Facts & Fiction Answers

1. Women prefer men to have a big penis. false

A 1983 study (Fisher et al.) asked 154 woman undergraduate students to read a number of erotic passages which differed only in the size of the male penis in the story.   The women were then asked a standard set of questions to determine their level of arousal.  The study found that, in general, penis size was an unimportant factor in the level of arousal of these woman.  

A survey of women by the Diagram Group in 1981 showed that when asked to what part of a man's body do woman pay most attention, 39% said the buttocks.  Only 2% of women indicated an interest in the penis. Other studies (e.g., Masters and Johnson, Hite, Wolfe) have shown that penis size has very little to do with either a woman's stimulation during intercourse, or the probability that she will reach an orgasm.  

In summary, the literature reports that the vast majority of women don't care if a man has a small, medium, or large penis.


2. Normal erect penises should point straight. False

Tabulation and analysis of the Kinsey Data (Gebhard, et al.) showed that approximately 50% of penises do point straight.  The remaining 50% pointed in all sorts of directions.  They found that 30% pointed straight up, 10% pointed to the left, 6% pointed down, 3% pointed to the right, and the other 1% pointed in some combination of these directions (i.e., up and left).  (These data did not adequately describe curved penises, namely those that start out pointing straight then curve off in another direction.) 

3. A big penis when unerect, will be a big penis when erect.  False

A 1988 study (Jamison et al.) looked at the change in size when going from an unerect (flaccid) state to an erect state.  The study compared two groups of men, those with smaller flaccid penises and those with bigger flaccid penises.  Although they found relatively large variations in flaccid penis size between men, when they became erect, the differences disappeared.  In other words, smaller flaccid penises grow significantly more than larger flaccid penises so that when erect, both penis groups are essentially the same size.  A Masters and Johnson study (1966) also described this phenomenon.  In other words, the volume (length X circumference) of everybody's penis is similar; longer penises are thinner, shorter penises are fatter.

4.  Tall men have bigger penises than short men. False

A 1993 study (Siminoski et al.) analyzed the relationship between penis size, body size, and foot size, based on the folklore that tall, big-footed men had big penises.  63 virile men (aged 27-71 years) were measured.  The study found that although tall height and large shoe-size were weakly correlated to bigger penis size, the differences were minimal and were not statistically significant.  


5. African Americans have bigger penises than Caucasians. true

As a group, African Americans do have slightly longer and thicker penis than their Caucasian counterparts.  This is shown on these graphs.

 

 

 

 

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