Since the dawn of man, guys have measured their dicks. In fact, the first documented use of a ruler was to measure a penis.

That’s not actually true, but it sounded plausible didn’t it?

Mankind's fascination with this particular part of his anatomy has been studied extensively, however the results vary wildly because guys tend to lie in relevant studies about the size of their cocks. Asking men how big their dick is and expecting accurate results is like asking a middle-aged woman how many birthdays she’s had so far.

But it’s easy to see why men are obsessed with the size of their penises. In society, a larger dick size often equates to power, overall manliness and social status. That’s what the research shows most clearly, too, is a larger size is positively correlated with more personal satisfaction.

Inversely, the smaller a guy’s penis is, the greater the odds are they will lie about it. Beyond that, there are also measurably higher incidences of depression, anxiety and lower self-esteem in men with small cocks.

So it’s an important issue.

However, only seven percent of men will admit they have a “below average” sized penis, which, being statistically impossible, reveals how great the desire is to being in the lucky half of the population who can say they’re “above average.”

Surprisingly, statistics show nowhere is this more apparent than in the LGBTQ+ community, where trouser rocket sizes are self-reported to be gigantic.

There are numerous forces that drive men to exaggerate: unrealistic expectations from watching porn, fear of other men’s opinions, and the common comedy trope of making fun of a small penis.

New studies are going to elaborate lengths to get accurate measurements though. The most precise of which have come from research where the scientists didn’t tell participants they were measuring erect penises to find the average, but instead claimed the study was to evaluate custom made condoms.

In the study, 1,661 men were given new condoms each week, and were asked to report how well they fit — sort of like going to the optometrist to get your eyes checked, but for your cock. The results gave a much more accurate answer than the world has ever been privy to before.

The long and the sort of it is that the average penis is probably around 5-and-a-half inches — not the massive penises self-reported by hyperbolizing men in earlier studies. And to quell any long believed legend, there are only slight variations in the average size between varied races — not nearly as much as popular culture says.

Studies show a less than ~0.4 inch variance between the smallest average penises from those of Asiatic descent and the largest from — no surprises — those of African descent.

However when women are asked about their preference for size, the results are at seemingly odds with how men feel about the subject, with most favoring just slightly above average. They aren't aching for a 12-inch porn star phallus at all, though probably wouldn’t mind another half inch … or just flowers.

To prove it, older studies of this highly important topic often used pictures to determine a women’s ideal penis size. But as the future is now, researchers have gone on to use fancy 3-D printed cocks that quantifiably show women prefer girth and aesthetics to length.

Yet even if your parts aren’t perfectly matched, there are a quite a few things that are more important to romantic partners than dick size; lighting candles and picking up a few tricks with your tongue will turn them on just as much as the size of what’s down below. To that, 85 percent of women questioned in one additional survey claim they’re satisfied with their partner's penis size, compared to only 55 percent of men who are happy with their penises, 45 percent of which who want them to be larger.

It’s not women who care so much about size; it’s men. So stop staring at your dick and worrying about other guy’s cocks. You’re fine just the way you are.