Claim: The size of a man’s nose, hands, or feet is a reliable indicator of the size of his penis.Status: False.Origins: A long-lived mistaken belief relates penis size to a visible body part: hand, foot, or nose. Among those who consider there might be something to such a correlation, some say masculine length directly relates to a man’s shoe size, while others assert the measurement of the subject’s hand from wrist to fingertip will reveal his exact personal dimensions. Still more believe a man’s proboscis tells the tale when measured from themiddle of his eyebrows to the tip, making his masculine information as plain as the nose on his face.
Others who have been romanced by the belief opt for more generalized comparisons, avowing that large hands, feet, or noses correspond to larger equipment below. Until only recently, the only refutation of this hypothesis was anecdotal — for every supposed relative measurement, menfolk could always be found whose vitals defied the supposed wisdom. (“I used to believe your theory until I met my ex-husband whose hands were large, but he was hung like a mouse. My current spouse has small, narrow hands and all I need to say is that I’m keeping this one!”). However, in a study published in the October 2002 issue of the British Journal of Urology International, researchers found the size of man’s feet does not correlate to the size of his penis.Urologists at St. Mary’s Hospital and University College Hospital in London recorded the penile length of104 men with foot sizes 8 through 13.
For the purposes of the study, the men’s organs were “gently stretched” while in the flaccid state and measured. When analyzed, the data so collected yielded no link between the size of the male organ and a man’s feet. “A common misconception,” the researchers reported, concluding, “There is no scientific support for this relationship.”The St. Mary’s study was not the first attempt to test the theory, but it was the first to adhere to a scientific standard. Although previous tests had appeared to show at least a mild correlation, the studies themselves were seriously flawed, as they relied upon the subjects to accurately report their personal information. Mary’s study took the self-reporting aspect out of the equation; both shoe size and penile length were ascertained by those collecting the data, not volunteered by the men being evaluated.That the study disproves the relationship doesn’t mean belief in it is likely to wane.
We want to believe a link exists between the size of the penis and some other appendagebecause our desire to see patterns where none exist leads us to assume the human body is built on a precise scale, that our creator fashioned everything in exact proportion. For all our posturing about our passion for new frontiers, new knowledge, and boldly going where no man has gone before, we humans very much want to live in an orderly universe where everything clearly relates to everything else and is easily understandable. Nature, however, has other ideas.
Is penis size proportional to height/stature? Is the penis size invesly proportional to the height of the person? More questions. Is penis size related to a person's height? Is penis size any proportional to feet or body or height? Answer Questions. What is a nice place to eat?
Even individuals differ from side to side — on the same person, one hand will always be bigger, as will one foot. One testicle will always hang lower (almost always the left), and with women one breast will always be larger than its mate. Proportioning is chaotic within a single body; across two or more people it is less consistent. Yet still we persist in attempting to isolate reliable patterns because our need for comfort forces us to search for a gestalt even where we know none can exist.Yet it’s not all desire for order: we also delight in the theory of penile endowment relating to hand, foot, or nose size because, if true, such relationship would give us insight into a very private aspect of folks we might want to know more about. It’s the mental equivalent of “I’ve seen you naked!” in all its smugly superior juvenility.
A hated boss becomes less fearsome if one can imagine him with a small penis, just as an admired sports figure becomes less daunting when pictured the same way.Although penis size has no bearing on sexual satisfaction, we live in a society which deals a consumeristic lesson of “bigger is better.” Some of this carries over to color males’ perception of themselves, convincing many a) they are undersized, and b) this is a terrible thing. Most Snopes assignments begin when readers ask us, “Is this true?” Those tips launch our fact-checkers on sprints across a vast range of political, scientific, legal, historical, and visual information. We investigate as thoroughly and quickly as possible and relay what we learn. Then another question arrives, and the race starts again.We do this work every day at no cost to you, but it is far from free to produce, and we cannot afford to slow down. To ensure Snopes endures — and grows to serve more readers — we need a different kind of tip: We need your financial support.Support Snopes so we continue to pursue the facts — for you and anyone searching for answers.Team Snopes Support Snopes.
Put down the rulers, guys — whether your penis is the 'right' size depends on the proportions of the rest of your body, a new study finds.Women rate men with larger penises more attractive, but the returns on bigger genitals start to decrease at a flaccid length of 2.99 inches (7.6 centimeters), the researchers found. What's more, larger penises gave tall men a bigger attractiveness boost than shorter men. The study suggests that women's preferences for bigger penises could explain why human males have relatively big genitals for their body size.Studies on women's preferences for penis size have been mixed, with some suggesting that women who frequently are the pickiest, perhaps because penis size matters for that sort of stimulation. Men, however, at least according to a 2007 review article in the British Journal of Urology International.But studies have relied on questionnaires, which may not always glean honest answers, Australian researchers wrote today (April 8) in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
And in other studies, scientists have asked women to judge the attractiveness of male figures in photos with only penis size varied, when in fact no trait is ever evaluated in a vacuum, the scientists added. To compensate, the researchers, led by Michael Jennions of Australian National University, showed 105 young Australian women life-size computer-generated figures of nude men, varying the figures' flaccid penis size, height and shoulder-to-hip ratio. Height and shoulder-to-hip ratio have previously been shown as factors used by women to judge attractiveness. The computer simulations varied penis width in sync with length, so that all penises were proportional.The results revealed that women preferred taller men as well as high shoulder-to-hip ratios (meaning that the wider the shoulders were than the hip, the more attractive the man). Shoulder-to-hip ratio was a major, accounting for 79.6 percent of the variation in hot-or-not ratings.Though the effect was less extreme, women also preferred larger penises, at least up to 5.1 inches (13 cm) flaccid, which was the largest computer-generated penis in the study.
Beyond 2.99 inches, however, the additional attractiveness per extra length started to decline. That's good news for guys, according to a 2001 Italian study that found 2.99 inches flaccid to be below average.When the researchers controlled for shoulder-to-hip ratio, they found that a larger penis had a greater effect on attractiveness for taller men. It's possible that a larger penis just looked more proportional on a taller man's body, the researchers wrote, or it could be that women were biased against shorter men to the extent that even large genitals didn't help.Women's own features mattered as well, the researchers found: Taller women were more likely to find taller men attractive. Women with greater body mass per height were slightly more likely than thinner women to weigh penis size more heavily in their judgments of attractiveness, though the difference was small.The findings might help explain why humans have remarkably large genitalia given their average body size, the researchers wrote. Male humans outgun any other primate species: For example, can weigh as much as 400 pounds (180 kilograms), but their erect penis length is only about 1.5 inches (4 cm). Human males weigh about half of what gorillas do, but studies peg average erect or flaccid-but-stretched penis length from 4.7 inches (12 cm) to 6.5 inches (16.7 cm).Evolutionary biologists theorize that large human penises might help from competing males during sex, but in an era before clothing, women may have been drawn to mating with men whose genitalia caught their eye.
Men with larger penises, then, may have passed on their genes more readily, resulting in the large-genitals trait being handed down the generations. In other words, guys may have women to thank for their greater-than-gorilla-sized genitals.Follow Stephanie Pappas on. Follow us, &. Original article on.