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Do racial differences in penis size exist? The average person may say yes, due to viewing porn and hearing ‘stories’ from their friends, ie anecdotal accounts. But is this true? JP Rushton was at the helm of this resurrected idea, stating that an inverse relationship existed between penis size and brain size. He cites a WHO study on condom size showing that African countries get the biggest condoms, yet I cannot find the paper discussing it. PP wrote an article, Non-black men are so jealous of black penis size, citing the same study Rushton (1997) cited in his book Race, Evolution, and Behavior. I will discuss PP’s musings on racial differences in penis size.
A pet peeve of mine is that a lot of non-black men in the HBD blogosphere believe everything that professor J. Philippe Rushton said about ethnic differences in IQ and brain size, but when it comes to black men having the largest penis size, they suddenly turn into HBD deniers, ranting and raving about how the research is wrong. Well, I’m sorry but HBD is not here to serve your racist supremacy, HBD is here to celebrate ALL RACES, NOT YOURS ONLY!!!! If the data shows that black men have the largest penis size, then shut up and get over it. What kind of man gets jealous over another man’s penis size anyway? A sick, twisted, perverted sinful one. Healthy well adjusted normal guys don’t even know how large their penis is, and couldn’t care less, because they have other things going for them like a girlfriend, a career, and sports, and their mind’s not in the gutter. The only legitimate reason to care is for science, so here are the FACTS:
Exactly, the only reason to care is for science. And the science shows no differences. What data shows differences in penis size? Something you can directly access right now without relying on a secondhand source to prove your claim?
According to data from the World Health Organization Global Programme on AIDS Specification and Guidelines for Condom Procurement (1991, p 33, Table 5), assuming a normal distribution, I estimate the average white American man has a penis length of 162 mm (SD = 19) , and the average African American man has a penis length of 170 mm (SD = 19). (since 5% of black men are longer that 200 mm, and 2% of white men are, while 27% of white men have penises shorter than 151 mm, while 15% of black men do).
No hyperlink to the study? Why do you rely on a secondhand account? Why didn’t you show the table?
Just found some information on the WHO study he cited. The information from which the WHO data is derived is derived from American blacks and Caucasians, not any subjects from Europe or Africa. He also asked 150 people on a Toronto shopping mall what their penis size was (back to garbage self-reports), and finally, who is this French army surgeon he brings up? So many questions.
Also, PP, asking the questions and questioning his data and what he wrote isn’t “disagreeing on him on this and agreeing with him on everything else”, as you of all people know how critical o am of Lyn and Rushton. Yet you seem to eat up everything they write, thinking they can never be wrong. Why is that?
Rushton (1997) writes on pg 169 of Race, Evolution, and Behavior:
Data provided by the Kinsey Institute have confirmed the black-white difference in penis size (Table 8.2, and items 70-72 of Table 8.4). Alfred Kinsey and his colleagues instructed their respondents on how to measure their penis along the top surface, from belly to tip. The respondents were given cards to fill out and return in preaddressed stamped envelopes. Nobile (1982) published the first averages of these data finding the length and circumferences of the penis for the white samples was smaller than for the black sample. (Flaccid length = 3.86 inches [9.80 cm] vs. 4.34 inches [11.02 cm]; erect length = 6.15 inches [15.62 cm] vs. 6.44 inches [16.36 cm]; erect circumference = 4.83 inches [12.27 cm] vs. 4.96 inches [12.60 cm] respectively.)
Self-reports? Please. Self-reports are notoriously embellished. Moreover, the amount of black Americans in the Kinsey study was in double digits.
I can never find certain papers online, so that really hinders any further discussion on this.
If anyone can find any of these papers, leave a comment.
Harvey, P. H., & May, R. M. (1989). Out for the sperm count. Nature, 337, 508-9.
