So basically, penises are big because brains are big. So the higher your SAT scores, the bigger you are.
Laydeez.
Don't blame us! We're only interested in dinosaur penises.
There's a surprisingly large literature on that. Check Amazon.
why the male penis is so big. It's pretty straightforward. Yet we're still left scratching our heads
I mostly scratch my head with my giant penis.
I agree it's a good post, but isn't "Because walking upright made the vagina conspicuous and males thought a bigger vagina was better." the opposite of true? The standard just-so story for large breasts in humans is that the genitals are no longer visible when you walk upright. It's one of these things where it's just so wrong that it makes me doubt the rest of what the author has to say. Or maybe it was a joke?
Because walking upright made the vagina conspicuous and males thought a bigger vagina was better
? This is not the claim that's being made.
Right, it's not the claim being made, but it is a direct quote and I don't understand how someone knowledgeable could write that even as a throwaway comment. Unless it's a joke?
Read it again. That paragraph is prefaced by "If we were going to answer it the same way we've long explained the human penis,"
Obligatory link to Storm Large (NSFW, autoplay video).
Except that penises do become more visible when you stand up, so it's not at like how people explain the penis. Anyway, I guess I'm just being humorless.
"Like" as in arguments based on competition and/or preference. Which arguments are being set up as erroneous, to be discarded in favor of the correct (birth canal) one.
But this theory still relies on female choice. Just because vaginas got bigger doesn't mean that penises had to get bigger.
They don't even gesture in the direction of the correct, biblical explanation for why men have larger penises. It's because men are formed in the image of God and he has an truly incredible dong - way, way better than those measly apes. It's clearly an atheist conspiracy to force their propaganda science down the throats of true christians.
17: I suppose it isn't required, but men got nipples regardless of any selection pressure on their teats.
18: Atheists grew enormous penises in response to the massive throats of true believers.
17
The actually theory proposed is because of human brain size, which has nothing to do with female choice. There's a ton of literature on brain size and childbirth, lifespan, and diet (e.g. the grandmother hypothesis, the meat hypothesis). Humans are born with, compared to other species, relatively large heads vs. the rest of the size of us. This requires a wider pelvis and larger birth canal (aka vagina). It has nothing to do with sexual selection.
The proper term the OP was looking for was evolutionary psychologist or sociobiologist, who have been reinforcing sexism and racism since calling yourself a Social Darwinist became untenable the 1970s.
This requires a wider pelvis and larger birth canal (aka vagina). It has nothing to do with sexual selection.
I think the argument is that the larger birth canal is mandated by brain size, but the larger penis to match it isn't necessary for successful impregnation, so the evolution of the penis in tandem needs a further explanation.
Isn't everybody's penis as wide as a baby's head?
22.1: well, nitpickery, except in the sense that sexual selection might have created a selection pressure in favour of big brains. Humans could have used big brains to generate more elaborate displays (for example, dancing, singing etc) which acted as signals in the same way as mating displays in other species.
23: Yes, that was what I was trying to say in 17.
I've heard it suggested that the shape of the glans penis is designed to pump out rival's semen. Bigger job, bigger tool?
but the larger penis to match it isn't necessary for successful impregnation, so the evolution of the penis in tandem needs a further explanation
It actually does make sense that they would evolve in tandem, so as to avoid hotdog/hallway issues which could make successful impregnation less likely.
The proper term the OP was looking for was evolutionary psychologist
Huh, never heard of it.
23, 28
Yes. If we assume that impregnation requires at minimum male orgasm, and male orgasms require a certain level of friction/stimulation, penises would need to be a certain size relative to the vagina for reproduction to occur. This is an armchair theory, but the stuff on human brains is well attested, and it's more plausible than most of the other large penis theories, which aren't really based on scientifically sound evidence.
25
Possibly, but it's a reach and there's no compelling evidence vs. all the other ways big brains more directly aid survival. Occam's razor means until further evidence we should go with natural selection as the main pressure for bigger brains and bigger pelvises.*
*Until we find a fossilized recording of "I like big butts," that is.
