NSFW - Why does penis size differ so much?

People are more varied than we think, in some instance. Rather than thinking of sex as a very clear binary (with small clitori and giant penises on the extremes), we can think of it as a continuum with a variety of factors like in utero exposure to certain hormones at specific points or genetics playing a role in how big, how thick, etc.

One size doesn’t fit all?

I think that the extreme ranges of height in people would probably match the extreme incidences of small and large penis size that you gave.

I bet if you took the average range instead, you’d have more of a reasonable correlation.

@iamthemob But a person isn’t going to be 15 times as tall as someone else!

Just about everything in human beings is so varied between individuals. I can’t see any reason why penis size would be any different. But as @iamthemob points out the average or mean might give you a better idea of the size of most penises. They probably fall into some sort of normal distribution with 1’’ (Yikes! That is so, so tiny! Poor guy!) and 15” (Yikes! That is so, so big! Scary guy!) falling in the tails. Those extremes, I’m sure, are quite unusual. Are there really men with penises that are only 1” erect? That seems hard to believe.

@pikipupiba – tall as, no – the shortest person was apparently 22 inches, where the tallest was about 9 feet.

However, the world’s fattest person is 15.55 times as heavy as the world’s thinnest person.

I’m not sure if it’s really as varied as you would think… More of a bell curve.

Check this chart out. I’m lazy, so I’m not going to take the standard deviation or mean or anything, but it looks like +/- 5” is pretty much the world average.

This is a great and common question. No way I could answer this with out being kicked off for good, so that should answer your question. Hint: Geography and heat dissipation.

Because they all work at delivering sperm, and there hasn’t been enough strong evolutionary pressure to favor a one-size fits all philosophy. Do note, however, that, for their body size, humans have huge penises compared to other primates.

@crisw is right – we’re superhung. ain’t that rad?

@Garebo Ha! No wonder some like it hot. :-)

@crisw But a horse’s penis is a mighty thing indeed, compared to any puny primate penis, that is. There are a fair number of big non-primate penises out there.

Over 15?

@Fiddle_Playing_Creole_Bastard Italy fuck yeah

Mainly because bigger or smaller penis doesn’t give an evolutionary advantage. There was some factor of choice, at the start, but if you go all the way to the middle ages i can bet my left nut people weren’t showing off their genitals to their potential mates, making it a gamble every time.

@lillycoyote

Of course, horses aren’t primates. And I am not sure that, compared to body size, horses are really hung like stallions :>)

What people should really be saying, anyway, is hung like an Andean duck!

@Thammuz

But if you go further back, it was all hanging out.

My theory on why humans have such large penises is that many primates use penises in aggressive displays, and thus, since they are hairy, have easily-erectable, brightly-colored penises that are highly visible against their fur.

When we lost our hair, males needed better ways of making penises stand out for their displays. Increasing size (and perhaps foreskins) was one way to do that.

So there would be selective pressure to increase size, but apparently not enough to eliminate variation.

That’s my theory. :>)

To get us to ask questions like this? Why are some people tall and some short? If we were all the same it’d be boring. What would be the excitement of unzipping a guys jeans for the first time if you knew exactly what was going to appear? It’s like what Forrest Gump said: Life is like a bowl of chocolates. You never know what you’re going to get.”

@Adirondackwannabe I’m not asking why there is variation, I’m just trying to account for the amazing difference. If you were going on a blind date, you would expect the guy to be between 5 and 7 feet tall. He could be taller, could be shorter, but it is very unlikely. With penises however, there is literally no telling (that is an assumption of course, I haven’t undressed other men lately).

@pikipupiba

As has been explained, most penises fall within a fairly defined range. A few are outliers. That’s normal with anything where size is not selected for extremely strongly. Basically, things will vary unless there is a very good evolutionary reason for them not to vary. So, for example, hair color in humans is very variable, because there isn’t any good reason for it not to vary, so variation isn’t selected aganst.

@pikipupiba – you can pretty much expect the same kind of variation, though, for the blind date’s unit. Somewhere between 5 and 7 inches.

@pikipupiba I have no great answer to that. It’s just the way things are. I think diversity is a great thing, but somewhere there’s probably some guy with big hands and big feet wondering why he’s so small. And I haven’t unzipped too many guys, but I kind of like that in there the way it came out.

@crisw It’s a good theory

@crisw i agree, that’s why i said “at the start there was some factor of choice”.
You have to remember though that eliminating such factor doesn’t leave the things where they were, it allows the progress to be undone as variations start being reintroduced.

Let’s say, for instance, that we reached a point where human penises were generally much closer to the average for that time period. Then civilization came about and public display of nudity started being frowned upon. Plus it wasn’t the mate picking the partner anymore, it was another male (what the romans called the paterfamilias which is the father in the sense of the oldest man in the family). So, the whole genitalia aspect is left unchecked because, with the lack of contraception and interest for the woman’s opinion, even the “penisly challenged” (according to that era’s average, that is) get to reproduce now.

Give this mechanism a few centuries and the bell will broaden quite a bit.

Why does boob size differ so much?

@mattbrowne I can answer that. The human competitive spirit causes it. It’s because no matter how stupid some clod acts, the next guy in line can always be an even bigger boob.

@FlutherToeCheeseYummy No matter how many times you tell guys that, which one would turn down a pill that would turn him into a potential porn star? The fact is lots of women would probably recoil in horror at a magic wand the size Johnny Wad (NSFW) had (13½”), but still, guys would all love to grow theirs to the size if his schlong.

@FlutherToeCheeseYummy There’s a thread on here somewhere that says that size matters a great deal to some women.