The problem of penis length is as old as the hills: in eighteenth -
century Normandy it was for that reason customary for midwives to keep the umbilical cords of male babies relatively long. If the cord was pulled too tight in tying it and was therefore cut off too short, the member would be pulled inside.
In 1899 the German doctor Loeb carried out research with fifty men between eighteen and 53: the length of the visible part of the flaccid penis varied from 8 to 11 cm (average 9.4 cm) and the circumference from 8 to over 10 cm. It emerged from the Kinsey Report that only a quarter of men have an erect penis of ‘average’ size. But extremes are rare: 5 per cent of men have an erection of less than 9 cm and only 1 per cent can boast a massive erection of over 20 cm.
Doctor Jacobus x was the pseudonym of a surgeon in the French army who devoted years of his life to examining and measuring hundreds of sex organs of men and women from all over the world.
Comparative research was his passion. In 1935 he published the results of his work, which showed that black Africans had the longest penises, varying when flaccid from 12 to 15 cm, and erect from 19 to 29 cm.
Jacobus observes that penis size is always commensurate with vagina size in the same race. ‘Hindustani women, whose men have slim, short penises, will have difficulty in accommodating the average European,’
wrote the army doctor, ‘and in their eyes the huge penis of a black African would be an instrument of torture.’
Jacobus appears to be saying that nature ensures that people of the same race seek each other out. From this perspective mixing of the races is unnatural. Nowadays we would frown at such views but in the 1930s such notions were not uncommon.
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Peno-scrotal
webbing
However, Piesol’s manual of anatomy (1907) already states that in comparison with other organs penis size is not connected with physical development. You cannot tell the length of a man’s penis from his nose, as some mothers-in-law occasionally maintain. There is, though, according to the scientists Siminoski and Bain, a statistically significant correlation between a man’s shoe size and the length of his penis.
A particular form of small penis is the penis palmatus. In this case the penis is not in fact too small, but appears to be so because the penis and the skin of the scrotum have as it were grown together to form a kind of web. It is usually sufficient to cut the web across and reattach it lengthways.
Occasionally even politicians become involved with stiff penises.
In 1993 a debate developed in the European Parliament on penis length. A Dutch Green mp asked the Commission to put an end to ‘the squabbling about eu norms for condoms’. What was the problem?
There had to be European norms for everything under the sun. The British argued for a compromise on the length and diameter of the Euro pean penis. In their view an average erect length of 17 cm and 5.6 cm diameter was a gross underestimate. The average British penis, they maintained, was considerably larger. The Dutch mep asked the Commission if it did not agree that, in view of obvious sensitivities that existed regarding the establishment of the average length of the sexual organ, it would be sensible simply to allow each country to maintain its own average, or in any case to debate it at a level below the European one. She saw a European charter for the condom as an alternative possibility. Member states could then argue for exceptions to the statistically estimated average. ‘And if the gentlemen simply can’t crack the problem, perhaps the male member itself should be standardized, I’m curious to know what the regulation wonks in Brussels would come up with,’ concluded the mep.
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The psychologist Erick Janssen was commissioned by the Amsterdam condom store The Golden Fleece to investigate the circumference of the erect penis. If a condom is too tight, it can lead to complaints, ranging from ‘doesn’t fit’ to ‘chokes everything off’, while a condom that is too loose can of course slide off prematurely. He found that the average diameter of the fully erect penis was approximately 121 mm, with a relatively large spread, from 90 to 161 mm. It also emerged that in a quarter of the test subjects the circumference of the erect penis was less than 110 mm, in three-quarters less than 130 mm and in 90 per cent less than 140 mm. In 10 per cent the circumference of the erect penis was over 140 mm. The researcher’s conclusion was that good consumer advice on condoms should always contain information on penis thicknesses in relation to various sizes of condom.
In ancient Tantric texts the length of the penis is measured from the perineum, that is, from beneath the testicles. Measured in this way penises of up to 30 cm are quite normal. Perhaps we Westerners are selling ourselves short, and perhaps it feels ‘fuller and more whole’ if you include the testicles as well.
The jes extender.
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Lengthening
Down the ages men have tried to make their penises longer. The most primitive method is to hang stones from it. This does work, but also causes impotence. Then there was the Polynesian stretching method using a movable weighted tube, the Arab jelq treatment (massage), and the penicure based on it: in the United States there are apparatuses on sale that massage according to the jelq method. The supplier claims that a lengthening of 2.5 cm can be achieved within twenty weeks. Full details are to be found in Gary Griffith’s Penis Enlargement Methods.
According to Jolan Chang, author of The Tao of Love and Sex, the most important thing is practice, since Taoists believe that absolutely every part of the human body can be trained and developed. The Chinese did after all invent physiotherapy!
