Does size matter? Study finds correlation between negative perception of genitals & mental health issues

It’s an age-old debate in the gay community: does size matter?

Well, according to a new study in the scientific journal The Aging Male, it does. At least, in the eyes of the beholder.

The relatively novel study — which examined 75 male participants with an average age of 47-years-old between March and June 2022 — found a moderate correlation between men’s “self-perception” of their genitalia and their “susceptibility to depression and anxiety.”

How about we take this to the next level?

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Essentially, the less confident a man felt about their penis’ size or appearance, the more likely they were to experience mental health challenges and in turn, decreased sexual satisfaction.

It’s like your mom always said, “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder!”

Naturally, men who felt they were more endowed “tended to have a more positive perception of their genitals.” In contrast, men who identified as smaller-sized “were more likely to report a poor genital self-image.”

Interestingly, the study did not report on each participant’s exact tool size, though they denoted a “slightly positive correlation” between flaccid and stretched sizes and a higher positive perception.

As researcher Adil Emrah Sonbahar told PsyPost, discourse around “size matters” and body image influenced his decision to delve into the topic.

“In today’s changing world, people have begun to think about self-image and sexual performance more than before,” he said. “When considering these issues, personal perception — how individuals view themselves — is very important.”

And he’s right.

Like it or not, we do talk a lot about size in both good and bad ways.

Weeks ago, at the 2024 Democratic National Convention, Barack Obama gave a powerful speech about unity and hope while making a few jabs about Trump’s “weird obsession with crowd sizes.”

(That included, of course, an impromptu hand gesture that broke the internet.)

Additionally, French pole vaulter Anthony Ammirati went viral after failing to medal at the 2024 Olympics. Unfortunately, his, erm, well-sized package knocked the bar over.

And while the moment earned him a legion of new Instagram followers, we can’t imagine his genital “self-perception” was highly positive at the moment.

That said, the study had one major blind spot: all of the participants were heterosexual.

Fittingly, Sonbahar concluded that there should “be more prospective studies about sexual perception” in men across all sexual orientations.

Since the initial study’s results were so stark, he hypothesized that these mental health effects are not only widespread but feelings that should be accounted for before men take any drastic steps like “genital plastic surgeries.”

“We are not sure that all the surgeries are necessarily beneficial,” he explained. “I think while planning these kinds of surgeries, a serious investigation must be scheduled, not only for the success of surgeries but also for the happiness of patients after the procedures.”

Whether gay men experience the same feelings en masse is still to be seen. But there’s something to be said about the study’s results, which prove body image and mental health are intrinsically connected.

Perhaps it’s an excellent reminder to try and harness our inner Troye Sivan. The singer’s secret, as he recently told Ssense: “I’m sexy because I feel sexy.”