What is the average size of a human penis?
The enduring question now has a scientific answer: 13.12 centimetres (5.16 inches) in length when erect, and 11.66cm (4.6 inches) around, according to an analysis of more than 15,000 penises around the world.
In a flaccid state, it found, the penis of the average man is 9.16cm (3.6 inches) in length and has a girth of 9.31cm (3.7 inches).
I shall sleep easier tonight, knowing that knowledge has been acquired.
This also has a practical purpose. Many men will realize that their dimensions sound much more impressive in centimeters, which may finally motivate Americans to use the metric system.
Yeah, so they can start pretending that 13cm is really 20cm…
As I recall, Masters & Johnson reported that differences in flaccid-size tended to even out in erect-size.
But getting the study to confirm that past a human-experimental-review board would present a challenge of epic proportions…
The most important issue when comparing body parts is: Is your left nostril booger than your right nostril?
10 centimeters = 1 dickimeter
;>
(Sounds of rustling under the bed sheets as every man on the planet checks to make sure he’s still above average size)
If you want to see 13.12 centimetres of good cock, look at mine twice.
Pierce R. Butler, it is very doubtful that the proportions would be epic …
Honestly. The thing that bugs me about it is how much angst and shame is wrapped up in it. Men’s penises aren’t usually visible the way women’s breasts are, so their perceptions of other men are mostly based on assumptions and anxiety.
Well, I’m going to TMI y’all as a public service. Content note: my dick.
I have a perfectly average sized, circumcised, run of the mill, fully functional penis. It’s really good at peeing and also sexing.
And that’s the news from lake Woebegone, where the women are strong, the men are good looking, and all the penises are above average.
Thank you, Josh, Official SpokesGay, for that pubic service announcement.
Lynna, I heart you.
OMG! I’m not average. I shall sleep easier tonight, having acquired that knowledge.
Doesn’t everyone. :-)
I wonder what the standard deviation on the data was – I’d really like to see the curve on that.
Heh. Reminds me of that joke about why women can’t parallel park.
(Because they’re always being lied to about what 8 inches looks like.)
5-6 inches seems about right, and matches what I’ve read earlier on penis length. It also goes well with the average woman’s vagina being 3 inches deep, 4 inches when aroused.
That fits with my penis, too. I tried measuring it once and got 5.5 inches erect, although it might be a little bit longer because I’m fat.
Not sure why I came across this; some clickbait ad, I think.
http://nymag.com/scienceofus/2014/11/what-its-like-to-have-a-micropenis.html
Sounds pretty awful.
I am sure those persons who clean restrooms will tell you: size is nothing, aim is everything.
While it was a very large sample size, racial distribution was not very: mostly European, and Middle Eastern. They did find very little difference between ethnic groupings, but racist-me gotta wonder about the stereotype of Asian vs. European vs. African. <slinking away>
Well, if what I learned in my Human Sexuality class is correct, there really isn’t a significant difference based on race.
And besides, it isn’t the size of the submarine, its the motion of the ocean… Or something, right?
You know the joke about the ninety-year-old Italian guy who goes to his doctor and says: I’m going to marry again, my wife is much younger than me, I want a physical check up. The doctor gives him the once-over and then says: Sir, I will need to examine your sexual organs.
The guy holds up his index finger and sticks out his tongue…
:)
The doctors behind the study say it’s partly aimed at reassuring men who think, wrongly, that they have a too-small penis. All this measuring is definitely driven by the owners of the penes.
Step closer!
HE
is shorter than you think!
Allegedly there’s a sign in a more or less public restroom somewhere that says that.
I agree. That’s I called myself “racist” for mentioning that “urban myth”. ;-)
Ok I admit I was thrown for a moment by a miss read. Around is circumference not diameter. :)
“Allegedly there’s a sign in a more or less public restroom somewhere that says:”
That being an actual sign, I once saw hanging above an actual toilet. (where the seat would not remain lifted, and had to stay lowered).
The silliest thing about penis length obsession is that the average vagina isn’t deep enough to accommodate anything substantially longer than average. And ramming the cervix is usually painful.
An 8 inch penis wouldn’t make you a love god. It would render you incapable of most normal sex positions.
