I’m reminded of an example of bad science from 2012.
First, the so-called “scientists” didn’t bother to make a hypothesis and design an experiment to test it. They just threw together a survey of a few dozen questions and looked for correlations between the answers. This is an example of p-mining, which is a really lousy way to do science, and a major reason that science is currently facing a replication crisis. Lo and behold, the “researchers” found a strong positive correlation between two of the questions, specifically women who answered “yes” to the question “Do you believe that you’re more likely to have an orgasm when you’re with a partner who has a large penis?” and women who answered “yes” to the question “Do you have lots of orgasms?”. Then the clueless mainstream media wrote headlines like “Science proves that larger penises means more orgasms!”. Bullshit. What the study allegedly showed is that women who SAID they had lots of orgasms also tended to say that they BELIEVED penis size was important. They didn’t even try to ask the women who claimed to have lots of orgasms whether their partners had big penises or not. Even if they had asked that question, it would still be self-reporting and subject to observation bias. And that still doesn’t address whether this result is repeatable or simply the product of random chance in a small statistical universe. And even if all that was true, it still wouldn’t show cause and effect, just correlation.
It’s a damned shame that people waste time feeling insecure about their bodies. Then some bad science and clickbait headlines have to play into people’s insecurities and make them feel worse.
Some studies use self-reporting, but they have to figure out ways to counteract the subjects’ tendency to exaggerate. One useful trick is to have the subject use unfamiliar units of measure, such as centimeters for people in the US. Other studies have a doctor measure flaccid penises and then compare that result with self-reported answers of both flaccid and erect, which allows the researches to estimate how much exaggeration is happening and correct for it. Other studies have the doctor gently stretch the penis, on the assumption that stretched flaccid size is roughly the same as erect size. I’m not aware of any studies where the doctor sexually aroused the participants.
If self-reporting results in an average of 9 cm flaccid and 15 cm erect, and doctors measure 8 cm flaccid and 13 cm stretched, it’s a pretty safe bet that the actual erect average is pretty close to 13 or 14 cm.
It’s also important for the participants to measure the same way (along the top, not the bottom).
For how much of human history have the majority of women and men be able to choose their Partner freely according to their liking, anyway?
Didn’t most cultures have arranged marriages, either:
to prevent Close relationships (inbreeding)
to strengthen alliances
to increase Money/ power/ Farmland
because “Young People are foolish, thinking only with their hormones, but marriage Needs to last, so cool-headed elders will look for compatible mates”
That’s where I have Problems seeing Evolution being much of a factor, compared to General health, being well-respected in Society, being good at getting rich etc to better able to Chose a desireable mate.
OTOH, once civilisation was established, some cultures allowed men to have women on the side.
Some civilisations tried to Limit the number of childbirths (the romans believed a certain herb worked that way).
In Science, “common sense” doesn’t Count for anything, you want Facts and evidence. (Often turns out to contradict common sense).
One often-cited example from AP Biology is length and colour of a bird’s beak when feeding the Young. The Young chicklings pick on the beak of the parent who then Feeds them. The more they pick, the more Food they get.
So scientists built dolls of birds with different shaped (longer, bigger…) and coloured beaks, and measured which model got most picks from hatchlings.
Turned out that for a common bird, the “ideal” beak was 15 cm Long, and striped orange/ White alternating.
So why does the real bird’s beak look nothing like that?
Because the adult bird Needs the beak for things besides getting picked at. The final design is a result of a compromise of several functions, not Maximum for one function.
Similar, women don’t look at penis sizes when choosing a mate for life (or at least for the next 20 years until the kid is grown). They look for somebody who brings home Food, is Minimum nice so she can tolerate him hanging around farting, doesn’t get into fights with others over nothing (leaving her a widow) etc.
Of course; it’s a standard part of the exam. The doctor locks the door, lights a candle, turns off the lights… surely I’m not the only one here who gets an annual physical!
I’m pretty sure Cecil himself answered the question about penis length once in an older column, refering to the Masters/Kinsey Report (including the “measure along the top” hint), but I can’t search columns right now.
a man who’s a good hunter = makes sure his mate and offspring have enough to eat
a man who’s a good protector = defends his mate and offspring against tigers etc.
a man who’s a good fighter = kills all other possible suitors from his tribe? (The last would backfire, because humans are social animals: we Need a Group of 20-40 People for cooperation to survive).
Of course, penis length (or size of erection) is not correlated at all to viability of sperm:
Men can have an erection and still be infertile (non-moving sperm)
Men can have Trouble with erections (except for morning Wood) and still be very fertile (moving sperm),
yet for hundred of years men thought that erection = virility = fertility (and blamed women for not producing children , or male offspring).
Averages of 6.2 or 6.3 inches are not quite comparable of the earlier Kinsey statistics I quoted with a range of 5 - 6.5 inches. I’d assume that the average of that range would be much lower. I wonder where Cecil got his numbers from?
Well if those claims of 6.3 inches as the average man’s penis length is to assumed to be correct, then that says some interesting things things on a few different levels re my experiences with swinging.
We didn’t involve ourselves in the swingers lifestyle for too long, maybe 6-8 months, but one thing that was true across the board with every single man in our little swingers encounterswas that he had a pretty severely undersized, below average penis length when fully erect.
This also correlated roughly (say 70%) with the noticeable disparity in age and physical attractiveness of these couples (and this are aggregate approximations, not examples of any one event). 90 percent of these noticeably odd pairing were of those with the woman being the one who was young and gorgeous, while the man always seemed to be a socially inept, shy, awkward man about 10-15 years her senior. I only remember one vivid example of it going the other way, and it was with a couple we had chatted with a bit only e and at parties.He was basically a gorgeous, Greek Adonis sculpture and was friendly and soft-spoken. He and my gf hit it off well and being the team player that am (and probably a bit guilty that up till this point, being a “team player” had been the entire extent of her experiences swinging) I made a good faithed effort to engage with the woman (who turned out to be wife, not gf, and had already given birth 7 times in their marriage). I REALLY to make this happen and let my gf get a taste of what I had tasted already. I just could not. I was fundamentally unatrracted to her sexually, period. This was after making out and groping too.
All this just poses some interesting thoughts into what motivates each partner to decide to try swinging. And honestly, I don’t see any of them good, healthy motivations. At least not long term.
When smithsb said “the guy who got the most gals was handier with his club”, I assumed he was referring to the situation (often depicted in cartoons) where the man hits the woman over the head with a club, drags her back to his cave, and has sex with her unconscious body. In other words, rape.
If women wanted bigger penises they’d pick the biggest one among the multiple guys who were bringing home food.
Or … they’d pick a guy who brings home food as a partner but sneak off to bang a guy with a big penis.
Either way: The big penis gene gets propagated. All it takes is a preference by females and pretty soon the “bring home the food” guys all have them swinging down to their knees.
I get the impression that most posters are male so I’ll point out that it works the other way, too: If men really sought out huge breasts then all women would be massive. Once you get past puberty though I don’t think it really makes much difference when selecting a partner. Smaller ones are generally much perkier/prettier IMHO.