The burden of bearing a massive penis

Posted 31 May 2005 by PZ Myers

↗ The current version of this post is on the live site: https://pandasthumb.org/archives/2005/05/the-burden-of-b.html

Maybe half of my audience here will be familiar with this problem. You're a man, and you're hauling this massive, ummm, package around in your pants everywhere you go. Other men fear you, while the women worship you…yet at the same time, your e-mail is stuffed to bursting with strange people making friendly offers to help you make it even bigger. It's a dilemma; you think you would be even more godlike if only it were larger, but could there possibly be any downside to it? (There is a bit of folk wisdom that inflating it drains all the blood from the brain, but this is clearly false. Men who are stupid when erect are also just as stupid when limp.)

A couple of recent studies in fish and spiders have shown that penis size is a matter of competing tradeoffs, and that these compromises have evolutionary consequences. Guys, trash that e-mail for penis enlargement services—they can make you less nimble in pursuit of the ladies, or worse, can get you killed.

Continue reading "The burden of bearing a massive penis" (on Pharyngula)

8 Comments

Sir_Toejam · 31 May 2005

(There is a bit of folk wisdom that inflating it drains all the blood from the brain, but this is clearly false. Men who are stupid when erect are also just as stupid when limp.)

I'm not so sure this is a complete set of evidence disproving the theorem. you need to also see if intelligent men lose reasoning capacity when erect as well. I hate to imagine what the test conditions for that will look like. BTW, John Endler in the 80's did a number of excellent studies on the tradeoff between sexual selection for fin size and color in guppies vs. selection pressures from predation. It was a very nice set of field studies as well.

'Rev Dr' Lenny Flank · 31 May 2005

(There is a bit of folk wisdom that inflating it drains all the blood from the brain, but this is clearly false. Men who are stupid when erect are also just as stupid when limp.)

{quote]I'm not so sure this is a complete set of evidence disproving the theorem. you need to also see if intelligent men lose reasoning capacity when erect as well. I hate to imagine what the test conditions for that will look like. Well, my sister always tells me that she doesn't believe anything that a man says while his pants are off. Not sure that has anything to do with blood to the brain, though . . .

Sir_Toejam · 31 May 2005

actually, lenny, i'd say that is evidence against the theory. doesn't it take more intelligence to lie convincingly than not?

i could easily imagine selection favoring convincing liars, especially under the circumstances where the situation has already progressed to having pants around ankles.

;)

HPLC_Sean · 1 June 2005

Sir_Toejam said:

you need to also see if intelligent men lose reasoning capacity when erect as well.

I propose that all men lose reasoning capacity when erect.

Jim Wynne · 1 June 2005

(There is a bit of folk wisdom that inflating it drains all the blood from the brain, but this is clearly false. Men who are stupid when erect are also just as stupid when limp.)

Another argument against ID: "God gave men a penis and a brain, but only enough blood to work one at a time." -Robin Williams

Michael Roberts · 2 June 2005

Is Denyse interested in this?

SEF · 2 June 2005

It's not just the reallocation of blood supply though. It's also the effect of hormones released.

I'd say anecdotal reports I've heard support the claim that intelligent men lose reasoning capacity when erect. I suspect the stupid ones do too but they are already so stupid that it's hard to tell. It's the same with someone being ill. The capacity drop for a high IQ person is much more noticeable than for a low IQ one. There are more sophisticated abilities to lose and a percentage change is larger as an absolute change on a big number than a small one.

Henry J · 6 June 2005

This reminds me of an article I read a while back explaining the difference in amount of sperm production (relative to size) in gorillas (least), humans (middle), and chimpanzees (most relative to body mass).

Henry