At birth the average erect penis is little more than one inch
long. By the time a boy reaches the age of twelve his erect penis will probably
be about twice that length. It's then that things usually start to improve
fairly dramatically.
By the age of fifteen the average erect penis is
around five inches long (12.5 cms), and by full adulthood the average erect
penis is around six and a half inches long (that's nearly 17cms) and three and a
half inches in circumference (9 cms).
One of the very few physical
benefits associated with ageing is the fact that the size of an adult penis
tends to increase slightly with age - and the length of a fairly ordinary,
average sort of penis can increase by as much as an inch throughout its owner's
adult lifetime.
The size of the average penis seems to have got slightly
bigger over the last century or so. Surveys done in the late nineteenth century
showed that the length of the average penis ranged between three inches and four
and a half inches in length (that's between 7.5 cms and 11.5 cms) so there seems
to have been a healthy increase in the last hundred years or so.
The
majority of men are remarkably close to average size and genuine under or over
development is relatively rare and is usually accompanied by other signs of poor
development. There is far more variation in the size of female breasts than
there is in the size of male penises.
There may be a considerable change
in the size of a penis when it becomes erect and penis size tends to even out
rather a lot during the process of erection. A penis that seems particularly
small when limp may double or triple its length when erect whereas the increase
in length of a penis that is larger when limp may be less noticeable. The
length, width and general size of a penis at rest gives absolutely no indication
of its potential size when aroused. In some men the main effect of erection is
to increase the length of the penis. In others the main effect is to increase
the width. In some men erection has a relatively slight effect on the size of
the penis. A penis which is small when limp may, when erect, become larger than
a penis which promised much when limp. Nature has her own way of ensuring that
her favours are distributed fairly.
Incidentally, it is a myth that you
can tell the size of a man's penis by looking at his overall height or the size
of his nose or his feet. The height and weight of the owner have little
influence on the size of a penis.
To measure a penis you should gently
grasp the end of the erect penis between thumb and first finger and lie it along
a ruler which has one end pushed gently against the male pubic bone. Measure to
the tip of the glans NOT to the end of a stretched foreskin.
Men worry a
great deal about the size of their penis and whatever Freud may say, true penis
envy is commoner among men than among women. Men worry about the size of their
penises about as much as women worry about the size of their breasts (which is
very often). Such worries are common among both homosexuals and heterosexuals. A
study of one thousand gay men in America showed that over a third thought that
the size of a partner's penis was very important. Almost all the homosexuals
interviewed - even those who had penises noticeably larger than average - felt
that their penises were too small.
Young boys often feel under-endowed
when they look around in the school showers. What they do not realise is that
boys of a similar age may have reached puberty much earlier and their organs
may, therefore, have started to get larger sooner.
Men often feel
under-endowed when they look around in the showers after playing squash or
football or working out in the gym. What they fail to realise is that each man's
view of his own penis is apparently shortened by an optical illusion when he
looks down on it. If two men face each other naked both will almost always think
that the other has a considerably larger penis. Some comfort can usually be
obtained by looking into a mirror when a more accurate view can be
obtained.
Most of these fears are unfounded anyway. There is no
correlation between the size of a man's penis and his ability to satisfy a woman
in bed. When women do find large penises more exciting it is usually because
they look more exciting rather than because they provide more or better sexual
satisfaction. Some women like to admire large penises in the same way that some
men like to admire large breasts. The admiration is largely artistic rather than
functional.
Occasionally a man may worry that his penis is too big. And
some women worry that if a man has too large a penis it may hurt them during
sex. Theoretically it is possible that an unusually large penis could hurt a
woman but the risk is fairly small since the female vagina can expand and adapt
itself to cope with a baby's head (which is rather larger than any penis ever
recorded).
The thickness of a penis has far more effect than the length
of a penis on a woman's chance of reaching an orgasm during vaginal sex. The
unstretched vagina is usually around four to five inches long so the average
penis is longer than is necessary to reach the cervix.
It is the
thickness of the penis which decides how much the labia minora will be moved
during intercourse and it is the movement of the labia minora which stimulates
the clitoris and produces the female orgasm.
Women may find a long,
slender penis attractive to look at but a short, fat penis is more likely to
provide them with sexual satisfaction.
I constantly receive letters from
male readers who are too shy to initiate sexual contact with women they fancy
because they fear that they will be rejected or - worse still - laughed at when
the partner of their dreams sees how much they've got (or rather how much they
haven't got) tucked into their trousers.
The good news in all this is
that even if a man does have a slightly smaller than average sized penis he can,
by carefully selecting the positions he uses when making love, maximise the
amount of satisfaction his partner receives.
