Hi I’m Michelle, and today we're talking about personal size and size anxiety, and I'm going
to be guiding you through practical strategies that you can use for overcoming size anxiety,
and then I'm going to be guiding you through how to respond to negative comments,
if you do experience them from someone else. So this is a really important issue.
So let's dive right in. Now, I want to just briefly mention how anxiety affects performance.
Now, there's two parts of your nervous system that are in operation, we've got something called your
sympathetic or your flight of fight response, and that's for emergency situations; and we've
also got the parasympathetic nervous system for relaxation, enjoyment and performance. Now, when
you're anxious what happens with worry is your sympathetic nervous system goes into overdrive,
and what happens then is your parasympathetic nervous system comes down, and this is what
affects performance. So when you're worried about your performance, not only do you get low mood,
not only do you do things like avoid restrooms and avoid relationships, but also too this is going to
affect your physical performance. So we need some strategies to help you to manage your anxiety.
Now, some of the things you can do, the first thing you can do is perhaps
open up with your partner. Now, I want to start by saying that women in particular really
appreciate honesty from their partner, and opening up might just deepen your relationship with your
partner and improve your intimacy. So opening up to your partner can be a really good strategy.
If you don't want to do that, you can perhaps go on to online help groups to talk about this issue
with other guys, or, alternatively you might like to see counseling. Now, counseling can really help
you improve your own body image in relation to this issue, and you can see linked below there's
some free modules, workbook modules on body image that have been developed by psychologists
to help you work through this issue. So check in the discussion below if you'd like to access
that free information too. Now, the second thing in dealing with this issue is to really know the
real facts. Now, the real facts I’ve gone through in previous videos, in my size matters video,
you can see above, I’m just going to review. Now, most information that men get these days
is from the media, from social media, and also too from studies that have been done
on self-reporting data, and these have measured size by actually basically a postal vote where
guys have been asked to actually send in their size, measure their own size,
the top surface from base to tip and this is how the size measurements and size studies
have been done. But if we actually look at Bruce King's article from 2020, looking at the actual
clinical research where size has been measured in the clinic, we actually find that size – there's a
big size myth, and that most men actually believe that real size, the real actual average size
is this big, six inches or above. So this is the range that most men think that is normal size. But
in actual fact, normal size is 5.1 to 5.5 inches, which is here. So this is the normal range,
but this is where men think they should be. So this is what we call the size myth, and this is
what is creating a lot of size anxiety for a lot of guys. And as I’ve already said, this has been
created by that poor self-reporting data, poor studies, and also too by current media portrayals.
Now, if you don't believe me, take a look back in history.
Have a look at how ancient Greeks and Romans portrayed size. If you look at the statues of Zeus
or Hercules who were the epitome of masculinity, they were portrayed with small size. Have you ever
seen the statue of David, for example? Now, this is because, while they had really large bodies,
their small size was the ideal of masculinity at the time. And in fact, large size was
ridiculed in their plays at the time, and it was actually associated with stupidity
and ignorance. So this is a really important point to make, because I think it shows you how science
ideals are really a construct of society, and not really something that's actually a fact.
Now, the third point I want to make is that most women actually don't worry about size,
and in my size matters video, there were lots of questions about the study that I made, and I just
made a small study, a small sample study. But if we actually look at one of the realist big
studies, the scientific studies that have been done, in over 26,000 women, in the respondents,
80% of women or over 80 of women said that size didn't matter. And in fact, 2% of these women,
and these women were aged 18 to 65 years old, they were all heterosexual women, they said
that – 2% of women said that in fact they would prefer smaller size. So the size studies looking
at what women's preferences are consistently show that women don't worry about personal size. So if
this is something that worries you, you can take a heat in the knowledge or maybe take comfort
in the knowledge that women aren't worried, most women aren't worried about personal size.
Now, let's say, for example, you have the misfortune of being with someone, or a small
percentage of being with someone who makes a negative comment or makes a negative implication
about your size. The first point I want to make is that criticism is a form of emotional abuse,
and that no one has to put up with that. So always remember that, it's not acceptable to
anyone. But what do you do and how do you deal with it? All right, let's say, for example,
someone makes a negative comment about you and your size. Well, first of all, you can ignore
it. You can just choose to do nothing about it, perhaps your worry will increase, you might lose
some self-respect and some feelings of self-worth, but you have the choice of doing nothing.
The second thing you can do, and this is a really constructive thing you can do, is to actually say
to that person how that comment makes you feel as a person. So rather than attacking them,
just say that really makes – that comment makes me feel bad. I think this is a really good way
of conveying your feelings to that person, and conveying the effect of what that comment or
that implication has on your feelings. Now, you do have another option, and the other option is
just to walk away, and knowing that there are other sensitive women or men out there that
will accept you for the person that you are, rather than worrying about your personal size.
So we've looked at quite a few things there, haven't we? We've looked at basically strategies,
practical strategies like getting counseling and opening up to your partner. We've also too looked
at history, we've looked at the actual facts and the size myth; and we've looked at how women
actually perceive size, and how we really, most of us, don't really worry about size; and also too,
we've looked at how to respond to negative comments. So I really hope that either one or
more of these strategies helps you in overcoming size anxiety and improving your body image.
I would really appreciate it, if you can give this video a like below, if it's helped you,
because then YouTube will then share the information with other men that can benefit too.
I really thank you for watching today, and I look forward to seeing you next time. Bye for now.