Manhood review: inside the Dallas clinic selling thicker penises

Men are handing over thousands of dollars at Bill Moore's Dallas clinic for hyaluronic acid injections that promise a thicker penis. Daniel Lombroso's documentary Manhood follows them onto the treatment table, braced for the needle, and finds that none of them is sure what they are actually looking for.

Moore has carved his niche in the crowded US cosmetic procedure market with his own technology, PhalloFill®. The treatment is essentially a version of lip filler pumped into the shaft of the penis. Used together with a complementary gadget, PhalloSleeve® — a sturdy, rubbery tube the colour of parcel tape, like an extra-thick condom — it promises increased girth without the unsightly nodures that can form when filler shifts over time.

Moore is quite the salesman. "He and his wife are having better sex than ever," he says of a client who, more than 25 years into his marriage, has recently become a size "6.25" — a circumference in inches, judging by the solid silicone cylinder Moore weighs in his hand as a visual aid. "It's a pretty good size for a lot of women who have had children."

What does the film actually want?

Manhood floats between sad stories of modern male self-image without settling into a single argument. It touches on looksmaxxing and the manosphere — at least one participant has picked up questionable ideas from podcasts. It also examines pornography's flooding of male brains with extreme imagery, and asks how unrealistic beauty goals for women can lead insecure men to blame their ills on their own imperfect appearances. Shame, trauma and homophobia sit in the frame too.

For many of Moore's customers, the fix is not simple. Ruben has three children under five with his partner, Lana, plus two who live with his ex. The couple cannot afford big medical bills. Lana says she is baffled by Ruben's desire to extend a penis that works perfectly well. Ruben performs terrible standup comedy to a dozen uninterested drinkers in a neighbourhood bar. Then he describes being seriously sexually assaulted by another boy at school at around the age of 10, and his tragic story falls into place.

Another lost soul in Moore's orbit is David, whose destabilising incident was a botched enlargement elsewhere. It left him, in Moore's words, with "not even squishy lumps. Very hard lumps, like rock. It looked somewhat like the penis of an alien." David's baby face and ripped torso have made him a hit on OnlyFans; his mother discovered he was gay when she was sent clips of her son's homemade porn. Moore — who tells his own affecting story of growing up gay without being able to say it at home — offered David client care that evolved into mentorship, friendship and then something else. The film shows David asleep in bed, snuggled between Moore and his partner, Clint.

Other clients speak as the syringe pricks them. One argues that small penises are unjustly cited as an explanation for everything from antisocial behaviour to serial murder. Another has an inoperable brain tumour and wants to live the rest of his life exactly how he chooses.

Every man in the film has decided that life would be better with a broader sword. But the malaises Lombroso gently identifies in Manhood — shame, trauma, homophobia, financial precarity — look like more complex problems than Moore's injections can solve.