Does size matter? This is an age old question that has previously been answered by surveys. It has not been tested experimentally until now. Researchers at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neurosciences of King’s College London recruited 12 sexually active couples to participate in a study, published in BJU International.
In the study, the researchers asked the male partner to artificially reduce the depth of penetration by using different sizes of silicon rings at random around the base of his erect penis. The control ring was very thin and made no difference to the depth of penetration. There were three other rings that reduced the depth of penetration by 1 inch, 1.5 inches and 2 inches. They were randomised to 3, 4 or 5 episodes of intercourse with each ring. The female partner was asked not to view the size of the ring and then rated the degree of sexual satisfaction and emotional connection with each ring.
Professor David Veale, the study’s lead author from King’s and the Maudsley, said “We started with the premise that depth of penetration would not matter to most women. However, we found that in reducing the depth of penetration by 1 inch led to a statistically meaningful drop in the amount of pleasure experienced. The longer the erect penis, the less likely the rings had an impact on sexual pleasure. There was however a range of individual responses with a minority of women reporting that reducing the depth of penetration was more pleasurable on some occasions.”
“We have demonstrated a proof of concept for investigating whether the depth of penetration is important to sexual pleasure. This is particularly relevant to men who experience penile shortening, because of various conditions such as Peyronie’s disease or surgical procedures. We need to establish effective interventions so that these men do not seek non-evidence based solutions like pills and lotions. Our results should not be misinterpreted as meaning that increasing penile length in a normal man will increase sexual pleasure in women. That would be a completely different study.”
Why did we do this study?
Men may worry or be ashamed about the length or girth of their penis. Surveys have found that many men desire a larger penis. Therefore, men with small penis anxiety seek help from non-evidenced based penis enlargement “solutions” such as, lotions, pills, exercises, or penile extenders. Others see private urologists or plastic surgeons, who offer hyaluronic acid or fat injections to increase the girth or suspensory ligament release for an illusory increase in the length of the penis. Cosmetic phalloplasty to enlarge the penis is regarded as experimental without any adequate outcome measures or evidence of safety. It was of interest to know whether reducing the length of the penis matters to female sexual partners as much as it does to men.
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Figure 1
Rings used at the base of the penis
Figure 4
Estimated marginal means (and 95% CI) for the effect of the interaction between penis length and ring size on sexual pleasure overall (rated 0–100)
Veale, D., Vaidya, A., Papageorgiou, A., Foks, M., Giona, S., Hodsoll, J., Freeston, M. and Muir, G. (2021), A preliminary investigation of a novel method to manipulate penis length to measure female sexual satisfaction: a single-case experimental design. BJU Int.