Did you know that other penises seem bigger to you than they actually are?

Recently, while digging into information about size and psychology, I came across an interesting phenomenon called Penile Dysmorphic Disorder. It often occurs in men who feel insecure about their penis size which I suspect is most of us here.

In short, the idea is that we usually see our own penis from above and at an angle, which makes it appear smaller to us than it really is. It’s a psychological issue because even if we measure it, the brain can still ignore that objective information and “filter” what we see to confirm our negative beliefs.

Meanwhile, when we look at other men’s penises whether in porn, on Reddit, or in a gym locker room we see them from a more natural perspective, which makes them seem bigger. On top of that, we tend to view other men as competition, so the brain may further exaggerate their attributes, including penis size.

So for example, if your penis is 4 inches, you might subconsciously perceive it as 3.4 inches, while seeing another man with the exact same size as if he were 4.6 inches. (These numbers are just illustrative, not scientific data.)

This could explain why for years I could never find my “dick twin” because even when I saw someone with the same size, he seemed bigger than me.

Out of curiosity, I did a small experiment with my girlfriend. I opened the subreddits smalldickfitbody and smalldickporn and asked her to tell me when she saw a penis similar to mine or smaller. Interestingly, the ones she pointed out seemed bigger than mine to me. The penis had to be much smaller than mine for me to clearly see that it was actually smaller. That made me realize this effect might apply to me personally.

So what’s the takeaway? We shouldn’t compare ourselves to others. When we look at other men’s penises, we may perceive them as larger than they really are, which only makes us feel worse about our own size.