July 28, 2010 • 27 mins
Statistical evidence suggests that men are very preoccupied with the size of their penises. But should they be? In this episode, Molly and Cristen examine statistics and syndromes and debunk some myths in their quest to answer this age-old question.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
It's ready. Are you welcome to stuff Mom never told you?
From House top works dot Com. Hello, and welcome to
the podcast. This is Molly and I'm Kristen Kristen. Today,
(00:20):
our question is weather size matters. It's a topic that
has been requested by many listeners so many times. It's
an age old question that you very often see. You know,
if you're reading a Lady Meg, if you're reading a
men's magazine, they're going to talk about the size of
a man's penis. So I have a little story to
share with you guys about um, something that happened to
(00:41):
me this week related to penis size. But it's pg rat.
So I made sure you guys, I've made sure Molly
wasn't gonna silt up this podcast. So I've been taking
this exercise class ten people to guys, eight girls basically,
and if we're doing this exercise where it just strengthen
your abdominal muscles and you lay on your back and
(01:01):
you hold your feet up six inches from the ground
because that, you know, requires you to draw on your
core to hold your feet up, and uh, it can
be very hard. If your abdominal muses aren't that good,
you might go higher to kind of, you know, take
some pressure off your abs. So we've been doing this
exercise a few times and finally this guy looks up
and he's like, it's really funny to see what you
(01:23):
girls think six inches looks like. Because I don't know
if you've noticed, but me and the other guy in
this class for doing exactly six inches from the ground.
And he was not trying to imply that, you know,
he had better abdominal muscles than the rest of us.
He was just making He was just implying that if
we really thought that having our feet halfway, you know,
like twenty inches off the ground, if that was six inches,
(01:44):
then he felt that we must think that guys are
pretty well endowed in He was like that six inches
is huge that you girls are thinking of. And uh,
because six inches is the average size of the male penis.
I think that as anecdote proves that even when exercising,
men are worried about the size of their penis. According
(02:06):
to our research, that is absolutely correct and it makes
total sense. You know that he these men were able
to exactly gauge six inches, which, as we'll go into
in more detail, is roughly the size of the average
male member. Um. Because statistics bear out the fact that guys,
(02:29):
you are so concerned about penile size, whereas women, yeah,
don't seem to care. Yeah, and so let's get into
some myths. It's get into some measurements because apparently at
quarant our research, you ask a guy and you know,
how long is it, He's going to have a number
(02:49):
to rattle off for you. Yeah, it's very true. Um.
So I think, onbably, the best place for us to
start is with this study that we found from the
British Journal of Eurology entitled Peniles, Eyes and the quote
unquote small penis Syndrome. And guys, before we get all
freaked out about small pen penis syndrome, just bear with
us because the study actually busts a lot of common
(03:12):
mms about male genitals. Right, this is great, it's great news.
But they do start with a historic look at why
men would be so hung up, uh for lock of
a better word, um on penis size. From the very
beginning of time, Uh, penises have been equated with masculinity. Obviously,
(03:32):
it's the most obvious marker between the genders. And so
even when they go back and look at you know,
cave drawings and ancient texts, the most powerful men are
depicted with huge penises, to the point that in some cultures,
like the Topinama of Brazil, the men would encourage poisonous
snakes to bite their penis to make it in large
(03:54):
for six months. So throughout time and history we have
peep worrying about the size of the penis in relation
to the size of their masculinity and power. Um. So
it absolutely makes sense that there is this, like you said,
this hang up on penile size, especially with men. But
(04:16):
when these researchers went back and reevaluated a lot of
studies dealing with um correlations between say, penile size and
ethnicity or age, what have you, they found that, Um,
it's actually not as it's all the penis quandary that
a lot of men get stuck in. It's really just
(04:36):
a bunch of myths that deserve to be busted. For instance, moll,
you want me to throw out you want me to
bust the myths right quick? I love that all right,
here we go, get ready. The notion that penis size
varies according to race. False. Yes, John, what you've heard
in the locker room, the oft repeated myth that older
(04:56):
men tend to have smaller penises. False. And last, but
not least, the average size of the penis all right,
here we go, people. It's around five and a half
to six inches in length and about four point seven
to five point one inches in circumference. Um. So there
(05:19):
may be people slightly bigger than that, there may be
people slightly smaller than that. That is the average. But
what the study then goes into is the men who
are on you know, the smaller or larger side of that,
and how one little number affects their entire self esteem.
And it really reminded me of reading about women and
their weight struggles, because it is just one little number
(05:40):
that can strotally affect your self esteem. For example, men
who thought that they had a smaller penis had poorer
body image, they didn't like the way their faces looked, uh,
they didn't like the way they looked at a swimsuit. Basically,
this would, you know, just affect so many things in
their lives. But when the when the researchers who wrote
this article went in and looked the men who thought
(06:01):
they had small penises actually had average sized penises. Right.
And this isn't surprising because jumping to another study right
quick on um whether it's actually entitled does size matter? Um?
And there these researchers surveys, uh, only fifty five percent
of the men surveyed were satisfied with the size of
their member. Fort wanted larger penises. Um. And this whole
(06:26):
idea of the quote unquote small penis syndrome is directly
related to you body dysmorphic disorder, which we usually think
about with girls, when girls with eating disorders, when they
look in the mirror and they are and they stated,
and yet they still see a fat figure in front
of them. They these men will get so hung up
on their penis size and being obsessed with, you know,
whether or not they are below average that it has
(06:48):
all of these kind of psychological repercussions. Right. So, small
penis syndrome is not a diagnosis for someone who has
an actual small penis. It's for someone who becomes obsessive
about checking the the length, not being able to see
themselves accurately in the mirror, to having their life essentially,
you know, taken over by their penis, and so the
(07:09):
people who exhibited signs of this syndrome did not again
have small penises. They were within the average. The only
clinical term for a very small penis is micro penis. Yes,
and if you have a micro penis, we're talking about
under two inches flaccid. It's so small that you have
to pee sitting down. Yeah, I mean that's a clinical thing.
