March 18, 2008
Things You Didn't Know About Your Penis
Interesting Facts That Men And Women Will Find Educational - And Surprising
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afraid to ask.
No. 1: Your Penis Does Have a Mind of Its Own
You've probably noticed that your penis often does its own thing. You may remember times when it was completely inappropriate to have an erection; and yet you couldn't wish it away.
It's true that you have less command over your penis than body parts like your arms and legs. That's because the penis answers to a part of the nervous system that's not always under your conscious control. This is called the autonomic nervous system, which also regulates heart rate and blood pressure.
Sexual arousal usually isn't voluntary. The conscious mind is complicit in it, but a lot of sexual arousal goes on in the sympathetic nervous system. In addition, impulses from the brain during the REM phase of sleep cause erections, whether you're dreaming about sex or about a test you forgot to study for. Heavy lifting or straining to have a bowel movement can also produce an erection.
Just as the penis grows without your consent, sometimes it shrinks. "The flaccid penis varies in size considerably within a given man," says Drogo Montague, MD, a urologist at the Cleveland Clinic. Exposure to cold water or air makes your penis shrink. That's a function of the sympathetic nervous system.
Psychological stress also involves the sympathetic nervous system, and stress has the same effect as a cold shower, Montague says. When you're relaxed and feeling well, your flaccid penis looks bigger than when you're stressed out.
The penis is "kind of a barometer of the sympathetic nervous system," Montague says. So the greeting, "How's it hanging?" is more apt than you might have realized.
No. 2: Your Penis May Be a 'Grower' or a 'Show-er'
Among men, there is no consistent relationship between the size of the flaccid penis and its full erect length.
In one study of 80 men, researchers found that increases from flaccid to erect lengths ranged widely, from less than a quarter inch to 3.5 inches longer.
Whatever the clinical significance of these data may be, the locker-room significance is considerable. You can't assume that a dude with a big limp penis gets much bigger with an erection. And the guy whose penis looks tiny could surprise you with a big erection.
An analysis of more than thousand measurements taken by sex researcher Alfred Kinsey shows that shorter flaccid penises tend to gain about twice as much length as longer flaccid penises.
A penis that doesn't gain much length with an erection has become known as a "show-er," and a penis that gains a lot is said to be a "grower." These are not medical terms, and there aren't scientifically established thresholds for what's a show-er or a grower.
Kinsey's data suggest that most penises aren't extreme show-ers or growers. About 12 percent of penises gained one-third or less of their total length with an erection, and about 7 percent doubled in length when erect.
No. 3: Your Penis Is Shaped Like a Boomerang
Your penis is shaped like a boomerang. Just like you don't see all of a big oak tree above ground, you don't see the root of your penis tucked up inside your pelvis and attached to your pubic bone.
In an MRI picture, the penis looks distinctly boomerang-like, as noted by a French researcher who studied men and women having sex inside an MRI scanner.
One method of surgical "penis enlargement" is to cut the ligament that holds the root of the penis up inside the pelvis. This operation may give some men a little extra length if more of the penis protrudes from the body, but there are side effects. This ligament, called the suspensory ligament, makes an erection sturdy. With that ligament cut, the erect penis loses its upward angle and it wobbles at the base. The lack of sturdiness can lead to injury.
No. 4: You Can Break Your Penis
There is no "penis bone," but you can break your penis all the same. It's called penile fracture, and it's not a subtle injury. When it happens, there's "an audible pop or snap," Montague says. Then the penis turns black and blue. And there's terrible pain.
Penile fracture is rare, and it typically happens to younger men because their erections tend to be quite rigid.
Here's how to avoid penile fracture: don't use your penis too roughly. A common way that penile fracture happens, Montague says, is when a man is thrusting too hard and fast during sex, and slams into his partner's pubic bone. Also, a woman who moves wildly while on top of a man during sex can break a man's penis.
Peyronie's syndrome is a related condition that tends to show up more in older men, Montague says. An older man's erection may not be as rigid, but still is hard enough for sex. Over time, if the penis bends too much a certain way during sex, small tears in the tissue can form scars, and the accumulated scar tissue gives the penis an abnormally curved shape.
Not all penis curvature is a problem, however. "There is a lot of variability in what normal is," Cummings says.
No. 5: Most Penises in the World Are Uncut
A report by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV /AIDS (UNAIDS) estimates that worldwide only 30 percent of males aged 15 and up are circumcised.
