Oh, All Right. But You Asked For It

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READERS are blowing up the tip line asking us to cover the story below. Here’s a sampler:

  • “Where to even start?”
  • “I think the title says enough”
  • “I think this one is fairly obvious”
  • “interesting/ridiculous contrasts between public health awareness vs. outrageous journalism”
  • “I think it’s pretty self-explanatory why this is interesting. Scientific fact? Post-colonial subjugation through emasculation? What do desi women (or gay men) think?”

You asked for it. And here it is, via the BBC:

A survey of more than 1,000 men in India has concluded that condoms made according to international sizes are too large for a majority of Indian men. …

Over 1,200 volunteers from the length and breadth of the country had their penises measured precisely, down to the last millimetre.

The scientists even checked their sample was representative of India as a whole in terms of class, religion and urban and rural dwellers.

The conclusion of all this scientific endeavour is that about 60% of Indian men have penises which are between three and five centimetres shorter than international standards used in condom manufacture.

This news is the top item in William Saletan’s science round-up this morning in Slate, which offers a translation of the key finding for any macacas that aren’t down with the metric system:

Thirty percent of Indian men are 1 inch short, and another 30 percent are 2 inches short.

Cue up another round of outrage, snark, statistics, exotification and sundry manifestations of sexual anxiety. As you can see, two of the tipsters left comments questioning the reporting of this story. Media hype? Colonial plot? Lou Dobbs?

Speaking of sexual anxiety: For those of you who read this site because you are considering becoming involved with a diasporic macaca, I would caution that you not jump to any conclusions about his member until you’ve had a chance to inspect it for yourself. Emigration leads to changes in diet and other health factors, which results in changes in body type. Just because your macaca’s grandpapa might have had a teeny weeny doesn’t mean your wholesome, corn fed, suburban cul-de-sac raised American desi shares the predicament. Whew!

Discuss. [Previous Sepia jimmyhat analysis here.]

444 thoughts on “Oh, All Right. But You Asked For It”

  1. IT SHOULD NOT BE LOST ON ANYONE THAT THE SURVEY ACTUALLY SAYS 60% of DESI MEN FALL WITHIN THE AVERAGE PENIS SIZE RANGE OF 5 to 6 INCHES; ACTUALLY THIS IS lOWER THAN THE PERCENTAGE OF AMERICAN MEN WHO FALL IN THE SAME RANGE. SO REALLY THIS SURVEY SAYS THAT AMERICAN MEN ON AVERAGE HAVE SLIGHTLY SMALLER LUNDS. BUT WHO IS COUNTING.

    Please forward to the BBC.

    thank you come again (and again)

    The caps are definately needed, for the sake of our progeny.

  2. The caps are definately needed, for the sake of our progeny.

    If you want to have progeny, I suggest you leave the caps off. 😉

  3. If you want to have progeny, I suggest you leave the caps off. 😉

    Watch out, A N N A’s fixin’ to bust a cap! I thought this thread was more about bustin’ a … oh, nevermind.

  6. As someone who went to Aitchison College, an all boys school in Lahore, I probably saw more Desi dick than Mahmood Ghaznavi (or an expat hippie girl). And I found the whole spectrum of tripods, pencil dicks, channa testicles, gulab jamun tattay, etc.

    This is also similar to the “Curse of the Irish” one heres about in Boston. It’s another UK attempt to emasculate an exColony. My irish friends are all well hung, and my best friend with an Irish fetish says she’s ‘in it for the dick’.

    BBC are wankers!

  7. Mmmm. Aitchison. Best four days of my teenage life, when I was there for national debate tournaments. Only time I’ve encountered boys willing to cuddle under the covers as I sat outside on a bench and Major Azhar (the English dept guy?) walked by to see me chatting up a bunch of the senior bwoyz.

  8. when I was there for national debate tournaments

    Ah, no wonder you fit in so well at the bunker. At least four of us are former debate dorks. 😉

  9. Seriously. An all-boys school, and I was there at the age of 17. I mean, what did they EXPECT? Small wonder that I was too tired to really debate the next day.

  12. Small wonder that I was too tired to really debate the next day.

    Is that what you call your Mr. Happy?

    Sorry couldn’t resist =)

  14. Is that what you call your Mr. Happy? Sorry couldn’t resist =)

    My little friend takes exception to that statement. Small Wonder was belonged to the ex.

  16. People, A VERY IMPORTANT NOTICE Please make sure that you are wearing a metal chain around your waist whilst practising the above, as it ensures that you are maintaining correct posture and controls your kundalini and such. I repeat: do NOT try it without the metal chain.

    Shaanthi Peace

  17. Obviously, the measured specimens were mostly of Muslim and Christian origin.

    Another Abrahamic conspiracy in league with missionaries via colonialist organ of BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation)

    Soon through assertive nation funding there shall be SBC (Saffron Balls Corporation) to counteract negative propaganda like this, a news corporation devoted to showcasing items on assertive penises in each programme, including samples in photographs and sillhouette (sideways) during advertising breaks and news reports.

