A large penis is the best defense

A Canadian man fends off rape charges with help from his massive member.

Published November 1, 2005 8:30PM (EST)

I could not help myself from posting a link to this story from the Toronto Sun, about a 21-year-old engineering student who is denying charges that he sexually assaulted a friend who spent the night with him in February 2004, claiming that his penis is just too big for such an act.

A urologist has shown the court a plastic model of a penis that supposedly approximates that of the defendant, Mischa Beutling. Beutling is 6-foot-7 and 240 pounds. His repli-cock, designed to simulate a semi-relaxed state, measured eight and a half inches in length by six and a half inches in girth. Yes. Girth.

Earlier in the trial, the same urologist had testified that Buetling's penis is in the top 5 percent size-wise among his patients. Really? Who's in the top 1 percent?

Buetling's defense rests on the urologist's testimony that a woman who has not given birth would have trouble having intercourse with a man whose penis was that big were she not sexually stimulated first. (Broadsheet aside: The fact that a woman is sexually aroused does not mean that it is OK to have sex with her against her will.)

The alleged victim's attorney, Bhavna Bhangu, has dismissed the defendant's "size theory," claiming that he has not measured himself and that her client did not get a chance to respond to claims about his breadth and heft while on the witness stand.

A verdict in the case is expected next month.

UPDATE: A reader, posting in letters, points out my error in the above item. Bhavna Bhangu is in fact the Crown attorney in the case.


By Rebecca Traister

Rebecca Traister writes for Salon. She is the author of "Big Girls Don't Cry: The Election that Changed Everything for American Women" (Free Press). Follow @rtraister on Twitter.

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