Why such measurements matter! (NSFW)
While my sample size is small (n < 10), I have to say that I've seen no correlation between penis size and quality of performance…
@29, my sample size is somewhat larger, and the only relationship between the two variables has been inverse, if anything.
hyperdeath:
Yeah, it is very irrational. But it is also inescapable, it is so culturally pervasive. I think it is best understood as a status thing. The bigger you are, the “better” you are, even if, ya know, you aren’t actually better at actual sex, from the view point of your actual partners. It is a pissing contest, without the pissing.
jamesheartney @ 17
Okay, this is in response to the article itself and not you. Please don’t think I’m directing my irritation at you, jamesheartney.
The feelings of the interviewed man in that article are legitimate, of course, and I have no doubt that his pain and insecurity is real, but a four inch penis isn’t that small and, despite his feelings of inadequacy, perfectly capable of penetration. He’s just a little over an inch shorter than average. Aside from the homophobia/misogyny in a lot of his answers, I worry this article might inadvertently make people feel terrible about their bodies.
There are lots of men well below average size–or lacking a functional penis at all–who have very happy, very fulfilling love lives. I wish that article had focused more on the beautiful ways people can find pleasure and acceptance together.
I’m never going to have a cis penis and not everybody is okay with that, but that doesn’t mean I can’t bring pleasure to my partners who do want me or receive pleasure from them in turn. It certainly doesn’t get in the way of me being loved. Geez, dude.
Word, Mellow Monkey. Cis genitalia are not the only kind.
English. Metric. It makes no difference. I know my penis is small, laughable, and detested by women (and probably gay men) no matter what standard I’m using.
The fun of sex is finding a partner whose size fits you. Above average penis matches up with an above average (depth) vagina. Vice versa and around.
It’s all about ball bearings these days. Wait, finding the right partner, and as those who have mentioned it; length and girth and accommodating sizes in both directions is only part of the sexual equation.
For those people who possess a penis and are insecure about it. Please don’t be. This is about to get TMI:
I’m a small woman, my hands are tiny. As in most of the kids I worked with had bigger hands by the time they were 10. I wear a size 5US ring (7 is average). So we’re talking very small hands. It takes 1 index finger and rarely further than the first 2 joints to reach orgasm. That is less about 2.5 inches in circumference and about 2 inches in length.
It seriously doesn’t take much. What’s important is to listen to the person you’re pleasuring and do things that feel good for both of you.
This reminded me of the Adrian Mole books, as one of the things young Adrian did regularly was check the size of his penis.
It’s sad how much penis size being important is embedded in our culture. Even here we see people insult others by claiming they’re doing this and that to compensate for a small penis.
I have to wonder if they short-changed the average length so that more men would think they’re bigger than average.
I am astonished that no-one has linked to this yet:
http://xkcd.com/194/
Given that the comic dates to ~ Dec 2006, the answer to the question asked appears to be a resounding NO!! . . . !!
Read the Kama Sutra. It explains the importance of size compatibility. e.g. the hare with the deer; the bull with the mare; the horse with the elephant.
BTW read scare quotes around each specis.
Randall himself sort of breaks his own rule in #779.
Well my isn’t very long… but I do have a 90 lb ass to pack it with. ;)
and only now you tell me this was a legitimate scientific career?
Heaven forbid we should live our lives without knowing where we fall in the Penis Hierarchy! How did we even survive before??
“Never mind the length – feel the width”
Inquiring minds want to know – but commercial minds need to sell:
http://www.condom-sizes.org/finding-your-perfect-condom-size-in-three-fast-steps
Condom fit matters – insecurity notwithstanding.
@krambc
I used to work with a cocktail waitress that had a funny way of dealing with men that bragged that they needed magnum condoms (mostly as a shitty come on). She would pull a condom from her bag, blow it up, put it on over her head, and say “really? you NEED a magnum?”
When I was younger porn had me worrying about size. When I got a little older and more experienced I realized that patience, the ability to listen and the ability to give and take direction when needed are orders of magnitude more important than size on both ends of the equation.
I have to wonder what practical implications the size of a flaccid penis has anyway.
I’ll admit it. I google inches to cm conversion table.
