A survey of male submissive kinks: #2 Male sexual inadequacy
The category that deals with sexual fantasies of small penis humiliation, premature ejaculation, erectile dysfunction, etc., and how they intertwine with other kinks.
This is part of a series of essays that collectively survey male submissive kinks. Find the Table of contents here.
This category of kinks pertains to all the shortcomings that make men think women will find them inadequate in bed. The failure to satisfy a woman sexually, especially if she is a girlfriend or a wife, is often times cause for embarrassment and ridicule for the man. He imagines—not unreasonably—that the woman will reveal the lackluster sexual encounter to her female friends when she inevitably gossips about him. He will become the subject of laughter among the girls and the rumors will spread, hurting his reputation in the sphere of sexual relations and, in consequence, his reproductive strategy.
Because of this, the sexual satisfaction of women by men is a criterion that is often invoked in the rivalry between men, where the ones that fail to satisfy women sexually are deemed to be inferior in the social hierarchy. Men with kinks related to sexual inadequacy eroticize all the different aspects that would make them come up short in bed. Chief among these is having a small penis, but others are being a premature ejaculation and suffering from erectile dysfunction.
Small penis
The single biggest male sexual inadequacy in the imagination of men is having a small penis. Men are obsessed with the size of their member, thinking the bigger it is, the more satisfying it will be for the women they sleep with. Women are viscerally aware of the importance of penis size to men. Whenever a woman wants to demean a man, the first insult to come to mind is always the accusation of having a small penis.
Penis size is important to a certain extent to women, as they seem to prefer a penis of above-average size (similar to how they prefer a man of above-average height).1 This explains why even men with average-sized penises can be insecure.2 The great majority of men, by virtue of statistics, do not possess a big penis, and a large number of them harbor the worry that a woman might find their penis to be too small. If there was a simple, affordable, and non-invasive procedure—such as a pill—to enlarge the size of the penis, most men who have access to it will undoubtedly opt to take it.
Men with the small penis humiliation kink are aroused by exactly that: the idea of a woman humiliating them for having a penis too small for her satisfaction. The bare idea of a woman thinking the penis is small and her being dissatisfied with it is enough to tickle some men’s fancy. Others like the experience to be accompanied with verbal humiliation on the part of the woman. Any qualifiers of size are enough to cause arousal: “small”, “tiny”, “micro”, etc.
Men with this kink enjoy when the woman makes the gesture with her thumb and index finger close to each other, the universal sign that something is small. They also enjoy being humiliated by the woman at the presumed method they use to masturbate: using only two fingers to stroke a small penis instead of using a whole hand wrapped around the penis, as one would presumably do for a penis big enough.
Most of the men with this kink appear to have a penis of average size or below, but it is known from anecdotal evidence that there are men with above-average penis size who indulge in this kink as well. In the fantasies of the latter, it is not so much the absolute size of the penis that matters, but more so the preference of the woman. This means that as long as the woman says she prefers bigger, the kink works, no matter the man’s actual size, even if he happens to have a big penis, statistically speaking.
For example, a woman might say that she only has sex with men who are at least eight inches and that she considers anything below that to be small. This outrageous statement allows more men with the small penis humiliation kink to identify with the woman’s targeted humiliation. If she only says six inches instead of eight, then, for example, the men with six-inch penises who have the small penis humiliation kink will fail to be humiliated. Such a woman, who sleeps exclusively with men with big penises, is referred to as a “size queen”.
It should be kept in mind that penis size has two dimensions: length and girth. Although penis size is often associated exclusively with length, girth plays an important role as well. In fact, in surveys, women typically say girth is more important to them than length.3 Small penis humiliation can work in the girth dimension as well. A man with a long penis can still enjoy being humiliated for having a skinny penis that lacks the girth necessary to give the woman sexual pleasure from penetration.
Exposure
In seeking to fulfill fantasies involving the small penis humiliation kink, some men order so-called “custom ratings” from online Femdom models. For this service, the man typically sends pictures or videos of his penis to the model who then records a video of herself rating it. Often times, men who order these ratings seek to be humiliated by the model, who is expected to laugh at the pictures of the penis and say degrading things about the man’s sexual adequacy and ability, which the man can find extremely arousing.
Some men with the small penis humiliation kink like to expose themselves to others, hoping to elicit a reaction of laughter and ridicule that would be humiliating. Some of these behaviors are ethically dubious and some border on illegality.
For example, a man might send unsolicited pictures of his penis to a woman online in hope that the woman will be so offended as to verbally humiliate him for having a small penis. Some men like to expose their small penises on websites and applications where they are matched with strangers for video chatting, driven by the thrill of catching a surprise reaction from the unsuspecting viewers. Some men expose themselves in real life, for example by going to a nudist beach and purposely sitting near women they find attractive, hoping that the women will eventually notice the small penis and laugh about it among themselves.
