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 medical 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
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 problematic, but large sums of money are involved in it.
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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
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!
|
Age |
Average |
Average |
|
approx. SD* cm |
-2.5 SD а |
|
|
Infant 30 weeks |
2.5 approx. 0.4 |
1.5 cm |
|
Infant 40 weeks |
3.0 approx. 0.4 |
2.0 cm |
|
Infant full-term |
3.5 approx. 0.4 |
2.4 cm |
|
0-15 months |
3.9 approx. 0.8 |
1.9 cm |
|
6-12 months |
4.3 approx. 0.8 |
2.3 cm |
|
1-2 years |
4.7 approx. 0.8 |
2.6 cm |
|
2-3 years |
5.1 approx. 0.9 |
2.9 cm |
|
3-4 years |
5.5 approx. 0.9 |
3.3 cm |
|
4-5 years |
5.7 approx. 0.9 |
3.5 cm |
|
5-6 years |
6.0 approx. 0.9 |
3.7 cm |
|
6-7 years |
6.1 approx. 0.9 |
3.8 cm |
|
7-8 years |
6.2 approx. 1.0 |
3.7 cm |
|
8-9 years |
6.3 approx. 1.0 |
3.8 cm |
|
9-10 years |
6.3 approx. 1.0 |
3.8 cm |
|
10-11 years |
6.4 approx. 1.1 |
3.7 cm |
|
Adults |
13.3 approx. 1.6 |
9.3 cm |
Table: Penis Length in Normal Men. *SD = standard deviation
Source: K. W. Feldman and D. W. Smith, ‘Fetal phallic growth and penile standards for new born male infants’, Journal of Pediatrics, 86 (1975), p. 395.
With these rules in mind the great majority of men can overcome their worries about the length of their penis! Apart from that there are some practical tips one can give: don’t wear jeans or briefs — Bermudas or boxer shorts are better — and trim over-abundant pubic hair.
If the patient continues to fret, the results of the scientific research carried out by psychologist William A. Fisher should be discussed. He attempted to measure the effect of penis size on the degree of sexual arousal in both women and men (students). In stories about lovemaking the penis either was not mentioned (control condition) or was mentioned (experimental condition). In the description of the penis the length was mentioned five times per story. The length varied from story to story as follows: small — 7.5 cm, average — 12.5 cm, large — 20 cm. After reading a story the test subjects assessed their own level of arousal and had to indicate how aroused the man and woman in the story were. When asked afterwards about their memory of the content of the story the control group quite rightly did not mention the length of the penis. The experimental group did, especially the group that read the description of the large penis. No difference was observed between men and women. So the test subjects had noticed the nature of the description. However, the test subjects could not afterwards indicate what the point of the research was. Yet the observed length of the penis turned out to contribute nothing to the subjects’ assessment of their own degree of arousal. ‘Variation in the length of the penis therefore does nor appear to be a precondition for arousal,’ the authors of the article conclude.
The American psychologist Bernie Zilbergeld has incidentally pointed out that men with a relatively large penis can become impotent because, for instance, of the fear that they will hurt their partner during intercourse, or the fact that they were rejected at some time in the past because of their large penis.
In a 1994 article in a gay newspaper entitled ‘Willies. On Genitalia’, Cees van der Pluijm cites a 1967 study by an interestingly named American scientist called Havelock Eliott. The latter’s On Penises (1967), purportedly includes numerous interesting facts about size and particularly about the correlation between size and other characteristics. It emerges that athletes had on average not only a longer, but also a significantly thicker penis. In over 80 per cent of swimmers the penis was shown to be small.
Eliott is also reported, somewhat less plausibly, as having investigated the relationship between penis length and political affiliation. Republicans score significantly higher than Democrats, while the most conservative Republicans are in turn among the best-hung individuals in their party. The hypothesis that men with left-wing sympathies are often below par, we are told, proves in 69.8 per cent of cases to have a basis in truth, though the suggestion that changing one’s voting behaviour might affect the penis length is dismissed by the researcher. If true, these would be sensational findings, but the absence of the book in question from every major library catalogue consulted confirms one’s growing suspicion that Van der Pluijm’s piece is a sophisticated spoof.
chapter three