I would bet that the gene for premature ejaculation could work with very low levels of friction.
sexual selection might have created a selection pressure in favour of big brains.
OR sexual selection created pressure in favour of big pensis, causing enlarged vaginas, which lead to bigger brains.
Larger brains also being required as a place to store extra blood when penis is not erect.
That theory works to explain situational compromises in male intellectual performance.
33
I see some NSF grant money with your name on it. Also for 32, so we can study if men who prematurely ejaculate produce more offspring. Hybrid hypothesis: sexual selection for giant schlongs led to penises that were too big for vaginas, so only men who prematurely ejaculated on the vulva were able to reproduce.
The paper would be called "Money Shots: The Darwinian Basis For Porn."
36
I am so not kidding, somewhere there is a giant pile of grant money willing to fund that project.
31.1: AFAIK even multiparous vaginas have little or no empty space; no direct effect of vagina size on stimulation. We would have evolved to do Kegels if this were the bottleneck.
Not that I know much but I could probably get paid to investigate.
In what sense have we not evolved to do Kegels?
In the sense in which we have evolved to shed our deciduous teeth, but have not evolved to amputate our fingertips, even though (and I won't get the link for this at work, but you can see proof at BME's blog) people do do that.
38
Well, we could start by researching ejaculation rates from PIV sex for guys with micropenises. Do you think you could volunteer to do that research too?
And now I've google image searched chimpanzee penis and micropenis. Thanks, Obama unfogged.
Surely this is a natural fit for citizen science.
a natural fit
Depends on the results, surely.
Why do we need sexual selection to favour large brains? Natural selection will favour large brains to the extent that brain size correlates with intelligence (not entirely but to some extent) and intelligence favours successful reproduction by enabling more flexible behaviour.
larger brains imply larger vaginas for obvious reasons. Sexual selection might then imply that women favour penes that fit better, but equally natural selection might favour that too.
Isn't the OP libellous towards paleontologists, who just study fossils, and primarily not human penis fossils? I demand a retraction.
Sexual selection might then imply that women favour penes that fit better, but equally natural selection might favour that too.
In this instance, aren't sexual selection and natural selection the same thing?
51: Depends. Does getting eaten by a tiger before you get a chance to have sex count as sexual selection?
Only if the tiger takes penis size into consideration when deciding who to eat.
51: Basically, but if you combine them, you can not slut shame the rest of the primates.
Or if you have trouble running away from the tiger because you keep tripping on your enormous hand-stretched penis.
Isn't the OP libellous towards paleontologists, who just study fossils, and primarily not human penis fossils?
Why do you think it's called a boner?
Because calling it a "blood bag" would be off-putting.
Speaking of off-putting, I'm not sure your giant sex toy that looks like a prop from a David Cronenberg movie really qualifies as "furniture." (Link is SFW, amazingly.)
OK, to be fair, the linked article contains a photo of an older man clad only in briefs seated next to a bright fuchsia blob that looks like an alien torso on stilts, but there's no nudity. So click with discretion.
I can't say I'd have chosen that color for it myself.
Or that shape.
And I hesitate to speculate on utility (no, actually I don't hesitate at all. But I feel as if I should have), but it really doesn't look stable.
That's horrible, but I like that glass clockwork-powered dildo, which I'd never seen before. That's a better display piece.
Leave it to the Dutch to create the world's least sexy sex toy.
"Still-life with skull, faded flowers, and pink, tripoded sex-thrust object"
The funny thing is that it seems to be exactly the opposite of its intended purpose-- I don't think there's any sex toy that I'd be more embarrassed to leave sitting in my living room than that thing.
If he'd have stuck a My Little Pony head on it, that would be more embarrassing.
I didn't say any imaginable sexy toy...
Are you really going to argue that My Little Pony dolls with "sleeves" don't exist? I'm not about to google, even if I weren't at work, but I think it's a safe assumption.