Short, R. V. (1979). Sexual selection and its component parts, somatic and genital selection, as illustrated by man and the great apes. In J. S. Rosenblatt, R. A. Hinde, C. Beer, & M-C Busnel (Eds.), Advances in the Study of Behavior, Vol. 9. New York: Academic
When it comes to scrotal circumference, I don’t have exact figures, but Rushton cites scholars showing that Africans exceed Europeans: Short, 1979; Ajmani, Jain & Saxena, 1985.
I found Ajmani et al (1985), they state that in 320 healthy Nigerians, average penile length was 3.21 inches, while scrotal circumference was 8.37 inches. PP says he didn’t have exact figures, but they were in Rushton’s references (which I see he didn’t check). Rushton doesn’t cite data on European scrotal circumference so how is that saying that ‘Africans exceed Europeans’ when only Nigerians were examined? Remember: studies are only applicable to the demographic tested. Extrapolating that data on to the whole of Africa makes no sense. Moreover, any data on Europeans is only for that specific ethny tested. Unless the whole of the European continent is averaged out, you cannot say that these differences exist.
This doesn’t even touch on Lynn’s “data” on penis size:
Lynn attempts to justify his belief that there are differences between races in penis length on the basis that European and Asian males have lower levels of testosterone than Africans and that the “reduction of testosterone had the effect of reducing penis length, for which evidence is given by Widodsky and Greene (1940).” Widodsky and Greene (1940) is actually a study of the effects of sex hormones on the penises of rats. This is hardly convincing evidence that there are racial differences in testosterone levels or that a reduction in penis length ever occurred in human history.
Lynn’s claims about differences in penis length between races build on earlier claims by Rushton and Bogaert (1987). The Rushton and Boagert paper is striking for its use of non-scholarly sources (Weizmann, Wiener, Wiesenthal, & Ziegler, 1991). These include a book of semi-pornographic “tall tales” by an anonymous nineteenth century French surgeon that makes wildly inconsistent claims about genital sizes in people of different races. Lynn also refers to this book without mentioning any problems with this as a source of information. Another odd data source cited by Rushton and Bogaert is an article authored by a certain “P. Nobile” published in Forum: International Journal of Human Relations. This publication is better known to the public as “The Penthouse Forum”, a popular men’s magazine. [This is pretty well known and embarrassing that Rushton did that.]
The data sources that Lynn uses in his recent paper are hardly much better. One of them is a book by Donald Templer (another self-professed race realist[1]) called Is Size Important? Templer is not a urologist but a psychologist so why he would claim to be an authority on this subject is unclear.[2] Lynn’s other source is the world penis size website. These are both self-published sources that have not been independently verified. A blogger named Ethnic Muse has carefully examined this site’s references and found that a number of articles listed on the site either do not exist under the name given or do not discuss penis size at all. There are also numerous discrepancies between the values provided by the website and the actual values given by the references.[3] Therefore, the information on this website cannot be trusted and no conclusions should be drawn from it.
Pretty embarrassing for race-realism, to be honest. Looks like the data from “P. Nobile” is from a Penthouse webforum that he ‘published’ his ‘results’ in, instead of a scholarly journal. Rushton did state ‘forum’ (not stating it was the ‘Penthouse forum’, though), but why should we take this as proof of anything?
The sadder one is multiple ‘references’ of Lynn’s that either don’t exist or don’t discuss penis size. Why trust these ‘sources’, when they aren’t controlled scientific studies?
Veale et al (2014) write:
It is not possible from the present meta-analysis to draw any conclusions about any differences in penile size across different races. Lynn [31] suggest that penis length and girth are greatest in Negroids (sub-Saharan Africans), intermediate in Caucasoids (Europeans, South Asians and North African), and smallest in Mongoloids (East Asians), but this is based upon studies that did not meet our present inclusion and
The greatest proportion of the participants in the present meta-analysis were Caucasoids. There was only one study of 320 men in Negroids and two studies of 445 men in Mongoloids. There are no indications of differences in
racial variability in our present study, e.g. the study from Nigeria was not a positive outlier. The question of racial variability can only be resolved by the measurements with large enough population being made by practitioners following the same method with other variables that may influence penis size (such as height) being kept constant. Future studies should also ensure they accurately report the race of their participants and conduct inter-rater reliability.
This meta-analysis was only done on Caucasians, but from the previous study on 320 Nigerians cited from Rushton (Ajmani et al, 1985) and 445 Mongoloids, no racial differences were found. When an actual study gets carried out on this, I doubt that there would be any differences between races.
Orakwe and Ebuh (2007) again test Nigerians (5.2 inches), then compare them with Italians (4.92 inches), Greeks (4.79 inches), Koreans (3.78), British (5.11 inches), and American Caucasians (4.9 inches). The only statistical difference was between Nigerians and Koreans. They conclude:
There is the possibility of racial differences in penile sizes, but there is no convincing scientific background to support the ascription of bigger penile dimensions to people of the Black race.
I wouldn’t say there is a ‘possibility’ that it’s true, based on a population of Nigerians. We can say that ethnic differences may exist between Koreans and Nigerians, but to extrapolate that to all five races and say that racial differences exist and that it fits neatly into Rushton’s outdated 3-way racial model is incorrect. It wasn’t a representative sample of Nigerians (and I obviously don’t have access to the methods of the other papers, I will update this in the future when I find more data), and the bigger sample of the two samples that I cited showed a smaller size.
Do racial differences in penis size exist? We can’t really come to a conclusion based on the data we currently have. Using “””data””” from the Penthouse webforum and a self-reported survey online is embarrassing and the data shouldn’t be used in the discussion of whether these differences exist. The only reliable data on Africans, as far as I know, is on Nigerians; the study with the higher n showed a smaller length. The data so far, shows that no difference exist exists (Veale et al, 2014: 983).
NotPoliticallyCorrect 
Pretty embarrassing for race-realism, to be honest. Looks like the data from “P. Nobile” is from a Penthouse webforum that he ‘published’ his ‘results’ in, instead of a scholarly journal. Rushton did state ‘forum’ (not stating it was the ‘Penthouse forum’, though)
The data wasn’t from Penthouse. The Nobile article Rushton cited was talking about data from the Kinsey Institute, which Nobile analyzed. Rushton was just extending the analysis while giving credit to earlier sources which dealt with the same issue. The implication that Rushton was being dishonest by not mentioning Penthouse in the citation is also misleading. Rushton used the exact title which is on the cover of the magazine. There is no rule against citing non-scholarly magazines in academic publications, erotic publications included. For instance if we are to look at another article written by Philip Nobile published in Penthouse, Incest: The last taboo, it has 23 citations, including very high impact academic works by David Finkelhor & Diana E. H. Russell, neither of whom to my knowledge has ever been subjected to the same dumb criticism commonly leveled in critiques Rushton’s work.
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Thank you for clearing this up for me. However, is Nobile’s analysis available online?
You’re right. Though for academic integrity, he should have only used peer reviewed studies. From reading about this, I saw that it was on the Penthouse forum, is that true? Is there an archive available of the magazine and or online forum? And from reading on the Kinsey study (another study I cannot find, can you?), the sample on blacks was in the double digits.
We have this book Sexual Selection and the Origin of Human Mating Systems, quotes taken from this message board that cited the quotes:
Rushton was correct that some African men’s testes weight twice as much as Caucasians, but I’d like to see the study myself. Do you have access? How about to the Kinsey study and the Nobile study?
Thanks.
Even then, I’ve cited data showing that a of now, we cannot definitively say that there are racial differences in penis size. There is a statical difference between Nigerians and Koreans, but that doesn’t mean all Africans are bigger statistically than all East Asians, on average. That’s the only thing we can definitively say on this matter at the moment.
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Is there an archive available of the magazine and or online forum? And from reading on the Kinsey study (another study I cannot find, can you?)
