What is Pussy Envy and Why Do Some Men Have It?

I’ll give you a hint — some men actually believe the logic: the testicles are fragile ergo the vagina is strong.

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Imagine a fight between two men. One man kicks the other man in the testicles, and the wounded man falls to the ground. A victory for the kicker, but only this time. The victor is only as strong as the guy who lost. Why? Because both dudes have balls. Therefore the victor is just a fight away from the same fate.

Now imagine a fight between a man and a woman. One might think that the man, with his superior upper-body strength, will easily win. Not so fast. All it takes is one swift kick to his most vulnerable region by the female, and he buckles, curling into the fetal position. The female triumphs. Can the man ever retaliate? No. She doesn’t have balls.

This, in a nutshell (pun intended), describes pussy envy, a fetish wherein men “envy” the vagina because they view the fragility of their testicles as a weakness. The logic is sloppy — testicles are delicate ergo the vagina is strong — but alas, this is a sexual kink that some men actually have.

One respondent from the Twitter-sphere wrote to me:

“As a boy I noticed the differences between men and women and was embarrassed by the fact that most of the parts that make us men are also our most vulnerable body parts. People equate the testicles with strength and the vagina with being afraid. That seems odd considering vaginas are so resilient and bring life into the world while the testicles can’t handle more than a flick without causing the owner to fall to the ground.”

You say people equate the vagina with being afraid? I wonder why that might be?

Still, the fetish pussy envy is not the same as womb and vagina envy, a term coined by Neo-Freudian psychiatrist Karen Horney, which forwards the belief that men are innately jealousy of the reproductive capabilities of the female body. Instead the moderator of the Yahoo group dedicated to the fetish sums up the fetish as follows:

“If you have ever been hit in the balls by a girl and have always wanted to get them back, but realized you can’t and then felt a strange sensation to envy [in] your groin, then you have PussyEnvy. [sic]”

This “strange sensation” is linked to arousal, and sexualizing one’s fear about female strength is how these men reconcile their vulnerable feelings.

Another respondent wrote in:

“I was born with body parts that women don’t have and it makes me feel envious. Women can never feel the pain or embarrassment or weakness of getting hit in these body parts and don’t ever have to worry about it. The fetish is a way to explore the discomfort of this feeling by giving into the embarrassment and inferiority instead of trying to avoid the feelings and deny them.”

In other words, men with pussy envy eroticize their “envy” for the vagina as a means to make peace with their irrational fears. Because these fears are irrational. Men are not more vulnerable than women, nor are they in any real danger of getting kicked in the testicles on a daily basis like women are of getting raped. Men have much more power than women in general. They make more money than women, they have more control in government, and as a result they hold the power to legislate over women’s bodies, as we’ve seen with this most recent spate of abortion “heartbeat” bills. They are also better equipped to commit sexual assault against women. Ever heard of #MeToo? But men realize they have one delicate aspect of their bodies, so they throw out the baby with the bath water, and decide they’re the weak ones?

Susan Schorn, in her piece on self-defense for Jezebel “How to Kick a Guy in the Balls: An Illustrated Guide,” points out the irony of pussy envy.

“Some 20 to 50 percent of female sexual assault victims suffer genital injuries. Often they have internal trauma, bleeding, pelvic fractures and urethral damage — injuries that can be deadly if not recognized and treated.”

A member of the Gender Critical subreddit, a feminist group, exposes the same paradox:

“Men have an exploitable weakness that even a woman can use against them, deal with it. Don’t worry, there’s not an epidemic of serial ball-kickers going on man hating rampages, and all the other physical advantages men have are not going away (as we’re reminded of by the horrific levels of domestic violence and rape men commit).”

My understanding has always been that my vagina is a liability. Nothing against vaginas. I love mine. My boyfriend even recently said that he’s jealous of the duration and intensity of my vaginal orgasms. But apart from that, the fact that I can easily be overpowered by a man and penetrated against my will has always filled me with a sense of vulnerability and fear.

Men can get off on the belief that the vagina is stronger all they want, but I assure you that if you kick me in the vagina it’s going to hurt like hell, too. And let’s not forget that famous quote from our own President, which encapsulates how some men feel about women:

“Grab them by the pussy. You can do anything.”

Photo by Alora Griffiths

Pussy Envy vs. Penis Envy

It should also be understood that pussy envy is not the opposite of Freud’s penis envy, the theory that girls fear their mothers will damage their vaginas to punish them for their sexual feelings for their fathers. Pussy envy is also not linked to Freud’s castration anxiety, the same trepidation experienced by boys about their father’s loping off their dicks in retribution for their desires for their mothers.

However, pussy envy does often develop when men are young, so shared another anonymous member on the pussy-envy Yahoo page.

“I felt very self-conscious about having balls. Having seen in movies where the guy gets kicked in the balls and is incapacitated, made me very uncomfortable. I did not ever think it was funny. I felt like those scenes were wrong because men were supposed to be tougher than girls, and those scenes shined a light to everyone that the idea of men’s physical superiority was untrue.”

What does this say about what we expect of men in our society, and more importantly what they expect of themselves? Men realize that women have one strength over them, and they crumple into tears? Women have been dealing with this shit for years, fellas.

But our culture also doesn’t expect women to be invincible like it does men.

“Men will do anything to avoid being seen as vulnerable and to keep up this image of men being tough and masculine,” yet another respondent shared. So when men can’t live up to this fiction, some develop envy for the vagina?

“It’s embarrassing as a man to admit,” another anonymous member of the pussy-envy Yahoo group wrote in a post. “Men need to always be tougher than women. And realizing that our manhood makes us weak compared to women hurts our male pride.”

Schorn isn’t buying it though. “It’s more than a fair trade, running the world, even if you have to keep one hand over your crotch at all times.”

A fear is a fear, though, and so gaining arousal from one’s fear is, after all, a way to control it. Think of it like exposure therapy: by confronting that which scares you most, you conquer that fear. By sexualizing their panic about feeling weak because of their testicles, men with pussy envy take back the power they feel they’ve lost. Any left-over apprehension is soothed by the salve of an orgasm.

If only I could walk home alone at night with my vibrator and that was all I needed to quell my dread about getting raped.