And researchers are making headway actually in removing skin from
(07:32):
other parts of the body and elongating it so that
you can do these basic functions like go to the bathroom,
have an erection. Those were things that people with micro
penises can't do. So again, small penis syndrome, it's just
people who are upset about the size. Well, and it's
interesting to look at where small house small penis syndrome
arises because according to this study from Porterfield Porterbrook Clinic, UM,
(07:54):
sixty two point seven percent said that their concerns started
in childhood when they compare their penis to that of
their friends, and this is often referred to as the
locker room syndrome UM, while thirty seven point three percent
said that their concerns began during their teen years after
seeing pornographic images. You know, they're seeing these men who
(08:15):
are paid to depict you know, kind of the um
hyper masculine sexual image, which you know, I'll just throw
out Ron Jeremy's name and you can put the rest
together from there. But you know, I was also interested
because they talked about how the first penis the boy
sees as his father's usually, and we talked about how
in the circumcision episode. One main reason for UH that
(08:39):
people circumcised or not circumcises, they want the child to
look like the father. But from the child's perspective, obviously,
the father's penis looks so much bigger and the boy's penis,
and that's what some of these males cited as giving
them this complex. So we go through all this you know,
drama about circumcision to make sure they look alike, but
to a kid, it doesn't look alike. It looked bigger
(09:00):
and it gives them complex, right, And the same type
of thing you could you could draw a parallel between
between that and women in breast size. You know, a
young girl seeing a woman's fully formed breasts or even
just like a small chested woman, you know, standing next
to a woman with perhaps a full lookup um and
and there's there's still the same kinds of of size questions,
(09:22):
but it's it does not seem to be as pervasive
among women in terms of their their breast size, and
certainly not with um their genitalia as it is with
men and penises. So why don't we keep busting some
more myths? Smilling, Here's a myth that's always intrigued me, Kristen,
the link between a man's foot or his hand and
(09:45):
his penis eye. Because there will inevitably be someone, Uh,
if you're hanging around and someone you know drops a
shoe or something, they'll say, you know what they say
about guys with big feet, Oh they have big shoes, molly.
That's that's the crazy, the thing that everyone likes to
say that everyone knows what you're thinking, who knows what
you're talking about? But busted up molly has no no
(10:10):
effect on it. And if there is an effect, if
there is, you know, a very small correlation. That's all
it is. It's correlational. It's not causation. You cannot you
cannot approach the fellas in the bar looking at their shoes.
It is statistically insignificant so women stop looking at people's feet,
and guys stop wearing shoes that are two sides. It's
(10:30):
too big. If you see a guy showing up in
a clown side shoe, he's one of the people who's
really worried about overcompensation, about looking at himself in the mirror.
But here's the thing that was most fascinating to me
about all of these penile studies, Molly. It's a fact
that these scientists and researchers are measuring penises and how
(10:56):
on earth does that work. Well, that was a very
interesting question, Jen Kristen, one that slate dot com dived
into because one of the first major penis studies was
from the Kinsey Institute, where they had the men self
report their penis size. They had basically, first the men
were in in the office and the researcher would hold
(11:17):
up a ruler and the ruler didn't have any numbers
on it, but they would fly their finger over the
ruler and tell the man to stop when he thought
that that represented his penis size and um. Then those
men had to go home, measure themselves and then mail
at a postcard that said you know the number they
got right, and they would they measure themselves both erect
and slassen. And they did find that the the the
(11:39):
number between the ruler estimate and the postcard estimate was
usually off. That men always kind of gave themselves a
little bit more when they didn't have the number involved.
But again, men will also give themselves a little credit,
it's been shown when they're self reporting versus when they're
having a researcher measure. So the research decided maybe we
(12:01):
should just kind of make a little bit of a
compromise between flaccid and erect. So the generally accepted method
for measuring a penis is to measure it when the
penis is flaccid but stretched, because the penis is full
of the spongy tissue that stretches out. And so what
(12:22):
happens is, yes, they they just kind of stretch the
member a little bit and measure away. They'll measure on
the top from where it hits the stomach of the torso,
lower torso to the tip. And so if you ever see,
like I remember, there was the seed on weeds where
two guys are comparing and they decided to get erect
(12:44):
to have the full measurement. But the official scientific way
generally accepted as is, as Kristen said, stretched stretched flacid, yes,
and even then, which is the name of our new band.
And even then this late article points out that it's
still isn't entirely reliable. So um I had really millly.
(13:05):
I had never thought about measurement methodology of male genitalia.
But it is complicated business, so it is an inexact science.
But what the research shows is that no matter the
number you would get, no matter how you got it,
you're still gonna beat. Men are still upset in some
ways with the number they get. And uh so I'd
like to move to a two thousand six study called
(13:26):
does Size Matter? It was Christen mentioned it earlier. It
was published by the A p A and uh it
talked about a two thousand three poll that was sponsored
by MSNBC, dot com and l magazine, and uh it
was where men self reported on the size and whether
they were happy with it, whether they saw it as average,
below average, above average, and as Christen side earlier, forty
(13:48):
percent of the men we're unhappy with with their penis size.
