According to the study, up to a third of women and half of men feel bad about their genitals. Disstablished men generally say that their penis are too small. Disaster women generally say that their interior vaginal lips (minor lips) exceed too much beyond their external lips (Labia Majora).
Genital dissatisfaction does psychologically harm. It makes people feel abnormal and anxious. Self -esteem suffer. Some avoid changing rooms. Others shrink from partner sex, in particular oral sex, which puts the eye globes of partners near the source of their anxiety. Or they insist on sex in darkness, so lovers do not see their genitals. In addition, genital dissatisfaction interferes with erotic excitement, orgasmAnd sexual satisfaction.
Psychologists insist that most people who complain about genital dissatisfaction have vulva or penis which are perfectly normal. Robust literature shows that the vast majority of the genitals of people are in the normal beach for size and appearance.
However, in 2021, some 19,000 American women had labiaplasty, surgical minimization of the interior vaginal lips and more than 50,000 American men underwent surgery to increase the length and / or circumference of their penis. These operations are now ranked among the fastest cosmetic surgical procedures in the country.
Where does genital dissatisfaction come from?
Conventional wisdom reproaches pornography for genital dissatisfaction. Commercial porn selects for men with unusually large penis and for women whose interior lips are carefully hidden in their external lips. People probably compare themselves with porn actors. If their own genitals are different, they feel deficient.
But this explanation is controversial. Some studies support it, others not. Recently, Swedish researchers have examined the problem.
The study
Investigators at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm (the university which awards Nobel Prizes) used the Internet to recruit 3,503 adults, who were directed to one of the two online surveys: one for those who have vulva, the other for those who have penis. The sites included detailed instructions to measure its genitals.
After the measurement, most women reported that their inner lips were making a little protrusion. The quantity varied from a quarter to a third of a thumb.
After the measurement, the stretched flange length of the average penis measured 4.9 inches. The researchers noted that the stretched flaccid length provides a reasonable approximation of the erection length.
Participants were also asked to study what they thought of their genitals. The majority said they felt neutral or satisfied. But 30% of women and 38% of men recorded dissatisfaction, which was serious in 4 and 5%, respectively. Among women, 14% said they were potentially felt interested in genital cosmetic surgery; Among men, it was 11%.
Regarding pornography, 57% of women and 94% of men said they saw it in the three months before registering for the study. Among porn observers, men and women said they had looked at an average of two to three days a month, but men spent much more time by visit.
The visualization of porn had no significant impact on the feelings of the participants about their genitals. The researchers concluded: “Almost all men and more than half of all women have consumed sexually explicit material to a certain extent, but this consumption was not associated with their genital self -image. “”
This is the biggest study to date to correlate genital dissatisfaction with the exposure to porn. The large size of the sample gives its results.
The conclusion that 4% of women and 5% of men expressed major genital dissatisfaction corroborate previous studies. But the researchers called it “somewhat alarming” that such large proportions said they had considered surgery: 14% of women, 11% of men.
For what?
Thus, conventional wisdom argues that genital dissatisfaction is a function of the visualization of porn, but this great well -designed study shows that this is not the case. What explains this contradiction? Here are some possibilities:
Pornography essential reading
- Before the Internet – that is to say before 1996 – Pornography was only available in theaters, with films featuring professional actors, men selected for Jumbo penis, women for big breasts and “perfect” lips. But today, decades later, the majority of porn is homemade. It has a much wider diversity of genitals. The ascent of amateur porn can explain why the visualization of porn today has no significant impact on genital self -esteem.
- Regardless of porn, men have always joked about the size of the penis and teased men who seemed small. It is quite possible that this explains the lasting anxieties of men about the size of the penis.
- Cosmetic surgeons introduced labiaplasty in the 1980s. Since then, he has been the subject of numerous reports and social networks discussions; For example, on Reddit – R / Labiaplastysurgery. It is quite possible that porn has less impact on the thought of women than all the non -porn coverage of the appearance of the lips.
The study has shown that as partner sex increases, genital dissatisfaction decreased. Jokes, teasing, porn and social media can affect people’s thoughts on their genitals, but sexual partners are likely to have a greater impact. As partner sex increases, people are likely to reserve doubts about their genitals, thinking, My partner seems good with my penis / labia, so why should I worry?
Accept
We, humans, are autocritic. Compared to the way others consider us, most of us are more dissatisfied with our own appearance.
My humble plea: Let us accept. The vast majority of people’s sexual organs are in normal size beach.
Short to surgery, women can do nothing for their lips, but men can take measures to look at their greatest: See my previous post.
