Base Ring Sizing

The foundation of fit

Thanks ChatGPT for not labeling the fourth ring. OCD triggered.

[Note: This is a more theoretical article, for something more practical, please read this]

Ring sizing is one of the trickiest things about fit to get right. And it’s also foundational – how your ring fits will determine how everything else fits. I’m going to start this by saying there’s no One True Way for sizing your ring. Ring sizing is all about trade-offs. A large ring carries very little risk of nerve damage, urethra damage, or tissue damage due to reduced blood flow. But a large ring won’t hold a cage up very well and will usually require straps. So, if you were hoping for a single guide to tell you “do this”, sorry, this wasn’t it. There are plenty of guides to tell you “do this”. I’m going to take a more nuanced approach.

Note: I won’t go into different ring geometries as those are more about the ball gap than ring sizing and I also won’t go into oval vs round other to say that Mistress Mature Metal seems to think most people are more comfortable in oval rings. I personally am more comfortable in round (I actually took a vice to my Mature Metal oval ring to make it round – eat your heart out plastic cage owners).

So, I have seen quite a few methods of sizing a ring. The most ridiculous is the one recommended by numerous sites: take a piece of string and measure around your balls and flaccid shaft. The people following this advice invariably post “Help: Can’t find a 75 mm ring”. Interestingly, I’ve seen more and more off-the-shelf cages offer ridiculously large rings (and often in lieu of more reasonable sizes). I suspect they are catering to that audience.

A more reasonable method and the method I most often see espoused is the one-knuckle rule: can you get your index finger up to the first knuckle between the ring and your shaft? Or can you get in one finger but not two? What I don’t like about thesae rules is they don’t account for your erect girth and some of us grow more dramatically than others.

Wait? Did he just say erect? I thought all measurements were to be done flaccid.

Yep, erect. My thinking on sizing is largely derived from u/McQueen455’s entry in the r/chastitytraining wiki which is largely concerning erect girth, not flaccid:

I like to say there are two sizes of cock rings for every guy. The first is the smaller of the two and when you put it on your cock is instantly inflated, bulging veins, blue steel, and the only way you’re going to be getting the sucker off is to bust a nut and allow your cock to deflate. Fall asleep with a cock ring like this still in place and you’ll be lucky if you wake up and still have a working dick. No bullshit.

The second cock ring is slightly larger and it adds to the last 20-30% of your erection. You can’t really feel the ring grip and cut off the blood flow until you’re almost full mast. This is a ring where you can talk your boner down and then slip off 5 minutes later without busting a nut. This is your base ring size. To show you how close the two measurements are if I sport a 1.75 inch ring I have to bust a nut to get it off. Add just .125 inch to the diameter and I’m happy camper capable of going 24/7 for weeks at a time. The difference in area between the two is only something like a 13% but it makes all of the difference in the world.

Wise words.

I think anything that suggests measuring while flaccid is just a rule-of-thumb and how the ring fits while erect is really what matters.

I think McQeen’s advice is some of the more aggressive I’ve seen and he can likely hold up a cage made of pure tungsten. I imagine I back off a few millimeters from what ring size he would recommend for me – I wear a 48 mm ring, I think he’d recommend a 45 mm one. Again, it’s a personal preference.

A more conservative approach, but really the same idea, is recommended by u/DanBalt in his entry in the wiki:

An alternate approach [to a the one-finger rule] is to measure the diameter around your erect size and then add 10-12%. This is likely a more direct method [emphasis added] to measure what your erect penis needs to be accommodated than the index finger method.

Personally I prefer a little looser. In part because any tighter makes erections too uncomfortable. And I'm increasingly convinced that the base ring should be loose enough to accommodate your genitals while you're erect with only some discomfort and certainly without pain. However you're aiming for something that feels secure when you're flaccid while being also comfortable [emphasis his] when you're erect.

I prefer my ring smaller than my erect girth. Now, is Dan wrong? Of course not. As I said, it’s all a trade off. But unless Dan is less of a grower than I, he won’t be able to carry a heavy steel cage as well as I and tungsten is completely out of the picture for him¹. But perhaps he’s more of a shower. Showers have it easy.

Now, u/Kink3D, the owner of Kink3D has another idea (I wish I could find our exchange). He feels that this idea of measuring for the ring without the cage doesn’t really work. His experience with Kink3D’s customers are that men wearing a cage can actually wear a smaller ring than without the cage. The idea is that the cage itself restricts the growth of the penis and allows a smaller ring to be safely worn. I think there’s definitely merit to this idea and he certainly has broad experience here but I avoid coupling the ring and cage when sizing because you add another variable to comfort: the ball gap. So many people confuse ball gap issues with ring size issues that I think it’s very important to know your ring size independent of anything else. And something else here: if he’s correct, ring size also depends on cage size – a cage that’s too large around should require a larger ring in his thinking. And perhaps a more open cage where the erectile tissue can grow in areas would lead to a larger ring. Anyway, there’s a very good chance he’s right but I also don’t care to contemplate a world where my ring size depends on everything else. And in practice, with my numerous cages, I haven’t really found that to be the case. While most of my cages are 38 mm in diameter, I prefer 42 mm in more closed tube-like designs (for hygiene and ease of putting them on).