But the women there were women answering this question too
about their partner's penis and uh, of the women, only
fifteen per scent would change the man's penis if they could,
and some of those women would have made the man
that they were seeing smaller as opposed to larger. Yeah,
(14:08):
hear that Guy's eighty five percent of women were satisfied
with their partners penis size. So I mean again, it
just thought. It just made me think of weight where
you know, you'll read the article and a guy will say,
I really don't care what you weigh. You just care
if you have confidence and if you are happy with yourself.
And I think that that really holds to you with
this penis argument, because I looked at a men's health
(14:29):
article and that's exactly what they said. If you're unhappy
with it, just have confidence with it, because that's what
the that's what the woman is looking for. But I
guess we kind of go ahead and ask the question, Kristen,
this size matter when you're having sex? Does Does penis
size make difference and make a difference in the bedroom?
While according to our research the answer is no, because
(14:52):
women often report that first of all, they aren't so
much concerned about length as they are with with um
to start off with, and then there was UM. There
was another study that we found that indicated that UM
kind of that you know, going if we're going to
keep pulling out all of these um genital cliches, you know,
the whole thing about you know, the size of the
(15:13):
boat and the motion of the ocean, and it kind
of confirmed that it was basically like men need to
stop worrying about what their yacht looks like and learn
how to drive it, and women just can't you know,
lay back in this yacht that men are trying to
learn how to drive and expect everything to just happen once.
So we found showed that women who achieve vaginal orgasm
through intercourse UH usually had to focus intensely on what
(15:35):
they were feeling. And so it's it's not even you know,
if if the man is driving the yacht and moving
the ocean to use all these metaphors, the woman still
has a part to play in that. Well, sure, I
think that that's kind of the larger point of what
we're talking about is that sexual satisfaction UM is a
(15:56):
very complex type of thing, especially for women. Like if
you know, in heater sexual relationships, if a man's goal
is to you know, not only to just impress a
woman with um his his member size, but actually to
um create a you know, pleasurable experience. You know, it's
(16:19):
just it's aesthetics aren't gonna cut it. And this hits
that episodes we've done on you know, the interaction between
birth control and libido, whether or not women need a viagra, um,
all these kinds of things, whether you're in love with
your partner, whether you're in love with your partner exactly. Um,
the bedroom politics are just I mean, you can't boil
it down to one single piece of anatomy. And I
(16:43):
also don't think that you know, it can be boiled
down to one study because some of these studies are
a little bit conflicting. For example, the famous sex researchers
Masters and Johnson talked about the size of male penis
um and in a physiological way versus a psychological way,
and that maybe women are just as affected by some
of these cultural factors about masculinity as women are physiologically.
(17:07):
Masters and Johnson concluded that a penis could have no
effect on female sexual satisfaction because they said the vagina
was adaptable, UM, and maybe it was just psychologically that
women thought that that was what was making a factor.
So again, it's a very um touchy issue of research
and uh, not definitive in any way. Now, well, even
though we have pretty much distroven that size might make
(17:31):
a difference, plenty of men, like we've said, Um, by
the way, I can't wait to hear from all our
male listeners on this because we are just throwing out
generalization after generalization. Can I say one thing though about that?
If you do have something to say, you probably shouldn't
put penis size in the subject line junk mail because
we've got a spam filter that works like no other. So, um,
(17:52):
why don't we address all emails about this show with
the subject flying kittens or puppies, okay, or baby guppies,
baby guppies. We'll get to that in our listener mail segment.
But coming back to the psychology of it, obviously, even
though the statistics show that size does not make a difference,
some men out there are just bound and determined two
(18:15):
increase the size of their member because they're so hung
up on it. And of course, you know, everybody's seen
the ads for you know, penis enhancement pills, penis pumps,
pophalic Ectomyes, I think it is what the surgery is called,
you know, to get the penis enlargement. Um. And then Molly,
(18:36):
we have to talk about Jolking if we must be
must Kristen. One of the sources we read to get
ready for this podcast was from Salon and it was
called Size Matters, and it was the tale of a
man named Mike's Albini who um has essentially stretched his
penis out five inches by doing exercises um like jell, yeah,
(19:01):
joking for those of you who don't know. And I'm
not going to go into detail about joking, but it's
it's sort of. Um, it's basically stretching exercises, these specific
types of stretching exercises that men can perform on their
genitalia that supposedly stretches out the spongy tissue inside the
(19:25):
anatomy because um, whereas the penis really isn't meant, isn't
built to grow. As a Salon author pointed out, Um,
it it's actually a quote series of chambers and veins
bound by a fibrous sheath, and you can manipulate that sheath,
supposedly through jel King and the sky who mount my
(19:49):
Salvini nickname double Long Daddy has and the author confirmed
it has stretched his member out to ten point five
inches and he leads communities, he participates in online communities
and men who are trying to do the same thing.
And again that is the fact that these communities exist
is sort of the reason why we have made the generalization.
(20:11):
So we have that some men can kind of become
obsessed with this number and changing this number. And again
it's not something that women are innocent of in any
stretched the imagination, because I do think that this is
probably the thing that's most equivalent to women and their
weight concerns. Um. But again, I just I kept going
back to that study. They found that people who are
really upset about their penis size were within the average.
(20:34):
And if it's something that women don't care about, is
a percent of them don't in that survey that that
examined fifty women women, Okay, that's a pretty good sample
size eighty five percent, and women would not change a thing.
