A very prevalent notion in modern society is the idea that black men have particularly large penises. The stereotype is a very old one, likely centuries. While somewhat of a positive trope (similar to the idea that Asians are smart), it has some negative consequences, and quite a checkered past. According to a survey, in which hundreds of men throughout the United States self-reported their penis size, African Americans exaggerated their own measurements significantly more than other ethnic groups. And abroad, many black males are ridiculed or objectified due to these stereotypes which mostly stem from the US.

Since the colonial era, there has been the idea of a well-endowed, sturdily-built, and rather libidinous black man. Until the late twentieth century, it was commonly accepted that men of color were rather lustful, and many terrible, terrible hate crimes were committed due to this assumption, as the victims were accused of rape, usually with no evidence whatsoever.

The jury is out on whether or not this trope is offensive. While certainly a bit racist, especially due to its roots, many people of color spread and agree with it, and lots of black men brag about their own dimensions. Nowadays it would be very politically incorrect to mention (at least in the public sphere) that African American guys are perverted or lack self-control, but the "Black Mamba" is very deeply ingrained in popular culture.

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Examples

Comics

• In Les Innommables a black guy is refused entry into an Asian brothel because the girls are afraid he's far too large for them.

Comedy

• Jaakko Teppo tells a self-admittedly dirty joke about a racist guy in Tampere who has just met two black guys on Tammerkoski bridge and is telling his friend all about it:

  "And they go on to piss off the bridge, and this one n****r says, Aw shit, man, is the water cold today, and the other one says, And the bottom's muddy too, dammit!"

Film

• A common, common, common trope in Blaxploitation films from the '70s. Many movies, such as Sweet Sweetbacks Baadasssss Song, star a hero known for his... measurements.
• In the film Black Dynamite, a modern Affectionate Parody of the genre, the protagonist manages to have sex with three women simultaneously, and please all of them equally.
• * Blazing Saddles.
  • Lili is seducing the new, black, sheriff. We hear this in the dark:
    Lili Von Shtupp: Tell me, schatze, is it twue what they say about the way you people are... gifted?
    [sound of zipper opening]
    Lili Von Shtupp: Oh, it's twue. It's twue. It's twue, it's twue!

  In the original script this was followed by Sheriff Bart saying "You're sucking my elbow."

  • In another scene:
    Charlie: They said you was hung. [[labelnote:He means "hanged," the proper past tense of "to hang someone."]]
    Bart: And they was right. [[labelnote:He doesn't.]]
• At one point in the Vietnam epic Full Metal Jacket, a hooker initially refuses to sleep with an African American man because of his so-called "Alabama blacksnake".
• Referenced once in Gutterballs.
• In Liberty Heights, a teenager tells his friend that somebody saw the new black kid in the shower and he was huge. However, it's unknown if that is true or just gossip.
• In The Full Monty, the black guy, Horse, becomes concerned when he learns of the plan to strip completely, because he thinks everyone will expect his penis to be large when it is instead of normal size. It is instead Guy, a white guy, who has a rather large penis.

• The Full Monty also subverts it, in that Dave asks his wife if, were anything to happen to him, she might take up with a black feller. She answers that she "might do, yeah". He immediately goes into a funk, because everyone knows they have "great bodies and that"[[hottip:*:some do, yeah]]. However, he really is talking about their physiques, and not their equipment, because he's very insecure about his appearance.
• Harold And Kumar Go To White Castle: Harold gets locked up in jail with a philosophical black man, who is resigned to his fate.
  Harold: I don't understand how you can be so calm about all this.
  Tarik: Look at me. I'm fat, black, can't dance, and I have 2 gay fathers. People have been messin' with me my whole life. I learned a long time ago that there's no sense gettin' all riled up every time a bunch of idiots give you a hard time. In the end, the universe tends to unfold as it should. Plus, I have a really large penis. That keeps me happy.

Literature

• Deconstructed in the novel Eaters Of The Dead, in which every culture apparently has this myth about one ethnic group or another. The Nordic women encountered by the Arabic narrator assume he'll be massively endowed; being well-traveled, he remarks that he's heard identical rumors in most countries, usually about a population that lives far away from whomever is spreading the rumor.

Music

• A ton of rap lyrics are about the singer's penis, and most rappers are black.
• This is even referenced in an old jazz song, All That Meat and No Potatoes sung by Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong.

Live Action TV

• Becomes a minor plot point in Sirens where Ash is coming onto the black cop Ryan. Ryan is quite upset about this stereotype. He says that yeah; while some black guys play up this angle, it's still insulting, and turns Ash down.

Web Original

• This is mentioned in the Dirty Potter audio spoof series.
• Gaijin Chronicles is the blog of a black man who teaches English in a Japanese middle school. The first post recounts his dealings with his students, whose only knowledge of America comes from television, specifically their enthusiastic assumption that he has a "bigu dikku" and desire to confirm the same.

Western Animation

• In the Adult Swim show Mary Shelley'sFrankenhole, Thomas Jefferson surgically replaces his plantation with that of a black man's. Why? So he can woo the slaves on his plantation.
• The Dating Guy sort of invokes this. One episode has the gang going into the rainforest and coming across a black tribe in South America. Sam, the girl, is to be wed to a man who has the largest penis; it's so large, it unrolls like a fire hose and the end cannot be seen. However, it never mentions if Woody, the black guy, has a large penis or not. (He does get the most action out of the guys, though.)

Tabletop Games

• Invoked and subverted in FATAL: there's a magical armor that turns you into a black guy. Its very disgusting and racist effects include that "If the wearer is male, then those around him are 80% likely to believe that his manhood has increased, though it has not."

Real Life

• Quite a few people assume this to be true, even if they've never once seen an African American man sans ropas. Several articles on the phenomenon have been published in scientific journals, and entire books on the matter have been penned by physicians, sociologists, and psychologists.