Penis study axed after photo data compromised

A university professor has been forced to abandon a study on the relationship between penis size and self-esteem after participants submitted images of cartoon characters rather than of their genitals.

Alicia Walker, a sociology professor at Missouri State University, had appealed for men over the age of 22 to complete an anonymous online survey, measure their penis, and submit a photo to verify its size. She “had also been conducting qualitative interviews by email or phone”, reports education website TES.

”The kind of work I do is not for everybody,” Walker told local newspaper Springfield News-Leader after launching the study last month. “These are not sexy pictures. These are clinical pictures."

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The professor explained the significance of the study, which called for up to 3,600 participants, to the New York Post. “I’ve spoken to men who have been suicidal because of their anxiety and unhappiness with their size or perceived size,” Walker told the paper. “We need to be talking about men’s body dysmorphia, and the way our society worships size and the way that worship impacts men.”

Initial submissions suggested “a lot of anxiety and a lot of low self-esteem related to size”, she said, adding: “I can’t tell you how many people submit measurements and believe they are average but they are above average.”

‘Soliciting dick pics’

Less than two weeks into the study, Walker realised that the survey responses were skewed and that some of them were jokes.

In a university press release, she announced that the research was being abandoned because the “reliability of the study as a whole has been compromised”. The professor said some men had admitted to uploading cartoons such as SpongeBob SquarePants instead of pictures of their penises, “to throw the study’s findings into jeopardy”.

No identifying information was collected with the surveys or photos, which have now been destroyed, according to the university.

Walker blamed “inaccurate and irresponsible” media coverage - some of which described her as “soliciting dick pics” - for skewing the data pool.

Following the decision to end the study, Walker says, she received a flood of emails from men supporting her research work.

“I have had so many men beg me to do the study anyway. So many men have messaged to say that they have absolutely no outlet to discuss this. They cannot talk to their male friends because they will only get ridicule,” she wrote in an email to Inside Higher Ed. “This study was an opportunity for them to vent and process.”

The academic told the education news site that the “misrepresentations in the media and clickbait inflammatory headlines robbed these men of their chance to talk about their experiences”.

“And while some think that it doesn’t matter, it does,” she added.