Penis health not size matters

Is my penis too small? Many men ask themselves this silly question. Too small compared to what? Thanks to a new study this week, we now know what the average penis size is (CBC):

"Doctors searched through 17 published studies on more than 15,000 men who had their penis size measured by a health professional and graphed the averages in Tuesday's issue of BJU International, formerly the British Journal of Urology....

The average measurements were:

• Flaccid length 9.16 cm (3.61 in.) 
• Flaccid stretched length 13.24 cm (5.21 in.) 
• Erect length 13.12 cm (5.17 in.) 
• Flaccid girth or circumference 9.31 cm (3.67 in.) 
• Erect circumference 11.66 cm (4.59 in.)

Stretched flaccid length looks to be an excellent estimate of erect penile length, they said."

The above numbers represent average values, however, what about the ginormous penises that you see in the movies? Interestingly, the study also showed that the variation in penis size is relatively modest (Figure 1). For erect penises, approximately 80% of men are between the 10th percentile (11 cm or 4.3 in) and the 90th percentile (15 cm or 5.9 in) with the 50th percentile  (average length) being 13 cm or 5.1 in. However at the extreme tail on the right you can see there are a few men with ginormous penises ranging up to 21 cm or 8.3 in.

Figure 1. Range of erect and flaccid penis sizes among normal men.

Of course men shouldn't be obsessing over penis size. They should be more interested about what their partners think, and "[i]n 2006, the reviewers noted a large internet survey of heterosexual men and women suggested 85 per cent of women were satisfied with their partner's penis size."

So take a deep breath and relax. A more important concern is that your penis is healthy, and in particular you avoid sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) that can affect not only your genitals but also your overall health. According to the CDC, the incidence of STDs in America is about 110 million people (more than 1/3 of the total population) with 20 million new infections each year.

The most common STDs are as follows:

1. Human Papilloma Virus (HPV): 79 million
2. Genital Herpes (HSV-2): 24 million
3. Trichomoniasis: 3.7 million
4. Chlamydia 1.6 million
5. AIDs (HIV): 900,000
6. Gonorrhea 300,000
7. Syphillis 100,000

Prevention is the best medicine, and so you want to avoid having sex with someone exhibiting signs of STDs, and you want to have protected sex with a condom unless you have only one partner who has been recently tested for STDs (WebMD).

Penis size is not as important as health.