Study shows that an alarming number of people are unhappy with the look of their genitals – and needlessly turning to cosmetic surgery to compensate
The perennial question – does size matter? – vexes men all over the world. The prevalence of seemingly blessed men in sexually explicit material (yes, we mean porn) does nothing to allay our fears and in fact only fuels the feelings of inadequacy.
A Swedish study of more than 3,500 anonymous individuals (men and women) set out to discover the factors that influenced genital self-image – and whether these same factors could predict about one’s feelings about one’s manhood).
The researchers looked at the relationship between genital size (the, cough, size of the package) and self-image, how much sexually explicit material was consumed, sexual activity, age and openness towards cosmetic surgery.
Does size matter?
The results were pretty frightening. More than 33% of respondents said they were unhappy with the appearance of their equipment, with 11.3% of men saying they would even resort to surgery to give them more length.
Conversely, those with larger penises had a higher genital self-image score. And nearly 94% of the male respondents had watched sexually explicit material in the last three months.
The researchers posed the question: why do people become dissatisfied with the appearance of their genitals? “There is evidence showing that men with severe genital dissatisfaction may have smaller penises than controls, but most of the evidence suggests that both men and women may be dissatisfied despite having perfectly normal genitals,” states the research.
In other words, most of us are pretty average – and that’s just fine! And rather than cosmetic surgery, the clinical implications for the study showed that psychological intervention may be needed as a less drastic and more longer term strategy. In other words, if you believe you’re big enough, then you probably are!
Being dissatisfied with the size of your equipment is, says the study, relatively common. And the vast majority of us are worrying for no reason. To quote another well-worn (but more apt phrase) – it’s not the size that matters, it’s what you do with it that counts!