I haven’t been able to find a free version of the Penthouse article online, but a used copy of the magazine can be bought rather cheaply from Amazon, hopefully the pages won’t be stuck together. I cannot find a free copy of the source of the Kinsey data either, but that can also be purchased from Amazon, although it isn’t as cheap.
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Thanks for the links. I will purchase these items and then make a new article on the matter after I’ve read the actual source material and don’t have to rely on a secondhand account, which really doesn’t tell us anything.
What were your thoughts on the Veale et al 2014 meta analysis and the book excerpt?
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I don’t have any strong opinions on the whole race and penis size issue. I just think that a number of criticisms commonly leveled at Rushton of being unethical, dishonest and prurient in his handling of this subject matter is unfair. Rushton work has been held to an entirely different standard to other academics in this field for obviously political reasons. He may turn out to be wrong on this matter for reasons of human fallibility, but I see no evidence of anything else other than an effort made in good faith to reach an honest empirical conclusion from rather imperfect data.
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After your comment to me about the magazine column I agree now that he had no extreme bias to manipulate any data (I never accused him of that anyhow. Though the original accusation of the data coming from the Penthouse forum did raise my eyebrows a bit.). I want to read these for myself, not rely on a secondhand account. Also, from reading around about the Nobile study I saw it was on the Penthouse forum which is why I reacted like that saying that it was “embarrassing”. I would like to know who this “French Army Surgeon” is though.
And yes the data is extreme imperfect. Do all of the studies he cites do the measuring in the same exact way? There are multiple confounds that could skew any type of comparison made due to all the studies doing measurements differently.
Thanks for the links bro. I’ll order these two items this week and make a follow-up article on the matter.
Politics should not be involved in science. Only scientific things should be discussed, not any supposed political biases.
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[…] Blogger Race Realist continues to be skeptical about racial differences in penis size, but the data from the United States, where both whites and blacks are reared with similar nutrition, seems to show quite conclusively that blacks (at least those of West African descent) have longer and thicker penises than whites. From the above chart, assuming a normal distribution, I estimate the average white American man has a penis length of 162 mm (SD = 19) , and the average African American man has a penis length of 170 mm (SD = 19). (since 5% of black men are longer that 200 mm, and 2% of white men are, while 27% of white men have penises shorter than 151 mm, while 15% of black men do). […]
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Out for the Sperm Count: http://libgen.io/scimag/ads.php?doi=10.1038%2F337508a0&downloadname=
Advances in the Study of Behavior 9: http://libgen.io/ads.php?md5=72C9398BD5134D1044633EC0A7E6D5F9
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Thanks for the links.
From Out for the Sperm Count we have:
Human males, as well as having low sperm reserves, also have a low rate of sperm production per gram of sperm reducing tissue. Moller found that the daily sperm production rate per gram of parenchyma varied from 12 X10 ^9 to 25 X 10 ^9 sperm per gram. Most studies on humans have been performed on Caucasians, but there are marked differences in testes size among human races. Even controlling for age differences among samples, adult male Danes have testes that are more than twice the size of their Chinese equivalents, for example. This difference is much greater than would be expected on the basis of racial differences in body size. Various estimates suggest that individual Caucasians produce twice the number or spermatoza per day than do Chinese (185-253 X 10 ^6 compared with 84 X 10 ^6).
Despite this difference and the evidence from other primates, there is a reluctance to connect differences in human testes size with historic differences in mating patterns and their associated differences in degrees of sperm competition. Primates living in single male groups, for example, have relatively small testes of similar size, irrespective of the number of females in the group (so-called ‘monogamous’ species have testes the same size as ‘harem’ species). There is no evidence relating testes size to sperm competition among human races, perhaps because nobody has looked for it. Rough estimates of uncertainty in paternity are available for different human cultures, but it is not known whether they relate their testes size when body-weight effects are controlled for. We think it is as likely that testes size differences among human races have been adaptive in their own right — different responses to different mating behaviors — as that the differences arose as a correlated non-adaptive response for selection of ovary size and twinning rates among females. In neither case, however, has a statistically sound comparative test been performed.
