German Penises 'Too Small for EU Condoms'?

[ShoNuff]

I've never posted in GQ before, so mods forgive me if you must move this thread to somewhere more appropriate.

From Ananova.

Germany has demanded a rethink on EU guidelines on condom size after finding its average penis did not measure up.

....

Urologist Gunther Hagler, head of the team compiling the research, said: "By checking hundreds of patients we found German penises were too small for standard EU condoms.

"On average they were 14.48 cms long and 3.95 cms wide. That makes them much smaller than the EU standard condom size of 17 cms in length and 5.6 cms in width."

He denied the German man was any smaller than the rest of Europe, adding: "We think the EU has got its sums wrong, and if other countries were to check out their men's assets they would find the EU has made a mistake in its calculations.

I'm admittedly no condom expert, but in my experience, one size tends to fit all.

How could this discrepancy be possible? How can average penis size vary so greatly over national boundaries? Is it a bizarre physical manifestation of Freudian guilt?

People smarter than I, I beg of you: HELP!

[Duckster]

Your answer is in your own post:

"He denied the German man was any smaller than the rest of Europe, adding: 'We think the EU has got its sums wrong, and if other countries were to check out their men's assets they would find the EU has made a mistake in its calculations.' "

[Agback]

Originally posted by ShoNuff
I'm admittedly no condom expert, but in my experience, one size tends to fit all.

Not quite. I have never been tempted to try a 'mega' condom (59mm nominal diameter), but I find that the 'extra-sensitive' (52 mm) ones are uncomfortably tight.

Regards,


Agback

[SandyHook]

I can't wait to hear about some German mini-dude visiting, oh, let us say Spain, who's standing in the condom aisle waving a box at some cashier and asking, "Do you have these in petite?"

[NothingMan]

From what I know Ananova is a respected source.

This still sounds like an old joke to me.

[Blackeyes]

There was a joke in the Cold War with Reagan and Gorbachev that went kind of like that.

[elmwood]

In related news ...

[Marley23]

From what I know Ananova is a respected source.

I'm not sure I agree...

[Already in Use]

I guess this explains why they keep starting world wars...

But more seriously, I'm guessing there was probably some inaccuracy in measurement. It seems improbable (though possible) that one European ethnic group would be that genetically different from other ones, including some that are closely related.

Then again, the story could be a joke or a hoax. I like the last line: "After all, they have also ruled EU standard condoms should be able to hold 18 litres of fluid without breaking, which also seems a bit excessive."

[Tusculan]

I very much doubt the veracity of the story. EUR-Lex, the database of official documents of the EU gives only a few listings of the word ‘condom’ , none of which refer to anything like this story. (However, I did learn that there exists a French canton with that name). Nonetheless, in itself it would not be strange if there would be a EU-regulation on condoms; they are consumer articles after all.

Googling for German pages containing the name "Gunther Hagler" only resulted in lots of pages repeating this story. Googling restricted to sites in Germany got me exactly zero results. One would expect that there would be some news of this in Germany.

Given these results I’m assuming the story is false, unless someone can back it up with references to official sources.

[raygirvan]

should be able to hold 18 litres of fluid without breaking

... although that could be taken as a simple measure of breaking strength rather than implying that they'd in practice need to contain 18 litres. However, like Tusculan, I'm very suspicious: among those anti-Europe in the UK, there's a huge industry in "Euromyth" stories falsely claiming bizarre EU rules, and this looks related to the one about allegedly standardising condom sizes.

[sailor]

Actually condoms are contemplated in international safety standard ISO 4074 and it is the Chinese, not the Germans, who have small dicks.
http://sailor.teemingmillions.com/chicom.htm

[tiny ham]

Just to let you know, I have seen this thread, and even as we speak, I am weeping. This is not what I wanted to hear about German penises.

At all.

[MikeG]

Obviously the Irish data sampling threw off the entire study

Poor Germans

[Eonwe]

I've got a friend who spent time in Kenya, who says that at least one of the many reasons why Kenyans (and Africans in general) are resistant to using condoms is that they don't come large enough. I'll point her to this thread; maybe she'll grace us with some knowledge.

[KenGr]

I recently ran across an article in a Korean newspaper (Dong-a Ilbo - the name seems relevant to this thread) noting that the average human penis was 15cm in length but the average Korean's was 12.5 cm. This is remarkable given the usual reluctance to admit any "shortcoming".

Here's the link:

Dong-a Ilbo

(I won't speculate on the accuracy of any of this.)

[Carnac the Magnificent!]

Originally posted by jarbabyj
Just to let you know, I have seen this thread, and even as we speak, I am weeping. This is not what I wanted to hear about German penises.

At all.

Not to worry. The average male on SDMB is three TIMES the reported German length and four times the girth. Our median IQ is 246, our biceps 21 inches in circumference, and few of us are less than multibillionaires.

[tiny ham]

whew

[moriah]

So, an online news service that doesn't tell you any information about the publisher or reporters?

Not reliable.

WRT the news report:

The claim is that the EU condom standard of six and three quarters of an inch is too big for the average German's penis of five and three quarters of an inch.

Condoms are usually an inch and half longer than average size to allow for longer than average sized men. For men of average or shorter length, all that extra condom remains rolled up at the base of the penis. So, I find that the EU are mandating condoms to be only six and three quarters of an inch long to be rather implausible.

Peace.

[Deptford]

Originally posted by Country Squire
Not to worry. The average male on SDMB is three TIMES the reported German length and four times the girth. Our median IQ is 246, our biceps 21 inches in circumference, and few of us are less than multibillionaires.

All of the above is true for me except i'm a little short on my multibillion dollars. Could you let me have a few hundred million so i don't bring the average down?

[Rachelimbo]

Oh my, my reputation precedes me. I am Eonwe's aforementioned friend that had some time in Kenya. I went with a group of 21 Americans, 19 girls, 2 guys. Out of the 19 I know of three who had sex with Kenyan men.
It was interesting to me because people always talk about how "if only the African's had access to condoms" or "if only they were educated about condoms" of course they would have safe sex and the AIDS epidemic there would be cut off at the pass. The interesting thing to note was that all three of the girls HAD condoms with them and right there in the situation. They also knew that 1/3 people (at least) in the areas we were in had AIDS but frighteningly enough, only 2 of them chose to use the condoms. Why? Because the girth of these men was so incredible that it was nearly a feat of magic to pull one on. Of course, three men is a far cry from a good scientific study and measurements were not taken ;-) but it made me think about how many couples in Africa just couldn't use those condoms that were made according to European/American "averages". Over there there is no access to the extra large variety.
I will say one thing though, man can those things stretch! ;-)
So this is maybe more of a comment on AIDS but I think that most men of European decent are somewhere near the same size but I certainly wouldn't say that just because we are human we are all built the same.
Also, on a side note I would like to add my two cents to say that, though I wouldn't consider myself the most experienced girl in the world, bigger is certainly not necessarily better. We German/Czech/British/Jewish girls simply were not intended to take on African men. But then that is just me. Ah...way too much information ;-)