(or Romantically Linked to Someone Poorly Endowed)

Ask any man the three declarative sentences he most fears hearing, and the answer will always be the same:

"Bend over, spread your legs slightly, and cough."
"I think you're starting to lose some hair."
"You've got a small one."
Of these three, the last one is the harshest and most enduring. Even the clumsiest proctologic examination eventually comes to an end, and recedes from memory. For hair loss, there is the Hair Club for Men. But there is no Little Penis Club for Men; there is no cure; there is no hope. To illustrate the importance of this subject, consider the three declarative sentences a man most wants to hear:

"My, that's a big one."
"My sorority sisters tell me you have a big one."
"Anna Kournikova told me you have a big one."
What is important, though, is not really absolute size, but size relative to other men. Some may remember a wonderful episode of the sitcom Just Shoot Me, where Finch (played by David Spade) is observed by his coworkers in a locker room. When they marvel at the size of his manhood, he expresses surprise, saying, "It doesn't look any bigger than the others I've seen."

"Seen where?" they ask.

"Well, you know, porno," he replies.

So, for our purposes here, the key questions are: What is average? What is noticeably above average? What is noticeably below average? and What are the odds of each? (We could go on to ask, Does it really matter? but let's not kid ourselves.)

The Odds

Determining average penis length (and girth) is a difficult undertaking. The first major study of penis size was conducted by researcher Alfred Kinsey in 1948. Kinsey determined that the mean length of an erect penis was 6.21 inches, with standard deviation of 0.77 inches. (A brief statististical refresher course: Standard deviation is a measure of how tightly grouped around the mean the data are. A low standard deviation means that all the results are about the same; a high standard deviation means that they vary greatly. In a normal distribution, one standard deviation plus or minus covers 68 percent of results, and two standard deviations plus or minus cover 95 percent of results.) Thus, according to the Kinsey data, 68 percent of penises were between 5.44 inches and 6.98 inches; 95 percent of penises were between 4.67 inches and 7.75 inches.)

Kinsey, however, can be justly accused of making the greatest possible mistake in penis-size studies: HE LET THE GUYS MEASURE THEMSELVES! Talk about book smart and common sense stupid. Try to picture some guy being handed a postcard (the Kinsey methodology) and asked to go off to a room to measure. (The private room was necessary because all measurements had to be at erection, which is not so easy with Dr. Kinsey staring at you.) Given that arrangement, do you think maybe subjects are going to be rounding up a little when they return to report results to Dr. Kinsey's cute little research assistant?* Not likely.

Now, here's an interesting thought: there is one group of people with a keen financial interest in making certain that an accurate gauge of penis size is obtained: condom manufacturers. Sure, for marketing reasons they're going to label each of their products, regardless of size, with some flattering title: the "Gargantuan," the "Monster," the "ICBM." But at the end of the day, they do need to get the size right.

Sadly, the major condom company studies used an even more flawed methodology than Dr. Kinsey's, and obtained similar results. Durex conducted an Internet survey and received responses from 2,936 men in seventeen countries. There was no effort to verify the data. Thus, this study suffered not only from the natural tendency to exaggerate in Dr. Kinsey's study** but also from a self-selection problem: poorly endowed men were certainly far less likely to be reporting penis size over the Internet than well-endowed men. (The opposite phenomenon would be expected if the survey only included ex-wives.) Not surprisingly, under the Durex methodology, average penis size "grew" to 6.4 inches, with a wider standard deviation of 1.1. (The wider standard deviation is consistent with the subjects' engaging in exaggeration.)

* In truth, the appearance of the Kinsey assistants is lost to history, but it's not hard to picture, especially in a 1940s nurse's hat with the front three buttons of the white blouse casually unbuttoned, but we digress.

** Actually, in the Durex study, with data being reported anonymously rather than to the hypothetical cute reasearch assistant, the incentive should have been to understate penis size. Why? Because when the aggregate data were reported, any given participant would have ended up looking relatively better if the reported mean size were smaller. Because men are stupid and shortsighted, however, we can be confident that no such analysis actually occurred, and that the subjects simply went with a "Mine is huge!" ethos.

Most recently, though, the company Ansell (the folks who proudly bring you LifeStyles condoms) conducted a study where measurements were conducted by the researchers them- selves. Each measurement was conducted by two nurses, supervised by a doctor. How do you arrange such a study? Well, you head down to Cancún, Mexico, during Spring Break and get a bunch of drunk guys to drop their drawers. This particular study included 401 men who happened to be at the Dady Rock nightclub. (The actual survey size was 300, though, since a rather surprising 101 of the participants were unable to produce the erection required for the measurement an implicit tribute to the quality of the tequila at the Dady Rock, or welcome comfort for Bob Dole and all those other middle-aged Viagra users.)

The Ansell/LifeStyles study probably suffered from self-selection bias, as your better endowed Dady Rock patron was probably more likely to hop off his barstool and head to the LifeStyles tent. Still, at least the measurements were accurate. The result? Average penis size drooped to 5.88 inches, with a smaller standard deviation of 0.83 inches.

There is, of course, a more reliable methodology that has never been used: asking Madonna. But absent a comprehensive study of that sort, it's probably safe to assume that the average penis size is closer to 5.5 inches. That means that you have 2 to 1 odds of having a penis between 4.7 and 6.3 inches. You have 19 to 1 odds of having a penis between 3.9 inches and 7.1 inches. Beyond that, you're looking (staring) at a serious outlier.