99 Surprising Penis Facts

By Karin Lehnardt, Senior Writer

Published November 3, 2016

The word “penis” is from the Latin meaning “tail.” The plural of penis is penises or penes. The word “phallus” is sometimes used to mean “penis,” but traditionally it is used to describe images or symbols of the penis._[8]
Alternate words for “penis” include Adolph, anaconda, baby-maker, baloney pony, bell on a pole, cock, chopper, cum gun, deep V diver, dick, ding-a-ling, disco stick, Excalibur, fuck pole, jimmy, joy stick, love muscle, meat stick, pink cigar, pork sword, prick, skin flute, spit stick, third leg, trouser snake, wang, wick, yard, yogurt gun, and many more._[8]
The blue whale has the largest penis of any animal, typically measuring between 8 and 10 feet long with a girth from 12 to 14 inches. Its testes weigh between 100-150 pounds and can ejaculate over 35 pints._[8]
Most mammals have a bone called the baculum or os penis in the penis, but it is absent in humans and horses. Although there are no bones in a human penis, a man can still suffer from penile fracture, which is when the thick membrane surrounding the erectile tissue tears. There is usually a “cracking” sound, an immediate loss of erection, and a great deal of pain. In extreme cases, the urethra can be damaged, which affects the ability to urinate._[7]
Though an adult chimpanzee is significantly smaller than an adult gorilla, it has a penis about double that of the gorilla. An adult gorilla’s penis is about 1.5 inches (4 cm) in length._[1]

If a guy reaches for an XL condom, he may be trying to boost his ego

According to condom manufacturers, only 6% of the world’s population of men needs an extra-large sized condom._[3]
The human penis is larger than that of any other primate, both in terms of proportion to body size and in absolute terms._[8]
Domestic cats have barbed penises. They have about 120 to 150 one-millimeter-long spines that point backwards. When the penis withdraws from the female cat, the spines rake along the vagina, triggering ovulation._[8]
Male canines are the only animals that have a locking bulbus glandis at the base of the penis. When the penis is fully inside the female, the glandis becomes engorged with blood. When the female’s vagina contracts, the penis becomes locked inside the female, which is also known as “tying” or “knotting.”_[8]
Doctors can use the foreskins of circumcised infants to grow skin for burn victims. Just one foreskin can create 23,000 square meters of skin._[1]
A hard-shelled sea creature named Colymbosathon ecplecticos is the oldest known species with a penis. Its name means “amazing swimmer with large penis” in Greek._[1]
Only one man in 400 is flexible enough to give himself oral sex._[8]
There are two kinds of penises: 1) a grower, which expands and lengthens when erect and 2) a shower, which looks big most of the time, but doesn’t get much bigger after an erection. Approximately 79% of men have growers and 21% have showers. In other words, a man whose has a small flaccid penis might have a surprisingly big erection. Conversely, a man with a big, limp penis might not get a significantly larger erection._[6]
King Fatefehi of Tonga most likely has the penis with the most action. He supposedly deflowered 37,800 women from 1770-1784, or about 7 women a day._[1]
There is a penis museum in Iceland._[8]
The average erect penis size is between 5-6 inches. A flaccid penis is around 3.5 inches._[2]

