Bigger Is Better in Bed/Headscratchers

• What I find the most interesting about this trope, speaking as a female, is that most writers (and male viewers) still don't get it's not length that counts in terms of sexual pleasure. What does? It's GIRTH. A long penis might be impressive but it will hit your cervix and that's 's anything BUT pleasurable. A wide one with medium length however is indeed more satisfying.
  • I heard from my biology teacher (who's female) that it's really all about stimulating the clitoris mostly. According to the main page, it's just a sexual display for human apparently
  • Considering every man in the world is completely obsessed with his penis size and every woman in the world gathering together saying "size doesn't matter" wouldn't convince them otherwise, this female troper is 100% convinced that men want bigger penises not to please women, but to show off to other men.
    • The original poster believes you are probably right.
    • But you just said size does matter! We can't change the girth of our penises anymore than the length. All you did was give us something new to be paranoid about.
    • Cracked.com did an article which pretty much stated the scientific reason for the "Length-Obsession" that concurs with the OP's suggestion. Think back to a time when people didn't wear much in the way of clothing. A big penis is a status-symbol among men as much as a tool for pleasure/procreation.
    • Seeing as there are a lot of men out there who are extremely proud of the fact that their penises are so large that they physically hurt their partners, I think there is a lot of truth in the idea that men who obsess over penis size don't actually care about female pleasure.
• if you google "small penis" you'll find that quite a lot of women DO think that size matters and that they can be quite cruel to men that don't live up to their expectations. Maybe if women weren't so inclined to tell small penis jokes then men wouldn't be so obssessed about it.
  • This is hardly a one-way street, though; it's not just women who foster this kind of attitude, since plenty of guys also taunt other guys with jibes about penis size (usually to assert a masculinity pecking order). And let's be honest, it's not as if men haven't helped place a whole load of body-image expectations and issues on women in return.
• If this trope was always true, no woman would want oral sex (a tongue isn't much for size) and vibrators and dildos would only come in very big sizes. Which is not the case. I think of it like Buxom Is Better - some people prefer it, but not all, and those that do prefer it don't usually make it a dealbreaker for romance. You wouldn't refuse to date an otherwise great girl because she didn't have huge tracts of land, after all.
  • That's not what you do with your tongue during oral sex...
  • It can be, actually. Though you're right, the most common oral sex is tongue stimulating clitoris, but some girls love having a tongue inside... granted, you can't get very deep unless you're Gene Simmons...
• This troper and her female friends, gay and straight alike, generally agree that penetration is very nice and enjoyable and promotes bonding with one's partner. But if you meet a lady or a dude with a magic tongue or fingers, that is the one you drag back to the bedroom again and again.
  • If I had to guess, I'd say that men not lasting long enough probably has something to do with this.
  • That, and that many women prefer external stimulation to internal.
• Is having a large penis really that important in sex? I understand that size does matter just a bit, but can an average penis still do? ...What, like I'm the first troper who thought of posting this?
  • Average is fine actually. It's often better because, as said above, when men are massively endowed, they usually hurt girls more than they pleasure them. A woman's vaginal tube isn't extensible and not all women enjoy anal sex, if you wanna go that way
• I think you'll find that most things that men do are to impress other men and not really to impress women. Ask any bodybuilder and they'll tell you that they get way more compliments and touches from men than from women. Men care about penis size to impress other men. 9/10 We're far more interested in how we're thought of by other men than we are by women. If you wonder why, go look at the number of male friends a man has compared to the number of female. (In my case it's about 6 to 1, the 1 being my wife) Though, I would like to point out that there are women who enjoy having their cervix smashed.
• Here's what I don't get. How is it in fiction that people can always figure out if a guy is big, but the setting is one where the male would have no reason to be aroused and isn't stated to be aroused, so how could they know?
  • I see what you're getting at here, most penises look the same when flaccid, it's difficult to discern length. But when a character is said to be big, that usually means he's BIG. As in, even when it's flaccid or semi-erect, it's long and thick enough to indicate its erect size.
  • That's pretty much the difference between what we know as a "shower" and a "grower". The first is pretty much what you get once erect and is quite impressive even flaccid. The second looks plain while flaccid but doubles or triples its size once erect.
