A study tries to find the real answer to that question and discovers men have been telling the truth all along
By Tracy Clark-Flory
Let’s just get this out of the way up front: 14.15 cm (or 5.57 inches). That’s the mean length of an erect penis, according to a new study. I’ll wait here while you break out the measuring tape.
Finished yet? OK, with that out of the way, we can get to the more interesting stuff (said like a true vagina-haver). The study out of Indiana University, “Erect Penile Length and Circumference Dimensions of 1,661 Sexually Active Men in the United States,” is just what it sounds like. The main, ahem, thrust of the research was to get men to accurately measure their own penis length — in other words, to cut through the cultural BS (and, OK, proven preference for larger members) that might encourage a man to inflate his number. Despite worries about inaccurate reporting, the researchers went with a self-measurement approach. That’s because many men have trouble getting fully aroused, or maintaining an erection, in front of a researcher with a measuring tape.
As for why the measurements were taken of erect penises, which introduces its own complicating factors, the paper explains that this is “largely regarded as the least biased” method. As “growers” are quick to explain, stretching out a penis gives a more accurate measurement of its erect dimensions than simply measuring as it hangs flaccid — but stretching someone’s penis out to measure it “may introduce bias if experimenters vary in the amount of force used to stretch the penis.” The problems introduced by having men wield the ruler privately are preferable.
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