Spoiler alert: The whole “big Black men have big dicks” trope is a giant myth. If you’ve ever wondered why do Black people have big dicks—or more accurately, why people think Black men do—buckle up. This age-old (and pretty racist) stereotype just got debunked.

We’re about to unpack how this penis size myth started, why it persists (looking at you, porn and dating apps), and how it harms Black men (gay, straight, and beyond) in real life.

As he bares it all (pun not intended), psychologist Bill Johnson spoke his classic HuffPo op-ed piece on the complex issue of stereotypes, challenging preconceptions about size, and the quest for self-acceptance in the Black community.

Let’s take a look at the “Black men are bigger” stereotype
“I have a problem with my dick size…it’s not big and I want it to be! … I’m also Black, and the ‘word’ is all Black men have a large phallus.”

Psychologist Bill Johnson in his Huffington Post op-ed

According to Johnson, he doesn’t know exactly how large he is because he’s never actually measured. If he had to guess, though, Johnson says he’d probably land in the “average” category. But the real problem, Johnson points out, isn’t the size of a penis at all. Instead, it’s the racist stereotype that because of his skin color he’s supposed to be bigger, thicker, longer.

“I have internalized the racist notion that Black men have big dicks…which has its roots in European racism, used to justify slavery and racial oppression.”

Bill Johnson continues to drop truth bombs in his Huffington Post op-ed

Think about that: a trained psychologist still felt insecure because society programmed him to believe Black men must be hung like horses. Johnson’s personal truth highlights a bigger problem that many of us (even Black men themselves) have unknowingly bought into a lie that’s literally centuries old.

What can be done about the “Black men are bigger” myth?
The fantasy of the super-endowed Black man didn’t pop up out of nowhere, though. It’s deeply rooted in racism and sexuality throughout history. Way back in ancient times, Greeks and Romans associated big penises with being vulgar or “animalistic” and smaller ones with intellect and civility. (Yes, in a bizarre twist, small used to be “in” – at least among uppity aristocrats.) European explorers later carried these notions overseas. When they encountered different peoples in Africa and elsewhere, they exaggerated tales of men with outrageously large genitals.

These tall tales weren’t just locker-room gossip, they served an ugly agenda. As one historian notes, colonizers used such accounts to paint other races as sexually savage and themselves as “civilized.” Johnson says, we need to drop the stereotype, which he argues, continues to this day, particularly in the adult film industry.

During the Atlantic slave trade era, the stereotype took on a life of its own in America’s racist imagination. Enslavers and white supremacists crafted the “Mandingo” or “Black Buck” caricature portraying Black men as brutish, hypersexual beasts with insatiable lust and tripod-sized endowments.

Johnson goes on to explain that many of the adult movies with Black men in starring roles use racial themes in the title and often as the flick’s primary selling point. In his mind, “the idea of the salacious Black male and his monster cock has been used to perpetuate the objectification and brutality of African American men.”

Also, people need to get over their obsession with penis-size.

Science vs. stereotype: No, Black men aren’t “naturally” bigger
If this myth were true, we’d expect credible scientific studies to show Black men have significantly larger average penis sizes than other groups. They don’t. Scientists have measured thousands of men across races, and there’s simply no reliable evidence of any race-based size difference.

“Contrary to popular belief, human males are the best endowed of the hominids, proportionate to body size,” he writes. “The average human penis size is five inches. If men were not bombarded with a barrage of messages preaching their inadequacy, insecurities related to the male genitalia would be minimal.”

The bottom line: Penis size is highly individual, not racial. And even if (hypothetically) one did find slight differences somewhere, it wouldn’t justify the sweeping claim that “all Black men have big dicks.” Human bodies are far too diverse for that.