Denied
A common fantasy in this category of kinks is going on a date with a woman who is seemingly attracted to the man, enough so that she decides to go home with him with the intention of having sex. Once home, however, things take a disappointing turn when the man’s pants come off and the woman discovers that his penis is too small to satisfy her. Thus, she changes her mind about having sex with him, a crushing prospect to the man’s reproductive strategy. As such, this kink often intertwines with kinks in the category of rejection of sexual interest.
The reaction of the woman to the man’s penis can range from politeness to outrage. In some fantasies, she tries to politely explain that she no longer wants to have sex because the penis will not work for her. In other fantasies, the woman cannot hold her laughter and she is not particularly coy about pointing out the man’s inadequacy. In more extreme fantasies, the woman feels offended that the man thought he deserved to have sex with her with such a small penis, and corporal punishment ensues, often directed at the male genitals.
Expectations
The expectations of the woman can play a key role in these fantasies. Whereas the size of women’s breasts is readily apparent to men’s eyes before any interaction need take place between the sexes, the size of a man’s erect penis remains a mystery until the woman sleeps with him or otherwise touches his penis during sexual activity. Because of this, the woman has to invest herself significantly with a man in order to find out his penis size.
For this reason, some women try to guess based on other traits and attributes. Whether it is noses, feet, hands, height, or muscle, claims of correlations between penis size and the size of other things abound in society. Whole stereotypes have arisen around the attempt to make educated guesses about penis size, with a common one these days being that “tall and skinny” means having a big penis. In internet terminology, women also speak of “big dick energy” in reference to a certain manner a man carries himself that supposedly signals he has a big penis.
In the fantasies mentioned previously, the woman can build up these expectations with all the time she spends with the guy before going home with him. When the moment comes for him to takes his pants off to have sex with the woman, she already expects him to have a big penis based on what she had gathered about him up to that point. The violation of this expectation makes the subsequent humiliation even more erotic in the imagination of submissive men with this kink.
Social status
This kink can also intertwine with aspects of ruining the man’s social status, such as the blackmail kink. In some fantasies, upon seeing the man’s small penis, the woman proceeds to take photos or videos of it to show her friends. The man is humiliated at the thought of the girls laughing about his penis and at the thought of the photos and videos circulating online, publicly exposing him. Thus, he begs the woman not to share them.
With the compromising material in hand, the woman comes to hold blackmail power over the man, who becomes ready to do anything the woman wants, hoping he can prevent having his reputation ruined and, in consequence, his reproductive strategy foiled. This can further lead to other aspects such as financial domination and enslavement.
Romantic partner
The small penis humiliation kink often intertwines with aspects of cuckolding, where the man is humiliated in the context of a relationship or a marriage involving a romantic female partner. These fantasies revolve around the girlfriend or wife having sex with other men in search for the satisfaction that her boyfriend or husband is unable to give her due to the lack of the proper equipment.
In the multitude of fantasies involving this, the manner in which the woman’s infidelity takes place differs. In some fantasies, the infidelity is kept a secret from the man until he discovers it or it otherwise comes to light. In other fantasies, this type of dynamic is arrived at consensually, where the woman sits the man down and informs him that she is no longer satisfied with his penis. The couple then proceeds to work out an arrangement where the woman is allowed to have sex with other men—with bigger penises—to satisfy her sexual desire.
The subsequent development of the cuckolding relationship always involves an element of humiliation, but it can vary greatly in intensity in different fantasies. On the gentler end of the spectrum, the boyfriend or husband accepts to let his partner have sex with other men out of his genuine love for her and his desire to make her happy. The girlfriend or wife can even be reluctant to proceed with it at first but she is encouraged by the man. The cuckolding strengthens the couple’s love and has a positive impact on the relationship or marriage. The woman can assure her partner that she only loves him, and that the other sexual partners are strictly that: sexual partners, not romantic ones.
On the crueler end of the spectrum, the woman confronts the man about the size of his penis and uses it to justify her taking on other partners. Faced with his own sexual inadequacy, the man finds himself reduced to an inferior position and he has no choice but to yield to the woman’s whims in exchange for her staying with him. The woman can go so far as to punish the man by completely denying him sexual access to her, which becomes exclusively reserved for the new—and better—partners. The woman can come to humiliate the man to such an extent that the dynamic becomes one of a slave to his mistress.
Comparison with previous partners
A man desires to be the best sexual partner his girlfriend or wife has ever had. Since a woman’s sexual satisfaction is almost entirely reduced to penis size in the male imagination, a man dreads the prospect that his girlfriend or wife might have had sexual partners in the past with bigger penises. In the logic of men, this means the previous partners were better in bed with her, and thus she was more satisfied with them than she is with him.
