline and Punish” as “Discipline and Punishment.”