Feeling short-changed
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A study revealed that the majority of women (85%) are satisfied with the size and proportion of their partners’ penises. However, men are less sure of themselves.
March is often a quiet month for my social calendar. After the big celebrations of the Chinese New Year, we all need a break from the over-indulgence in life, until the next festivity in Malaysia (I guess it will be either Easter or Hari Raya). One thing that baffles me about March is the association of this month with Mother’s Day.
It frequently perplexes me why Mother’s Day is celebrated on the fourth week of Lent (usually in March) in the United Kingdom and on the second week of May in Malaysia and many parts of the world. No wonder my mother was repeatedly confused when I was living in the UK, as she received Mother’s Day cards in March, and felt left out in May when the wishes never arrived.
Apart from being mystified about the Mother’s Day celebrations, I am equally bewildered by the obsession of many of my male patients have about one thing in life: The size of their penis! I have therefore chosen the first Sunday in March to answer a reader’s question on size and address this important issue for men: What is the average size of the manhood?
“Dear Dr. G,
I have two sons aged 9 & 13 years, the older one may be around 1 to 1.5 inches of length only, the youngest one only the skin come out.
My question is there any method or treatment for the above problems? Hope Dr can give me a suggestion.
Thank you
Boon”
Boon is definitely not alone. I get at least three to five patients a week at the clinic asking about their manhood, either for themselves or on behalf of a “friend”. In this case, he is clearly a concerned parent, worrying about the size of his boys’ organs.
So, what is the average size of the penis? Believe it or not, many scientific research papers have been published to answer this all-important question. The journal,Nature, had published a review on this very subject; citing 16 studies dated as early as1899 (yes, the question had also baffled clinicians for more than 100 years). All the investigations had concluded the similar dimensions for penile length.
In the flaccid state, the length of the penis is around 7 to 10cm (2.8 to 3.9 inches) with the average circumference around 9 to 10cm (3.5 to 3.9 inches). Of course, the measurement would span in the erect state, with the study quoting the erect lengths to range from 12 to 16cm (4.7 to 6.3 inches) and harden girth circumference to be recoded at 12cm (4.7 inches). (Hold on boys, you can at least wait till you come to the end of this article before you disappear into the bathroom with the measurement tape).
Interestingly, the human penises are largest in absolute terms and relative to the rest of the body when compared to the primates, including gorillas. I guess that is something we can always feel “proud” of and this fact will certainly capture attention over a dinner conversation.
Apart from the above statistics, the study also concluded the size of a man’s erect penis does not exactly correlate with the size in the flaccid state. In other words, even men with short penis in the flaccid state would not have a compromised length when upright. Therefore, the measurement of the flaccid length has little importance to determine the erect dimension.
I guess it does not take a genius to work out that there is a great variability in the measured dimension penile length as the size is affected by the level of arousal, time of the day, room temperature, frequency of sexual activity and mode of measurement.
Despite the wealth of information in this scientific research, I was struggling to find any data that shows a statistically significant correlation between the penile size and the size of other body parts. I guess the research work must carry on to address this important issue.
Since we have tackled the question of average penile size; so, how small is small? According to an article published in the Journal of Urology, a study carried out on 80 “physically normal men” concluded that only men with a flaccid length of less than 4cm (1.6 inches) or an erect length of less than 7.5cm (3 inches), should be considered candidates for penile length intervention.
Before Boon gets hung up about the manhood length of his boys (1.5 inches and barely visible); let me assure you that most of the human penile growth occur between the age of infancy and five years old. The second spurt of growth will strike one year after the onset of puberty until the age of 17. Therefore, I think you boys have not entirely “missed the boat” until sweet 17!
And for those of you who feel a bit “short-changed”, note that one study published in the British Journal of Urology International had pointed out that the majority of women (85%) were satisfied with the size and proportion of their partners’ penises. However, men were less sure of themselves. It is probably appropriate to quote former US president Dwight Eisenhower: “What counts is not necessarily the size of the dog in the fight - it's the size of the fight in the dog.”
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