The internet has now reached the point where men are hanging weighted shopping bags from their penises in hopes of gaining an inch. The downside is that you can also end up with pain, scar tissue, erectile dysfunction, or a permanently altered erection angle. That is a wild amount of risk for one inch.
Clavicular, the 20-year-old looksmaxxing influencer whose real name is Braden Peters, described the method on an upcoming episode of Howie Mandel’s podcast, Howie Mandel Does Stuff. He was talking about “printmaxxing,” or trying to make the outline of your penis more visible through clothing, when the conversation moved to pumping, stretching, and something called the “shopping bag hang.”
It works pretty much the way the name suggests. Peters fills a shopping bag with books or weights, wraps it around his penis, and lets gravity take over. The idea is to stretch the suspensory ligament that anchors the penis to the pubic bone. He claims doing this consistently can add about an inch. He also said he used to do it while driving, which…okay.
Medical penile traction is real. Doctors use specially designed devices that apply a controlled amount of tension, and studies have found modest increases in length in some patients, including men with Peyronie’s disease. The important word there is controlled. A medical device knows how much force it’s applying. A tote bag full of hardcovers does not.
Men Are Hanging Weighted Shopping Bags From Their Penises to Make Them Bigger
The penis is also full of blood vessels, nerves, and erectile tissue that can be injured when too much force is involved. Bruising, swelling, pain, loss of sensation, scar tissue, erectile dysfunction, and penile curvature are all possible. Damage to the suspensory ligament can also change the angle and stability of an erection, potentially leaving the penis looking shorter than before anyone brought books into this.
This trend also stems from a much bigger internet obsession with looksmaxxing, where people chase ways to change everything from jawlines to body proportions. Brandwatch counted 806,000 online mentions of looksmaxxing between September 2025 and February 2026, involving 405,000 unique authors. Among posts its system categorized for sentiment, 84% were negative. Despite all that, the community keeps growing. No pun intended.
Dr. Rajesh Patel, president of Associated Urological Specialists, told the New York Post that experimenting with weights or aggressive stretching can turn a cosmetic concern into a medical injury, and some of the damage can be permanent.
Peters acknowledged that the angle of an erection “will lower a bit.” Given the list of things that can happen when you hang a weighted shopping bag from your penis, that seems like a serious understatement.
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