So it's I think it's just important to you to
bring that up. But you know, we did find one
random fun fact, and again this is these fun facts
(20:55):
are random in their nature, but Kristen, do you want
to talk about the group of people who may not
be interested in penis in marchment, Yes, I would love to, Molly. Um,
there have been actually a few studies that have hinted
around at this, and um, there are some men who
might just not really care as much about trying to
(21:16):
do any any kind of joking or penis enhancement practices
because supposedly homosexual men have on average longer penises than
heterosexual men. You heard it here, not that much, not
by much. We're talking six point three two inches compared
(21:39):
to five point nine nine, But I mean in the
penis enhancement world, I mean that is a that's a
big difference. Um. And this is based on archived data
from the Kinsey Institute. And in addition to slightly more length,
they also have slightly more width. And the researchers go
(22:00):
wanted to say that, um, the penis correlation, penis homosexual
correlation might lend support to theories, um that there are
actual biological factors affecting sexual orientation, which you would make
for another podcast. But there you go. Fun fact of
the day, And I'll end with another fun fact that's
a sort of a cautionary tale. If you have listened
(22:21):
to us talk about penis size and I've gotten a
little bit worked up about your own penis size. It's
a cautionary tale about Jonah Falcon, who is believed to
have the largest penis U currently, yes, thirteen point five inches.
But you know what's significant about him. I don't think
that would get him many dates because he is unemployed. Basically,
(22:42):
he appeared in this documentary about about his penis size,
and so now whenever he goes off for jobs, he's
trying to be an actor. Uh, you know, that's what
people know about him, and people essentially dismiss him and say, well,
why don't you just do porn? And he's like, I
don't want to do porn. I want to be a
legitimate actor. But he is harnessed by this uh factoid
(23:03):
that is known about him. So be careful what you
wish for Jelkers, you know, I mean be And come on,
let's just let's get over this size matters thing. Let's
move beyond it, fellas, and let's work on let's work
on body confidence men and women on both sides. Body
confidence no matter your size, your weight, Uh, it's out
(23:23):
there Yeah, it's not worth. It's not worth making yourself miserable,
which is what women do about weight and also about
what men do about their penis. So take comfort in
the science. You are attractive just as you are. So
we're gonna end there. You know, it's uh, we probably
could have talked for quite a bit more on this,
but that's where we're going to end, and we would
love your feedback. I'm going to say on this one,
(23:46):
no pictures, No photos please. Sometimes we get photos because
things are relevant, like when we did the Beard podcast,
sell his facial hair pictures, Scolly's tattoo pictures. No needs
pictures this time. And remember we have a spam filter,
so title your emails accordingly. Yes, um O g S.
(24:08):
I picked up the first listener mail and it's a
condom response, so this is appropriate, all right. So this
was about the Condom podcast, and it's from Orlando who writes,
there's another use for condoms. Well, for unlubricated condoms in theater,
you put your mic pack in them to keep them
drive from sweat when the actors wearing them. Well, during
one rehearsal, no one had brought the condoms for the
(24:29):
mic packs, so he ran literally out to the nearest
pharmacy and while gasping for breath, asked for the largest
box of lubricated condoms they had. I had to buy
two boxes, and to top it all off, because this
was a college theater group, I paid for it with
the college credit card. And then he wrote back to
say that the cashier was a seventy year old guy,
and as he's leaving, the old man says, someone's going
(24:51):
to have a good time, but it was just for
theater theater. UM. Alright, shifting gears a little bit. I've
got an email here from Mary in response to are
and I See You podcasts about premature babies and um.
She says, two years ago, my son was in and
I See You for eight days. He was a full
(25:11):
term baby who was born the day before his due date.
They aren't sure what happened, but he had an unexplained
infection and needed to be and the and I See
You to be closely monitored. No one ever told me
that this was a possibility, and it took me totally
by surprise. After my son was born, they decided to
take him from my room to put him in the
m in the well baby nurse roam for certain shots
in a quick bath, they took him and I didn't
(25:32):
get to see him for the next five hours. And
the next time I saw him he was in the
and and I see you. I still it and hooked
up to tons of machines. So she says, advice I
have for other moms. Leaving the hospital without your baby
will be the worst experience of your life. Don't be
afraid to cry or be upset. God that makes me
kinn't want to cry right now. UM, ask tons of
questions on the procedures and the results. When it comes
(25:54):
down to it, you have a right to know what
procedures your child is having, the results of those procedures
and the plans for the future. UM. Also, the n
I see you will have visiting hours. These hours can
be stressed for parents for bonding purposes, and ask if
you can stay longer because they're usually very receptive. And then, finally,
as your baby progresses from the n I see you,
there are intermediate nursery options available to actually room with
(26:16):
your child. When my son was finally placed in the
intermediate nursery, I was allowed to actually stay in a
private room and the hospital with him. He was still
hooked to machines and had I v s and need
to be monitored, but I could sleep in the same
room as him to get to be with him without
the restrictions of the n I see you visiting hours.
And thanks to all of your parents out there who
have sent us your your stories and your tips about
(26:38):
UM dealing with having a baby in the n I
see you. Keep them coming, UM, and We're gonna keep
sharing them, uh in our listener mail segments and also
on our blog and during the week, you guys can
follow us on Twitter and also fan us on Facebook.
We would love for you to do both of those things,
of course. And like I said, we have a blog.
