It’s Not Because He Has A Bigger Dick.

So my essay All Women and Never Men went viral on Fet for the third time in a decade, picking up another 700 or so loves and another 150 comments.

And when folks discuss the reasons why a dude might not want his woman having sex with other dudes (though women are, of course, harmless and acceptable), one of the most frequent comments is, “Of course those poor men are nervous. What if the other guy has a bigger dick and she leaves him?”

Well, allow me to reassure you, fellow dudes.

But first, let me present to you my regrettable credentials: At this point in my life, I have slept with somewhere in the range of about 125 partners. I say this to you not to impress you, but to report that, barring one-night stands, I’ve had about 80 partners date me, go “Oh, God, not this,” and leave. Often for another partner! Often from cheating!

So being broken up with? I have experiences.

And also, unfortunately for everyone in my early 20s, I used to be a huge and largely unethical horndog who didn’t care much about existing relationships, and as a result in many of those 125 partners I was the other dude luring someone over the fence.

I’ve since stopped, as 1) it was unethical, 2) it led to really crappy relationships that were fundamentally based in a lack of trust, and 3) keeping all the details straight so I could effectively roleplay life as a version of myself who was not a scumbag was frickin’ exhausting.

Point is, though, I have a lot of personal experience in breakups, and that’s not even counting watching my friends over the course of about 30 years and tabulating all that data.

And let me tell you:

The times where someone says, “I’m leaving you because he’s got two inches on your schvanstucker?” Never happens.

Well, lemme finesse that one a bit: It’s probably happened somewhere. Humanity’s big, there’s seven billion people boinking, there’s gonna be some incidents that occur just like that.

But the incidents where someone leaves based on dick size alone are vanishingly rare – and the subset when they do happen, well, it’s usually not about the dick.

Because what I find among men of a certain temperament (and some smaller segment of women) is that there’s this illusion that Parts Make The Person – you’re only unique as far as your sexual characteristics, so if you’re a woman what makes you special is your boobs, if you’re a man it’s your dick or your swinging balls or that trick move you do.

Which stems from this weird cultural story that sexual relationships are based primarily on sex. Like, the quality of the sex you have is the primary motivation, and everything else just sort of trickles down from that. (Ew, trickle.)

But that’s not how real life works! In real life, maybe sex is primary for a while – but for most people, the sex should be acceptable, but the reason they decide to stay with someone, move in with someone, have children with someone, comes down to simple questions:

“Do they make me laugh? Do they pay attention to me? Do they care about me?”

Now, people say, “Aww, man, she left me because that dude was better in bed/was kinkier/was hotter,” but that’s not usually the truth. What actually happened is that yes, there probably was volcanic sex involved, but the reason that sex was so intense was that the other dude was paying more attention than the other dude had, or they had a better shared sense of humor, or some other aspect that made them click.

Note that I’m not saying that “opening up your relationship means they’ll always stay with you”: No, the danger of your partner getting better options and leaving is a known danger, Khaleesi.

But the reason they left wasn’t the dick. It wasn’t the kink. It wasn’t their six-pack abs or their aquiline nose….

It was because, fundamentally, the fleeing partner found something more fulfilling emotionally.

As I said, I used to be a scumbag, and I can’t recall a single one of my cheatatrons where I said, “Hi, I believe I have a larger snozzwanger than your current man, TAKE ME NOW.” No, it was usually a situations where I made her laugh harder, or listened to her problems when her boyfriend blew her off, or just was willing to go do things that her boyfriend went, “Not interested, you go.”

I didn’t incentivize them to sleep with me because I promised mindblowing sex, but because I promised to be more fun.

(Jesus Christ I feel bad writing this, but gotta be honest.)

And wanna know a real secret? Sometimes I had a larger whangdoodle than her partner, and we had great sex, and she felt guilty because despite all the fun we were having, her old partner was still more fundamentally compatible with her, and she told me this was over.

It wasn’t about my penis.

And yeah, there’s weird crossover aspects – sometimes they leave a dumpy dude for a big muscley dude, but the dumpiness can be a side effect of “they have ceased to care whether they look attractive for me,” and it’s hard to feel that your partner cares about you when they show up in a Cheeto-dust-smeared shirt after playing videogames for twelve hours straight while you looked after the kids.

That story often gets retconned into “She left me for a hotter guy,” but they often overlook the fact that the reason that hotter guy had a chance is that they’d gone on autopilot for years and whoops, bad things happened while they were asleep at the wheel.

Don’t get me wrong – there are times when people absolutely leave due to physical attraction, but that attraction is not the driving reason. Yeah, older rich dudes will typically divorce their first wives to get themselves a trophy wife, but that trophy wife often presents the element of “I’m the fun escapist relationship who doesn’t ask much of you aside from cash!”

And women do leave men for being hotter/kinkier/penisier, but my point is that it’s not the primary element, because they also leave for schlubs who men cannot understand “How could they want that?”

(Hint: I have always been chubby, always been bug-eyed, always been just a little too goofy. I still attract people. It ain’t my man-boob milkshakes bringing all the girls to the yard.)

Plus, some women, particularly experienced ones, don’t actually want a big dick. It’s kind of like the way men say they want a girl with a high sex drive – then they get one, and go “Whoah, too much.” There are undeniably size queens, but ask around to most women with experience about whether they want the ten inch behemoth every night, and you’ll find a surprising number who go, “Oh, God, that’s painful. And not in a good way!”

So this whole concept of “BIG DICK == THREAT” is usually based on the whackadoodle masculine concept that “The dick is the only thing that matters.” And that’s simply not true for, like, 99% of people.

And for those who it does apply to, well, they’re pretty easy to spot. If you’re really afraid of your partner leaving you solely because the guy’s better in bed or has a gigantic dick, well, you should be able to see a clear pattern in their past relationships about who they kept and why. And before you get in to deep with a woman whose length-of-penises-in-vagina chart looks like a steady upward curve to the right…

Maybe stop? You don’t have to date anyone, remember. If you see signs that they’re only dating for someone’s sick abs and you’re worried about your ability to retain your own, that’s probably not a relationship you should commit to!

As for the rest: Welp, there’s reasons why the traditional pattern of “RELATIONSHIP IN DANGER, GO POLY” is a crappy one, because if you’re not stable as a couple, opening up your relationship to new people generally doesn’t fix things.

And if your partner is attracted to different people, in some ways that’s great! They’ve got a you! Them seeking out a carbon copy of you means you’re not being you enough! Many poly relationships involve dating people who are wildly dissimilar, and that’s not a “threat” so much as “you’re maxing out all their needs in these quadrants, they’re seeking out others.”

But yeah. There’s a lot of reasons why people cheat, and why people leave. There’s risks! Folks catch feelings, NRE, do stupid things! I get being afraid to open up your relationship to people, sure.

But I can’t be all that sympathetic to those who are terminally afraid of competing penises.

Because you’re more than the sum of your sexual parts. If you’re thinking your sole value to this relationship is a penis or a bra size or a sexual trick, chances are really good you’re leaving yourself open to someone who understands, you know, emotions.

But it’s hardly ever “DICK SIZE BIGGER.”

End transmission.