And from Short (1979):
2. The Testes
These are contained in a pendulous scrotum which is conspicuous. Schonfeld (1943) has presented a comprehensive review of human testicular growth and development, showing that the average weight of one testis in Caucasians after the age of 18 is 14.5-16.5 g, whereas in Orientals it appears to be only 12 g. Measurement of testis size by palpation, using a graded series of models for
comparison, shows that the volume starts to increase from I ml at the age of 11, to reach an asymptote of 16 ml by the age of 20, with 80% of the observations lying between 11 and 21 ml. Schultz (1938a) found that the average weight of one testis in three Negroes aged 31-41 years was 25.1 g, giving a testes:body weight ratio of 0.079%, somewhat higher than the gorilla or orang, but considerably lower than the chimpanzee. These differences in relative testis size between man and the Great Apes would seem to be in accord with the different copulatory frequencies of the four species.
Now I need to track these studies down.
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Libgen has them as well.
Schultz: http://libgen.io/scimag/ads.php?doi=10.1002%2Far.1090720310&downloadname=
Schonfeld: http://libgen.io/scimag/ads.php?doi=10.1001%2Farchpedi.1943.02010160019003&downloadname=
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I appreciate what you do. You have convinced me. However, i want to ask you something. In Lynns study, most african countries were indeed self measured. However, how about african countries that were not? Why are they still bigger than euro countries?
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How about the african countries that were not self measured? They still exceed 6 inches, while no european country that was not self measured did? How do you explain that?
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Glad to have convinced you.
That’s from an “Internet study”, Lynn’s “data” in his 2013 paper is useless. See Ethnic Muse’s article as well as my most recent article on the matter.
There is no good data for the assertion. The usual studies cited are highly flawed. Rushton, Lynn et al are wrong; no good evidence exists for the assertion that blacks have longer penis especially than whites.
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So what you are saying is that even the data that was not self measured came from unreliable sources, like wesbites? Why would he do this only for african countries? Thanks for answering
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Luc, the self-reported data is actually created data, i.e. there were no studies measured or self-reported. The ‘data’ for these countries were made up. Only a few African countries have actual studies (Nigeria has 2, Tanzania, Egypt).
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And how about this comment?
…but the data from the United States, where both whites and blacks are reared with similar nutrition, seems to show quite conclusively that blacks (at least those of West African descent) have longer and thicker penises than whites. From the above chart, assuming a normal distribution, I estimate the average white American man has a penis length of 162 mm (SD = 19) , and the average African American man has a penis length of 170 mm (SD = 19). (since 5% of black men are longer that 200 mm, and 2% of white men are, while 27% of white men have penises shorter than 151 mm, while 15% of black men do).
I hate to bother you, but I would really like to know.
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Luc, the source sample is problematic. Kinsey asked prisoners to self-report and the sample size of so-called African men was small. The most rigorous study on US penile lengths dissaggregated by ‘race’ Herbenick et al. 2014.
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And even if it were accurate (which it seems not to have been), a difference of 162 mm (6.37 in). vs 170 mm (6.69 in.) would not be very significant .
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“(which it seems not to have been, judging, as mentioned, from better quality studies, which show less-no difference)”
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How do you know the data was made up? And why would he do this? Im really sorry for bothering you. I just want to clear all up all the questions I have been having for about a year now.
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Who is the “he” you are referring to? Lynn or Rushton? Basically, they both have a vested interest in ethnic penile length because they posit a particular theory of ethnic evolution. Rushton cherry picked the ‘data’ he used and Lynn copied ‘data’ from an anonymous Internet source to validate Rushton’s claims.
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What do you mean it was part of an internet study? How does that make the information false? Why does Zimbabwe still have a far bigger average than euro counties? Were the statistics made up? And why were they? Dont think I am arguing with you, I want this stereotype to be false.
Race Realist please answer.
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Usually the flaws are self reported, as well as an “internet study” implying a non-random sample like dating sites used for surveys.
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