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Knowing how to measure your penis is not all about bragging rights.
Your sexual health depends heavily on knowing your measurements. It can have a bigger impact than you might imagine, ranging from condom size recommendations to more precise sexual health diagnoses for conditions like Peyronie’s disease, erectile dysfunction, premature ejaculation, or other medical conditions.
This quick, but comprehensive, guide will detail proper technique for measuring penis size (at both full erection and flaccid measurement), why it’s important for all men to truly know their penile length and not just guess, and how
Now, let’s talk about how to measure your penis properly.
Why Penis Measurement Techniques Matter
Yes, knowing your private’s length and girth is important for a proper condom fitting, which impacts both your and your partner’s comfort, and above all to minimize the risk of you and your partner contracting STIs from unprotected sex. If you have one sexual partner or more, you may need to check in with a board-certified urologist to know more about sexually transmitted infections.
However, measuring penis size is both easy and complicated for several reasons.
As we’ve previously covered, BJUI’s worldwide review of studies found that on average, the girth of a flaccid penis is 3.66 inches and 3.61 inches in length, while the average erect penis length is 5.16 inches and the average erect girth is 4.59 inches.
And while this study on the average penis size is one of the most recent, the researchers add that, like all other studies, the participants in them might not represent the real diversity of penises in the world. A lot of these studies are made mostly in Europe and North America, although there are several from other countries.
But in any country, medical researchers are always afraid of the possibility that the only men who agree to have their penises measured are those confident in their size in the first place.
Nevertheless, most medical studies try to get a varied set of volunteers and measure everybody in a standardized way.
And by using a disposable tape measurer. The authors of the study recommend a disposable, flexible tape measure for hygienic purposes, as most erect length penis have to be stimulated by the participants when watching pornography or after receiving a prostaglandin injection.
How They Measure Length and Girth?
Here is how to measure your penis length correctly:
Length Measurement
Length is simply the measure of the penis from its root to the tip (glans, without the foreskin).
Begin measuring your penis’ shaft in a straight line with soft measuring tape (not a ruler), from the tip of the pubic bone (or squeeze into your pubic area until you feel a bone), pushing past pubic hair or excess fat in the way.
Make sure you press into the pubic bone; the clear stopping point is especially important if you happen to have a lot of belly fat.
If your penile shaft curves, especially when erect, take that measuring tape along it, too. That’s also why you should not use a straight ruler, as it will not properly measure any curvature at full erection.
Girth Measurement
Girth is the measurement of the circumference of the penis at the base or the middle. To measure penis girth, hold the flexible measuring tape to one side of the base or mid-shaft and gently wrap it around until it reaches the starting end of the flexible tape measure.
(BONUS: Some condom manufacturers base the size of their products on width or diameter. To know this, simply divide your erect girth measurement by 3.14.)
All credible and trusted studies carry out the measurements by a professional health practitioner working for the studies, because men will likely lie about their size if the measurements are left to them.
As we mentioned before, the BJUI International study is one of the most comprehensive ever, and they also made it clear what they didn’t measure: men with congenital or acquired abnormalities, hormonal imbalances, erectile dysfunction, medical issues that might affect genitals (including testicles), or those who wanted to get a penis enlargement of any type.
Oh, and creepily, no cadavers either.
String Measuring Technique
If you don’t have a handy measuring seamstress-type tape or flexible measuring tape around when curiosity gets the better of you and want to do some self-measurements, there are still some measuring techniques available.
The better alternative is the string and ruler technique.
Simply take some string around your girth and along your stretched penile length, and then measure that section of the string with a ruler later. It might not be
Does penis size matter for erections?
Another unknown factor in measuring erect penises is the question about how the penis gets erect.
Anecdotally, many men report getting better erections depending on what sexual activity are they being aroused by, but this has not been explored nearly enough in studies with adequate sample sizes in order to draw even a hypothesis, as it’s complicated to study erect length and girth while testing different sexual activities or arousal mechanisms.
