August 15, 2006 | Health Matters

Sizing up

Pornography has been blamed for all sorts of social ills. Everything from violence and venereal disease to drug use and divorce has been attributed to commercialized sex. Now, porn is even being blamed for widespread penis anxiety among Western men.

That's according to John Elder, who in a frank and funny editorial for Australia's The Age says that the giant-sized dicks that often star in adult movies cause men to be unnecessarily worried about the size of their penises.

"Just as men will see a (Hollywood) movie and look at the attractive, suave, charming, athletic male character and want to be like him … he will now look at the porno performer and want to be like him," Elder says, quoting Sydney's Dr. Stephen Juan, author of "The Odd Sex." "Probably if we didn't have the porno industry, we wouldn't have the extent of this envy."

Of course, there are plenty of other places to size other guys up, Elder points out, including at the urinal, in the locker room and, of course, on the Web.

"Like many people, I get about a dozen e-mails a day bearing news good and bad," writes Elder. "The bad is that my penis is too small, too soft and lacking the endurance to satisfy a fruit fly. The good is I can build a longer, stronger and everlasting erection for a few hundred dollars -- by taking miracle pills."

It's a pity none of the pills work.

According to Elder, the average sized cock is 15.24 centimeters, or 6 inches. Most of the time, however, a man's meat is immeasurable, as it constantly shrinks and expands according to one's temperature and mood.

"It's actually meaningless to measure the size of the penis because it varies from minute to minute," David Mitchell, a doctor and a medical anthropologist, tells Elder. "The trouble is, if you get anxious, it only makes it smaller, to the point where it can disappear … in cases where anxiety spirals into a panic attack."

That's one effect of panic attacks we hadn't been aware of. So whether you're a show-er or a grower, don't worry, be happy -- and for goodness sake, don't panic.

• Give a man six inches and he'll want ... [The Age]