Smoking doesn't just decrease a man's life span

Smoking can shorten the penis by up to a centimeter. Because smoking calcifies blood vessels, it can impede erectile circulation, which create erections._[1]
A bottle-nosed dolphin named Freddie was known to tow bathers through the water by hooking his large penis around them._[16]
In a condition called Diphallus, males are born with two penises. Usually, only one penis is fully formed and semi-functional. This condition affects about 100 men worldwide._[2]
Squirrel monkeys and male baboons will gesture with an erect penis as a threat to predators or as a sign of impending danger._[8]
The adult male elephant has the largest penis of any land animal at 6 feet on average. It is S-shaped when fully erect._[8]
Most marsupials have a bifurcated penis, which corresponds to the female’s two vaginas. Male echidnas have marsupials beat with their four-head penises._[8]
Men who have been hanged often get a “death erection” also known as "angel lust."_[2]
A man will ejaculate on average of 7,200 times during his lifetime. The average number of times he will ejaculate from masturbation is 2,000. The average speed of ejaculation is 28 miles per hour._[2]
Globally, approximately 30% of men over 15 years old have been circumcised, according to a 2007 WHO report. However, nearly all Jewish and Muslim males in the world are circumcised and make up 70% of all circumcised men in the world._[6]
Women prefer big penises, but not too big. In fact, the returns of a bigger penis start to decline after a flaccid length of 2.99 inches (7.6 cm). However, larger penises were only more attractive on taller men with narrow hips and broad shoulders (V-shaped)–and not for shorter men. In other words, if a man is short and pear shaped, a large penis will not increase his attractiveness._[13]

It's how you use the family jewels that matter

Approximately 80% of American men are circumcised._[8]
Studies show that women who orgasm through vaginal stimulation were pickier about penis size than other women._[13]
The smallest natural human penis ever recorded was 5/8 of an inch. The longest erect penis on record is 13 inches._[11]
The signal to ejaculate does not come from a man’s brain—rather, it is sent from his spinal cord._[17]
Most men report that the underside of the glans (head) of the penis and the underside of the shaft is the most sensitive to sexual pleasure, followed by the upper side of the glans._[6]
Vibrators are not just for vaginas—they work on penises too and can even help men with spinal cord injuries ejaculate. For this treatment, a medical vibrator is held against the underside of the head of the penis._[6]
The penis is actually almost twice as long as men think they are. This is because half of the penis is inside the body. The root of the penis is inside the pelvis and attached to the pubic bone. In fact, an erect penis is shaped like a boomerang._[6]
There are at least 42 kinds of bacteria living on the skin of the penis. However, circumcised penises have fewer bacteria. In fact, circumcision has been linked to lower risk of getting HIV and other diseases._[6]
A fish with a large penis on its head was recently discovered in Vietnam. The penis has a rod and jagged hook used for grabbing the female during sex. Although its scientific name is Phallostethus cuulong, its nickname is “penis head.”_[9]

Some sufferes try to slow the perceived shrinkage by securing their zipper rippers with strings or clamps

A condition called “Koro” or “penis panic” is a type of mass hysteria in which men believe their penises are vanishing. It’s more common in Africa and the Far East._[2]
A 49-year-old man in L.A. underwent a 13-hour operation to remove his testicles, which had grown to the size of a pogo ball and weighed over 140 pounds. The surgery, however, left him with a 1-inch penis. He said his testicles grew so large in 2008 when he squished them while he slept._[12]
Worldwide, only 5% of men wear condoms during sex. There are 2.5 million new HIV infections a year._[4]
The U.S. ranks 18th in terms of average erect human male penis length, at 5.1 inches. North and South Korea rank last at 3.8 inches, while the Republic of Congo is first at 7.1 inches._[10]
Eight-five percent of women are satisfied with the penis size of their partners, although only 55% of guys like their size. About 90% of women prefer a wide penis to a long one._[10]
Most sex toy injuries that result in an ER trip are minor; however, some sex toy injuries have resulted in such things as erectile dysfunction, penile skin loss, an urethrocutaneous fistula (permanent hole in the penis), or penile amputation._[7]
In one year, it is estimated that 600 men will go to the ER for sex toy injuries, including injuries to both the penis and the anus. Thousands more go unreported._[7]
A “cock ring” is a constriction device that is placed around the penis alone, around both the penis and scrotum, or around the scrotum alone (“testicle cuff”). Its aim is to restrict the flow of blood from the penis or scrotum to make an erection last longer. They are also called “tension rings” and “erection rings.” They can help men who battle performance anxiety and erectile dysfunction. Metal rings are typically considered safer than elastic rings._[7]
The man with the record for the most ejaculations in one day is Azael, a porn actor. He had 11 ejaculations during a 24-hour period while recording a test tape for a later video he planned to make._[11]

