Beyond the Size Myth

Sir, We Are Not Thinking About Your Penis

What the research says about size, sex, dick pics, and the cheating double standard

By Alicia Divico, LMHC, CAP|Personal Wellness Solutions

I have had some version of this conversation with men more times than I can count, in my office, on the podcast, and at parties where I made the mistake of telling someone what I do for a living. It usually goes like this: a man is quietly (or not so quietly) convinced that his penis is the center of a woman’s romantic and sexual universe. When I tell him it isn’t, he assumes I’m being polite.

I’m not being polite. I’m being accurate. So let’s do this once, properly, with the research.

First, the numbers: you are almost certainly normal

The most rigorous data we have comes from a 2015 systematic review by David Veale and colleagues, which pooled measurements taken by health professionals (not self-reports, which, let’s be honest, run generous) from up to 15,521 men. The average erect length was 5.16 inches (13.12 cm), with an average erect girth of about 4.6 inches. Most men fall fairly close to that average.

Now here’s the part that tells you everything. In a survey of more than 52,000 heterosexual adults, Lever, Frederick, and Peplau (2006) found that 85% of women were satisfied with their partner’s penis size, but only 55% of men were satisfied with their own. Read that again. The anxiety is overwhelmingly on one side of the bed.

What the research says: Veale’s team created their size charts specifically to help clinicians reassure men, because worry about penis size is common enough that, at its most severe, it can be part of body dysmorphic disorder. One honest limitation: the erect measurements came from a smaller subset of the sample (692 men), since erect measurement in a clinic is, understandably, harder to arrange.

“But women say size matters!” Let’s be honest about that, too

In fairness, I won’t pretend women have zero preferences. In a 2015 study, Prause and colleagues had 75 women select from 3D-printed models and found they preferred slightly-larger-than-average sizes, a touch larger for a one-time partner than for a long-term partner. Some women in that study also said size had played a role in ending a relationship.

Here’s the context that matters. First, an “ideal” chosen from a basket of plastic models isn’t the same as what actually leaves women satisfied with a real partner, and the large survey data above says most women already are. Second, preferences ran smaller for long-term partners, which tells you that the longer women plan to keep you around, the less this matters. And third, bigger is not free: the researchers themselves noted that larger size comes with costs, including discomfort. The takeaway isn’t “size is irrelevant to every woman.” It’s that size is a minor variable that men have inflated into a major one.

The organ that matters most in this conversation isn’t yours

If men want to worry about something, here’s a more productive target: the orgasm gap. In a large online survey of more than 52,000 U.S. adults (Frederick et al., 2018), 95% of heterosexual men said they usually or always orgasm during sex, compared with 65% of heterosexual women. Lesbian women? 86%. Same female bodies, very different outcomes. That gap isn’t biology. It’s technique, attention, and priorities.

A nationally representative study of 1,055 women (Herbenick et al., 2018) found that only 18.4% said intercourse alone was enough for them to orgasm. More than a third said clitoral stimulation was necessary, and another third said it made orgasms better. In the Frederick study, the women who orgasmed most often were more likely to have received oral sex, manual stimulation, and deep kissing, not more or longer intercourse.

In other words, gentlemen, the thing most women need for pleasure doesn’t depend on your length at all. It depends on whether you’re curious, attentive, and willing to ask what feels good.

In long-term relationships, sex isn’t even at the top of the list

The largest study ever done on what predicts relationship quality used machine learning across 43 longitudinal datasets and more than 11,000 couples (Joel et al., 2020). The strongest predictor of how happy people were in their relationship was how committed they believed their partner was. Next came appreciation. Sexual satisfaction did make the top five, and I want to be straight about that: sex matters. But notice the word. It’s satisfaction, which is about connection and mutual pleasure, not equipment.

Frequency has a ceiling too. Muise and colleagues (2016) found that more frequent sex was linked to greater well-being only up to about once a week; beyond that, there was no additional boost. And when Buss and colleagues (1990) asked people across 37 cultures what they wanted in a long-term partner, things like mutual love, dependable character, emotional stability, and kindness consistently ranked near the top, for both women and men.

What the research says: Want to know what actually kills women’s desire in long-term relationships? Harris, Gormezano, and van Anders (2022) studied more than 1,000 women partnered with men who had children. Women who carried a larger share of household labor were more likely to see their partner as a dependent, someone they had to look after, and that perception was linked to significantly lower sexual desire for him. No one has ever lost desire for a man because he was a quarter inch shorter than average. Plenty of women have lost it because he never once noticed they were out of milk.

Dick pics: women have been saying this for decades

This one shouldn’t need a research section, but here we are. A Pew Research Center survey found that 53% of women ages 18 to 29 had received sexually explicit images they didn’t ask for. Women have been telling men, loudly and repeatedly, that they don’t want them. And yet.

So why do men keep sending them? In a study of 1,087 heterosexual men, Oswald and colleagues (2020) found that about 48% had sent an unsolicited genital image, and the most common motivation was hoping to receive images or sexual attention in return. Men who sent them also scored higher, on average, on measures of narcissism and sexism.

Now compare that to how women actually react. In a follow-up study, Marcotte and colleagues (2021) found that women’s reactions were overwhelmingly negative: about half said they felt “grossed out,” 46% felt disrespected, and only about a quarter reported any positive reaction. Read those two studies side by side and you see the whole problem in one picture: the men are sending what they hope is an invitation, and women are receiving what they experience as a violation.

