Porn is full of larger than average erect penises. Men look at porn and worry that they are not large enough. The average penis is about five and a half to six inches erect. The girth varies, but some women are mostly focused on a man’s net worth more than their penis size. Apparently, the net worth turns some on!
From my work as a certified sex therapist, too many men fret about their penises. Are their penises appealing? Are they too small? Most men do not have penises that are too small. There is no safe way to surgically enlarge a penis. I appeared on a national TV show about this years ago. I was with a surgeon who performed enlargements with fat cells. The research on this procedure reveals that the surgery is not safe and it can result in less attractive penis. I won the debate with the surgeon.
Porn depicts an unrealistic image of the perfect penis. I see men who worry so much about their penises that they hesitate to have intercourse. The truth is that a larger than average penis can hurt a woman. Painful intercourse is no fun. The large penis may hit the cervix or hurt the woman from too much girth. While most vaginas can accommodate larger than average girth, the length is more often a problem.
Women do not usually complain about penises, unless the penis is too large. A few wish their partners had larger penises, but this is more often a concern with men than with women. Men often compare their penises with the penises they imagine that other men have. They falsely believe that porn accurately shows penises that women desire.
I have had women who are porn stars in my practice. They make millions of dollars acting in porn, but they do not yearn for big penises because they can hurt. Some wish more porn star men had smaller penises. In real life they do not search for enormous penises!
Porn is the major sex educator in our society. Men watch porn to masturbate, and they worry that their penis is not adequate. The problem is that porn is not typically a source of accurate sex education. The focus on aggressive behavior, incest and violence is a disservice to men and women.
In short, porn needs to grow up and become more sophisticated and more accurate. We need erotic fantasies and scripts to trigger happy orgasms. Most porn lacks scripts to enhance eroticism. The camera focuses on the penis and a woman’s apparent pleasure, but one can easily tell that some women grimace from a penis that hurts them.
Gay men sometimes express the same fears about their penises. They see the same biases in porn, and they too worry “am I big enough?” These worries make no sense for gay men or heterosexual men. As a sex therapist and a couple’s counselor I work with men who have these fears. I help men and couples get beyond an obsession with penis size.