MSNBC has a terrifying little advice column called Sexploration that we were recently alerted to.
This week's questions included one of the funniest and most disturbing the website has ever run...
Is it natural for a man, as he ages, for his penis to become smaller? Can anything be done to stop the shrinkage?
When I was in third grade, the school's top female student informed me, with casual sincerity and absolute conviction, that a boy's penis falls off at age 13, whereupon a new, puberty-ready penis, complete with hair and larger testicles, would eventually emerge in its place.
Thankfully, I took her warning with a grain of salt, thinking that at least it would be cool to not have to pee for a time while I waited for my dick to grow back. Had I believed her-- as I should have, given her status as the resident smarty pants-- it may have been a two-year period of terror and constant underwear inspection.
I bring this up because, seeing that question, I had that same momentary panic I suffered at the age of eight: Holy God, isn't the penis difficult enough to deal with without this bit of information hanging over us?
Here's how writer Brian Alexander answers-- in our mercifully abridged version, of course:
Like what, for example? Washing only in cold water?
Penis worry is just another indignity you can chalk up to aging, like asking why weird, wiry black hairs are starting to pop out of your ears and why you can’t drink anything after 7 p.m. and without having to rise at 2 a.m. to pee.
But whether or not it actually shrinks is open to debate. You could try taking a tape measure to your gym’s locker room and measuring penises young and old, but German researchers have saved you from being banned for life by doing the work for you...
You’ll be happy to know that mean flaccid length was actually longer in the older men. Mean erect length was slightly longer in the young men, but barely. Erect width slightly favored the kids.
...but then I asked Dr. Irwin Goldstein, a urologist and editor of the Journal of Sexual Medicine. “I believe that elasticity of the tunica [albuginea] (and thus penile size) decreases with age,” he said.
Well, penises... work better if you keep them working. [MSNBC]
Something to look forward to, dudes: you'll look better when you're unaroused and naked, a state you're more likely to be (unaroused, that is), as the years roll by...
Related: