Almost everyone considered their dicks to be average size, even when this was clearly not the case. This sample group was simultaneously very OK with having average-size penises, and not totally aware what the average is. A few claimed to "never have measured," but even they acknowledged that was hard to believe. With a few exceptions, almost all the guys knew the exact dimensions of their penises-length and circumference. The sheer range of items men compared their dick and balls to was incredible-eggs, berries, iPhones, Magic Markers, the classic bottle of Coke, and "about two lighters, end to end." There was a 50:50 foreskin-to-circumcised ratio. (I expect Jonah's 13.5-inch penis skewed the stats somewhat.) The smallest reported penis was 3.6 inches erect. The average dick size was 6.2 inches erect, at the high end of the North American average, which is between five and six inches. The men came from a conveniently varied range of geographic, racial, religious, and socioeconomic backgrounds. Aside from Falcon and Gilronan, everyone else's names have been changed. More than 55 men (all cis-gender) responded to my casual survey, including Jonah Falcon, who currently holds the title for largest recorded dick in the world, and Nick Gilronan, the winner of last year's Smallest Penis in Brooklyn contest. I put out a call on Twitter: Did anyone want to talk about his dick? It turns out people really, really did. Basically, men are a simmering heap of raw nerves and unexplored emotions." Traditional masculinity requires men to be stoic about their emotional issues and men risk being called pussies and fags if they are openly self-conscious. I was reminded of something dick-pic critic Madeleine Holden said in an interview with VICE in May: "I've come to the conclusion that men face similar (although less intense) pressures to look a certain way, but are afforded fewer outlets to discuss how it affects them. While conversations about the everyday humiliations of embodiment in present-day North America are common among my female friends, the only men I've ever really talked to at length (heh) about their junk have been boyfriends or lovers. It's an enormous amount of unnecessary pressure, and it seems to me that if you tell a man he has a "small dick," the message is more or less the same thing as saying, "You're fat" to a woman: You are sexually undesirable and not good at being your gender. I know what it is to consciously or unconsciously size up my body or parts of my body, noting the sizes of others', comparing, keeping track. For an organ that changes size upward of 11 times a day (and even more frequently at night), the size thing really gets to people.
We know the hierarchy: big = good, small = bad. They are masculinity's synecdoche, and rather an odd choice.įor a start, #notallpenises get to be representative of strong, manly qualities. In truth, my fascination is less about penises themselves and more about the disjunct between what they are-dangling, fleshy, easily agitated protuberances-and what they are asked to represent: authority, virility, power. There's something fascinating about penises. Photos courtesy of Nick Gilronan and Jonah Falcon
The smallest penis in Brooklyn and the (alleged) largest penis in the world.
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