Sexual Relationships 
Sexual Health 
There seems to be a fair amount of discussion here about penis lengths and sizes. Some guys wonder if they're "average" or not. Some guys wonder what women think of various penis sizes and what they find more or less attractive. Some guys wonder if the size of their penis is affecting the the quality of their sex life or relationship status. Pretty much all girls wonder why so many men are wondering about the size of their junk, but that's beside the point.
Well, do I have a treat for you today... The definitive guide on "Dick Data", as I'm now calling it, for GaG users of all genders and persuasions. From now on, if you see someone on here asking a question about penis-related measurements and statistics, you can just drop a link to this MyTake on them and walk away knowing they're in good hands.
So, let's dive right in, shall we?
First off, why am I qualified to compile, analyze, and present to you this data? Great question. I have a doctorate degree in the medical field (which I won't specify the nature of due to anonymity concerns), but it required me to become rather skilled at interpreting and presenting very difficult to understand raw clinical research papers. For those of you who are wondering what's so difficult about that, well, there's a big difference between a random website discussing "a new study" and the actual study itself. Sites written by journalists and editors intending to entertain often only present data from studies that is "interesting" or alarming, but very few editors and journalists have spent 6+ years in a graduate program in the medical field specifically analyzing raw clinical research study data. Ever wonder what the news outlets mean when they say "a new study"? Where is that study published? Where can you go read it?
Fear not, my friends, because I've utilized my half-decade of experience in clinical data analysis to do the hard work on your behalf. I've scoured clinical journals from all across the internet to finally get to the bottom of the age-old question: Is my dick normal?
First of all, I'll just present you with the raw data since that's likely what you've been waiting for this whole time, anyway, and then I'll do more of an analysis afterwards explaining what I did to compile and interpret this data and what it actually means so you'll know that I'm not just full of B.S. and making up random numbers. I will also leave links to the sources of the data so you can verify for yourself if you are so interested in doing so. Here it is:
Data Points Analyzed
1) Average flaccid penis length, globally, pendulous (just standing there, basically): 3.61 inches
2) Average flaccid penis length, globally, stretched (flaccid penis stretched to full length, but not erect): 5.21 inches
3) Average flaccid penis circumference ("girth", or distance around widest area of penis shaft), globally: 3.67 inches
4) Average erect penis length, globally: 5.17 inches
5) Average erect penis circumference, globally: 4.59 inches
6) Average erect penis length, U.S. males, pendulous: 5.57 inches
7) Female penis length preference: Undetermined/variable, but generally within the range of length considered average.
8) Female penis circumference preference: Undetermined/variable, but generally within the range of circumference considered average.
9) Do women find larger penises more attractive? - No, with exceptions and clarifications.
10) What penis length is considered small on a clinical/medical/statistical basis? - 1.54 inches flaccid or 2.95 inches erect.
11) Are most men happy/satisfied with their penis? - For the most part, yes.
12) Are most women happy/satisfied with their partner's penis length/size? - Yes, almost overwhelmingly so.
13) Does penis LENGTH affect condom breakage/slippage? – Undetermined, but most likely not.
14) Does penis CIRCUMFERENCE affect condom breakage/slippage? - Yes.
15) Do men exaggerate or over-estimate their penis length/girth? – Yes, most likely, though not actually validated very concretely as far as I could tell.
16) Do men tend to think they are bigger or smaller than average? - Neither, but more likely to report large as opposed to small.
17) Do women value penis length or penis circumference more? - Circumference.
18) Does impotence/erectile dysfunction negatively impact sexual/nonsexual satisfaction? - Yes.
19) Does height correlate with penis length? - Not really.
20) Does hand size correlate with penis length? - No.
21) Does shoe size correlate with penis length? - No.
22) Does weight/BMI correlate with penis length? - Undetermined, but not likely.
23) Do gay men have larger penises than straight men? - Probably not.
24) Does penis size influence personality? - Maybe.
Data Analysis and Interpretation
1-5) I based these answers off the largest and most reliable study I could find, a systematic review performed in 2014 that developed nomograms for penis size and length based on up to 15,521 men. A nomogram is a graph that informs medical professionals what the general “norm” or average for a selected measurement is for the general population. In this case, the nomogram attempted to establish what the “normal” or “average” penis size of adult males in the general population is for five key measurements: Erect length, flaccid length, stretched flaccid length, flaccid circumference, and erect circumference.
