10 THINGS YOU DON'T KNOW ABOUT YOUR PENIS

Subject: 10 THINGS YOU DON'T KNOW ABOUT YOUR PENIS Tue Feb 08, 2011 12:40 pm

Ah, the almighty penis. If you have one, you probably think that you know everything there is to know about it. After all, you spent plenty of time alone studying it when you were 15. And 16. And 17. And beyond. You're close friends, and you probably think there's nothing your penis would hide from you; it tells you all its secrets.

But that's not necessarily true. There may be a thing or two that you don't know about your penis. And while you probably do know most of the important stuff (like how to use it and protect it from harm), there are some things about your penis --things that may affect its health or how it performs-- that you may not know. What to improve your education and get to know your penis a bit better? Read on for a few interesting facts.

1. Circumcision can be reversed. You probably think of circumcision as an irreversible procedure-- and one that you're probably glad you were too young to remember. But it's not. For those that want to reverse circumcision, doctors can slowly --over the course of years-- pull skin from the shaft up to cover the penis, creating a brand new foreskin.

2. Smoking shortens him. You probably think that that daily pack of cigarettes will only affect your lungs and your overall lifespan, right? Wrong. Actually, smoking cigarettes can also affect the size of your penis (specifically, the size of your erection). Smoking cigarettes reduces blood flow all over the body-- including to the penis. And since erections are all about blood flow, the poor blood flow resulting from cigarette smoking can reduce the size of your erections by up to a half-inch.

3. Bigger penis means higher fertility. While a larger penis does nothing to change a man's sperm count or mobility, it does help him to conceive more easily than a smaller-penised man. How? The longer a penis is, the better sperm displacement you'll get. Now that's something to brag about on your internet dating profile, right?

4. Prostate exams are for more than just cancer prevention. Prostate cancer is one of those "killers" that men are warned by their doctors to watch out for. But prostate exams aren't any fun, and saving your life might not be enough motivation to get one. Saving your sex life, however, could be. An enlarged prostate gland is a common cause of both premature ejaculation and impotence-- giving you another good reason to go get yourself checked out.

5. That thing you've always wondered about? It's possible. Yes, it actually is possible for a man to pleasure himself orally. But not for most. Only about one in every 400 men has enough flexibility to do it. And each and every one of them probably has.

6. There are two penis "categories." For 79 percent of men out there, their penis drastically changes size when they experience an erection. For the other 21 percent, it doesn't; their penis appears large when flaccid, but grows very little when erect. See plenty of guys boasting 6" penises when soft on their internet dating profiles or walking around the locker room with an enviable-looking penis? They're probably "show-ers" rather than "growers."

7. Orgasms are brainless. Think you can use your mind to control when to come? You can't. That order is actually controlled by the spinal cord rather than the brain. It's part of the same automatic nervous system that's in charge of your keeping your heart beating.

8. Arousal is involuntary. Ask any man who's spent hours hiding a teenaged erection behind his backpack, and he'll be able to confirm that this is true. But it's more true than you might think. Because arousal, orgasm, and all of that is controlled by the nervous system, the mind has very little control over when it chooses to have an erection-- even if what the mind is thinking does have an effect on it. Because psychological stress also affects the nervous system, it has a great effect on arousal and erections. Too much stress has the same effect on your penis as a cold shower-- and it's an effect that's completely involuntary.

9. It's possible to break your penis. While the penis has no bones, there is such a thing as a penile fracture. When it happens, you'll hear a crack or pop, just like with a broken bone, and the penis will turn black and blue. It's very painful, and often results from rough or careless sex.

10. You circumcised? Most men aren't. Of all of the men in the world aged 15 or older, only 30 percent are circumcised, and 70 percent of those men are circumcised for religious reasons (they're of Jewish or Muslim origins). The U.S. has the highest number of non-religious circumcised men in the world, with 75 percent of non-Jewish or -Muslim men circumcised. In the rest of the English-speaking world that number is much lower, with 20% in the United Kingdom, 30% in Canada, and only 6% in Australia.