Many American men, according to the Kinsey Institute, believe the average erection is 10 inches-this despite (or because of) frequently accessing Internet pornography in which participants have shaved off their pubic hair to increase visibility and many have used a vascular device to pump up temporarily.

Even the most balanced of men is capable of half-believing he is under-endowed. The most frequent question on all Internet Q-and-A sex sites continues to be, “Is size important?” A downloadable chart of four outline drawings (“low average” to “extraordinarily large”) can be found on the net, which a man can print out and use as a template against which to judge himself. And yet … he can’t help believing that it is. His common sense tells him that it will certainly not be the major or controlling factor in a woman’s response to him. Intellectually, a man knows that the size of his penis shouldn’t be specifically relevant in a relationship, to him or to a woman. Say what you will about animal penises but they’re a perfect example of how fascinating, diverse, and maybe a bit weird, nature truly is.Excerpted from God’s Doodle: The Life and Times of the Penisby Tom Hickman, out now from Soft Skull Press. The more complex penises belong to primates like bushbabies and lemurs, who mate with many partners in their lifetime. Primates with simpler penises tend to be monogamous (only have one partner) or polygynous (mate with only a few partners). We are the only primate without a bone in the penis and have a relatively more simple structure. The size and shape of penises in primates vary too and compared to other animals, the human penis is actually rather dull. In fact, humans have a proportionately large penis size compared to their body size – but length is not everything (am I right?). The largest gorilla will only have a penis that is two and half inches long when erect. However, the penis size of many primates is much compared to the testes. To put that into perspective, a human’s testis is only 50 grams, so chimps have a testis that is 3 times that! This is a third of the size of its brain. To accommodate this increased level of sperm production, the chimpanzee’s testis is relatively large, at a weight of 150 to 170 grams. The more sperm produced, the more likely it is that the female’s offspring will have that chimp’s DNA (which is the main goal in all primates, and indeed many animals). This results in sperm competition whereby each of the males need to produce lots of sperm to outcompete the other males. What’s more, each of these females are only fertile about once or twice every four years! So, a large penis is not exactly necessary.Ĭhimpanzees are pretty promiscuous creatures with several males mating with one female whilst she is fertile.

Silverback males own a group of three-four females, known as a harem, who are constantly either pregnant or breastfeeding. Whilst this may seem surprising, gorillas don’t need massive genitals given the sexual dynamics of this species. Did you know that male silverback gorillas weigh around 250 kilograms, but their penis and testes are only 10 grams? That’s equivalent to a vending machine having a testis the weight of 10 paperclips.

Gorilla penis length