(26:59):
It's stuff MoMA are told you and you can find
it at how stuff works dot com. For more on
this and thousands of other topics, visit how stuff works
dot com. Want more how stuff works, check out our
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(27:21):
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
It's ready, are you
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
It's ready. Are you welcome to stuff Mom never told you?
From House top works dot Com. Hello, and welcome to
the podcast. This is Molly and I'm Kristen Kristen. Today,
(00:20):
our question is weather size matters. It's a topic that
has been requested by many listeners so many times. It's
an age old question that you very often see. You know,
if you're reading a Lady Meg, if you're reading a
men's magazine, they're going to talk about the size of
a man's penis. So I have a little story to
share with you guys about um, something that happened to
(00:41):
me this week related to penis size. But it's pg rat.
So I made sure you guys, I've made sure Molly
wasn't gonna silt up this podcast. So I've been taking
this exercise class ten people to guys, eight girls basically,
and if we're doing this exercise where it just strengthen
your abdominal muscles and you lay on your back and
(01:01):
you hold your feet up six inches from the ground
because that, you know, requires you to draw on your
core to hold your feet up, and uh, it can
be very hard. If your abdominal muses aren't that good,
you might go higher to kind of, you know, take
some pressure off your abs. So we've been doing this
exercise a few times and finally this guy looks up
and he's like, it's really funny to see what you
(01:23):
girls think six inches looks like. Because I don't know
if you've noticed, but me and the other guy in
this class for doing exactly six inches from the ground.
And he was not trying to imply that, you know,
he had better abdominal muscles than the rest of us.
He was just making He was just implying that if
we really thought that having our feet halfway, you know,
like twenty inches off the ground, if that was six inches,
(01:44):
then he felt that we must think that guys are
pretty well endowed in He was like that six inches
is huge that you girls are thinking of. And uh,
because six inches is the average size of the male penis.
I think that as anecdote proves that even when exercising,
men are worried about the size of their penis. According
(02:06):
to our research, that is absolutely correct and it makes
total sense. You know that he these men were able
to exactly gauge six inches, which, as we'll go into
in more detail, is roughly the size of the average
male member. Um. Because statistics bear out the fact that guys,
(02:29):
you are so concerned about penile size, whereas women, yeah,
don't seem to care. Yeah, and so let's get into
some myths. It's get into some measurements because apparently at
quarant our research, you ask a guy and you know,
how long is it, He's going to have a number
(02:49):
to rattle off for you. Yeah, it's very true. Um.
So I think, onbably, the best place for us to
start is with this study that we found from the
British Journal of Eurology entitled Peniles, Eyes and the quote
unquote small penis Syndrome. And guys, before we get all
freaked out about small pen penis syndrome, just bear with
us because the study actually busts a lot of common
(03:12):
mms about male genitals. Right, this is great, it's great news.
But they do start with a historic look at why
men would be so hung up, uh for lock of
a better word, um on penis size. From the very
beginning of time, Uh, penises have been equated with masculinity. Obviously,
(03:32):
it's the most obvious marker between the genders. And so
even when they go back and look at you know,
cave drawings and ancient texts, the most powerful men are
depicted with huge penises, to the point that in some cultures,
like the Topinama of Brazil, the men would encourage poisonous
snakes to bite their penis to make it in large
(03:54):
for six months. So throughout time and history we have
peep worrying about the size of the penis in relation
to the size of their masculinity and power. Um. So
it absolutely makes sense that there is this, like you said,
this hang up on penile size, especially with men. But
(04:16):
when these researchers went back and reevaluated a lot of
studies dealing with um correlations between say, penile size and
ethnicity or age, what have you, they found that, Um,
it's actually not as it's all the penis quandary that
a lot of men get stuck in. It's really just
(04:36):
a bunch of myths that deserve to be busted. For instance, moll,
you want me to throw out you want me to
bust the myths right quick? I love that all right,
here we go, get ready. The notion that penis size
varies according to race. False. Yes, John, what you've heard
in the locker room, the oft repeated myth that older
(04:56):
men tend to have smaller penises. False. And last, but
not least, the average size of the penis all right,
here we go, people. It's around five and a half
to six inches in length and about four point seven
to five point one inches in circumference. Um. So there
(05:19):
may be people slightly bigger than that, there may be
people slightly smaller than that. That is the average. But
what the study then goes into is the men who
are on you know, the smaller or larger side of that,
and how one little number affects their entire self esteem.
And it really reminded me of reading about women and
their weight struggles, because it is just one little number
(05:40):
that can strotally affect your self esteem. For example, men
who thought that they had a smaller penis had poorer
body image, they didn't like the way their faces looked, uh,
they didn't like the way they looked at a swimsuit. Basically,
this would, you know, just affect so many things in
their lives. But when the when the researchers who wrote
this article went in and looked the men who thought
(06:01):
they had small penises actually had average sized penises. Right.
And this isn't surprising because jumping to another study right
quick on um whether it's actually entitled does size matter? Um?
And there these researchers surveys, uh, only fifty five percent
of the men surveyed were satisfied with the size of
their member. Fort wanted larger penises. Um. And this whole
(06:26):
idea of the quote unquote small penis syndrome is directly
related to you body dysmorphic disorder, which we usually think
about with girls, when girls with eating disorders, when they
look in the mirror and they are and they stated,
and yet they still see a fat figure in front
of them. They these men will get so hung up
on their penis size and being obsessed with, you know,
whether or not they are below average that it has
(06:48):
all of these kind of psychological repercussions. Right. So, small
penis syndrome is not a diagnosis for someone who has
an actual small penis. It's for someone who becomes obsessive
about checking the the length, not being able to see
themselves accurately in the mirror, to having their life essentially,
you know, taken over by their penis, and so the
(07:09):
people who exhibited signs of this syndrome did not again
have small penises. They were within the average. The only
clinical term for a very small penis is micro penis. Yes,
and if you have a micro penis, we're talking about
under two inches flaccid. It's so small that you have
to pee sitting down. Yeah, I mean that's a clinical thing.