• I'm probably going to answer my own question, but why is this trope so Heterosexual oriented? I mean, I know most works are in general, but this one really sticks out like a sore thumb, for two reasons: 1.) As far as this troper knows and has seen, while it doesn't matter much to women, it does matter to gay and bi men. In fact, most non-het guys I've met like them at least a couple inches bigger than average. 2.) There have been a few different studies that have found that on average, men who aren't heterosexual are likely be bigger (it has to do with hormones during birth or something...); a quick comparison of the equipment on the men in gay porn, and then the ones on the men in straight porn (and it should be noted that probably 1/4 of the men who are large and perform in straight porn now can often be linked back to a gay porn past) definitely seem to give the studies credence. Why do writers keep ignoring all of this?
  • It is good to point out the heterosexist nature of this discussion. But the fact that men in gay porn are more likely to have massive penises proves nothing about the penis size of the gay men in general, as porn stars are hardly representative samples of any population. All it proves is gay men like to see large penises more than straight men (the presumed consumer of straight porn) do, which should surprise nobody. It would take a lot to convince me that gay men have larger penises than straight men on the whole, especially when, as in the Kinsey Report's study, the figures are self-reported and thus subject to exaggeration.
    • I would have to agree. I heard somewhere, can't remember where, that the origin of the "black men all have large penises" myth also comes from porn movies. It basically goes back to racism in decades gone by. No porn director was going to hire a black man for a porno unless there was something exceptional about him. It also helps that darker skin has more contrast than lighter skin, and makes things appear more defined and impressive (this is why bodybuilders get tans before a competition). Anyway, point is, I can see similar things being true for gay porn.
    • RE: gay porn, it should also be noted that 'gay-for-pay' is also common; many otherwise 'straight' performers do gay porn as well simply because it pays better than heterosexual porn (where the women usually get paid more for what should, given that they're the primary draw for the presumed audience, again be rather obvious reasons). Paradoxical as it may seem, simply performing in gay porn doesn't necessarily mean the performer in question is or identifies as homosexual or even bi-sexual.
      • I'd have to disagree with that. There's a whole litany of reasons why - first, it's been known that a lot of porn companies pay their actors to identify as straight. That's what pays more, not actually being straight. It's not uncommon to go to one site and see a performer advertised as straight, then go to another and see the same person under a different alias and listed as gay or bisexual (which usually leads to Narm, but that's another entry for another day...). Secondly, if somebody is straight and needs money.... they don't usually rush out to have sex with somebody of the same gender, since there are tons of other ways to make cash that don't involve it; there has to be something subconscious there. Third, there have been studies that have basically proven that sex and romance are different parts of the brain; somebody can be heteromantic, but bisexual. It's the same reason why somebody can be asexual but perhaps biromantic or somesuch. I'm sorry, I'm going off on a tangent... gay-for-pay really pisses me off, though. It basically just exploits the insecurities of both the performers and the viewers, and it's accepted in the mainstream. Too bad there's no headscratchers page for it. Anyway, but back to the large cock thing; I believe there were several studies since then that showed at least some correlation between sexuality and penis size, because of the hormones you're exposed to at birth. I'm too lazy to go get them, however.
        • I'm not going to argue with everything that's said here because I honestly don't know much about the situation and several good points are raised, but I do have to argue with this bit which, to be honest, strikes me as very simplistic: "Secondly, if somebody is straight and needs money.... they don't usually rush out to have sex with somebody of the same gender since there are tons of other ways to make cash that don't involve it; there has to be something subconscious there." -- this, frankly depends on exactly how desperate for money the person in question is, how much money's on offer for doing it and how many other opportunities for them to get money exist, particularly at times like the present when the economy is on a downer and jobs aren't exactly plentiful whether you're gay, straight or other. One of the arguments behind 'gay-for-pay' is that gay porn pays more for the male performers than simply working in straight porn does; it might not be your first choice if you identified as straight, granted, but if you were a porn star (which automatically limits your career options in many ways), those bills are stacking up and it comes down to having no money at all or getting it on with another guy, you might at least give it some serious consideration. But, as has been said, tangent.
      • I'm not http://www.salon.com/1999/11/04/size/. But I'm also not convinced.