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The average erect penis length increased by 24% over 29 years (stanford.edu)
34 points by lab14 on Feb 17, 2023 | hide | past | favorite | 33 comments


We’re also getting taller so this might not be so surprising. But yeah, there’s a lot of ways this data can not actually mean anything.

Furthermore, what is the scientifically accepted bodily datum from which to measure length?


As far as I know penis length is not correlated with body height, hand size, etc. because those all relate to skeleton size, but penises have no bones.

Scientific measurement is done from the top by pressing against the pubic bone since belly fat makes the penis look shorter.


from behind the balls



> The big next step is to look at other patient populations -- such as the pediatric population -- to see if there are similar changes.

I imagine the pundits having a field day with this and the conspiracy theories. Would be entertaining to watch play out.


wait you guys didn't have penis inspection day in elementary school?


I think you jest but some universities once took naked photos of all freshmen. I think Harvard?


> The big next step is to look at other patient populations -- such as the pediatric population -- to see if there are similar changes.

Bad, bad idea. This will go down like a cup of hot sick with most parents.


Also, it's a much noiser data-set, especially since puberty seems to be starting earlier.

You can kind of get by if you ensure you're population is all pre-pubescent or all post-pubescent and similar in age. But anything in between is a mess of confounders.


There has been a major uptick in porn consumption over the past 29 years. Perhaps pulling on them all the time makes them stretch, ever so slowly.


They don't detail the sources of the studies, but I imagine the vast majority to be self-reported, which is enough to explain this supposed increase: it didn't increase, but having a big dick has become more and more the basic brag as internet developed.


Self measurement studies were excluded.

> The initial search yielded 12,531 articles (PubMed: 1,975; Cochrane: 3,435; and Embase: 7,121). Duplicate articles appearing in multiple databases were excluded (n=8,022). After abstract screening, 7,850 papers were excluded. Of the remaining 172 papers, 97 were further excluded as they either did not report penis measurements (n=63), reported measurements after major pelvic surgeries (n=12), or *reported self-measurements (n=22).*


Either that or all those spam emails weren't lying.


>In a study published Feb. 14 in The World Journal of Men's Health, Eisenberg and his colleagues compiled data from 75 studies, conducted between 1942 and 2021, that reported on the penile length of 55,761 men. The team found that the average erect penis length increased by 24% over 29 years, a trend they saw around the world.

you think that this many men over that period had complexes?


"And if it's at all possible god please try to make all of our sex organs even larger than you did the first time" - George Carlin


sedentary lifestyles increase length?

It is counter-intuitive.


Extra length is required to get past the extra padding on both sides, so only longer members will successfully reproduce without mechanical assistance in the Buy N Large future.


I can predict the trash TV of the future "my 600lb, 12in life"


this show basically writes itself.


You sound like a statistician.


Survival of the longest...


Ruler inflation most likely.


Flagged comment which I think raises a mildly interesting question. If resurrecting a flagged comment is against the rules, then kill this, too.

Why are men so obsessed with penises and their size?

Are they actually? Or maybe even one step further back, what does being obsessed with penises and their size entail? I don't think it is surprising that during puberty people care about the changes happening to their bodies and wonder if everything is normal, but later on in life? Maybe if you ended up on the short side and consider this a flaw that must be hidden or remedied. But in general? It surely is a stereotype but I tend towards it being just a stereotype.


Up to a point it's along the same lines as "why are men so obsessed with football", because it's big, in your face and requires no thinking or interpretation. And to comment on my own brand new account, I wanted to comment on something else but chanced upon this :) Reproductively it probably meant nothing at all in the life-long marriage context, but in the on-off, one night society of ours it might well be an advantage. Also, we know quite well it's not really much of a pleasure or love predictor, but it's anecdotally at least a non-monogamy predictor, both owners and recipients are likely to include such adventures in their bucket lists!


Dominance, Alphaness , masculinity, primal instinct for attracting mate.


Great, we've got a lot of statues to patch.


[flagged]


Measurement is the first step that leads to control and eventually to improvement. If you can't measure something, you can't understand it. If you can't understand it, you can't control it. If you can't control it, you can't improve it.


And thus working backwards: you can't improve it, so you can't understand it :)


Great answer.


Same reason woman are obsessed with their secondary sexual characteristics.

Evolution.


Can't have a dick measuring contest with out measuring.


It’s so we know how big of a truck to buy.


Likely similar reasons to why women are obsessed with breast size




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