Finally, We Have a Better Idea of What the Average Penis Size Really Is

Read: In Defense of My Small Penis

This article originally appeared on VICE UK.

Now for some penis news. Finally, thanks to science, we now have some hard and fast numbers on what constitutes as an average penis length and what constitutes as an above-average penis length, which is good. These numbers will bring a message of hope and support to every man alive, every man secretly wondering if his penis is average enough or not, men constantly worried about their perceived dick length when compared to others—penis paranoia being the only reason wars start, the only reason men make money or get rich, the only reason Donald Trump is running for president. Everything, when it all boils down to it, every action man undertakes is to prove or disprove how average his penis is. So thank you science for this, amen.

A new large-scale questionnaire and study combo by online sexual health website DrEd has found a small, but statistically significant difference between the average penis size as perceived by penis-having men and non-penis-having women, with men guessing the average was 5.6 inches and women chucking it somewhere nearer the 5.4 inch mark.

And when asked their ideal length, men went for 6.5 inches and women went for 6.2.

The survey also found size perception changed depending on which country you come from. Polish, Austrian, and Italian people had a high expectation of average penis size (6.8 inches, 6.1 inches, and 6.02 inches respectively), while American, French, and British—obviously, there is just something in our makeup, the eternal underdog complex, the world is against us and our untowering penises—pitched the average much lower (5.7 inches, 5.4 inches, and 4.9 inches respectively). So, it's good day to be Polish and have a big dick, and a bad day to be British anything.

An anonymous DrEd spokesperson said: "When it comes to perceptions of average size, men and women have very similar ideas. Women estimated the average penis length to be 13.8 cm [5.4 inches], and for men, this was only 0.3 cm [0.1 inch] greater.

"We compared this to the results of a 2015 review of studies on penis size that included over 15,000 men from around the world. The average penis length when erect was found to be 13.12 cm [5.2 inches]—almost one whole centimeter less than the average estimate given by men in our study.

"When considering notions of an ideal length, it becomes clear that expectations don't always match up with reality."

The survey—which polled 2,121 men, 1,055 from America and 1,066 dotted through Europe—also tallied male satisfaction with penis size, with most men being pretty okay with their dicks: 29.5 percent had neutral feelings about their size, only 10.3 percent were actively dissatisfied, and 1.7 percent were furiously dissatisfied with the state of their choppers. The majority of men polled, 44.5 percent, were satisfied.

The findings also showed the effect of penis size on male sexual confidence, with 59.4 percent of respondents reporting no effect at all, 24.7 percent attributing their size to a boost in sexual confidence, and 15.8 percent having decreased confidence in the bedroom thanks to their size. Women reported that penis size was somewhat important (67.4 percent) or very important (11.2 percent), with 21.4 percent saying it's not important at all.

Sadly the study didn't report any findings on if "it's not the size of the boat, it's the motion of the ocean" is a scientifically viable thing to say for men with average or below-average sized penises who want to give the impression that they fuck well.

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