Are Stereotypes a Time Saver?

Stereotypes Save Me Time, read a friends tee shirt. The primes being that you dont have to get to know someone personally, you only need to believe what you have said about what characteristics a group of people exhibit. For example, Jewish people are greedy, Latins are lazy but good lovers, black men are lazy and well endowed, black women are insatiable nymphomaniac, Asian men are tiny, etc... Most stereotypes are not based on facts, but someone printed a rumor and it stuck. I have spent the better part of my adult life trying to dispel the stereotypes that are directed towards me. In High School, I was a Jock. My junior year, I was second in city in wrestling and favored for 1st in state my senior year. My Senior year, we were state football champions. Given a long football season, I did not wrestle. Although I was good at football, basketball and wrestling, I wanted to play tennis, ski and dive. Not sports that black people were supposed to do and, by the way, I would not have tried had we not been bussed to a white school. Most of the state champion football team was offered scholarships to college. I did not want to be known for my athletic abilities; I wanted to be known for how smart I was (I was good at math) so I tested into the engineering school and, took a fitness and conditioning class and only played pickup basketball and tennis. I would always get the You play tennis? question when I show up on the court alone with my racquet and tube of balls. And the you arent going out for the team? when playing basketball in the field house. Being a 6ft 3in tall, 200lbs, muscle bound black man, it was expected that I would be on the basketball or football team. I resented the implication that I could not be good at any other sport. Or that the only reason that I was in college was because I was on scholarship to play one of the sports Black men play. The Black Male Stereotype that affected my most was the size of my penis. Several instances influenced my negative body image. My father died in a car accident when I was 1. Although my mother was young and cute, she had 3 kids. She dated a lot but not many men stayed around long. I was the man of the house. My uncles made sure to tell me that every time they saw me. All this is to say that I didnt see any adult males nude except for in Porn magazines that my friends and I would find. We didnt know that the men pictured in the magazines were larger than normal, but it started my body image issue. My older sister had a couple of girl friends over one day. They sat my younger brother and me on their laps and said, show me yours and I will show you mine. They looked at ours and laughed and my sister said see, I told you they were small. When I started puberty, I asked to see my friend at the time who was a couple of years older if I could see his hair. I know now how awkward it was for him after my son asked me to do the same thing. The next instance that influenced my thinking was a sport physical when I was in Jr. High. I was in the exam room in my under ware. I was erect as most boys are at that age. The Dr. did the bulk of the exam while I had my under ware on. He pulled them down and said, Thats coming along well, small head though. I dont know if I have grown any since then but the part that stuck me the most was the small head. That more than anything made me embarrassed to be nude in front of girls. I was nude in front of other boys in the showers at school but there was a strict Dont Look Down rule or you would be labeled as a Fag. In the 70s and 80s, no one wanted to be labeled that way even if you were. We would strip at our lockers, walk around the corner to the showers, shower, grab a towel, dry off and get dressed in less than 15 minutes. In diving class, Speedos were the required uniform. No one cared what you looked like in that class so long as you could dive. I did enjoy the stares and the looks up and down form female friends from school and church when I wore them to the public pools. Having a larger scrotum makes it look like I am packing more than I actually am. I couldnt be nude in front of them and ruin the illusion. I would kiss and grind girls as I got older, but sex was out of the question, girls were not on the pill and guys had to actually go to the pharmacy counter and ask the pharmacist for condoms. It was not until my senior year of high school that I had a steady girlfriend. She was the first girl other than Drs. that saw me nude. Even though we had been feeling each other up in the stairwell at the school, we had not actually been nude. Her reaction was Wow! And its going to get bigger? Well, it didnt get any bigger, but our sex was good. We broke up after prom and it was years before I was able to be nude in front of another woman. Fast forward 40 years, 100 pounds and 2 kids later. As an A/V and Computer/IT technician, I still get mistaken for a professional football player, security or a police officer. I am far and away from the hard-cut muscle bound body of my 20s. Being overweight is one thing and having a smaller penis is another reason not to want to be nude in front of others. Especially now that my penis draws up inside of my body and doesnt dangle like most others. But when I am nude, none of those things seem to matter. When I am nude, I can just be and not pretend to be a big black man with a big dick. I have not once had someone say, what team did you play for? while nude, instead its so what do you do? Not once has anyone said (to my face) so much for the myth or I though you would be bigger. I love being nude, especially around other nudist. They take the time to find out Who the individual person is. I am not my Stereotype!