Men with the small penis humiliation kink can eroticize being unfavorably compared to previous sexual partners. In effect, this brings an aspect of retrospective cuckolding to the kink, as the man imagines what sex was like for his girlfriend or wife with her previous partners, and how she might have derived more sexual satisfaction from their bigger penises than she does with his smaller penis.
This comparison need not be with actual men. Instead, the man’s penis can be compared to the woman’s sex toys. This can play into fantasies where the man discovers that his girlfriend or wife has a dildo that is bigger than his penis, suggesting his sexual inadequacy even if it is never voiced by the woman herself.
Other kinks
In the context of romantic relationships, the small penis humiliation kink can also intertwine with aspects of control of sexual pleasure, where the female partner decides to lock the penis in chastity as punishment for its being too small. If a cuckolding dynamic is at play, the woman can tease her partner by telling him all about her sexual exploits with other men, all the while he is denied access to his locked penis which is prevented from achieving erection by the chastity cage. Thus, the man is denied even the vicarious sexual pleasure from his female partner’s stories.
The small penis humiliation kink can also intertwine with aspects of feminization, where the woman thinks the man’s penis is so small it might as well be a clitoris rather than a real dick. She refers to it as a “clitty” and feminizes the man consequently in a variety of ways. This can also open the door to homosexual acts with other men. As the woman thinks the man’s penis is useless to satisfy anybody, she can encourage or force him to becomes the receiving partner of intercourse with other men, the only way he can be useful in a sexual context.
Premature ejaculation
The second thing that men dread the most, after having a penis too small for a woman’s taste, is being unable to last long enough in bed to satisfy the woman. This problem is called premature ejaculation and it affects a large number of men in the population, although just like penis size, it is a very subjective matter.
It is true that premature ejaculation is a problem for women. Because of the male refractory period, the man’s ejaculation means the end of sexual intercourse and typically also the end of sexual activity. The best a woman can hope to get is an eventual second round some time after the fact. Thus, if the man ejaculates before the woman has had sufficient time to enjoy herself, he runs the risk of disappointing her.
Some men eroticize the idea of humiliating themselves by ejaculating too quickly with a woman. This premature ejaculation kink is the lesser known counterpart to the small penis humiliation kink in the category of male sexual inadequacy. These men are aroused when they are called certain degrading names by an attractive woman pointing out the man’s premature ejaculation problem: “premie”, “fast cummer”, “minute-man”, “two-pump chump”, etc.
Some men go the length of trying to train themselves to ejaculate faster and faster, seeking to feel more and more pathetic in the eyes of attractive women for ejaculating faster every time. This aspect can involve a game element where a man tries to beat his own record of masturbation time. Such game elements appear in many male submissive kinks.
Erectile dysfunction
Erectile dysfunction is another important manifestation of male sexual inadequacy. In fact, it is the most important, since the inability to achieve an erection or to maintain it long enough for penetrative sex means the complete failure of the man’s reproductive strategy. A man can still successfully reproduce if he ejaculates prematurely or if his penis is too small for the woman’s satisfaction. The same cannot be said for impotence.
If men eroticize all aspects of sexual inadequacy, then we can predict that some would also eroticize erectile dysfunction. If that is the case, however, then the man who is sexually aroused at the thought of his impotence will succeed in achieving an erection, thereby contradicting the original sexual stimulus. This explains why a general erectile dysfunction kink does not really exist.
What does exist is a specific kink for situational erectile dysfunction. Men with this kink enjoy the humiliation of imagining themselves unable to get it up for sex with a real woman and only being able to achieve an erection while masturbating to pornography. In this context, the man can be verbally humiliated by being called a “pornosexual”, alluding to a supposed new sexual orientation in which the man is solely aroused by pornography.
This can intertwine with manipulation kinks, where the man likes to be told that he ruined his sex life by becoming addicted to pornography and getting the so-called porn-induced erectile dysfunction, or by becoming so enticed by a dominating woman online that he is only able to get an erection for her.
This concludes a survey of the kinks involved in the category of male sexual inadequacy. If you think something is missing from this overview, leave a comment and share your thoughts. You can also message me on Substack or on Reddit if you wish to remain anonymous and discuss privately.
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The line art in this essay’s card is by Georgian artist Dorian Chelios.
“Most men are too small for most women,” Beta Chronicles (Jan. 2023).
Lever, J. et al. “Does size matter? Men's and women's views on penis size across the lifespan”. Psychology of Men & Masculinity, vol. 7, no. 3, 2006, pp. 129–143. In this large internet survey, 45% of men wanted a larger penis.
Eisenman, R. “Penis size: Survey of female perceptions of sexual satisfaction”. BMC women's health, vol. 1, 2001, pp. 1–2.