Does size matter to gay men?

What gay and bi men say about their own size, how it ties into roles, porn and comparison, why the famous preference studies are about women, and what seems to matter more

Ask the internet whether size matters and you get two answers: "no, it's how you use it", usually from straight men's magazines, and "obviously", usually from gay porn. Both answers are mostly about women, or about fantasy. What the research says about men who sleep with men is thinner than you would expect, more interesting, and on the whole kinder.

What gay men think of their own size

The biggest survey asked 1,065 gay and bisexual men to rate their own cock. 7% said below average, 53.9% average and 35.5% above average, which tells you something about how generous men are with themselves. The men who rated themselves bigger were more satisfied, and the men who rated themselves below average scored worse on three measures of psychological wellbeing. Self-rated size was not linked to how many partners men had.

A review of 26 studies comparing gay and straight men found the same basic picture everywhere: most men see their penis as average but would still like a bigger one. It also found that men who have sex with men differ from straight men in how they rate their size, how much weight they put on it and how much it shapes what they do in bed. In other words, size is not more important to gay men in some simple way; it is woven into gay sex differently, because both partners have one.

Size and roles

The most consistent finding is the one about tops and bottoms. Men who see themselves as bigger are more likely to call themselves tops, and men who see themselves as smaller, bottoms. But a closer study of 282 gay and bisexual men found that size did not predict the label directly. What did were finding bottoming pleasurable and how much a man cared about control in sex; size worked only indirectly, for example by making smaller men anxious about topping. In a US cohort of 4,802 men, attraction, behaviour and body traits together predicted role labels only poorly to moderately. The full story is in Size, tops and bottoms.

Porn, apps and comparison

If gay men worry about size, they did not invent the worry alone. An analysis of over 6,900 profiles on ten gay porn sites found listed sizes that were extraordinarily large, with big numbers reserved for tops. In a study of 726 men, the gay and bi men reported watching more porn than the straight men, comparing their bodies with others more and a more negative body image; it was problematic use, rather than simply frequent use, that goes with more comparison. A huge US body image survey found poorer sexual body image in gay than in straight men.

A small interview study of men who had had or were considering enlargement surgery caught the difference neatly: straight men talked about satisfying a partner, while gay men talked about body image, a culture of perfecting the body and comparison with other men. That is the gay version of the question: not "will he be satisfied" but "how do I measure up". On dating apps, where size is often stated in a profile, we found no study comparing stated with measured numbers; the general rule that self-reports run high is in Why everyone adds an inch.

The data everyone quotes is about women

Most of what is known about size preferences comes from heterosexual samples, and it is worth knowing mainly because it is so often recycled as if it applied to everyone.

• In a survey of 52,031 heterosexual men and women, 85% of women were satisfied with their partner's size, but only 55% of men were satisfied with their own; 45% wanted to be bigger and 0.2% smaller. Gay men were left out, because the questions could not tell whether they were answering about their own cock or their partner's.
• When 105 women rated life-size computer figures, a bigger penis was more attractive, with diminishing returns. But penis size explained only about 5% of the differences in attractiveness, height about 6%, and the shoulder-to-hip ratio around 80%.
• When 75 women picked among 3D-printed models, the favourite was only slightly above average: about 16 cm6.3 in long and 12.2 cm4.8 in around for a long-term partner.

For gay men, these are at best hints. A man looking at men may care about different things, and nobody has tested whether he does.

What seems to matter more

Pulling the threads together, a few things show up again and again, and none of them is centimetres.

Confidence. In the big heterosexual survey, men who believed they were larger than average rated their whole appearance more favourably, and in gay and bisexual men, feeling below average went with worse wellbeing. Most of those men were probably normal; it was the belief that hurt.

The whole body. Where size has been tested alongside other traits, build and height carried more weight than the penis. Among gay men, masculinity, not just size, shaped how men labelled themselves.

Fit. Bigger is not automatically better in practice: gay and bi men with bigger cocks reported more trouble with condoms that were too tight and broke, and anyone who bottoms knows that girth needs time and lube. See Bottoming with a big cock.

What you like doing. Pleasure and the dynamics of control predicted roles better than size did. Sex between men is a lot more than penetration, and a lot of it does not involve a ruler at all.

So does size matter to gay men? To some, in some moments, yes, and pretending otherwise is silly. But it matters less than porn suggests, the average is smaller than most men think (check Length and the size chart), and the men most troubled by it are usually perfectly normal.