By Jeremy Lybarger
It’s what you might call a loaded question: How does my dick size up?
Compared to other age-old chestnuts — “Why do bad things happen to good people?” “Are we alone in the universe?” “Would you rather sweat mayo or poop a softball?” — it’s not a question that fucks around. If you’re a man, it’s something you don’t ask; if you’re a woman, it’s something you don’t answer.
Luckily, science has answered it for us. British researchers measured 15,521 men from around the world to find that average flaccid penis length is 3.6 inches and average erect length is 5.2 inches. While I’m not here to size-shame anyone, that’s a far cry from what pop culture, the Internet, porn, graffiti, and other reputable sources report as “average.”
And for you tender souls who prize girth above length, the study found that 3.7 inches is the average circumference of a soft dick, while 4.6 inches is the average for a hard one. (A can of Pepsi has a circumference of 9 inches for those keeping score).
Lest there’s any doubt that men — and a good number of women — are obsessed with ol’ John Thomas’ stats, try Googling “penis size.” You’ll get more than 44 million results. To offer random context, Googling “Joe Biden” returns 30 million results, while “nuclear war” returns 48 million — so penis size is more consequential than the Vice President but only slightly less so than Armageddon.
A note about methodology: Study participants had to be at least 17 years old (apparently “barely legal” is not a roadblock for science) and free of erectile dysfunction, physical abnormalities, and implants. Most participants were Caucasian or Middle Eastern, which means we get to continue blithely stereotyping dicks by race.
One thing we should stop doing is correlating penis size with other parts of the body. The study found no convincing data to indicate that foot or finger size accurately predicted penis size, although there was weak statistical evidence suggesting height might be a predictor.
Still, life for anyone living outside either end of the “normal” range is difficult, as demonstrated by this Jezebel article about the woes of being well-endowed, and this New York magazine article about having a micropenis. One thing we can all agree on is that it’s not how much you got, it’s what you do with it. Right?
h/t LA Times; photo courtesy of ThinkStock
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