The word "masturbate" is a combination of two Latin words, mans (hand) and stupuere (to defile), which together means "to defile with the hand"

Masturbation has also been called adjusting the antenna, charming the snake, and fiddling the flesh flute. According to Men’s Health, men report masturbating around 12 times per month._[8]
The man who holds the record for the farthest ejaculation is Horst Schultz, who ejaculated 18.7 feet (5.71 meters). An unnamed female holds the record for a female ejaculation at 9.8 feet (3 meters)._[11]
A 40-year-old man holds the record for the most ejaculations/orgasms without losing an erection. He had six orgasms with full ejaculations, all within 36 minutes. He was alone in a room looking at porn videos and magazines while he filled 6 of the 8 cups he was given. He said he has no special technique—he was just born with the talent._[11]
The man with the most simultaneous orgasms on film was Dave Hardman. He was documented having five orgasms in a row in the video called Elegant Angel’s Gangbang Angels 5._[11]
In 2003, the Guilin Latex Company made the world’s largest condom. The condom was 260 feet (80 meters) tall and 330 feet (100 meters) around. It was made from yellow PVC and put on a hotel in Cuilin, China, to help promote World Population Day._[11]
In 1954, a man ejaculated 15 ml of fluid. The average amount a man releases is 3.2 ml._[11]
Mo Ka Wang from Hong Kong lifted 250 pounds two feet off the ground with his penis in 1995._[11]
Having sex at least once a week can lower a man’s risk of heart disease by 30%, stroke by 50%, and diabetes by 40%. Men with an active sex life are also more likely to live past 80 years._[6]
To maintain a healthy tone, the penis needs to have erections regularly. Without regular erections, penile tissue can become less elastic and shrink, up to 1-2 centimeters. However, the brain has an “automatic penis maintenance” function. Brain impulses cause erections during REM sleep. For some men who are physically unable to have an erection, due to nerve trauma or blood vessel damage, they can use a device like a vacuum pump that causes the penis to swell with blood._[6]

"Morning Glories" are thought to contribute to penile health

A man has an average of 11 erections per day. He has around 9 erections at night._[17]
The ancient Romans thought that penile hardness was directly linked to what a person ate, and that the shape, color, and flavor of certain foods impacted one’s sex life. Consequently, root vegetables such as carrots became instant symbols of strength of libidos._[14]
During the Inquisition, women were executed for “knowledge of Satan’s penis.” For example, in 1600, Anna Pappenheimer had her breasts torn off with heated pincers and rubbed in the faces of her sons, and then she was burned alive. The Malleus Maleficarum, the definitive guide for witch hunters (1486), wrote of women who stole dozens of penises, then hid them in a tree where they lived like birds in a nest._[7]
During the Middle ages, men walked around in a codpiece, an often brightly colored covering for the penis in men’s breaches. It was padded and molded in the shape of a permanent erection. King Henry VIII had the largest codpiece in England._[8]
Before Western Christianity, the pagans viewed the penis as a variety of things: an icon of creativity, the link between the human and the sacred, and an agent of bodily and spiritual ecstasy._[8]
Poetry from the 3rd millennium B.C. in Iraq identifies that the creative force of the world was Enki or, more accurately, Enki’s penis. His penis dug the world’s first irrigation ditches, created rivers, and invented human sexual reproduction. After he fathered the first human baby, he exulted: “Now let my penis be praised!”_[8]
The ancient Egyptian god Atum declared, “I created on my own every being. My fist became my spouse. I copulated with my hand.” His penis created all life, divine and mortal, through this act of sacred masturbation._[8]
In ancient Egypt, the penis was so potent that it defeated death. Osiris, in fact, flaunted his virility in the Underworld as King, declaring in the Book of the Dead: “I am Osiris, stiff of penis, I am mightier than the Lord Terror; I copulate and I have power over myriads.”_[8]
For ancient Hebrews, circumcision and the relationship it established among man, his penis, and God was a divinely mandated sign of affiliation with the Almighty and themselves. Every Israelite man had to be circumcised on the 8th day of life._[8]
Ancient Greeks were horrified by the Hebrew practice of circumcision. Antiochus Epiphanies, a descendent of one of Alexander the Great’s greatest generals, for example, ruled that the rabbis who performed circumcision should be stoned or fed to wild dogs. Mothers who permitted their sons to become circumcised were “garroted, their strangled infants strung about their necks, and then hanged upon crosses as terrible warnings to others.”_[8]
The penis of the Hindu god Siva is a key player in so much of that religion’s sacred works that a book on Hindu aesthetics declares that Siva riding on a bull must be portrayed with an erection reaching his navel. Buddha was said to have a retractable member resembling a horse._[8]