I’m going to put KD’s views aside for now as they make things so complicated that this post would just devolve into a shoulder shrug. So, let’s talk about showers vs growers. Or as the famed Pansy Tart used to term them, meat cocks and blood cocks.

I think a few charts might help visualize this. First, I’ll start with me. I think I’m definitely a grower going from 38 mm flaccid to 53 mm full-mast erect. Here’s how ring sizing works for me.

Now, obviously I don’t know where the “tissue damage” threshold is. I certainly hope that it’s far to my left. I pray it’s to the left of “not comfortable”. If Dan were to make a similar chart, he can confidently say that it’s even farther to his left.

But notice I have a small window, somewhere between 48 and 51 mm where I can support a steel cage and still be somewhat comfortable. In a wide cuff ring I can wear 48 mm whereas in a narrower round ring, I prefer 51 mm. That 48 mm ring has no issue holding up a heavy steel cage. The 51 mm ring, the cage can sag a bit, at the borderline of needing straps – but as straps introduce so many issues themselves, I prefer it just sagging a bit.

Cuff (flat) vs round. Credit: BAWR

But let me generalize and look at the other extremes. Before I do that though, just note that where I draw these lines is only illustrative. But that aside, here’s what I expect the chart would look like for someone more of a grower than I, perhaps an extreme grower:

Notice for this poor guy, there’s no way to wear a steel cage without straps. And if you think about it, it makes sense. There’s such a large difference between his flaccid and erect girth that any ring that allows him to support a heavy cage would be way too small when erect. Chastity really is easier for peoples whose penises don’t change size.

But now let’s look at a shower’s chart where his flaccid and erect girth are pretty close to one another.

He’s got quite a broad range where he can support a cage without straps. Lucky bastard.

Again, I don’t know where the lines on these charts actually are – if you gave me your flaccid and erect diameter, I could take a guess on what this chart would look like for you but it would only be a guess and Dan’s guess would be different. But I think it’s helpful to think about ring sizing in this way.

But again, depending on how much the cage’s size interacts with the ring’s size, well a whole new level of complexity is introduced and I’d have a different chart for me in a tube cage versus me in a ring-and-bars style cage. At least in my narrow 38 – 42 mm range of cage inner diameters, I haven’t noticed enough of a difference to necessitate wearing different ring sizes.

Now for a bit of practical advice, how I actually determined my ring size. This is where sizing rings come in. And if you a partner, this is the fun part. Start with a nice large ring², either a sizing ring or a ring that came with your multi-ring cage, and bring yourself full-mast erect. How does it feel with the ring on? Is it comfortable? Can you easily return to flaccid without climaxing?

Now, go down a size – assuming the rings you have are around 3 or 4 mm apart (5 mm is quite a jump and I’m not sure I’d be comfortable making a 5 mm jump). Repeat until you feel you’ve gone as small as you can comfortably and safely go. You now have a few candidate rings, the one you just selected and the sizes on either side. Take the larger of the three and sleep in it. Do you sleep through the night without waking up? If it wakes you up, you may have gone too small but I don’t know how heavy a sleeper you are but how does the ring feel if it did wake you up? Basically, nocturnal erections are really strong and I don’t believe come with the pain de-sensitization that arousal-based erections do.

From here, we kind of want to repeat what we just did but with nocturnal erections. If it felt fine or you slept right through it, consider trying again with the ring you originally selected.

What about that smaller ring? I recommend keeping that number (or close to it) in your back pocket. As I mentioned, I have a 3 mm range of ring sizes I prefer depending on ring’s height if it were lying flat on a table. With the 1/4” round ring used by Mature Metal, 51 mm is what I prefer but with a flat ring, it’s 48 mm. What does it feel like sleeping in a 48 mm ring 1/4” round ring? I’m woken up several times a night and it feels quite tight and a bit uncomfortable but by no means painful; I just roll over and go back to sleep. With a flat ring, I’m seldom woken up and I have no reason to believe it’s by the erection, more than likely it’s the asshole cat.

Hopefully you found yourself with that mental chart that includes a ring size that allows you to hold up a heavy steel cage but is still perfectly comfortable.

As I said, there’s no One True Way for ring sizing. I think this method works well regardless of how conservative or aggressive you want to be with your ring size. If holding up a Kink3D Cobra is all you care to do, then you can certainly wear a nice large comfortable ring (but remember that means a smaller ball gap). If you’re wanting to hold up that stainless steel cage that weighs five times more than a Cobra, you’ll definitely need a smaller ring but weather you’re comfortable with that smaller ring depends on how much a grower you are and how conservative you want to be in your sizing.

For a sobering read (and a few photos you can’t unsee), please see this NIH article: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6541129/.

1. No, there’s really no such thing as a tungsten cage. But it might not be a bad material for a ball stretcher especially if you want to live on Venus.

2. If you have a partner, the larger the better: “Ok, hon, I’m going to put on this… um… 75 mm ring and I want you to take me in your mouth. If it feels okay, we’ll try the 72 mm ring and keep going from there”. Beats the hell out of trying on pants in the dressing room.