In my limited experience, the real problem back in the “one size fits all” days was “OH MY FUCKING GOD IT HURTS! IT HURTS!!!!!”
Seriously.
I found the perfect solution though, and it’s not asking for magnums.
I went the cheaper route – I became anti-social and gave in to halitosis.
I just measured mine and I’m about average.
But everyone in the office is looking at me funny now.
I’ve read that tapirs have prehensile penises. So, take that, humans…
Oh, a tapir’s prehensile penis is the least surreal part…the fact that it can scratch his ears with it is, i think, significantly more disturbing.
@Josh, Official SpokesGay #8
(emphasis mine).
You’re in a 30% minority, and your retractable anti-abrasive hood doesn’t work! I call normativity shenanigans! (Above average non-circumcised, fully functional here =) Oh and thanks for sharing. Perhaps we should get every penis haver to add their measurements to their nym to improve the level of commenting.
It is seriously funny to read this whole exchange, as an unbedicked person who nevertheless enjoys the pleasure one can give.
It’s quite telling how the “size is everything” discussion is clearly not centred around the pleasures of the female partner*, but around the comparison with other men. Being “good at sex” is defined completely independently from being actually good at sex with an actual person with a vagina. In other words, women actually only matter in terms of objects to penentrate, not as partners to please.
Two personal notes:
1. Toys. Really, it doesn’t mean your peen is inadequate, but it just can’t vibrate with that frequency and it hardly ever touches the clitoris anyway.
2. The ladies in porn are paid to act as if this is giving them multiple orgasms just like the people in food comercials are paid to look like this was actually tasty and edible.
I am framing this in the traditional context of cis hetero sex since that’s the context where this discussion is usually found.
@wanstronian, But is it longer or shorter than average?
A joke goes: You know the serial number on the end of the condom? No? Well, you have to unroll it all the way to see it. My reply: No, it’s on the middle of the condom. Profanity from the jokester resulted.
Giliell @55, my dear and loved friend, on what basis do you assert that this question is only or even mostly relevant to cis hetero people?
The size and construction of their genitals wouldn’t be of interest to trans people? Really? And gay men have no concept of the “size queen”? And bi women?
I was all nodding along with you, til that last sentence.
Caitie
I think we’re having a missunderstanding here. I’m not talking about for whom this is relevant. It is quite obviously relevant for all people interested in sex, no matter what genitalia they have or what actual combinations we’re talking about.
I was talking about the dominant discoure, which is cis- and heteronormative.
@59 Giliell: indeed we are. I’m questioning whether reinforcing the cis hetero normativity was really needed; perhaps it is not that you (collective, not you individually) talk about it more, so much as y’all haven’t been listening to the rest of us when we talk about it? Because we do. A lot. It’s a bit of (I’m sure) unintentional erasure I’m focused on here.
Addendum: That last sentence was actually meant to indicate that I’m well aware that other people than cis heteros have sex and that the topic in question is relevant to all of them. I seem to have achieved the opposite. Sorry.
To be positive, G, if you’d said, “because it’s what I know about”, I’d have had no comment to make. I felt pretty excluded by your actual last sentence, instead.
Thanks. Understood – I hope I was able to clarify with 62, which cross posted. No hard feelings, I hope.
Caitie
No, totally no hard feelings.
Just shows that intend isn’t magic at all. My best intends were to highlight that I was being reductionist and that I am fully aware that there are many more people in this world, and I wasn’t careful in my wording and achieved the opposite.
Do I have to return the flashy uniform with the shiny boots now?
I also seem to be unable to write the word intent correctly.
azhael, #53
I will Google this and I will regret it.
Hannelore alerted me to the danger of tapirs some time back.
http://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=1293
http://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=1374
Yeah, that was a bad idea.
Having been married to a penis-haver for nearly 20 years, I’d like to mention something that these studies rarely address: the size of the erect penis varies with age, health, and level of excitement. This is mostly anecdotal, but I do recall hearing about a study that determined that erections were smaller, on average, when achieved by manual stimulation compared with erections achieved by a partner’s oral stimulation.
And, yes, my adolescent brain is giggling at having mentioned oral sex at comment #69.
With any luck I got comment 69. :)
Whoa! That tapir penis is a formidable looking thing. Good thing he’s a vegetarian. He could club small animals to death with that.
