[photon_garden]

Appreciate you engaging on this, and I have sent an email to the author.

I personally found that venting about it did achieve something — disagreeing with folks in the comments prompted me to look up concrete numbers on how many men are likely to experience shame around their penis size.

I also think it helps nudge social norms towards making that kind of language less acceptable (both here on HN and elsewhere), and in a best case may have prompted some folks to reflect on how they speak and write.

Is that speculative benefit worth the conflict it created? I think so — when managed appropriately, conflict is a normal and healthy part of most human relationships. And IMO the wellbeing of ~2 million men is worth stirring the pot a little.

But you might disagree and you're the mod, so for better or worse your opinion is the one that matters here.

[tomhow]

I hear you, it's just that the guidelines are there for a reason, which is to optimize discussions for intellectual curiosity. Avoiding generic tangents is an important part of that. We hope we can be the kind of place where people can resist the urge to succumb to either titillation or indignation when an article includes what is clearly intended as a silly joke. We all know what it's like when someone reacts to this kind of thing at a dinner party or in a classroom.