Are big-dicked men really more likely to be cheated on?

Back in 2014 a study was published that shook some people: the longer your penis, the more likely your partner was to cheat on you. To guys with big dicks, that's a painful thing to read — this oversized penis, which society has decided for you is a positive asset with no conceivable downsides, and which you had no control over having, is more likely to drive your girlfriend or wife into another man's bed? And the bigger you are, the more that likelihood increases? Oh that hurts.

Here's the salient quote from the study:

Every one inch longer penis increased the likelihood of women being involved in extra-marital partnership by almost one-and-half times. Similarly, our qualitative data also support this finding. Women associated large penises with pain and discomfort during sex which precludes the enjoyment and sexual satisfaction that women are supposed to feel.

So am I, sitting here with an 8.5-inch dick, facing a 450% higher rate of infidelity than an a man with average endowment and otherwise identical properties? If that's true, then that sucks.

Let's dig into the study to see what the results actually say and if the media reporting was accurate: Predictors of Extra-Marital Partnerships among Women Married to Fishermen along Lake Victoria in Kisumu County, Kenya (Kewna et al, 2014).

The first thing to note is the study population. While there is no scientific evidence to support that Africans have larger penises than anybody else (in fact, this study found an average of around 5 inches), it is limited to just 545 married couples in one village where the husband has a particular profession. It's often the case with studies involving sex or penis size that the sample size is small and geographically limited, as it can be difficult to obtain the necessary funding to perform a large scale study of such things.

The penis sizes in this study were also self-reported, not scientifically measured. Men all around the world have a tendency to overstate their size in self-reported studies, but in this case the researchers attempted to compensate for that that by also independently asking the wives to tell about their husband's sizes, and then averaging those numbers. Still, we should be wary of the potential for exaggeration polluting the data. However, as noted above, the median size reported was 5 inches, which is not far off from the average penis size.

Of the 545 women in the study, 6.2% of them reported engaging in extramarital affairs in the preceding 6 months. 27% of all the women suspected their partners to be be cheating, and this group if women was also more likely to be cheating themselves. Trust is and always has been a two-way street. On the plus side, women that were cheating were also more likely to use condoms.

While the attention-grabbing headlines of "bigger penis = cheating woman", domestic violence and the male's denial of sexual positions and acts that the woman found satisfying were much larger predictors of cheating by the woman than penis size. But that's not to deny that for the women in a study, overall a larger penis was a detriment to their ongoing sexual satisfaction. To quote one study participant: "some penis may be large yet my vagina is small, when he tries to insert it inside, it hurts so much that I will have to look for another man who has a smaller one [penis] and can do it in a way I can enjoy."

So what's a man with a huge cock supposed to take away from this? While it can be tempting to read this study and say "Fuck it, I might as well play the field", that is not the lesson of today. The thing to remember is something that applies to all relationships: infidelity and selfishness in bed will drive women away. It just so happens that having a larger penis amplifies the issues with sexual selfishness, as what you enjoy may not be what she enjoys, and being larger can severely decrease pleasure in some positions, and can even cause outright pain. And the opposite is also true: generosity in bed will help to keep your partner in your arms.

As the saying goes: with great power comes great responsibility. Having a big dick is not a ticket to a successful sex life, and misusing it has been shown by this study to drive women away. Sex is a cooperative act, and if you fail to take an equal role in giving and receiving you're only going to increase your partner's incentive to look elsewhere for the satisfaction they desire. That applies to men of all sizes, and women as well. We're all in this together.