And researchers are making headway actually in removing skin from
(07:32):
other parts of the body and elongating it so that
you can do these basic functions like go to the bathroom,
have an erection. Those were things that people with micro
penises can't do. So again, small penis syndrome, it's just
people who are upset about the size. Well, and it's
interesting to look at where small house small penis syndrome
arises because according to this study from Porterfield Porterbrook Clinic, UM,
(07:54):
sixty two point seven percent said that their concerns started
in childhood when they compare their penis to that of
their friends, and this is often referred to as the
locker room syndrome UM, while thirty seven point three percent
said that their concerns began during their teen years after
seeing pornographic images. You know, they're seeing these men who
(08:15):
are paid to depict you know, kind of the um
hyper masculine sexual image, which you know, I'll just throw
out Ron Jeremy's name and you can put the rest
together from there. But you know, I was also interested
because they talked about how the first penis the boy
sees as his father's usually, and we talked about how
in the circumcision episode. One main reason for UH that
(08:39):
people circumcised or not circumcises, they want the child to
look like the father. But from the child's perspective, obviously,
the father's penis looks so much bigger and the boy's penis,
and that's what some of these males cited as giving
them this complex. So we go through all this you know,
drama about circumcision to make sure they look alike, but
to a kid, it doesn't look alike. It looked bigger
(09:00):
and it gives them complex, right, And the same type
of thing you could you could draw a parallel between
between that and women in breast size. You know, a
young girl seeing a woman's fully formed breasts or even
just like a small chested woman, you know, standing next
to a woman with perhaps a full lookup um and
and there's there's still the same kinds of of size questions,
(09:22):
but it's it does not seem to be as pervasive
among women in terms of their their breast size, and
certainly not with um their genitalia as it is with
men and penises. So why don't we keep busting some
more myths? Smilling, Here's a myth that's always intrigued me, Kristen,
the link between a man's foot or his hand and
(09:45):
his penis eye. Because there will inevitably be someone, Uh,
if you're hanging around and someone you know drops a
shoe or something, they'll say, you know what they say
about guys with big feet, Oh they have big shoes, molly.
That's that's the crazy, the thing that everyone likes to
say that everyone knows what you're thinking, who knows what
you're talking about? But busted up molly has no no
(10:10):
effect on it. And if there is an effect, if
there is, you know, a very small correlation. That's all
it is. It's correlational. It's not causation. You cannot you
cannot approach the fellas in the bar looking at their shoes.
It is statistically insignificant so women stop looking at people's feet,
and guys stop wearing shoes that are two sides. It's
(10:30):
too big. If you see a guy showing up in
a clown side shoe, he's one of the people who's
really worried about overcompensation, about looking at himself in the mirror.
But here's the thing that was most fascinating to me
about all of these penile studies, Molly. It's a fact
that these scientists and researchers are measuring penises and how
(10:56):
on earth does that work. Well, that was a very
interesting question, Jen Kristen, one that slate dot com dived
into because one of the first major penis studies was
from the Kinsey Institute, where they had the men self
report their penis size. They had basically, first the men
were in in the office and the researcher would hold
(11:17):
up a ruler and the ruler didn't have any numbers
on it, but they would fly their finger over the
ruler and tell the man to stop when he thought
that that represented his penis size and um. Then those
men had to go home, measure themselves and then mail
at a postcard that said you know the number they
got right, and they would they measure themselves both erect
and slassen. And they did find that the the the
(11:39):
number between the ruler estimate and the postcard estimate was
usually off. That men always kind of gave themselves a
little bit more when they didn't have the number involved.
But again, men will also give themselves a little credit,
it's been shown when they're self reporting versus when they're
having a researcher measure. So the research decided maybe we
(12:01):
should just kind of make a little bit of a
compromise between flaccid and erect. So the generally accepted method
for measuring a penis is to measure it when the
penis is flaccid but stretched, because the penis is full
of the spongy tissue that stretches out. And so what
(12:22):
happens is, yes, they they just kind of stretch the
member a little bit and measure away. They'll measure on
the top from where it hits the stomach of the torso,
lower torso to the tip. And so if you ever see,
like I remember, there was the seed on weeds where
two guys are comparing and they decided to get erect
(12:44):
to have the full measurement. But the official scientific way
generally accepted as is, as Kristen said, stretched stretched flacid, yes,
and even then, which is the name of our new band.
And even then this late article points out that it's
still isn't entirely reliable. So um I had really millly.
(13:05):
I had never thought about measurement methodology of male genitalia.
But it is complicated business, so it is an inexact science.
But what the research shows is that no matter the
number you would get, no matter how you got it,
you're still gonna beat. Men are still upset in some
ways with the number they get. And uh so I'd
like to move to a two thousand six study called
(13:26):
does Size Matter? It was Christen mentioned it earlier. It
was published by the A p A and uh it
talked about a two thousand three poll that was sponsored
by MSNBC, dot com and l magazine, and uh it
was where men self reported on the size and whether
they were happy with it, whether they saw it as average,
below average, above average, and as Christen side earlier, forty
(13:48):
percent of the men we're unhappy with with their penis size.