In the summer of 1993 the under-endowed were pleasantly surprised by reports in the gay press that over a hundred penis-lengthening operations had been carried out in South Africa. When questioned, the Johannesburg-based plastic surgeon responsible stated that the patient ‘resumes his normal sex life after a month. He has only a small scar that extends down to the scrotum. The patient achieves an incredible result with very little discomfort.’ According to the same report it would not be very long before similar surgery was introduced into Europe.
Well, in August 1994 the moment arrived. A urologist from Utrecht announced in an interview with a leading daily that he had attempted the experimental operation. ‘It’s a simple procedure, we took over two hours, at a leisurely pace, but it’s possible to do it in an hour and a half.
It really gives a very nice result. The patient thought so too. He just can’t get enough of looking under the covers. I’m his hero,’ said the urologist. The report, partly because of the unfortunate choice of words by the otherwise media-friendly urologist, caused a great uproar: the hospital director, a university expert on andrology, a celebrated plastic surgeon, board members of the Dutch Association of Urology, a medi -
cal ethics specialist and a gay newspaper editor, all had their say in the daily press.
With the exception of the last three all expressed serious misgivings.
The andrologist worried about anatomical proportions: ‘The question is whether this can be done with impunity, since it changes the suspension of the penis. Is that possible? It could snap,’ said the professor.
The hospital director and the medical ethicist were in total agreement:
‘In future a medical ethics committee must first be consulted.’ The poor urologist didn’t really understand the resistance. ‘For the moment there is no reason to reject penis-lengthening. The only publications on the 57
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subject are in Chinese, so let me first do some research, carry out a series of operations and publish the results.’
Unfortunately, it is clear that neither the urologist in question, nor any of the commentators knew the scientific literature. The operation performed turns out to be nothing but a variant of one that has been known about for years, and which is in fact in no way experimental.
The essence of the procedure is tha
t the band by which the penis is attached to the pubic bone at the front (the ligamentum suspensorium) is severed. In this way the ‘hanging portion’ of the penis is lengthened.
At the same time the operating surgeon makes the incision in such a way that the skin too can be slid towards the penis. He/she stitches the skin in a different direction from that of the incision. In the jargon it is called Y-V or double Z cosmetic surgery.
Incidentally, there are also techniques for thickening the penis, but that is a completely different story. One method is to transplant subcutaneous fat tissue. The results are mediocre and aftercare is prob-lematic, but large sums of money are involved in it.
Experts – child urologists and urologists with a sexological orientation – have long been in agreement: in men with a penis length of under 4 cm there may be good reason, partly on the advice of a sexologist, to decide on a penis-lengthening procedure. By way of comparison: the average length of the penis in newborn infants is 3.5 cm. Since 1975 penis experts have been able to use the scientifically based table overleaf, giving normal penis dimensions. Little is known about the causes of an undersized penis. Possibly a deficiency in male sex hormone in the final stages of pregnancy is involved. The abnormality may Penis lengthening
surgery.
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be found in isolation, but may also be part of innate anatomical and endocrinological conditions.
Before deciding on an operation for penis lengthening there should always be a consultation, preferably with an expert sexologist. The following facts should be remembered:
The smaller the penis, the bigger the erection will be in proportion.
It is only friction in the outermost portion of the vagina that counts.
The vagina adjusts to every size of penis.
Dutch women consider circumference more important than length.
It’s not what you’ve got, it’s what you do with it.
There’s always someone worse off than you are!
Age
Average
Average
a pprox. SD* cm
-2.5 SD cm
Infant 30 weeks
2.5 approx. 0.4
1.5 cm
Infant 40 weeks
3.0 approx. 0.4
2.0 cm
Infant full-term
3.5 approx. 0.4
2.4 cm
0–15 months
3.9 approx. 0.8
1.9 cm
6–12 months
4.3 approx. 0.8
2.3 cm
1–2 years
4.7 approx. 0.8
2.6 cm
2–3 years
5.1 approx. 0.9
2.9 cm
3–4 years
5.5 approx. 0.9
3.3 cm
4–5 years
5.7 approx. 0.9
3.5 cm
5–6 years
6.0 approx. 0.9
3.7 cm
6–7 years
6.1 approx. 0.9
3.8 cm
7–8 years
6.2 approx. 1.0
3.7 cm
8–9 years
6.3 approx. 1.0
3.8 cm
9–10 years
6.3 approx. 1.0
3.8 cm
10–11 years
6.4 approx. 1.1
3.7 cm
Adults
13.3 approx. 1.6
9.3 cm
Table: Penis Length in Normal Men.
*SD = standard deviation
Source: K. W. Feldman and D. W. Smith, ‘Fetal phallic growth and penile standards for new born male infants’, Journal of Pediatrics, 86 (1975), p. 395.
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With these rules in mind the great majority of men can overcome their worries about the length of their penis! Apart from that there are some practical tips one can give: don’t wear jeans or briefs – Bermudas or boxer shorts are better – and trim over-abundant pubic hair.