This data is valuable for medical professionals who are counselling male patients on male anatomy, which might arise, for example, if a man wishes to undergo a penis enlargement procedure, in which case the physician could determine whether the patient is a good candidate based on how he compares to other men of similar age, race, etc., and then inform the patient of how he compares to general averages in case this information was unknown to the patient.
A systematic review is a type of clinical study in which a very large sample size is analyzed by compiling and comparing the results of many smaller studies. For example, a systematic review might include roughly 100 studies that each had included about 150 participants, which allows for an analysis of data on around 15,000 data points as opposed to just 150 in any of the smaller individual studies. The goal of this process is more or less to compare data that has been reported from various studies to see if there is any variation between them, and, if so, why that variation exists. One study of 150 participants might suggest that the average penis length is 7 inches when erect, but if 99 other studies of 150 participants each find results that are around the 5.5-6.0 inch range, then this provides a far better estimate of the actual average than the one study that reported different results.
This is why I chose this particular study to base my average penis size references on, as it is a large sample size that compares many different types of studies from all around the world, as opposed to a handful of studies from just one area of the globe. The averages that I mentioned are likely the closest known values to the true average. This study was also helpful in analyzing data on topics other than just penis length and size, and I would highly recommend this study as a point of reference based on its large sample size, high credibility, thorough peer review, and diversity of subject matter discussed within it.
6) I only decided to include this data point that is specific to U.S. males because it’s where I live and I happened to find it while researching this topic. The sample consisted of 1,661 male participants from the United States. It’s a relatively large sample size that is comprised entirely of one geographical population (U.S. males), which is often difficult to find, especially in smaller countries. I didn’t like, however, that the standard deviation in this study (stats jargon that I don’t care to explain here for sake of brevity) suggested that around half of the sample size fell within a range of about 4.5 inches to 6.6 inches, which is a rather broad range. This suggests to me that, while the “average” U.S. male penis length was reported to be about 5.5 inches, that the actual measurements were highly variable. The data even includes measurements as low as 1.6 inches and as high as 10.2 inches, which are so far outside the average range reported by other studies that it seems unlikely that so many male participants in this study were within the 5% of the population expected to have these measurements. Something seemed strange about these standard deviations and wide ranges of reported data to me, and I suspect that the process of recruiting individuals to participate in the study suffered from some sort of bias surrounding either its selection criteria or promotion to likely/potential participants. For example, it would be easy for someone to be aware of this study as it was taking place and suggest to a friend or patient or family member or whatever that they should participate specifically because they believed their penis size to be abnormal, which leads to recruitment of participants that result in high numbers of outlying data points, and thus skewing the data, as well. I’m not suggesting that this is what happened, but simply giving an example that would explain what I feel is an exceptionally varied data set.
7) Several studies and surveys have focused on female preference of penis length, but not all of them were conclusive or even recorded specific measurements. For example, some studies simply asked whether a “long”, “short”, or “average” penis length was most desirable, but this provides a relative reference and not a specific measurement. In general, however, women tended to prefer “average” penis lengths, or at least what they perceived as average in some cases, with many women even preferring smaller penis lengths for various reasons or for specific circumstances. One survey noted that several women specifically stated that smaller penises were desirable for oral or anal sex. Another survey found that women tended to prefer longer penises for “one night stands” and more average length penises for longer, ongoing relationships, perhaps suggesting that women enjoy sexual experiences with partners who have longer penises to some degree, but that the idea of frequent intercourse with a partner of above average length may grow tiresome, or even painful, over time. This also suggests that women are perfectly satisfied having sex with men of average or even below average length, and only really may prefer a longer penis as a “novel” experience if given the opportunity.
8) Again, this topic led to similar results as the previous topic. Women tend to prefer men with penises that are, to put it simply, totally average. There was hardly any skew one way or the other to suggest otherwise. Also, as in the previous topic on preferred penis length, most surveys or studies didn’t record specific measurements. Measurements were likely avoided on purpose in many cases solely because it can be difficult to verify the accuracy of the measurements. For example, if you asked 1,000 women to name their preferred penis length in inches without handing them a ruler or giving them a reference to what their partner’s penis length actually is, then most women are probably not going to give a reliable or accurate estimate off the top of their head. Many women might state that 6 inches is their preferred length, when in reality their partner’s penis might only be just over 5 inches long and they are simply under the impression that it is longer. Basically, without having actual physical references for women to base their estimates off of, or actually taking measurements of their partners’ penis lengths, then there’s no really reliable method of determining what the specific preferred length really is. I do talk a little more in-depth about this in question #9, however, about how attempts have been made to get a more accurate estimate without taking such drastic measures as literally measuring men’s penises to verify the accuracy of their wives’/girlfriends’ estimates, and the method developed to do this was actually rather clever.