But the women there were women answering this question too
about their partner's penis and uh, of the women, only
fifteen per scent would change the man's penis if they could,
and some of those women would have made the man
that they were seeing smaller as opposed to larger. Yeah,
(14:08):
hear that Guy's eighty five percent of women were satisfied
with their partners penis size. So I mean again, it
just thought. It just made me think of weight where
you know, you'll read the article and a guy will say,
I really don't care what you weigh. You just care
if you have confidence and if you are happy with yourself.
And I think that that really holds to you with
this penis argument, because I looked at a men's health
(14:29):
article and that's exactly what they said. If you're unhappy
with it, just have confidence with it, because that's what
the that's what the woman is looking for. But I
guess we kind of go ahead and ask the question, Kristen,
this size matter when you're having sex? Does Does penis
size make difference and make a difference in the bedroom?
While according to our research the answer is no, because
(14:52):
women often report that first of all, they aren't so
much concerned about length as they are with with um
to start off with, and then there was UM. There
was another study that we found that indicated that UM
kind of that you know, going if we're going to
keep pulling out all of these um genital cliches, you know,
the whole thing about you know, the size of the
(15:13):
boat and the motion of the ocean, and it kind
of confirmed that it was basically like men need to
stop worrying about what their yacht looks like and learn
how to drive it, and women just can't you know,
lay back in this yacht that men are trying to
learn how to drive and expect everything to just happen once.
So we found showed that women who achieve vaginal orgasm
through intercourse UH usually had to focus intensely on what
(15:35):
they were feeling. And so it's it's not even you know,
if if the man is driving the yacht and moving
the ocean to use all these metaphors, the woman still
has a part to play in that. Well, sure, I
think that that's kind of the larger point of what
we're talking about is that sexual satisfaction UM is a
(15:56):
very complex type of thing, especially for women. Like if
you know, in heater sexual relationships, if a man's goal
is to you know, not only to just impress a
woman with um his his member size, but actually to
um create a you know, pleasurable experience. You know, it's
(16:19):
just it's aesthetics aren't gonna cut it. And this hits
that episodes we've done on you know, the interaction between
birth control and libido, whether or not women need a viagra, um,
all these kinds of things, whether you're in love with
your partner, whether you're in love with your partner exactly. Um,
the bedroom politics are just I mean, you can't boil
it down to one single piece of anatomy. And I
(16:43):
also don't think that you know, it can be boiled
down to one study because some of these studies are
a little bit conflicting. For example, the famous sex researchers
Masters and Johnson talked about the size of male penis
um and in a physiological way versus a psychological way,
and that maybe women are just as affected by some
of these cultural factors about masculinity as women are physiologically.
(17:07):
Masters and Johnson concluded that a penis could have no
effect on female sexual satisfaction because they said the vagina
was adaptable, UM, and maybe it was just psychologically that
women thought that that was what was making a factor.
So again, it's a very um touchy issue of research
and uh, not definitive in any way. Now, well, even
though we have pretty much distroven that size might make
(17:31):
a difference, plenty of men, like we've said, Um, by
the way, I can't wait to hear from all our
male listeners on this because we are just throwing out
generalization after generalization. Can I say one thing though about that?
If you do have something to say, you probably shouldn't
put penis size in the subject line junk mail because
we've got a spam filter that works like no other. So, um,
(17:52):
why don't we address all emails about this show with
the subject flying kittens or puppies, okay, or baby guppies,
baby guppies. We'll get to that in our listener mail segment.
But coming back to the psychology of it, obviously, even
though the statistics show that size does not make a difference,
some men out there are just bound and determined two
(18:15):
increase the size of their member because they're so hung
up on it. And of course, you know, everybody's seen
the ads for you know, penis enhancement pills, penis pumps,
pophalic Ectomyes, I think it is what the surgery is called,
you know, to get the penis enlargement. Um. And then Molly,
(18:36):
we have to talk about Jolking if we must be
must Kristen. One of the sources we read to get
ready for this podcast was from Salon and it was
called Size Matters, and it was the tale of a
man named Mike's Albini who um has essentially stretched his
penis out five inches by doing exercises um like jell, yeah,
(19:01):
joking for those of you who don't know. And I'm
not going to go into detail about joking, but it's
it's sort of. Um, it's basically stretching exercises, these specific
types of stretching exercises that men can perform on their
genitalia that supposedly stretches out the spongy tissue inside the
(19:25):
anatomy because um, whereas the penis really isn't meant, isn't
built to grow. As a Salon author pointed out, Um,
it it's actually a quote series of chambers and veins
bound by a fibrous sheath, and you can manipulate that sheath,
supposedly through jel King and the sky who mount my
(19:49):
Salvini nickname double Long Daddy has and the author confirmed
it has stretched his member out to ten point five
inches and he leads communities, he participates in online communities
and men who are trying to do the same thing.
And again that is the fact that these communities exist
is sort of the reason why we have made the generalization.
(20:11):
So we have that some men can kind of become
obsessed with this number and changing this number. And again
it's not something that women are innocent of in any
stretched the imagination, because I do think that this is
probably the thing that's most equivalent to women and their
weight concerns. Um. But again, I just I kept going
back to that study. They found that people who are
really upset about their penis size were within the average.
(20:34):
And if it's something that women don't care about, is
a percent of them don't in that survey that that
examined fifty women women, Okay, that's a pretty good sample
size eighty five percent, and women would not change a thing.