As for the human penis thing. In my 40+ years of sexual activity I’d say I learned a lot of things about how to have great sex. None of those things had to do with penis size. Most of them had to do with paying very close attention to your partner, and learning a lot of other stuff that I won’t bother with. The really unfortunate part about sex in our culture is that most of the really important things about sexual intimacy are not taught in any way at any time. We have to learn by experience, and sometimes that takes a long time. And porn movies make that learning harder because they set up ridiculous expectations in the young people who watch them. What they learn from them is not what makes great sex. I have some concerns about a generation raised on internet porn.
Oh, and whoever it was upthread who said that getting bumped in the cervix is not nice, you’re right. My wife winces when in the heat of the moment that happens. Says it’s like poking a bruise. I guess that wouldn’t feel good.
@69 Yellow Thursday
You beat me to it, and I was thinking the same thing about the comment number.
As a penis owner, I’d have to agree that the method of stimulation makes a slight difference in the ultimate size. But more of a difference in the number of Mohs.
Of course, centimetres are a kind of unfortunate unit of convenience.
The metric system of length prefers evenly arranged units every three orders of magnitude, which means that strictly speaking it should be either metres or millimetres.
Choice of which is up to the individual.
Josh @11 and David @13, thank you for the love. I heart you back.
Not everyone loves me … though they should IMHO. I know two people who actively dislike me, and a few who find me occasionally irritating.
To add to the discussion, I will agree with congenital cynic’s wife that getting bumped in the cervix does not add pleasure to sexy time. Paying attention to one’s partner does add pleasure to sexy time.
@55 Giliell, professional cynic -Ilk-
I did not get a chance to post last night, but I wanted to add that the whole “my dick is X cms”. As a man, I would always state, “Who gives a fuck?” Real True Men (TM) know it is all about girth. From what I understand, women find much more pleasure from a girthy phallic thing over size.
Now, to create my song, “It’s all about the girth. the girth”
@Giliell #55
I don’t get people being intimidated by toys. We like toys in most other parts of our lives. Toys are fun! Toys add to everyone’s enjoyment if used well.
There are some toys that very explicitly address exactly that.
So is it safe to say that ‘the bar has been lowered’ on average size?
Thanks, I’ll be here all week
PS. Seriously though? We’re way too obsessed.
This makes perfect hydraulic sense, since manual stimulation usually involves adding pressure with the hands and “sucking” reduces the pressure around the exterior of the penis, tending to oppose the migration of more blood into the tissue in the former case and assist in the latter.
Story is that a major producer of condoms tried to sell their line when sizes first came out and ran into trouble. The ‘small’ condoms didn’t sell at all and people were complaining about the ‘large’ falling off.
The problem was corrected when they offset the sizing scheme so that small became ‘medium’ and the whole thing went up from there with ‘large’ and ‘extra-large’. The largest presumably being ‘OMG’ or ‘equine’.
There was a similar problem with Texas catheters, which should fit like a tight condom, and astronauts. Too large a catheter leads to leaks.
@lorn
“But i swear me cock was bigger on Earth, it must have shrunk because of the loss of gravity or something!”
The obssession with penis size is absolutely ridiculous and i think most men (at least in our culture) actually suffer from a totally delusional and distorted perception of their own body. Even men with a penis that is well above average will often perceive it as average or even smallish, to the point of being self-conscious about it and anxious in public situations. Oh, and even if they generally don’t, all it takes is someone with what looks like a bigger one to instantly make them feel minuscule…. It’s beyond pathetic…
Donnie
No, as others have said, it has something to do with paying attention to your partner
grewgills
I think it has something to do with how much sex is viewed in ters of performance and not in terms of mutual pleasure. Just like many people feel inadequate when they find out that their partner regularly masturbates.
Apparently, some people’s doesn’t increase in size when an erection happens, but only stiffens and becomes erect. I’ve been introduced to the terms “grower” and “shower”.
It may be more important, though, that men have opportunities to compare flaccid sizes at urinals without having to rely on each other’s testimony.
Also with blood pressure at the right moment; excitement – not necessarily sexual – adds pressure and therefore size, fatigue decreases it.
Flaccid size varies even more.