How to measure your cock

Bone-pressed or skin to tip, base or mid-shaft: the method changes the number by almost two centimetres. Here is how the studies do it, so you can compare like with like

Every man has measured at least once, usually alone, usually in a hurry, usually with whatever was in the kitchen drawer. The result is a number he remembers for life and that nobody else can check. This page is about doing it the way the studies do, so that your number can actually be compared with theirs.

It matters more than it sounds. The same cock can honestly produce two lengths almost two centimetres apart, depending only on where the ruler starts. Half of the arguments about size online are two people using two different methods and calling each other liars.

What you need

• A rigid ruler for length. A soft tape bends along the curve and adds a little.
• A non-stretchy tape, a paper strip or a piece of string for girth, plus the ruler to read the string.
• A full erection. Not most of one. Clinical studies measure at full hardness, often with the help of an injection.
• Some patience. One reading is a sample, not a verdict.

Length: from the bone

Stand up, with the cock pointing straight out, parallel to the floor. Lay the ruler along the top of the shaft, not the underside or the side. Push the end of the ruler gently into the pad of fat above the base until you feel the pubic bone, and read the number at the tip of the head. That is bone-pressed length: it counts the whole shaft, whatever the body fat around it.

The alternative is to rest the ruler on the skin at the base without pressing, which gives the skin-to-tip length, closer to what is actually available in practice. In a study of 778 men, the two methods differed by about 1.8 cm0.7 in on average, and men with a higher BMI tended to have a shorter skin-to-tip length. Those men had an average BMI of 29, so in leaner men the gap is probably smaller. Fat does not shrink a cock, it buries the first part of it.

If your cock curves, the straight ruler cuts the corner and underestimates a little. Lay a piece of string along the top from bone to tip, following the curve, then measure the string. Report both if you like: honesty about method is what makes a number useful.

Girth: around the middle

Wrap the tape or strip around the erect shaft, snug but not squeezing, and read where it overlaps. Studies do not agree on where: some measure at the base, some at mid-shaft, some below the head, and some take more than one reading. This site uses mid-shaft as its default, because it is the most common choice and the least affected by a cock that tapers or flares.

If you measure at the base too, write both down. The difference between them is your taper, and the shapes it produces are in Shape. The averages to compare with are in Girth.

Soft and stretched

Doctors often skip the erection and measure stretched length instead: the soft cock is pulled gently forward and measured from the bone to the tip. It is quicker and less awkward, and in a classic study of 80 men it was the soft measurement that best matched the erect length. An engineering study later calculated that reaching full erect length would take a pull of about 450 grams, more than urologists usually apply, so stretched length tends to come out a bit short.

Soft hanging length, measured on the top side from the bone, is the least useful number of all. It changes from one hour to the next, and it predicts very little about the erect size, as explained in Grower or shower.

Why your number wobbles

Even done well, a home measurement drifts. A large US study of men measuring themselves found that the way they got hard, alone or with a partner, may be linked with the size they recorded. Hardness varies, the angle varies, the pressure on the fat pad varies. Three practical rules:

1. Measure on three different occasions and take the average, not the best.
2. Always use the same method, and say which one when you compare.
3. Compare like with like: bone-pressed with bone-pressed, skin with skin. The 1.8 cm0.7 in gap between the two methods is bigger than the gap between an average cock and one in the top quarter.

And remember that the clinic tables were made by people with no reason to round up. Men measuring themselves report bigger numbers than doctors do, and the size chart uses the doctors, so if yours lands a little under the self-reported figures you see online, you are probably not small, just honest.