Don't Put That in There! (3 page)

“The Definitive Penis Size Survey,” in which 3,100 men reported information about the sizes of their penis and their other characteristics, found no relationship between shoe size and erect penis size. Again, we have to remember that this study used only men’s own measurements. Furthermore, it is not the strongest science since “The Definitive Penis Size Survey” was never reviewed by other experts or published in a scientific journal. However, the survey seems to have been reasonably well done, and the results do back up the findings that the scientific studies showed either no connection or a weak connection.

We could not find any studies evaluating whether the size of the hands or of the nose are connected to penis size. Since the combined evidence suggests foot size and penis size are not linked, there’s no reason to believe that hand size or nose size or any other body part would predict penis size.

Our conclusion? You can look at a guy’s feet all you want, but it is only going to give you an idea about his taste in shoes. The size of his feet (or hands, or nose) will not give you a good idea of how the rest of him measures up.

Racial Penis Profiling

There are quite a number of racial stereotypes built into this myth, and we have to say from the beginning that it is difficult to wade through the studies without getting trapped in controversies about race and about how people are viewed. However, we get a lot of questions about whether penis size really is different among one group compared to another. When it comes to the myths, one most often hears that black men have the largest penises, Asian men have the smallest penises, and everyone else lands somewhere in between.

The best answer is that we don’t know. There hasn’t been a systematic and objective evaluation of penis size that compares penis sizes across various racial or ethnic populations. By systematic, we mean that the study is designed to sample men from various ethnic groups according to good scientific methods. Moreover, the existing studies that compare penis size and ethnicity do not use the most accurate type of penis measurements. Rather than using an objective observer or a scientist who can document the stretched penile length, the existing work relies on Internet surveys in which men report how long their penis is. As we mentioned previously, when men are taking their own measurements, the measurements are not very accurate.

One study that has gotten a lot of press looks at reports of penis lengths from across 113 countries. This report made the media go crazy with a list ranking men’s average penis size by country. The Democratic Republic of Congo was at the top of the list for average penis size, followed by Ecuador, Ghana, and Columbia. Several northeast Asian countries were at the bottom of the list. Does this mean the stereotypes are true?

No! While the research, conducted by a psychologist named Richard Lynn, seems good at first glance, it suffers from a number of problems. It just wasn’t a high-quality study to answer the question of whether penis size is tied to ethnicity. It wasn’t designed to measure penis size objectively, or to estimate penis sizes in various parts of the world. Instead, it relied on reports of penis size from Internet-based surveys or collected from Web sites. These aren’t the most accurate data on penis length. Without good science to support this claim, we remain highly skeptical. We need a study that is designed to give us good answers, or else we can’t believe the results.

It is also relevant to know that Dr. Lynn is a psychologist who is known for
very
controversial views on race and intelligence, and who makes arguments for things like selecting out embryos to increase the intelligence of a population. What most of the media articles did not report is that his recent paper describing how penis size might vary from one country to another is intended to examine how penis size differences would support a particular evolutionary theory about how different races evolve in different ways, claiming that some races prioritize reproduction, while others prioritize parenting. The conclusions of this study are intended to support the very controversial (and many would say racist) idea of another researcher, J. Philippe Rushton, who claimed that the populations that “left Africa” developed in a way that required “larger brains, more family stability, and a longer life,” balanced by “lower levels of sex hormones” and “less sexual activity” (and, therefore, smaller penises). Dr. Rushton directed an organization called the Pioneer Fund, and Dr. Lynn sits on its board of directors. This organization is routinely accused of racism, and even of white supremacism, because it funds a lot of research on racial differences in IQ.

This all means that the paper describing these differences in penis size from one country to another may be biased to fit the author’s particular viewpoint. Many scientists have raised concerns about Dr. Lynn’s claims. We especially worry that you cannot trust his study’s findings, since the methodology wasn’t very good to begin with.

Given all of these concerns, we would strongly caution against jumping to conclusions about whether penis size really does vary with ethnicity or what part of the world you’re from. If we’re going to answer this question, we need much better science.

You Don’t Last Long Enough

A lot of men worry that they ejaculate too quickly. This can cause them significant concern, and it can cause distress for their partners as well, if either party would like for the man to last longer.

“Premature ejaculation” is the official term for ejaculating too quickly. You may be surprised to learn that the definition of “too quickly” is not entirely clear. The official word on the topic is that premature ejaculation is an orgasm that happens before the penis is inserted in the vagina, or within about one minute of having the penis in the vagina. The guidelines on premature ejaculation only look at premature ejaculation in intravaginal intercourse (meaning sex with a penis inside a vagina), so what we describe next does not apply to other sexual behaviors, or to men having sex with men.

You have to meet three criteria to get diagnosed with premature ejaculation: 1) you have a short time before you ejaculate (you always or nearly always have an orgasm before or within a minute of penetrating the vagina), 2) you do not feel able to control the timing of your ejaculation once you are inside the vagina, and 3) you are distressed or bothered by this. If you have your orgasm between 1 and 1.5 minutes after you enter the vagina and meet these other criteria, you have “probable” premature ejaculation.

According to the studies compiled by the International Society for Sexual Medicine’s official committee on premature ejaculation, somewhere between 22 and 30 percent of men report premature ejaculation when you don’t put a time limit on the concern. When you specify a time parameter of less than 1 minute, only 1 to 3 percent meet the criteria for having a problem.

