‘My Penis is Probably Too Small’: A Collaborative Autoethnographic Study

Partners' sexual pasts are often discussed in the literature through the concept of jealousy, typically framed as concerns about rivalry, threat or relationship insecurity. Although this perspective has generated valuable insights, it may not fully capture how such experiences are lived and negotiated within everyday relational life. To address this, the guiding research question was: How do we experience and make sense of the ways in which our partners' sexual pasts shape our intimate relationships? A collaborative autoethnographic design was combined with interpretative phenomenological analysis. Six extended reflective texts, supplemented by ongoing dialogical conversations between the researchers, formed the basis for the analysis. Four interconnected categories were identified: (1) experiencing oneself as insufficient (‘coming up short’); (2) intrusive imagery and embodied distress; (3) shame and self‐regulation; and (4) ambivalence between openness and self‐protection. The findings suggest that difficulties related to partners' sexual pasts are not primarily expressions of jealousy or relationship insecurity but reflect relational and regulatory processes involving embodied experience, imagination, shame and negotiations of intimacy and emotional safety. Drawing on phenomenological perspectives, Bateson's concept of double bind, and family systems theory, the study highlights how efforts to protect oneself and the relationship may simultaneously contribute to maintaining the experiential presence of the past. The findings underscore the importance of understanding partners' sexual pasts as embodied and relational phenomena situated within broader cultural understandings of intimacy and emotional openness.