    I am currently collecting sample pictures at various RSS meetings across America as we speak to inaugurate process from diaspora — please leave your name and e-mail address here to let me know when you shall be attending so I can ensure full encapsulation of vedic length for display of democracy in future, saffron pride, and also to teach China and Britain a lesson to stop erections of propaganda with us.

    Stop fiddling with our balls!

    Hail Mogambo!

  18. Did anyone happen to catch Saturday Night Live last night? They did a fake news commentary on this article. Boy, did the crowd crack up. Reminds me of the time, not long after 9/11, they used Indian accents for arab (terrorists) in a skit – the crowd loved that, too! “Damn, thank goodness we can still make fun of brown folk in these overly PC times! They’re HILARIOUS! It’s open season and it’s FUN!”

  19. I read an interesting scientific paper by Steven J Gould I REALLY, REALLY doubt this was by Gould, considering that he was hugely skeptical of sociobiological theory throughout his whole career.
    It might have been somone like Richard Dawkins or Jared Diamond though?

    This doesn’t sound like any of the above, actually.

    Human penis size relative to other primates’ is pretty adequately explained through sexual selection.

    Literally, and figuratively. By women. 🙂

  20. The News:

    A survey of more than 1,000 men in India has concluded that condoms made according to international sizes are too large for a majority of Indian men…….The conclusion of all this scientific endeavour is that about 60% of Indian men have penises which are between three and five centimetres shorter than international standards……..Thirty percent of Indian men are 1 inch short, and another 30 percent are 2 inches short

    The response:

    PLEASE PLEASE say it ain’t so!
    God-damnit! this is totally reckless journalism
    This sucks……now we’ll also be known as having small penises

    .

    JFC! How effin embarassing…who the #$%Z decided to release a press report thats so…well sensational. This just plain effin sucks.
    This is false, malicious, sensationalist reporting! I’m surprised the bbc and our own Indian newspapers would publish trash like this on their front page.
    this is awful reporting, sensationaliized and meant to belittle south asian men.
    The damage is done. The damage is done. Indian men haven’t been this decimated so quickly since Malaria appeared.

    The Spin:

    Everybody knows- Size don’t matter. It is all in the performance 😉
    hey, napoleon was short and reputed to have a very small penis and he’s still a topic of conversation for other reasons, including bedding beautiful women. don’t despair 🙂

    The angry denial:

    There is no way in hell the average punjabi guy is smaller then everyone else in the world.

    The reality check:

    The diminutive Punjabi penis is lamented in folksongs sung by Punjabi women; I’ve heard them at mehndhi parties too

    Thanks for the laughs guys 🙂

  22. “The diminutive Punjabi penis is lamented in folksongs sung by Punjabi women; I’ve heard them at mehndhi parties too”

    I haven’t read all the posts here but I’ll use the Larry David defense and cite “large vaginas” as the issue here.

  23. How the hell do they even measure these things… isn’t the unerected to erected ratio different for different men? And if they measure both, I hardly think that one can get it on with some guy holding a ruler next to it. If its just a survey then maybe desis are modest?

  24. How to get desi (or any) men to worry and obsess and go on about their feelings….talk about their dicks 😉 But y’all seem to be taking it with good humour, shaabash.

    Since the occasional “what about our women’s boobs” comments have popped up, I can say with some confidence (and perhaps desi sisters would care to back this up) that we’re decidedly better endowed than most women in the US, particularly the WASP variety…it’s hard to get shirts that fit right for this reason, honestly, because they tend to be cut for more, um, linear female figures.

  25. Since the occasional “what about our women’s boobs” comments have popped up, I can say with some confidence (and perhaps desi sisters would care to back this up) that we’re decidedly better endowed than most women in the US, particularly the WASP variety…it’s hard to get shirts that fit right for this reason, honestly, because they tend to be cut for more, um, linear female figures.

    Hehe… despite being Bihari, my “Bhojpuri baingans” look more like Thai ones. At least in this case you can honestly say that size doesn’t matter 🙂

  26. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/5246106.stm

    they did a similar study in england some time back. And found similar results.

    “An FPA survey of 500 people found a third had experienced a condom splitting or coming off during sex.”

    “Toni Belfield of the FPA said: “Men come in different shapes and sizes and so do condoms.”

    In any case, I dont see why people are making such a big deal out of it. Because statistically, when you design something for an average estimate, by definition, I would expect around 50% to fall below the average standard and another half to exceed it.

  27. I was under the impression that south asian men lacked “balls”. In any event, I have to think about those people sitting around a table thinking to themselves, “Gee. We have all this money, what should we survey? Child Labor? Genocide and Human Rights violations? No, let’s keep it real with South Asian male dick size.”

