February 17, 2006 | Funny Bits

Size matters

With Valentine's Day safely over  we can now admit that love doesn't have to be all flowers and chocolate -- sometimes it's just a big, thick cock!  In fact, the 's' word -- size -- has been on many lips recently, including some at Slate and the Village Voice, both of which have published essays on the male member.

The Voice's Rachel Kramer Bussel commented on our cultural obsession with cock size in her Lusty Lady column. She observes that dicks and breasts get the same treatment -- "the bigger, the better" -- but that the former get the shaft, so to speak, when it comes to perception.

"Men rarely have the advantage of push-up bras;" she writes, "what you see is pretty much what you get, despite spam promising otherwise."

Still, Bussel muses, dicks are on the verge of a revolution. Once upon a time hidden from public view, the penis, she says, is poised for a breakthrough thanks to increased exposure in multitudinous films (mainstream and porn), magazines and - of course - websites.

But will all the good publicity help men come to terms with their size obsessions? Not likely, says Dr. Kent Sepkowitz, whose analysis of penis measurement across the world appeared this week in Slate.

According to Sepkowitz, men everywhere are preoccupied with calculating the length of the "average penis," a science made problematic when one asks himself, for instance, from where he should measure or at what temperature he should make his calculations.

"Furthermore," he asks, "who should do the measuring? Self-reported measurements are more, um, forgiving than size determined by a disinterested medical professional, by half an inch or more." The median length of an erect penis, he adds, is between 5.5 and 6 inches when self-measured.

Sepkowitz hopes that the questions posed by penis research will cast doubt on other statistical measures. We, on the other hand, hope they will create a demand for answers -- and, therefore, for more penis researchers (our resume's in the mail, Doc!)

• On the matter of size: the inexact science of penis measurement [Slate]
• Cock size obsession [Village Voice]