If the patient continues to fret, the results of the scientific research carried out by psychologist William A. Fisher should be discussed. He attempted to measure the effect of penis size on the degree of sexual arousal in both women and men (students). In stories about love -
making the penis either was not mentioned (control condition) or was mentioned (experimental condition). In the description of the penis the length was mentioned five times per story. The length varied from story to story as follows: small – 7.5 cm, average – 12.5 cm, large – 20 cm.
After reading a story the test subjects assessed their own level of arousal and had to indicate how aroused the man and woman in the story were.
When asked afterwards about their memory of the content of the story the control group quite rightly did not mention the length of the penis. The experimental group did, especially the group that read the des cription of the large penis. No difference was observed between men and women. So the test subjects had noticed the nature of the description. However, the test subjects could not afterwards indicate what the point of the research was. Yet the observed length of the penis turned out to contribute nothing to the subjects’ assessment of their own degree of arousal. ‘Variation in the length of the penis therefore does nor appear to be a precondition for arousal,’ the authors of the article conclude.
The American psychologist Bernie Zilbergeld has incidentally pointed out that men with a relatively large penis can become impotent because, for instance, of the fear that they will hurt their partner during intercourse, or the fact that they were rejected at some time in the past because of their large penis.
In a 1994 article in a gay newspaper entitled ‘Willies. On Genitalia’, Cees van der Pluijm cites a 1967 study by an interestingly named American scientist called Havelock Eliott. The latter’s On Penises (1967), purportedly includes numerous interesting facts about size and particularly about the correlation between size and other characteristics. It emerges that athletes had on average not only a longer, but also a significantly thicker penis. In over 80 per cent of swimmers the penis was shown to be small.
Eliott is also reported, somewhat less plausibly, as having investigated the relationship between penis length and political affiliation.
Republicans score significantly higher than Democrats, while the most conservative Republicans are in turn among the best-hung individuals in their party. The hypothesis that men with left-wing sympathies are 60
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often below par, we are told, proves in 69.8 per cent of cases to have a basis in truth, though the suggestion that changing one’s voting behaviour might affect the penis length is dismissed by the researcher.
If true, these would be sensational findings, but the absence of the book in question from every major library catalogue consulted confirms one’s growing suspicion that Van der Pluijm’s piece is a sophisticated spoof.
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chapter three
The Prostate and Seminal
Glands
Some women have endless trouble with their womb: for decades they endure the discomfort of painful periods, and then, just as hormonal retirement beckons, on come the hot flushes, to say nothing of other afflictions. Women sometimes feel that life has been unfair to them in this respect; that isn’t so. Men have their own cross to bear, namely the prostate, a gland that only receives proper attention when it starts playing up. Then the prostrate becomes a bane, not only keeping a man awake at night, but also inconveniencing him in everyday activities like What is your range?
Men’s troubles.
t h e p ro s tat e a n d s e m i n a l g l a n d s going to meetings. Urinating becomes a depressing business. Men’s troubles! The prostate is thoroughly out of favour nowadays. Many women have children with the aid of test tubes, pipettes and incubators, and no longer have any need for it . . .
So is the prostate perhaps not that important after all? For example, there has never yet been a prostate transplant. There is no
country on earth where the prostate is eaten, in contrast to testes (for example, in Spain) and penis (as blood sausage in Yemen). Odd, when one knows that in operations to resection the prostate via the urethra urologists fish out what look like strips of kebab.
Historically, the prostate came into its own at a quite late stage.
Prostate problems were unknown in Ancient Egypt, undoubtedly partly because people did not live as long as they do now. Similarly, Hippo -
crates ( c. 460– c.370 bc) writes nothing about the subject. The term was first used by Herophilus, who several centuries before Christ founded the famous school of Alexandria. Even Rudolf Virchow, the founder of modern pathology, collected only a few prostates in formalin.
Anatomy and physiology
Only a small percentage of the total volume of an ejaculate is made up of sperm cells. In older medical literature, as previously mentioned, a distinction was made between the sperm-cell portion or ‘nobler part’,
‘the aqueous elements’ from the seminal glands and the ‘oleagenous’
portion from the prostate. The prostate is about the size of a chestnut.
The seminal glands are situated behind it and discharge into the urethra, which passes right through the prostate.
In animals the system is different. Dogs, like many other carnivores, have very small seminal glands. The reason why is a complete mystery.
In man the fluid produced by the seminal glands is important mainly for the mobility and the metabolism of sperm cells. In humans it can make up between 50 and 80 per cent of the total volume of ejaculate. The principal ingredients of seminal fluid are fructose, coagulating agents and the prostaglandins e, a, d and f.
The finger in the anus
For years the significance of the so-called rectal toucher (rt) in relation to urinary ailments has been controversial. In this procedure the doctor puts a finger up the anus and feels the prostate and the mucous membrane of the rectum. The gravity of urinary complaints is rarely if ever related to the size of the prostate, whether this is assessed with the finger or by using ultrasound. In fact the size of the prostate is only of 63
Manhood Page 7