Does Gen Z Really Care More About Penis Size?

It may be Small Penis Fall, but it seems not everyone is celebrating — particularly not Millennials and Gen Z. While members of younger generations tend to fancy ourselves more open-minded and progressive than our generational forebears, particularly in terms of promoting body acceptance and dispensing with outdated body-shaming mentalities, it turns out that when it comes to penis size, we’re all just a bunch of size queens.

A recent survey from medical website Medzino found that Millennials and Gen Z are far more concerned with penis size than older generations. While the survey of around 1,000 US adults found that 61% of Baby Boomers and 60% of Gen Xers said size is crucial, those numbers were significantly higher among younger respondents. Nearly three-quarters of Millennials (74%) said size was a major factor, while an overwhelming 85% of Gen Z said the same. Moreover, more than half of Gen Z respondents ranked penis size above sexual performance in terms of overall importance for a successful and satisfying sexual encounter, while only 29% of Millennials agreed.

While the survey didn’t provide much insight into why this particular brand of sizeism seems to be on the rise among younger generations, we might speculate that it possibly has something to do with the massive shlongs routinely on display in most porn. Unlike Boomers and Gen Xers, most Millennials and Zoomers have had round-the-clock, unlimited access to porn from a young age thanks to a little thing called the internet, meaning members of younger generations have grown up assuming porn-sized penises are the norm, or at least the ideal.

We might also speculate that younger Gen Zers simply haven’t yet grown out of the “bigger is better” mentality that many of us internalize from a young age. Many Gen Zers are still in their teens, and while I would assume all participants in a survey of this nature were at least 18, there’s a good chance that many younger respondents were still relatively inexperienced sexually. It takes time — some might say a lifetime — to understand yourself sexually, to learn about your own desires and what you’re looking for in a sex partner. Before you have enough personal experience to start to figure out what you like and don’t like in bed, it’s easy to base your presumed sexual preferences on what society seems to suggest they should be.

Back when I was 18 years old, I, too, assumed riding a big ol’ honkin dick was probably the most satisfying thing I could do sexually, because why else would big dicks be such a big deal? I have since seen the light, and these days prefer a more modest-sized member myself (not to big-dick shame, but something tells me you guys will be just fine). Our sexual preferences grow and evolve with us, and at a young age with relatively little experience, those preferences are going to be largely based on societal “ideals” promoted in porn and other media. It takes time, experience and courage to understand and come to terms with your own sexual desires and preferences, especially if they deviate from society’s “ideal” (which, frankly, they’re almost guaranteed to). If you ask a bunch of 18-year-olds who had unlimited access to porn practically from birth if they think size matters, of course they’re going to say yes.

None of this is to suggest that a preference for big penises is inherently immature or performative. Obviously there are still many, many people who strongly prefer sex with a big penis — just probably not as many as there were people who thought they were big old size queens at 18.