If less than 1 minute is considered a problem for your sexual health, then what is the normal time for a man to last once his penis enters the vagina? It may still be shorter than you would think.

In a study of 500 European and American men, the average man’s “intravaginal ejaculation latency time” (i.e., how long between entering the vagina and orgasm) was 5.4 minutes. The men were clocked with a stopwatch in the course of a month of having sex with their regular female partners. All of the men were in stable relationships during the four weeks of the study. The men’s time before ejaculating did vary dramatically; the shortest recorded time was 0.55 minutes and the longest was 44.1 minutes. You may be especially surprised to learn that younger men in this study were actually able to last longer. The median time to ejaculation was 6.5 minutes for those ages eighteen to thirty, whereas it went down to 5.4 minutes for those thirty-one to fifty years old and then 4.3 minutes for those over fifty-one years. That’s a statistically significant difference among the age groups.

Do you think that a condom might make you last longer? In this study, using a condom made no difference for how long the men lasted. It also did not matter whether they were circumcised or not circumcised. For reasons that could not be explained, men in Turkey had significantly shorter times before ejaculation compared to all of the other countries, but this might have had to do with the small numbers of men from each of the countries involved.

This was a relatively small study, and probably applies best to men in similar situations—those in a stable sexual relationship lasting for at least six months and where sex occurs at least once a week. Using a stopwatch to figure out how long the men lasted may have some drawbacks as well. (A word of advice: A stopwatch in the bedroom may not be the most fun toy to introduce.) However, using a stopwatch is considered the best way to measure timing accurately in the course of a usual sexual event.

Now that you have a better idea about what’s normal, let’s talk a little more about what you can do if you really do have premature ejaculation. Multiple studies tell us that it has negative effects on both of the people involved, including reports of lower self-esteem and more anxiety for men, and less sexual satisfaction for women. Both partners report that premature ejaculation makes their quality of life worse.

Despite all of this doom and gloom, you can change this. There are quite a number of things that can be done for premature ejaculation. First of all, premature ejaculation sometimes occurs because of other medical problems. It is important to have a doctor assess whether you have such problems, and what might be done about them. Second, there are lots of solutions to this issue. There are medicines that treat premature ejaculation effectively, there are therapies and strategies that help men learn to control their ejaculation more, and there are ways that your partner can help you. If you have this issue, you should ask your doctor about it. While it may seem embarrassing to ask, your doctor can help you figure out how to improve your sexual experiences. That should be well worth a little embarrassment!

You Shouldn’t Have Sex Before the Big Game

Competitive athletes will consider almost anything to boost their performances. You hear about them following superstitious rituals, sticking to rigid diet plans, and even taking performance-enhancing drugs. Many athletes are told that they should not have sex the night before a big game or competition. They are even warned against masturbating. Abstaining is supposed to help your performance. Athletes who talk about plans to have one-night stands during the Olympics, or even to stay with their spouses before a big game, are regarded with horror—not because of their moral decisions, but because they might not perform as well.

All sorts of reasons are given as to why you want to abstain from sex before a game. People are afraid that having sex might hurt your performance because you will have less strength, less concentration, or not enough testosterone. Instead of using up their energy in the bedroom, the sexually frustrated athlete can channel all of their strength and focus into an aggressive, strong performance on the track or playing field.

The science of what happens in the body during and after sex suggests that these concerns about sex and sports are just not true. In fact, you might actually perform better if you have sex!

Drs. McGlone and Shrier of McGill University conducted a search for all of the scientific studies that would answer the question of whether or not you should have sex the night before a competition. They only found three scientific studies that actually tested this question, but they found no evidence in these studies that sex would decrease your performance.

First of all, you are unlikely to wear yourself out. While the body does use up some energy when having sex, the average sexual encounter does not last long enough or involve enough exertion to change your athletic performance. Estimates of how many calories are used up during sex range from 25 to 125, but that is not a lot of energy—especially for an athlete! Sex is only considered a mild to moderate intensity activity, and the average sexual encounter only lasts around five minutes. No one has any problem with an athlete walking up one or two flights of stairs before a big game, and that is considered equal to the average sexual encounter.

Now, if you are having exceptionally long and vigorous sex, especially if it involves staying up all night, this might be another story. Exhaustion can certainly affect athletic performance, even if “usual” sex would not.

What about that competitive, testosterone-driven aggression? Will sexual frustration boost your testosterone or save up your testosterone for the big game? In one study, men who had sex the night before a sporting event actually had higher testosterone levels the next day than those who had not had sex. This is a good thing for many sports, because higher testosterone is generally associated with more aggression and more strength. Sex has also been shown to have no impact on leg muscle strength, grip strength, reaction time, or flexibility.

On the other hand, you cannot discount how sex impacts one very important part of your body—your brain. When it comes to sex, the brain is just as important as other parts of the body. The same is true in sports. Any given individual might have good psychological or emotional reasons why they should or should not have sex before a big competition. If the pursuit of a partner or actually having sex distracts you or hurts your mental focus, then sex might not be good for you before an important athletic event. The psychological impact could be a problem even if the physiological impact should not be one.

In contrast, if you sleep or relax better after sex or if you are a person who performs better when you have some sort of sexual excitement going on, then sex might be exactly what you need before your big competition. Athletes often strive for a balanced state of mind where they are well-rested, alert, and focused, but with just enough anxiety or fear to keep them sharp. For some, sex helps with this state of mind; while for others, maybe it ruins it.

Foreskin and Seven Years Ago …