Does Size Matter?
Yes and no
Anyone who says size doesn’t matter is lying. The size of your bank account has a direct impact on almost every aspect of your life. The size of your ego has an enormous influence on your mental health. The size of… Oh, you want to read about dick size. My bad!
For that we turn to The Land of Hope and Glory.
Specifically, the University of Kent, whose website invites student applications with “No matter how far you've come, you can always go further.”
No, Kent anthropologist, Dr Sarah Johns (above) didn’t study the average distance an average man can propel his ejaculate, or investigate ways to increase it.
The Reader in Evolutionary Anthropology, Director of Graduate Studies-Taught and Academic Head Biological Anthropology applied her academic rigor to a study of women’s sexual pleasure.
Morphologically Speaking…
The Journal of Sexual Reseach published Ms. Johns’ paper What Drives Sex Toy Popularity? A Morphological Examination of Vaginally-Insertable Products Sold by the World’s Largest Sexual Wellness Company.
As Shakespeare never said, a dildo by any other name is still worth scientific scrutiny. The end result has certainly caught the attention of the modern mainstream media.
The New York Post headline proclaims Does size matter? Age-old penis debate finally settled in ‘groundbreaking’ study. bnnbreaking.com is equally breathless.
By analyzing 265 sex toys, the study meticulously assessed factors such as size, material, price, and customer reviews.
The findings are quite revealing: price and circumference trump length in importance when it comes to women's preferences for sex toys.
This insight shatters the long-held belief that 'bigger is better' in the context of sexual satisfaction.
Did the researchers subject the sex toys to Freudian Qualitative analysis?
Regardless, can we really trust the opinions of inanimate objects? Or customer reviews, now that AI is so damn good at writing them.
Lovehoney
All the study data came from one source: the aforementioned “world’s largest online sexual wellness retailer.” Specifically and exclusively, Lovehoney’s UK site.
While the data is a provincial, the study is, indeed, groundbreaking – as far as Dr. Johns knows.
To our knowledge this is the first study to specifically assess the popularity of phallus-shaped, insertable sex toys on the basis of both particular characteristics and dimensions.
One wonders why a comprehensive study of women’s views on phallus-shaped, insertable sex toys’ material, color, price, length and circumference has taken this long to rear its head (so to speak).
The Money Shot
It appears that consumers show a preference for insertable sex toys that are not direct replicas of the male penis, which suggests they are not seeking a realistic partner substitute.
Further, we found that the length of the toy did not significantly predict popularity which is consistent with other work showing that women do not place considerable emphasis on large phallus size.
If most women “appear” to prefer insertable sex toys that don’t look like a real penis, how can Dr. John credibly conclude that their sex toy preferences correlate to real world penile preferences?
IMHO, she can’t. Nor can the mainstream media (not that credibility concerns are a top priority).
The Patriarchal Penis
What Dr. Johns can do – maybe even must do to maintain her academic status — put sex toy buyers’ preference for non-realistic dicks in a political context.
This supports previously reported feminist views of phallic-shaped sex toy use – women can simultaneously reclaim penetrative sex without having this suggested symbol of patriarchal power in their possession.
The Bottom Line
Dr. Johns’ study is no doubt useful for Lovehoney’s product designers and marketing mavens.
Not to mention mainstream media outlets appealing to men whose penile dimensions are not PornHub material (i.e., the vast majority of their consumers).
Truth be told, women’s penile preferences vary.
That’s it. Aside from the fact a woman’s attraction to a man is based on a number of variables, which may or may include the size or shape of his wedding tackle.
As for the size of his bank balance, that’s not even a subject for debate.
Vonnegut's Kilgore Trout seems relevant here, but likely forgotten!
There is definitely such a thing as a penis being too big to fit into a vagina, or a vagina being too small for a penis to fit. And when the latter has been in many of the former, but one was too small, well, the drift should be obvious.