Penis enlargement products are becoming big business globally and Malaysian males are getting into it as well. There are miracle pills and oils and not to mention the various exercises and stretching massage that are advertised in the local papers with pictures of ‘Urut Gurus’ making rediculous claims.Now with the internet,junk mails full of penis enlargement materials are also getting in the e-mail in box of every person on the planet. Do they work? Are they safe? Does a man need to worry about the size of his penis? These are the issues this article will examine.
For starters we need a good understanding of how the penis is constructed, and how it works. The penis is composed of three chambers; the two cavernous bodies (or corpora cavernosa) which lie side by side on the top of the penis, and the spongy body (or corpus spongiosum) which is centered below the other two. The spongy body surrounds the urethra, and extends out the end of the shaft to form the glans. All three chambers contain small hollow areas that can fill with blood to produce an erection. Surrounding all three bodies is a semi-elastic membrane called the tunica albuginea. The arteries that feed blood to the penis are surrounded by smooth muscle fibers that normally limit blood flow to the penis. When a man is aroused by thought, sight, or physical stimulation, the muscle fiber relaxes and blood flow into the penis increases. The spongy tissue of the penis fills with blood, causing the penis to swell. The size of the erect penis is governed by the tunica albuginea membrane, just as a bicycle tire limits the expansion of the inner tube inside it. As with a bike tire, once the limit of the membrane is reached, further pressure results in firmness rather than expansion. The veins that drain the penis lie close to the surface, and are compressed by the erection, thus slowing flow of blood from the penis.
The only muscle in the penis is the smooth muscle fiber that controls erection, and this muscle can not be built up in the same way skeletal muscles can be. Even if this muscle could be strengthen, doing so would only serve to reduce blood flow to the unerect penis, making it smaller. In order to lengthen the penis the tunica albuginea and the spongy bodies would all have to be lengthened. The tunica albuginea is flexible to a point, but repeated stretching does not lengthen it the way the ear lobes can be lengthened.
So, “buyer beware” is vital when looking at things that claim to enlarge the penis. There is no way to guarantee you are getting what you are sold, no proof it works, and no legal recourse if it does not work. Even worse, there is no guarantee the device, exercise or product is safe. Herbs are unregulated, even though some have been proven to have nasty side affects, so harm is possible.
69% of men over estimated the size of the average penis, some by several inches.One other thing should be covered before we look at the methods advertised for “male growth” – how big is the average penis? In one Internet poll 69% of men over estimated the size of the average penis, some by several inches. For a long time studies done by Kinsey in the late 40s were quoted, but there are some serious problems with these studies. The Kinsey study was based on self reporting of men who responded to a post card mailed to them by the Kinsey institute. This gives us two problems, the men may have exaggerated, and the sample is not demographically valid. It has since been found that, surprise, a man with a big penis is more likely to volunteer for measurement than a man with a small penis. Web sites trying to convince men they need to be bigger give the average at 6 inches (15.25 cm) and larger, but science says otherwise.
So what is average? In the last ten years there have been several statistically and scientifically well done studies on penis size. The most famous of these studies, done by the University of California School of Medicine and reported in the Journal of Urology in 1996, found the average erect penis to be 5.1 inches (13cm) in length and 4.9 inches (12.5) in circumference. Studies done by the Department of Urology, University of Florence, Italy, and St. Mary’s Hospital, London, as well as at other medical institutions, have give results that vary from 5.03 to 5.3 inches (12.78 to 13.46 cm).National University of Singapore gave a figure of 10-13cm during erection and isolated Malaysian Study gave similar figure.However size vary when not erect!
Let’s look at the products available to make the penis bigger.
- > Pills: It only takes a bit of reasoning to understand why these could not work. What kind of drug could enter the blood stream and affect only the two specialized tissues in the penis?
- Creams: These are targeted to the penis, and anything rubbed onto the penis is going to be carried away from the penis by the blood stream before it could get to the tunica albuginea or the spongy bodies.Some of these creams that contain aromatic oils can actually cause mild breast enlargment in some men because of the estrogenic effect of some of the aromatic oils (like teatree and lavender)!
- Surgery: There are two techniques that doctors can perform that do actually add size, but both are full of risks. For more length a doctor can cut the ligaments that attach the penis to the pelvic bone, and then move the penis outward some. This gains a man only about an inch, risks infection, and can leave the penis less stable because it’s no longer anchored. For more width, fat can be injected into the penis. Unfortunately the fat does not stay put, and it can become lumpy or gradually leave the penis.
- Somatotherapy: Injecting irritants into the penis skin to cause tissue expansion can be dangerous if the lax connective tissue under the skin swells and thickened.The penis skin can become enormous and the penis will look short and stumpy!Penis penetration will be impossible!
- Stretching exercises, weights, and stretching devices: Those promoting these technics offer a variety of explanations for how they work, but most of these explanations are contrary to the facts about how the penis is constructed. Some parts of the body can be enlarged by mechanical stretching, but this has never been shown to occur with the penis, and most experts doubt the tissue involved can be expanded in this way. Some urologist have voiced concerns about scaring, nerve damage, damage to the blood vessels, and Peyronie’s disease (bent penis syndrome). While there are isolated claims in some well controlled studies of such devices eg.Andropenis-penis extension device (www.andromedical.com ) improving penis size, to date is far from conclusive.
- Jelqing: The Jelq is the most common method of penis enlargement being touted today. Basically jelqing consists of a “milking” motion down the penis that is supposed to gradually increase both length and circumference. The technique is said to be something used by men in the Middle East for centuries. But no one can back that claim up, and experts of Middle Eastern Traditions never heard of such practices!
We must weigh the possible risks against the possible benefits.
The bottom line is this – pills and creams cannot possibly work, and surgery which does work can leave a man disfigured or impotent. The “unproven” methods have a theoretical chance of doing some enlarging, but they also have a very real chance of doing long term and permanent harm if not monitored by professionsls. In the end each couple must weigh the possible risks against the possible benefits. We have looked at the risk. what about the benefits?
So, does size really does matter, and can a penis be too big? We have heard from several men and women who have problems enjoying sex because his penis is large – it may be a rare problem, but it does happen. The book “The Kinsey Institute New Report on Sex” (1990) says that more women report concerns and apprehension about too large a penis than report being unhappy with a smaller penis.But for guys who are really small, do not hesitate to seek professional help.Getting treatment from charlatans can be disaster!