Don't Put That in There! (5 page)

Start Small, Stay Small

No matter how many times people say that size doesn’t matter, it continues to be a topic of discussion. Men are worried about it. Women are talking about it. We’ve already discussed some of the myths as to how people try to judge the size of a penis by looking at other parts of a man’s body, be it their feet, their hands, or even their forearms. Faithful readers know that none of the prediction methods work. There’s no way to judge the size of a man’s penis by looking at some other part of their body.

What about if you catch a glimpse of a penis when it’s still soft? Can you judge what size that penis will be when it gets hard?

A lot of people also worry that if a man’s penis starts small, it will stay small. They assume that if a man’s penis is small when it is soft, it will remain peewee-sized when it gets hard. And, the erect penis size is what people really care about when it comes to sex.

Could there actually be a study on this topic? Of course there is. In fact, there are more than you’d imagine.

The first big study was done by Masters and Johnson in 1966. They gathered together forty men whose flaccid (soft) penises measured between 3 and 3.5 inches and another forty men whose flaccid penises measured 4 to 4.5 inches. Then, they measured how much the penises lengthened when they became erect. What they found was that the smaller penises grew about 3 inches, while the larger penises grew about 2.75 inches. Not much of a difference, in fact not a statistically significant difference. But this meant that larger flaccid penises were likely to be larger erect penises.

This was a pretty small study, and it didn’t have much of a range of size among the flaccid penises. So in 1988, researchers used Kinsey data to do a much more comprehensive analysis. They divided about 2,500 men into two groups: those with flaccid penis length 3.5 inches or less and those with flaccid penis length of 4 inches or more. The first group had an average flaccid length of 3.2 inches, while the second group had an average flaccid length of 4.4 inches. When the penises became erect, however, the differences narrowed. The first group had an average erect length of 5.8 inches while the second group had an average erect length of 6.5 inches. In other words, flaccid penises grew, on average, more than an extra half inch when becoming erect. To be thorough, they also examined the effect that height and weight might have on these measurements. Neither of these was associated with penis size at all, flaccid or erect.

To recap, this was a study of over 2,500 men. The average size of the flaccid penis was 3.9 inches, and the average size of the erect penis was 6.2 inches. The average circumference (if that’s your thing) was 3.8 inches flaccid and 4.9 inches erect. And there is absolutely, positively no way that you can predict how far from those averages any man will be. Even if you see his penis when it’s soft, you can’t tell how big it will be when it’s hard.

Don’t Swallow Your Cum!

It seems like people spend an inordinate amount of time trying to come up with reasons not to swallow semen. In our previous books, we dismantled the myth that semen is high in calories. Since then, we’ve heard from plenty of you that there are many other reasons to avoid semen. One of them is that it’s “dirty.”

Semen is remarkably clean. In fact, the vast majority of the time, it’s sterile. Of course, if a man has an infection, especially a sexually transmitted infection, then it’s possible his semen might be infected. But if that’s the case, then forget the semen—you don’t want his penis anywhere near you, either.

As long as a man’s genital area isn’t infected, his semen is totally clean.

While we’re at it, compared to saliva, almost anything seems clean. The human mouth is a relative cesspool, as we discussed all the way back in
Don’t Swallow Your Gum!
There is a lot more reason to panic about another person biting you than there is to panic about semen. The human mouth is full of bacteria. Way, way more than you’d find in the average ejaculation.

We imagine that there are other ways to define “dirty.” But on almost any metric you might choose, semen is going to win out over saliva. (This gives a different dimension to the “spit versus swallow” debate!)

We’re not trying to convince you to put semen in your mouth and swallow it. If you don’t want to do that sort of thing, that’s totally your right. If you want to do it, though, then you might as well know the facts. Semen won’t make you fat. Semen isn’t dirty. In fact, it’s probably one of the least noxious fluids a body produces.

Semen does have one very, very important quality that should not be forgotten. It can absolutely, positively make you pregnant. While sperm are not “dirty,” you cannot forget what they can do around an egg!

