It’s the personal health question men have been asking since the invention of the ruler:  How does my penis measure up to other guys’?

Until recently, there was no definitive answer, even for those bold enough to ask their doctors. Now, however, the British Journal of Urology has published the largest-ever study of its kind on this topic. The title:

Am I normal?

Team Costhetics knows that there are wide ranges of emotional issues that can trouble men who feel they don’t measure up to their peers. Some say they’re afraid to enter into a loving relationship because they’re not normal. Pornography adds to the problem. Just as women are exposed to unattainable, photo-shopped images of the female body, porn star genitals can make men feel under-endowed.

Feelings such as these make men a target for unscrupulous sellers of penis enlargement pills, devices, and, sometimes, surgical procedures. Some of these, such as penile augmentation surgery, are downright dangerous.

“Doctors prey on them for surgeries when they don’t need it. If you try to make [the penis] bigger, you stop it working most of the time. Most of them start off with a psychological problem, with an average or slightly small penis. They have surgery, end up $50,000 poorer with a deformed penis and a lot more psychological trouble.” – study author Dr. Gordon Muir, King’s College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust in London

Costhetics hopes this post and the penis size study results it reports will help change that.

Costhetics Asks: What Is the Size of an Average Penis

There is no such thing as a “normal” penis, but there is an average of length and girth.  Researchers at Kings College London collected the data from more than 20 different studies of penis size. In all, 15,521 penises were examined and measured.

Here are the results:

• Average length of a man’s penis when flaccid – 9.16 cm’s
• Average length of a man’s penis when erect – 13.13 cm’s
• Average circumference of a man’s penis when flaccid – 9.32 cm’s
• Average circumference of a man’s penis when erect – 11.65 cm’s

Penile Enhancement Is Not Right for Every Man

According to a prominent 1996 study by the University of California 

Only 2.28% of the male population should be considered

candidates for penile augmentation.

Furthermore, the study recommends that the most extreme condition of undersized genitalia, referred to as “micro-penis,” affects only an estimated 0.14% of the male population.

“If one thinks about it, generally speaking, tall people have larger hands, hearts, jaws – and this is a reflection of that,” says study author Muir. “But we’re talking millimetres of difference, not centimetres or inches.”

Does Penis Size Matter?

The short and sweet answer? NO! The average vagina is just seven to ten centimetres deep, so a penis of average, rather than supersize proportions is just fine.

“In my experience as a sex therapist, when size matters, it’s generally because a guy’s penis is too large rather than too small, and that can lead to painful sex.” – Ian Kerner, Ph.D, sex and relationship expert

Feel better now?