How big is the average penis? Let’s compare with household objects.
Size matters… for science, anyway.
While there have been numerous prior studies (both scholarly and unscientific) on penis size, the British Journal of Urology International (BJUI) published one of the girthiest analyses to date. Pulling data from 17 previous academic papers that included a total of 15,521 men worldwide, researchers in the UK came up with a meta-analysis of what they believe to be the average penis size and girth of a penis when erect and when flaccid.
Sorry, guys, but your eggplant emoji isn’t exactly accurate. According to the research in BJUI, the average flaccid penis is 3.61 inches in length and 5.16 inches in length when erect. Girth is 3.66 inches when flaccid and 4.59 inches when erect.
Numbers aren’t the only results to come out of the study. It also questions some of the common penis size stereotypes, like whether your race or foot size are determining factors for penis size.
The researchers did not find enough evidence from the 17 previous studies to come up with a conclusion about the difference in size by race. Two studies incorporated foot size into account, and found penile length to be “significantly weakly correlated,” while the other did not find a correlation at all between the two.
The stronger statistically significant correlations were between flaccid stretched or erect length and height, which was found in four studies, although the correlations were not extremely strong.
Of course, there are a few limitations that could affect penile dimensions, including temperature, level of arousal, and sperm count.
But we’re much more interested in what 3.61 and 5.16 inches actually looks like, so we’ve compared the two averages with everyday household objects.
Let’s get establish a penis size baseline …
Blue Lego is the size of an average flaccid penis.
Red Lego is the size of an average erect penis.
Now let’s get comparing to 17 household items …
1. A crayon
2. A pair of batteries
3. A Nerf Dart
4. A “fun” size Snickers bar
5. A small cactus
6. A ticket
7. A pair of wine corks
8. A shot glass
9. A Diet Coke can
10. Three batteries
11. Hand lotion
12. Three small Snickers bars, just the tip bitten off one
13. (Almost) two sticks of gum
14. Two toothpicks
15. Three wine corks
16. A small TV remote
17. And, of course, a banana
UPDATE: Jun. 5, 2023, 1:17 p.m. AEST This article was originally published in 2015, and has since been updated in Jun. 2023.