When it comes to what women think about most penis size, a vast majority (84%) think their partner’s penis is fine, according to a study from UCLA and Cal State LA. Only about 14% of women wished their partner’s member was larger, and 2% actually wanted a smaller one.
Does Your Penis Shrink As You Get Fatter or Older?
Reliable studies about average penis sizes are rare, and much rarer still are longitudinal ones that take into account the effects of weight gained or lost, and age.
There’s one study from Saudi Arabia that tries to answer the question by simply measuring the penis sizes of men with a different body mass index (BMI), which measures obesity, and those of different ages.
When it came to the sizes between men with different BMIs, there was a weak correlation between shorter erect penis length and greater BMI. This meant that, yes, some men lost length in after gaining some weight, but this wasn’t true when measuring from the bone to the tip. So that extra skin after gaining weight hid parts of the penis.
You could go for liposuction if you don’t want to work off all that weight, but the best solution is always to change your habits and get slimmer. That’s the best option for everything, honestly.
“For every 30-50lbs of excess weight, you will likely lose
around an inch of the visible penis. lose weight” – ManVFat
And as for the effects of age on your penis size, there was even less correlation. Men between the ages of 70 and 20 had less than a centimeter (.39 in) of a difference in their penile length.
Myths about penis sizes
Insecurity and curiosity about your own length and girth size, and worrying about the average length of a penis, come from constant comparisons to those of other men. But few men actually get to see what their peers are packing, so the next best thing is to look for “clues” that might tell us just how hung or not another guy is.
Are big feet and shoe size indicative of a large package between a man’s legs? Are small hands telling us a man has a small penis? Do tall men have a large penis?
The short answer to those questions: No, no, and… maybe.
The BJUI review of studies found that, on average, there was a weak correlation between height and penis size, although nothing definitive could be concluded by the studies that were found about the issue. One study found flaccid stretched penile length to be moderately significantly correlated with height, while three others found weak correlations.
In any case, the difference between a tall man’s average penis and a short man’s average penis is relatively insignificant and not worth any effort into equating tall men with large members. Most of the time, you’ll end up with an average penis size. So all men below the average of 5.8 feet in height shouldn’t worry at all about being compared to their taller brethren.
The stress from worrying too much if you have a big or a small penis won’t do you much good.
On the contrary, anxiety and stress have a proven, negative effect on your sexual performance and confidence, and may even lead to erectile dysfunction or premature ejaculation altogether.
“There are so many things in life us guys can’t control,
like our height. Don’t waste time and mental energy
dwelling on this stuff. Instead, focus on improving what
you can control, like your style, grooming, and social skills.
This is how you build confidence, which improves every area
of your life, including the bedroom.”
–
Brock McGoff – Founder of The Modest Man.
Showers vs. Growers
As we mentioned before, an optimal erect penis should be around 5 to 6 inches in length, and about 3.5 inches in girth in order to function properly, but there’s an urban legend about showers and growers. Supposedly, you either have a relatively small flaccid penis, which gets bigger when it becomes erect, or you have a relatively large flaccid one, which also gets bigger when it becomes erect.
That said, there are some medical conditions or disorders that can affect the elasticity of a penis, which can result in something akin to the “shower” effect. Erectile dysfunction, for instance, is a sexual health condition that can reduce the strength of your erections, thereby making your erection not as large as it might otherwise be.
In this way, who suffer from erectile dysfunction aren’t just missing out on sexual satisfaction and the joys of sex, but also from seeing the full size of their penis. Getting professional medical advice and treatment for erectile dysfunction will also help them see much better growth when erect, and so enlarge their penis size, in a way.
“There’s really no such thing as a “shower,” When men
get erections, their penises get bigger. That’s true
across the board, regardless of how big or small
you are flaccid.”
–
Meagan Drillinger – Men’s Health
