Government Gay Men Penis Size Study Has Conservatives Bent Out Of Shape

A study on the effect a gay man’s penis size has on his sex life and overall well-being, that was partially funded by a grant from the federal government has conservatives bent out of shape. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) is under attack by the Traditional Values Coalition (TVC) for a 2009 study titled, “The Association Between Penis Size and Sexual Health Among Men Who Have Sex with Men.”

“The study reported, among its findings, that gay men with “below average penises” were more likely to assume a “bottom” sexual position, while those with “above average penises” were more likely to assume a “top” sexual position,” according to a Fox News report. “Those with average penises identified themselves as “versatile” in the bedroom.

“Though it’s difficult to trace exactly how much federal funding went to the project, the study was one of many linked to an $899,769 grant in 2006. The grant was administered by NIH’s National Institute on Drug Abuse, and went first to a group called Public Health Solutions and a researcher with the National Development and Research Institutes before going to individual researchers.

“Those researchers then compiled data from a survey of more than 1,000 gay and bisexual men at events in New York City for the gay community.”

“But one of the researchers involved with the report told FoxNews.com that NIH funding was only used to help “analyze and write up” data that had already been collected without the use of taxpayer funds.

“The data were not collected using taxpayer funds,” Jeffrey Parsons, a professor with Hunter College, said in an email. “NIH funds were not used to measure anyone’s penis size.”

“To suggest that 9.4 million dollars was spent to study penis sizes is factually inaccurate and simply designed to create news,” Parsons wrote.

 

The grant to study gay men’s penises was awarded in 2006 under then-President Bush, and is a very small portion of a larger grant, but the Traditional Values Coalition is using the existence of the study as a fundraising and mailing list-generating opportunity by creating a petition titled, “How the National Institute of Health Wastes Half a Billion of Your Money,” and implying President Obama is to blame for “wasteful NIH spending,” and demanding a ludicrous, short-sighted “moratorium” on NIH grants.

“While liberal greed pervades the Washington establishment, cuts in spending are decried by the Left as forcing children to starve or imperiling the social safety net for our parents and grandparents,” the petition reads, while the accompanying press release falsely states the government paid $9.4 million to fund the study of gay men’s penises.

“NIH’s mission is to seek fundamental knowledge about the nature and behavior of living systems and the application of that knowledge to enhance health, lengthen life, and reduce the burdens of illness and disability,” according to the NIH, which began as the Marine Hospital Service in 1798. Among other accomplishments, the NIH helped discover “that a subspecies of chimpanzees native to west Africa are the origin of HIV-1, the virus responsible for the global AIDS pandemic.”

The abstract for the study states, “Larger penis size has been equated with a symbol of power, stamina, masculinity, and social status. Yet, there has been little research among men who have sex with men assessing the association between penis size and social-sexual health. Survey data from a diverse sample of 1,065 men who have sex with men were used to explore the association between perceived penis size and a variety of psychosocial outcomes. Seven percent of men felt their penis was “below average,” 53.9% “average,” and 35.5% “above average.”

Box Turtle Bulletin adds, “Those few (7%) who believed that their penis was “below average” fared significantly worse than other men on three measures of psychosocial adjustment. Also, men with above average penises were significantly more likely than men with average size penises to report having ever been infected with gonorrhea/Chlamydia/urinary tract infection.”

“And there was lots of fabulous info: the bigger the penis, the less likely to lie about it; smaller guys wish they were bigger, but no one wishes they were smaller.”

The Fox News report added that 83% of men contacted agreed to take part in the study, with the compensation being a voucher for a free movie ticket.

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