There’s Always Semen When You’re Screamin’

One of our friends told us a hilarious story about his early experiences with sex. As a seventh grader, he and a girl would sneak off at school once a week and make out in the back of the school auditorium. It came as a complete and scary surprise to our friend when, one day, this secret session led to a wet explosion in his pants. Although the sessions and the in-the-pants coming continued for weeks and weeks, he had no idea that men ejaculate when they have an orgasm. Someone should have filled him in that there’s always semen when you’re screamin’!

But, is that true? Can men have an orgasm without ejaculating?

We have to start by saying that the vast majority of men
cannot
have an orgasm without ejaculating. After all, men are evolutionarily designed to ejaculate. It’s the circle of life, the “coming of age.” There’s no good biological reason for men to orgasm without ejaculation. Ejaculation is the primary reason for male animals to have sex, and most men just can’t help themselves.

Some men, though, do have “dry orgasms.” When a man has a “dry orgasm,” it’s usually because something is wrong. The body is not working the way it should. For instance, men who had a condition called posterior urethral valves in infancy are more likely to have a slow or dry orgasm later in life. This is because there is something inherently abnormal in their urogenital tracts. Older men who have undergone radical prostatectomy are also more likely not only to be impotent, but to sometimes have dry orgasms as well. The prostate makes most of the fluid that goes into ejaculate, and so taking out the prostate gland disrupts the system. Some men having dry orgasms report differences in sex, like they don’t feel the “point of no return” when ejaculation seems inevitable.

Additionally, some drugs are associated with a higher rate of dry orgasm. Studies of certain drugs, like alpha-adrenergic blockers, used for benign prostatic hyperplasia, can lead to dry orgasms.

So the bottom line is that dry orgasms aren’t impossible. This doesn’t mean they are common. It also doesn’t mean you should ignore them. As you would probably guess, men who suffer from orgasm without ejaculation often have a harder time fathering a child.

There are some reports of men who have trained themselves to prevent ejaculation with orgasm willingly and actively. Supposedly they have practiced stopping their urine midflow and strengthening the muscles that block fluid emission from the penis. Theoretically they can voluntarily stop ejaculation as they reach the “point of no return,” allowing them to feel an orgasm without the accompanying release of semen.

But such reports do not appear in the medical literature (at least not where we can find them). So while we declare dry orgasm absolutely not impossible, it does seem unlikely—or at least really difficult—for men to stop ejaculating at will.

You’re Going to Break That Boner!

Just in case you haven’t figured it out, a boner is not made of bone. A penis can get really hard, but that’s due to its filling with blood. There are no bones involved. Does that mean you cannot break it? No.

Breaking your penis is so horrible to contemplate that it’s even difficult to discuss. It sounds so terrible and painful that many just assume that it’s impossible. And when it’s flaccid, the penis is so obviously flexible and malleable that it seems almost inconceivable that it could snap. But penile fractures are real and, hard as it may be (sorry), we’re going to tell you all about them.

We’re not saying they are common, mind you. A paper reviewing six years of data in a hospital in Canada found thirty-four cases, eight of which also had damage to the urethra (the tube fluid exits from). About three-quarters of the reported cases happened during some form of intercourse. The penis must have snagged on something instead of going where it should have, it bent, and it broke. Another study, in Spain, found twenty-four cases over twenty years. Almost all of them occurred during sex. In the other cases, the cause was “penile manipulation.” We’ll leave that to your imagination.

Enough jokes. A penis breaking is rare (only about 1 in every 175,000 hospitalizations), but it’s very serious. Most times, the men, and whoever might be with them, hear a popping sound, and feel something terrible when the penis bends and fractures. Immediate swelling, pain, and obvious deformities are usually present.

Most broken penises need surgery to fix them. Clots need to be removed, and sometimes the urethra needs to be repaired. After that, it’s a period of “rest” when erections and activity is most certainly to be avoided. (Let your broken penis heal, people!) If they are cared for promptly, and instructions are followed, the vast majority of men go on to have normal lives after the incident.

Unfortunately, sometimes embarrassment or social norms prevent men from seeking prompt medical attention. That can significantly worsen the chances of a full recovery. If you think you’ve broken your penis—and we suspect you’ll know—call 911 and get help immediately. You’ll thank us later.