The phallus was a symbol of good luck

The murals that were preserved in Pompeii are notable in that they depict a high number of penises._[8]
There is no discussion of God’s penis in the Old Testament because the Hebrew God had no body. Instead, the focus is on the human penis, which was spiritualized by God._[8]
The Old Testament says, “He whose testicles are crushed or whose male member is cut off shall not enter the assembly of the Lord.” Rabbis had to show those parts were in working order before they could lead a temple._[8]
Among ancient tribes it was not unusual for a new king to eat the penis of his predecessor to absorb his sacred authority. This practice was banned, however, by ancient Hebrews._[8]
An erect penis symbolized Athenian power. The Greeks, in fact, saw the penis as a measure of a man’s proximity to divine power and intelligence. Plato located the divine in humans inside the spinal marrow, the same substance from which he believed both the brain and semen were formed._[8]
While the Greeks glorified the penis, they actually preferred a small, thin penis as on an adolescent exercising at the gymnasium. Greek artists showed their contempt for foreigners and slaves by depicting them with large penises. The Romans, however, respected and coveted large penises._[8]
While a male whose testicles are removed or rendered inoperative after puberty loses the ability to produce sperm and a natural appetite for intercourse, he may still have the ability to have an erection. This made certain men known as castrati, such as opera singer Farinelli (1705-1782), a favorite among bored, wealthy housewives._[8]
One medieval cure for impotence included mixing the steeped brains of 30 male sparrows, the grease surrounding the kidneys of a freshly killed Billy goat, and as much honey as needed. A man was then supposed to eat it before intercourse._[8]
Most medieval theologians argued that semen was evil. Tomas Aquinas, for example, said that God gave the Devil greater “power of bewitchment” over the penis than any other human organ._[8]
Guardians of the harem beds in great Muslim empires were required to be “shaved,” which meant having both the testicles and penis removed._[8]
Because it was believed that a strong Roman penis built a strong Roman empire (especially with life expectancy at only 25 years), Romans celebrated a son’s first ejaculation as part of a state holiday, the Liberalia._[8]
While the Greeks accepted and glorified pederasty, to the Romans the idea that manly virtue was transmitted to young boys by anal penetration was unthinkable. A Roman penetrated others with his penis—he was never penetrated by someone else’s penis. A man who had this happen to him endured muliebria pati, “a woman’s experience.” That man was no longer a man or would never become a man._[8]

Before da Vinci, people believed that the penis was erected by “magic air”

