Manhood: The Rise and Fall of the Penis (12 page)

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Length

From an early age one hears the complaint, sometimes disguised, about being under-endowed. According to the American sexologist Barry McCarthy, two out of three men think their penis is too small. He attri -

butes their worries about the length of their penises to various factors.

In the first place little boys see their father’s penis for the first time when they are at an impressionable age. Second, in changing rooms one usually sees another person’s penis from the front: the other person’s penis appears to be bigger because a man can only see his own penis from above. Seen from above, however, there is what visual artists call ‘foreshortening’. The penis seems smaller than it really is. Third, flaccid penises can differ widely in length, while in erect ones on the other hand there is never that much difference. And fourth, men don’t know much about the subject in general, because they don’t like talking openly about these kinds of intimate matters.

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 that 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!