  28. Unlike Siddhartha Dhanvant Shanghvi, Tejpal offered no descriptions of “weasel-like loins clutching and unclutching [his] lovely, long, louche manhood, as though squeezing an orange for its juice”. And he eschewed toothbrushes all together, unlike Arundhati Roy, who was nominated years ago for a passage from the God of Small Things that featured “nut-brown breasts” that wouldn’t support a toothbrush and haunches that would support “a whole array” thereof. Rohinton Mistry hasn’t featured on the shortlist, but some of his aura lost its sheen when I read a passage in A Fine Balance that referred to a menacing seducer’s “Bhojpuri brinjal”. It made baingan bharta out of that scene.

    ok… it turns out some guy did blog about it. I’ve pulled the excerpt above – not to cut too fine a point, but mustry’s reference was to the male apparatus – to each her own :-/

    Hehe… despite being Bihari, my “Bhojpuri baingans” look more like Thai ones. At least in this case you can honestly say that size doesn’t matter 🙂

    m-u-s-t f-o-c-u-s… deadline… commitments…

  29. Re: sexual selection having an impact on penis size —

    how does arranged marriage (i.e. artificial selection) affect things?

  30. ok… it turns out some guy did blog about it. I’ve pulled the excerpt

    excuse my sloppiness. the referenced blog is by a person named ‘nilanjana’, not a male name to the best of my knowledge. apologies.

  31. hairy_d: Nilanjana could be male or female. I had a male boss called Nilanjana. Now, this particular Nilanjana that you linked to, is a respected columnist from the Business Standard. She also blogs at Kitabkhana as Hurree Babu.

  32. thanks for the link Quizman. She writes very vell. I quite enjoyed her thoughts on depillatory egalitarianism.

  33. The women on this thread have not acted in good faith. The kind of yellow journalism perpetrated by the BBC is not befitting of its class. Now, for those of us who are endowed with mind rather than matter, put our minds at ease. Is it the Indian brain or the Indian prawn that you value highly? The answer to that will decide whether a future survey of therapist’s income in the U.S showed a sharp rise on or about December 8th, 2006, a day that will live in infamy (with many apologies to pearl harbor).

  34. Re: sexual selection having an impact on penis size — how does arranged marriage (i.e. artificial selection) affect things?

    Milli, in my state, penis length is part of the stats that are traded by parents during negotiations.

  35. What’s the damage? Regardless of how accurate this study may or may not be, the headline and the article’s summation is all people will remember. Even SNL cracked about it. Are we doomed to be the next (East) Asian men, forever cursed by the stereotype of the small penis? How far has this story gotten? None of my friends has mentioned it…yet…

  36. The most disturbing thing about this discussion is that no one is picking up on the actual conclusions of this study, limited as it might be.

    To add to what I said in my first post, based on the international standard condom size (160-180 mm) and the following data (reposted): A study by Lifestyles Condom Co. shows that … about two-thirds of the 300 college-aged men ranged from between 5.1 and 6.2 inches. we can come to the same conclusions about Americans:

    This study of american men is actually showing that a slightly greater percentage of American men in this survey had lund sizes of the size compared in the BBC article.

    So this whole hub-hub is actually pointing out that in two studies of limited apparent quality, 66% of american men and 60% of desi men had lunds that were from 5 to 6 inches.

    The reason I think that it was forwarded so widely, I think it because a) women just like teasing dudes about this subject, and b) non desi men really are kind of stoked by this small piece of news. I know I’d be faintly amused if this BBC article was about norweigens or something.

    But, the more disturbing thing is desi people, some anyway, seem to accept this as fact. That to me indicates a willingness to believe negative things about our community without evidence, within our own community.

    No one is blowing their horn about this study from a desi perspective, when, if you put two equally random and low quality “studies” together, you get the pretty non exciting result that 66% of american men and 60% of desi men have slightly below average size lunds.

    We have nothing to lose but our chains.

    Piece Shaanti

  37. Naveen, your friends probably have seen it, but now is the time to re-double our efforts at our liberation from the discrimination we face. Maybe Mahesh’s method would work with your friends?

    Piece Shaanti

  38. Seriously, I think pollution might very well be a factor in this and any other pan-Indian divergence from medical “norms,” much more so than genes and even the oft-trumpetted nutrition. It would, for example, explain results that don’t vary across class. Anyone know of a physiological connection between air pollution and size? I remember those anti-smoking billboards that featured a classic “Marlborough” style man with an, um, wilting cigarette.

  39. A different name,

    You’re trying to explain something that might not even be true.

    Here’s an example:

    Person A: Did you know yaks are green?

    Person B: Well, the reason they are green is because of the photosynthesis of the gum tree plants of the amazon.

    Person A: Oh wait, I was wrong, yaks are brown.

    Person B: Of yeah, that means I gave you an explanation for something that wasn’t actually true.

    Person A: Yeah.

  47. The lund global average is 160-180 mm. equaling 6.2 to 7.0.

    Therefore, the american values of 5 to 6 inches also falls outside the international average.

    This is about penis size, which is a silly and immature topic. But you are still a dummy.

  48. PenisEnvy’s probably a non-desi troll.

    A non-desi who follows the Asian Games? To me he sounds more like a self-hating brownie.

  50. That’s what gets me……why the fuck do people believe negative stereotypes about themselves? I mean, all you have to do is check with yourself to see its a stereotype.

    Its like some people actually want to be inferior