Global Body Image of Men: Does Penis Size Matter?

One in five men are unhappy with their penis size and the numbers are steadily increasing.

As you’re well aware, if you’re alive and kicking, the media portrays penis size as a direct correlation to both power and masculinity. Small penis? Make sure you hide that fact because someone just may deem you not ‘manly enough.’

Pornographic films are no saints when it comes to portraying an average sized penis because- put simply, they don’t.  The term “extreme over exaggeration” comes to mind. Moreover, porn emphasizes the woman’s response to the hyperbolic penises. Women’s over exaggerated moans and screams could be another reason men feel dissatisfied with their size. It perpetuates the message that the bigger penis you have, the greater the likelihood you’ll get lucky, and the more likely you are to please your sexual partner.

In a study conducted by the American Psychological Association, “66% of men rated their penis as average, 22% as large, and 12% as small. Self-reported penis size was correlated positively with height and negatively with body fat level. Furthermore,  85% of women were satisfied with their partner’s penis size, only 55% of men were satisfied with their own penis size, 45% of men wanted to be larger, and 0.2% wanted to be smaller.”

Men do worry about the inadequacies of their size and it is unrealistic to think that they don’t.The penis pump industry is flourishing because of this very fact. Penis enlargement is a risky process with no guaranteed results, yet many men opt for the pump to satisfy their partners. The research concludes that the average penis size is 8.9 cm long. Another interesting fact we uncovered is that penis size is, in fact, related to foot size.

“Past research with sizable samples has found penis size to be correlated positively with height (Edwards, 1998; Ponchietti et al., 2001) and negatively with weight (Ponchietti et al., 2001), but in one small-scale study (Schneider et al., 2001) it was found to be unrelated to age.”

As for our attitudes? Recent studies attempt to describe the correlation between penis size and satisfaction. More than 50,000 heterosexual men and women, ages 18–65, provided an opportunity to examine their perceptions of both their own penis size and the response to their penis size as described by women. About 55% of men in this study claimed they were satisfied with their penis size. Among these men, 46% of them stated that they would be more satisfied with a larger penis. Of that same population, 8% of men described their size as ‘small.’ Interestingly enough, self-reported penis size was correlated to height. The taller groups of men in the study were two to three times more likely to report having a larger penis. Self-reported penis size was also related to age. Older men are more likely to report large penis size. On a similar token, older men reported the desire to have a larger penis. So even as a man gets older, the desire to be larger is still there.

How do women factor into men’s satisfaction of their size? 67% of women claimed that their partner’s size was ‘average.’ Other women were a little less generous — 27% of women claimed that their partner’s penis was ‘small.’ The majority of women who rated as ‘average’ and ‘small’ sated satisfaction with their partner’s size. And as hypothesized, women who rated their partner’s size as ‘small’ were not satisfied with the size, which reiterates the overarching idea that size does matter.

We’ll leave you with this: “if poor global body image is caused by penis dissatisfaction or perceived small penis size, then interventions addressing men’s concerns with penis size might enhance global body image.”

We should love ourselves unconditionally and dwell less on our dissatisfaction so that we can make space for our partners to explore intimately. When we do feel uncomfortable or dissatisfied, we should feel encouraged to speak freely and deconstruct negative body images.

Wanna see more IRL? Check out this amazing video:

Sources:

http://dfred.bol.ucla.edu/LeverFrederickPeplau-2006PMM-PenisSizeSatisfaction.pdf