It’s also increasingly illegal. Texas made sending unsolicited lewd images a criminal offense in 2019. California and Virginia now allow recipients to sue senders. In England and Wales, “cyberflashing” is a criminal offense. And a bipartisan federal bill has been introduced to create a national right to sue. The rule is simple and has been for a long time: ask first. Every time. And if she doesn’t say yes, the answer is no.

The cheating double standard

Here’s the other conversation I’m tired of having: the idea that a woman who cheats is permanently “tainted,” while a man who cheats is just being a man.

Start with who actually cheats. According to General Social Survey data analyzed by the Institute for Family Studies, 20% of ever-married men and 13% of ever-married women reported having sex with someone other than their spouse while married. Among adults under 30, the gap essentially disappears; in that age group, women reported slightly higher rates. So men, historically, cheat more. And the harsher judgment lands on women anyway.

What the research says: A meta-analysis of 99 studies and more than 123,000 participants (Endendijk et al., 2020) confirmed that the sexual double standard still exists. People expected and evaluated sexual activity more positively for men than for women. The effect was small overall, but here’s the telling detail: when people were asked directly on questionnaires, they mostly denied holding a double standard. It showed up in how they actually evaluated men and women. In other words, plenty of people believe they’re fair right up until they’re judging someone. One caveat: this research covers sexual behavior broadly, not infidelity specifically, so it describes the cultural backdrop more than cheating judgments in particular.

Evolutionary psychologists have argued that men may feel more distressed by a partner’s sexual infidelity, and that finding has been debated for decades on methodological grounds. But even if men do feel it more intensely, an explanation for a feeling is not a justification for a moral rule. Betrayal is betrayal. It breaks the same trust and causes the same harm whoever does it. If you hold your partner to a standard, you hold yourself to it. That isn’t radical. It’s just consistent.

So what do women actually want you to focus on?

If you want to be the partner women are glad to have, the research points to a short, unglamorous list:

●Be visibly committed. The single strongest predictor of relationship happiness is believing your partner is in it for real.

●Show appreciation. Out loud, specifically, and often.

●Carry your share. Including the planning, remembering, and organizing, not just the tasks you’re asked to do.

●Be curious about her pleasure. Ask. Listen. Adjust. Don’t assume penetration is the main event.

●Ask before you send. Ask before you assume. Consent isn’t a mood-killer; it’s the baseline.

●Hold yourself to the standard you hold her to.

A word of compassion, because men are not the villains here

Here’s what I actually believe after more than fifteen years of doing this work: most men aren’t obsessed with their penises because they’re shallow. They’re obsessed because they were taught to be. Locker rooms, pornography that features statistical outliers as if they were the norm, an entire enhancement industry, and a culture that ties masculinity to sexual performance all do their part. That anxiety is manufactured, and men are paying for it with shame, insecurity, and sometimes real distress.

So if you’re a man reading this and you recognize yourself, I’m not here to mock you. I’m here to let you off the hook. You can stop measuring. Most of the women in your life never started. And if your worry about your body or your performance feels bigger than you can manage on your own, talk to a therapist or a doctor. That kind of distress is common, and it’s very treatable.

Now, please, go ask her how her day was. And put the phone down.

References

Buss, D. M., et al. (1990). International preferences in selecting mates: A study of 37 cultures. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 21(1), 5–47.

Endendijk, J. J., van Baar, A. L., & Deković, M. (2020). He is a stud, she is a slut! A meta-analysis on the continued existence of sexual double standards. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 24(2), 163–190.

Frederick, D. A., John, H. K. S., Garcia, J. R., & Lloyd, E. A. (2018). Differences in orgasm frequency among gay, lesbian, bisexual, and heterosexual men and women in a U.S. national sample. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 47(1), 273–288.

Harris, E. A., Gormezano, A. M., & van Anders, S. M. (2022). Gender inequities in household labor predict lower sexual desire in women partnered with men. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 51, 3847–3870.

Herbenick, D., Fu, T. C., Arter, J., Sanders, S. A., & Dodge, B. (2018). Women’s experiences with genital touching, sexual pleasure, and orgasm: Results from a U.S. probability sample of women ages 18 to 94. Journal of Sex & Marital Therapy, 44(2), 201–212.

Joel, S., Eastwick, P. W., Allison, C. J., et al. (2020). Machine learning uncovers the most robust self-report predictors of relationship quality across 43 longitudinal couples studies. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 117(32), 19061–19071.

Lever, J., Frederick, D. A., & Peplau, L. A. (2006). Does size matter? Men’s and women’s views on penis size across the lifespan. Psychology of Men & Masculinity, 7(3), 129–143.

Marcotte, A. S., Gesselman, A. N., Fisher, H. E., & Garcia, J. R. (2021). Women’s and men’s reactions to receiving unsolicited genital images from men. The Journal of Sex Research, 58(4), 512–521.

Muise, A., Schimmack, U., & Impett, E. A. (2016). Sexual frequency predicts greater well-being, but more is not always better. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 7(4), 295–302.

Oswald, F., Lopes, A., Skoda, K., Hesse, C. L., & Pedersen, C. L. (2020). I’ll show you mine so you’ll show me yours: Motivations and personality variables in photographic exhibitionism. The Journal of Sex Research, 57(5), 597–609.

Prause, N., Park, J., Leung, S., & Miller, G. (2015). Women’s preferences for penis size: A new research method using selection among 3D models. PLOS ONE, 10(9), e0133079.

Veale, D., Miles, S., Bramley, S., Muir, G., & Hodsoll, J. (2015). Am I normal? A systematic review and construction of nomograms for flaccid and erect penis length and circumference in up to 15,521 men. BJU International, 115(6), 978–986.

Wang, W. (2018). Who cheats more? The demographics of infidelity in America. Institute for Family Studies.