Rates vary greatly depending upon religion and nationality. Almost all Jewish and Muslim males in the world have circumcised penises, and together they account for about 70 percent of all circumcised males globally.
The United States has the highest proportion of males circumcised for non-religious reasons. A whopping 75 percent of non-Jewish, non-Muslim American men are circumcised. Compare that to Canada, where only 30% are. In the U.K. it's 20 percent; in Australia it's merely 6 percent.
The practice of circumcising baby boys for medical and cosmetic reasons has become controversial in the U.S. But recently the World Health Organization (WHO) and the UUNAIDS recommended circumcision for adult men, based upon evidence that men with circumcised penises have a lower risk of being infected with HIV.
The CDC estimates that about 65 percent of all newborn boys get circumcised in the U.S.
By Martin Downs
Reviewed by Louise Chang
©2008 WebMD, Inc. All rights reserved.
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See all 148 CommentsPosted by qazi63
What does this have to do with the story? Get a grip please.
Posted by qazi63
What does this have to do with the story? Get a grip please.
Yes, save the men. Let the women be raped, but save the men.
Posted by qazi63
What does this have to do with the story? Get a grip please.
Posted by Displeased
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Isn''t masturbation a sin?
Which politician wanted CBS News to carry this story anyway? Larry Craig? David Vitter? Eliot Spitzer? "Wild Bill" Clinton?
SIG HEIL, BUSH!!!!
sig heil (more of the same), McCain????
gypsyartist1,
Re: "Aren''t vaginas just as important in the scheme of things!!!"
They are in my opinion.
I''m a big fan!
gypsyartist1,
Re: "Aren''t vaginas just as important in the scheme of things!!!"
They are in my opinion.
I''m a big fan!
AND THE LATEST RESEARCH SHOWS NO DIFFERENCE IN THE SPREAD OF HIV!
SO ALL THE STUPID ONES THAT HAD THE SURGERY, YOU CAN SAY
OUCH!
Spew all the intolerant bullsh*it you want, you *** is still going to break if you bend it too hard.
And if G*d is omnipotent, as I''m sure you believe it to be, then there wouldn''t be any homosexuals in the first place unless G*d wanted them and loved them as much as all other things.
Sorry to burst your protective bubble but complexity proves there is no G*d because omnipotence requires zero complexity. Things just are. And even if you believe the Bible you got tossed from the garden in the first place for inquiring about that complexity, so it''s your own *** fault.
Thats your opinion, personally I am going to be reincarnated as a double-headed-***
Thats your opinion, personally I am going to be reincarnated as a double-headed dil-do
Posted by hypnotoad72
I hope not, for in that case I sin often. Now fondling little alter boys, that should be a sin. But when priests sin, they admit their sins, all is forgiven and life goes on. Religion couldn''t be more perfect for them...
Who decided that people need to know about this? Wasn''t there some kind of nice, up-lifting, feel-good type of story you could have put in this space? How about a nice story about a dog, or a kid, or a kid and his dog? This is 100 times more stupid than Brittany Spears. Couldn''t you have found something else to report? Hey CBS, y''all need to get a life.
This explains everything, in that case former NY Gov. Spitzer should get his job back! This proves it wasn''t his fault! His big head had no idea what his little head was up to!
so ... how does one control the sympathetic nervous system consciously?
As a public service, here are some other words you can use to refer to the p e n i s:
Beef Missle
Cream Cannon
Kickstand
Master John Goodfellow
Ummm... That I have one?
(I do wonder if CBS would have thought it acceptable to publish a story to a general audience headlined "Things You Didn''t Know About Your ***")
Top Ten Things You Don''t Know About A Peenis
1. They are all 12 inches long - as any man;
2. It can be used to turn pages while reading a book;
3. It was used for the standard for a "C" size battery;
4. It defied evolution by always remaining a "prickk"
5. When the colon was discovered they changed its name to the "semi-colon later renaming it a "pennis"
6. Only one man in history was named "pennis" and he was disfunctional
7. The word comes from the latin "comes from"
8. NASA rocket scientist got their inspiration for the rocket design from the pennis - when the conservs found out they were forced to go to the shuttle design.
9. Adam requested two knowing he''d probably only get one -but he got four balls and a walk to first base with Eve.
10. The largest pennis in the world was renamed chenney.
bush/cheney/rumsfeld, and McBushCain don''t have one
and
that
larry craig, david vitter, jeff gannon, and ted haggard do
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