Depending on the study, up to one-third of women and half of men feel badly about their genitals. Dissatisfied men usually say their penises are too small. Dissatisfied women usually say their inner vaginal lips (labia minora) protrude too far beyond their outer lips (labia majora).
Genital dissatisfaction hurts psychologically. It makes people feel abnormal and anxious. Self-esteem suffers. Some avoid public changing rooms. Others shrink from partner sex, especially from oral sex, which puts partners’ eyeballs close to the source of their anxiety. Or they insist on sex in the dark, so lovers don’t see their genitals. In addition, genital dissatisfaction interferes with erotic arousal, orgasm, and sexual satisfaction.
Psychologists insist that most people who complain of genital dissatisfaction have vulvas or penises that are perfectly normal. A robust literature shows that the large majority of people’s genitals are in the normal range for size and appearance.
Nonetheless, in 2021, some 19,000 American women had labiaplasty, surgical minimization of the inner vaginal lips, and more than 50,000 American men had surgery to increase the length and/or girth of their penises. These operations now rank among the nation’s fastest-growing cosmetic surgical procedures.
Where Does Genital Dissatisfaction Come From?
Conventional wisdom blames pornography for genital dissatisfaction. Commercial porn selects for men with unusually large penises and for women whose inner lips are tucked neatly within their outer lips. People presumably compare themselves with porn actors. If their own genitals look different, they feel deficient.
But this explanation is controversial. Some studies support it, others do not. Recently, Swedish researchers took a new look at the issue.
The Study
The investigators from the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm (the university that awards the Nobel Prizes) used the Internet to recruit 3,503 adults, who were directed to one of two online surveys: one for those with vulvas, the other for those with penises. The sites included detailed instructions for measuring one’s genitals.
After measurement, most of the women reported that their inner lips protruded a bit. The amount varied from one-quarter to one-third of an inch.
After measurement, the average penis’ stretched flaccid length measured 4.9 inches. The researchers noted that stretched flaccid length provides a reasonable approximation of erection length.
Study participants were also asked how they felt about their genitals. The majority said they felt neutral or satisfied. But 30 percent of the women and 38 percent of the men registered dissatisfaction, which was severe in 4 and 5 percent, respectively. Among the women, 14 percent said they felt potentially interested in genital cosmetic surgery; among the men it was 11 percent.
Regarding pornography, 57 percent of the women and 94 percent of the men said they’d viewed it during the three months before enrolling in the study. Among the porn watchers, both the men and women said they’d watched an average of two to three days per month, but the men spent considerably more time per visit.
Porn viewing had no significant impact on participants’ feelings about their genitals. The researchers concluded: “Almost all men and more than half of all women consumed sexually explicit material to some degree, but this consumption was not associated with their genital self-image.”
This is the largest study to date to correlate genital dissatisfaction with porn exposure. The large sample size lends credence to its findings.
The finding that 4 percent of the women and 5 percent of the men expressed major genital dissatisfaction corroborates previous studies. But the researchers called it “somewhat alarming” that such large proportions said they had considered surgery: 14 percent of the women, 11 percent of the men.
Why?
So, the conventional wisdom holds that genital dissatisfaction is a function of porn viewing, but this large, well-designed study shows that’s not the case. What explains this contradiction? Here are some possibilities:
Pornography Essential Reads
- Before the Internet—that is, before 1996—pornography was available only at theaters, with films featuring professional actors, the men selected for jumbo penises, the women for large breasts and “perfect” labia. But today, decades later, the majority of porn is homemade. It presents a much broader diversity of genitals. The ascendance of amateur porn may explain why porn viewing today has no significant impact on genital self-esteem.
- Independent of porn, men have always joked about penis size, and teased men who appeared small. It’s quite possible that this explains men’s enduring anxieties about penis size.
- Cosmetic surgeons introduced labiaplasty in the 1980s. Since then, it has been the subject of many news reports and social media discussions; for example, on Reddit—r/LabiaplastySurgery. It’s quite possible that porn has less impact on women’s thinking than all the non-porn coverage of how the labia look.
The study showed that as partner sex increased, genital dissatisfaction decreased. Jokes, teasing, porn, and social media may affect people’s thinking about their genitals, but sexual partners are likely to have greater impact. As partner sex increases, people are likely to set aside doubts about their genitals, thinking, My partner seems fine with my penis/labia, so why should I fret?
Accept Yourself
We humans are self-critical. Compared with how others view us, most of us are more dissatisfied with our own appearance.
My humble plea: Let’s accept ourselves. The vast majority of people’s sexual organs are within the normal size range.
Short of surgery, women can’t do anything about their labia, but men can take steps to look their largest: See my previous post.