9) A study of women's perceptions of attractiveness of nude male figures found that women were more likely to rate figures of similar body height/weight as more attractive if the figure had a larger penis. In other words, when shown two similar sized nude male figures, women rated the figure with the larger penis as more attractive. However, figures with larger-than-average penises were actually rated as less attractive than those with average or slightly below average penis sizes. This suggests that women actually consider males with average or slightly below average penis lengths to be the most attractive, creating a sort of "curve" of attraction levels with penises that are significantly smaller or larger than average considered the least attractive and penises of a relatively average length to be considered the most attractive. What is interesting is that there seems to be a sort of "relative penis size" preference that favors men with larger penises, but this is not reflected in the overall data to indicate that generally large penises are more attractive. It's sort of hard to explain this one because of how complex it is, but think of it like this: Women are shown various mannequin-like figures of nude males in no particular order. The figures vary drastically in height, weight, musculature, and penis length, but all other factors remain the same. They are asked to rate the attractiveness of each male figure and the results are compared. The figures with exceptionally small or large penises were rated poorly across the board, but figures of similar height/weight/musculature were rated based on their penis length. The results might look like this if the attractiveness scale was from 1-10:
Group A
6ft, muscular, thin, 7" penis - 6.9
6ft, muscular, thin, 6" penis - 10
6ft, muscular, thin, 5.5" penis - 9.7
6ft, muscular, thin, 5" penis - 9.3
Group B
5ft, muscular, thin, 7" penis - 7.2
5ft, muscular, thin, 6" penis - 9.2
5ft, muscular, thin, 5.5" penis - 8.7
5ft, muscular, thin, 5" penis - 8.1
Group C
6ft, non-muscular, thin, 7" penis - 7.3
6ft, non-muscular, thin, 6" penis - 9.1
6ft, non-muscular, thin, 5.5" penis - 8.8
6ft, non-muscular, thin, 5" penis - 8.6
Group D
5ft, non-muscular, overweight, 7" penis - 3.2
5ft, non-muscular, overweight, 6" penis - 5.1
5ft, non-muscular, overweight, 5.5" penis - 4.7
5ft, non-muscular, overweight, 5" penis - 3.9
From this set of data (that I totally made up for sake of explanation), it is pretty easy to see a trend emerging, which is similar to what happened in the aforementioned study, but was exaggerated here to make this point more easily understood. All of the 6ft, muscular, thin males of Group A were rated as very attractive in this mock sample with the only difference being seen in their relative penis size. The well above-average penis length of 7" performed the lowest in this group, while the average to slightly below average penis lengths performed the best. In Group D, the 5ft tall, non-muscular, overweight males received the lowest ratings of all the groups, but again, even in this group the worst rating was the abnormally lengthy penis, while the best ratings in this group were assigned to the males with average-ish penis lengths.
This is very similar to what happened in the study that I based this mock data on. The taller, more muscular, thinner male figures tended to score the highest of all the figures, but the lowest ratings among these figures were assigned to males with penis lengths outside the average range. A similar trend appeared among the shorter, less muscular, more overweight male figures. These figures received the lowest ratings, in general, but even within this group the figures with average penis lengths performed the best.
This study was actually very intriguing to me because it seems to suggest that as women consider many factors that make a male attractive, penis length actually does come into consideration, but it isn't the factor that carries the most importance. This study seemed to suggest that women tend to first attribute attraction based on body size factors like weight and height, and that they tend to really only use penis size as the determining factor between otherwise very similar male figures. In other words, it suggests that women are much more likely to rate a tall, muscular, thin male with a small penis as being more attractive than a shorter male with less muscle who basically has the ideal penis length. It sort of shows how very little the influence of penis size is on female attraction levels.
Please see part 2 of this MyTake for continued analysis and discussion. Thank you.
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