So it's I think it's just important to you to
bring that up. But you know, we did find one
random fun fact, and again this is these fun facts
(20:55):
are random in their nature, but Kristen, do you want
to talk about the group of people who may not
be interested in penis in marchment, Yes, I would love to, Molly. Um,
there have been actually a few studies that have hinted
around at this, and um, there are some men who
might just not really care as much about trying to
(21:16):
do any any kind of joking or penis enhancement practices
because supposedly homosexual men have on average longer penises than
heterosexual men. You heard it here, not that much, not
by much. We're talking six point three two inches compared
(21:39):
to five point nine nine, But I mean in the
penis enhancement world, I mean that is a that's a
big difference. Um. And this is based on archived data
from the Kinsey Institute. And in addition to slightly more length,
they also have slightly more width. And the researchers go
(22:00):
wanted to say that, um, the penis correlation, penis homosexual
correlation might lend support to theories, um that there are
actual biological factors affecting sexual orientation, which you would make
for another podcast. But there you go. Fun fact of
the day, And I'll end with another fun fact that's
a sort of a cautionary tale. If you have listened
(22:21):
to us talk about penis size and I've gotten a
little bit worked up about your own penis size. It's
a cautionary tale about Jonah Falcon, who is believed to
have the largest penis U currently, yes, thirteen point five inches.
But you know what's significant about him. I don't think
that would get him many dates because he is unemployed. Basically,
(22:42):
he appeared in this documentary about about his penis size,
and so now whenever he goes off for jobs, he's
trying to be an actor. Uh, you know, that's what
people know about him, and people essentially dismiss him and say, well,
why don't you just do porn? And he's like, I
don't want to do porn. I want to be a
legitimate actor. But he is harnessed by this uh factoid
(23:03):
that is known about him. So be careful what you
wish for Jelkers, you know, I mean be And come on,
let's just let's get over this size matters thing. Let's
move beyond it, fellas, and let's work on let's work
on body confidence men and women on both sides. Body
confidence no matter your size, your weight, Uh, it's out
(23:23):
there Yeah, it's not worth. It's not worth making yourself miserable,
which is what women do about weight and also about
what men do about their penis. So take comfort in
the science. You are attractive just as you are. So
we're gonna end there. You know, it's uh, we probably
could have talked for quite a bit more on this,
but that's where we're going to end, and we would
love your feedback. I'm going to say on this one,
(23:46):
no pictures, No photos please. Sometimes we get photos because
things are relevant, like when we did the Beard podcast,
sell his facial hair pictures, Scolly's tattoo pictures. No needs
pictures this time. And remember we have a spam filter,
so title your emails accordingly. Yes, um O g S.
(24:08):
I picked up the first listener mail and it's a
condom response, so this is appropriate, all right. So this
was about the Condom podcast, and it's from Orlando who writes,
there's another use for condoms. Well, for unlubricated condoms in theater,
you put your mic pack in them to keep them
drive from sweat when the actors wearing them. Well, during
one rehearsal, no one had brought the condoms for the
(24:29):
mic packs, so he ran literally out to the nearest
pharmacy and while gasping for breath, asked for the largest
box of lubricated condoms they had. I had to buy
two boxes, and to top it all off, because this
was a college theater group, I paid for it with
the college credit card. And then he wrote back to
say that the cashier was a seventy year old guy,
and as he's leaving, the old man says, someone's going
(24:51):
to have a good time, but it was just for
theater theater. UM. Alright, shifting gears a little bit. I've
got an email here from Mary in response to are
and I See You podcasts about premature babies and um.
She says, two years ago, my son was in and
I See You for eight days. He was a full
(25:11):
term baby who was born the day before his due date.
They aren't sure what happened, but he had an unexplained
infection and needed to be and the and I See
You to be closely monitored. No one ever told me
that this was a possibility, and it took me totally
by surprise. After my son was born, they decided to
take him from my room to put him in the
m in the well baby nurse roam for certain shots
in a quick bath, they took him and I didn't
(25:32):
get to see him for the next five hours. And
the next time I saw him he was in the
and and I see you. I still it and hooked
up to tons of machines. So she says, advice I
have for other moms. Leaving the hospital without your baby
will be the worst experience of your life. Don't be
afraid to cry or be upset. God that makes me
kinn't want to cry right now. UM, ask tons of
questions on the procedures and the results. When it comes
(25:54):
down to it, you have a right to know what
procedures your child is having, the results of those procedures
and the plans for the future. UM. Also, the n
I see you will have visiting hours. These hours can
be stressed for parents for bonding purposes, and ask if
you can stay longer because they're usually very receptive. And then, finally,
as your baby progresses from the n I see you,
there are intermediate nursery options available to actually room with
(26:16):
your child. When my son was finally placed in the
intermediate nursery, I was allowed to actually stay in a
private room and the hospital with him. He was still
hooked to machines and had I v s and need
to be monitored, but I could sleep in the same
room as him to get to be with him without
the restrictions of the n I see you visiting hours.
And thanks to all of your parents out there who
have sent us your your stories and your tips about
(26:38):
UM dealing with having a baby in the n I
see you. Keep them coming, UM, and We're gonna keep
sharing them, uh in our listener mail segments and also
on our blog and during the week, you guys can
follow us on Twitter and also fan us on Facebook.
We would love for you to do both of those things,
of course. And like I said, we have a blog.
(26:59):
It's stuff MoMA are told you and you can find
it at how stuff works dot com. For more on
this and thousands of other topics, visit how stuff works
dot com. Want more how stuff works, check out our
blogs on the house stuff works dot com home page.
(27:21):
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