Leonardo da Vinci once noted, “A man who is ashamed to show or name the penis is wrong. Instead of being anxious to hide it, man ought to display it.”_[8]
The Greeks thought that erections were “inflated by the wind.” However, after dissecting hanged men who had erections, Leonardo da Vinci discovered that erections were caused by blood._[8]
The Latin word for bullet was glans, which meant “head of penis.” In fact, Roman sling bullets often had lurid inscription written on them, comparing their use to acts of rape._[8]
The penis has been deified by pagan cultures, demonized by the early Roman church, secularized by early anatomists such as Leonardo da Vinci, psychoanalyzed by Freud, politicized by feminists, exploited by popular culture, and medicalized by physicians._[8]
One French stand-up comedian and illustrator once said, “My penis doesn’t like the same women I do!”_[17]
In 1994, Virginian housewife Lorena Bobbitt cut off her then-husband’s penis. His penis was reattached and he starred in a porn movie called John Wayne Bobbitt Uncut. He also starred in Frankenpenis and started a band called “Severed Parts.”_[15]
It takes around 130 ml of blood for a penis to stiffen. The circulation rate must be very high at 2 ml per second. The small arteries, with a diameter of around 0.5 mm when the penis is resting, will double their diameter to convey the blood._[17]
While some Renaissance artists depicted Jesus as being uncircumcised (even though his circumcision is chronicled in the Gospels), at the same time, in a age that prized religious relics, the most prized relic was Jesus’ foreskin._[8]
For medieval Europeans, women were incomplete because they lacked a penis. Mammalian ovaries were useless ornaments. The sole function of the female sex was to receive and nourish a complete male seed._[8]
To curb masturbation or “self-pollution” some physicians would pull the foreskin forward and sew, tie, or pin it shut. Other physicians used straitjackets or gloves; others encased penises in metal cages, spiked rings, or plaster casts. Other practitioners applied leeches to the penis as late as the 18th and 19th centuries._[8]

Kellogg believed a bland diet would help curb masturbation

Kellogg’s corn flakes and Graham crackers were originally invented to curb masturbation. Sylvester Graham and John Kellogg thought the problem of masturbating could be solved by keeping body heat out of the penis by monitoring food._[8]
Dr. W.F. Morgan of the New York Medical Times argued in the 19th century that eating watermelon caused natural excitement of the penis, “a fact that is fully appreciated,” he wrote, “by our colored brethren.”_[8]
During the 15th and 19th centuries, scientists noted that the penis in the “Negro is very large.” Scientists used this notion to prove the intellectual superiority and civilized status of Caucasians by arguing that the “Negro’s larger penis proves his intellectual inferiority and innate savagery.”_[8]
Dr. William Lee Howard in the journal Medicine noted in the late 19th century that “there can never be mutually beneficial relations between the Caucasian and the African” because such a bond is prevented by their “great sexual differences.” He continued that because the genital organs are “enormously developed in Africans, the sexual centers in his [cerebral] cortex are correspondingly enlarged.”_[8]
No one has written more on the penis in the creation of individual psyches, family dynamics, societal norms, gender roles, art, religion, etc., than Freud. The bedrock of his theories often rest on penis envy and castration anxiety. In fact, Freud saw the penis as the key to unlocking one’s own history and the history of the entire human race._[8]
Some modern researchers claim that the penis “thrusts” inside a woman’s vagina not to stimulate a woman, but to remove a competitor’s sperm. This explains why the penis is shaped like a piston. It is strait and thick, topped with a smooth, acorn-shaped gland, so it can “push, pull, suck, push, pull, suck.”_[8]
An estimated 30 million Americans struggle with erectile dysfunction._[17]

We are right to note the license and disobedience of this member which thrusts itself forward too inopportunely when we do not want it to, and which so inopportunely lets us down when we most need it.

- Michel de Montaigne

A “micropenis” is a term used by researchers to refer to penis fewer than 2.8 inches in length when stretched. The condition affects only 0.6% of men, or 6 in 1000 men. It is caused by inadequate testosterone at a late stage of fetal development._[17]
Penises are generally darker than the body from which they hang._[3]
The penis stops growing when a man is in his early 20s._[3]

The sensation can range from a mild ache to quite painful

Men actually do get “blue balls,” which is technically called “prostatic congestion.” It is caused by trapped blood. A warm shower, aspirin, or an orgasm usually will relieve the achiness._[3]
The line or “seam” on the underside of the penis forms when the fetus is still in the uterus. In men, the seam encloses the urethra along the length of the penis. In women, the seam becomes the inner lips of the vagina._[3]
Every year, Kawasaki, Japan holds a penis festival called the Kanamara Matsuri. This Shinto fertility festival includes a giant 2.5 meter wooden penis carried by locals, phallus-shaped tokens, and suggestively carved vegetables._[5]