Penis Size is Rising
Break out the Champagne and Cheap Puns
The public high school that my children do/will attend has a number of claims to fame. Apparently, Ultimate Frisbee was invented here by three students in the late 1960s, one of whom was Joel Silver who went on to produce blockbuster movies like Lethal Weapon, Die Hard, Predator, and The Matrix. The three of them have been inducted into the school’s hall of fame along with actors Andrew Shue, Elizabeth Shue, and Zach Braff (who came back to the school during the pandemic to shoot a movie that comes out next month). In 2016, Olympic Bronze-medalist Ibtihaj Muhammad, who was on the school’s fencing team, became the first Muslim American woman to wear a hijab while competing for the United States. Probably the most famous alum right now, however, is SZA—the singer/songwriter whose 2017 album Ctrl made Rolling Stone Magazine’s “Top 500 Albums of All Time” list.
I am impressed by all of this, but I was most surprised and delighted to learn that the school is also the alma mater of famed sex researcher Alfred Kinsey. I was surprised because the movie about his life made it look like he grew up in rural Midwest farmlands. (Of course, he graduated in 1912 when my now-suburban NJ town probably looked like the rural Midwest.) I was delighted because I’d learned so much about Kinsey in gradate school. You can’t get a Master’s Degree in Human Sexuality without learning about one of the first people to study this topic. Though it wasn’t until after grad school that I inherited first editions of Sexual Behavior of the Human Male (1948) and Sexual Behavior of the Human Female (1953) from my grandparents. Since then, I have gotten to work with colleagues from—and even visit—the Kinsey Institute at the University of Indiana.
Kinsey’s work and the institute that bears his name have been a constant source of controversy which is heating up again as Indiana legislators voted to deny the Institute any state funding that might come through the University. The vote was based on rumors and innuendo that took root in the 1980s and have been discredited multiple times over the years. Kinsey’s work was by no means up to today’s rigorous scientific standards, but it did not rely on or condone child abuse.
I elaborate on the current funding debate below (and on a separate story about an Alaska legislator who certainly sounded like he was condoning child abuse). For now, let me just point out that any argument today that is based entirely on what Alfred Kinsey himself may or may not have done seems irrelevant at best since the man has been dead for 67 years.
Indiana Lawmakers Vote to Defund Kinsey Institute
Last week, the Indiana House voted 53-34 to block state funding from being used for the Kinsey Institute at the University of Indiana. The issue was brought forth by Republican Representative Lorissa Sweet during the state budget process. Sweet claimed that some of Kinsey’s research amounted to child exploitation and argued, “By limiting the funding to Kinsey Institute through Indiana University’s tax dollars, we can be assured that we are not funding ongoing research committed by crimes.”
If you’re confused based on her incorrect word choice (research is conducted not committed) and bizarre syntax (crimes can’t do research or anything else), allow me to clarify. Sweet isn’t suggesting that current research at the Institute constitutes child exploitation, but she seems to believe rumors that have been swirling around for decades that Kinsey himself exploited children.
Many of these rumors can be attributed to Judith Reisman, a conservative author and Anthony Comstock-wannabe who took on sex education, pornography, and Kinsey beginning in the 1980s. Reisman believed there was a connection between sex education, sex educators, and the pornography industry. She was given a $700,000+ grant by Reagan’s Department of Justice to investigate whether pornographic magazines like Playboy and Hustler increased violence by juveniles. (This was a non-compete grant that some DOJ staff did not want approved in part because they believed the research could be done for a mere 60k.) Her later research focused on brain chemicals and trying to prove her theory that “erototoxins” like oxytocin which are released by the brain during sexual arousal make pornography addictive. Reisman argued that these chemicals made porn viewers irrational, and therefore, pornography should not be covered by the conventions of free speech. (We’ve been over this before: that’s not how it f**king works.) Reisman also accused “homosexuals” of having a recruitment program that rivaled the military and compared “the homosexual movement” to the Nazis.
Much of her career, however, focused on Kinsey. She wrote at least four books about him in which she accused him and his colleagues of abusing over 2,000 children some as young as two months. The summary of one of her books states her position succinctly: “Reisman proved how Kinsey's frauds gutted our child and family protective laws, as well as justified Planned Parenthood's school sex education, Hugh Hefner's pornography plague and the "gay rights" movement.” Many would argue, however, that she proved nothing.
The Kinsey Institute says this on its FAQ page:
Unproven allegations about Dr. Kinsey and the Institute’s research were first made by Dr. Judith Reisman and have been investigated and refuted many times by the Institute and Indiana University. Similar unfounded claims continue to circulate on social media and video sites as people pass on wrong information, either through well-meaning but misinformed concern or through deliberate disinformation campaigns using techniques like clickbait that manipulate the public for monetary and/or political gain or fame.
The FAQs go on to say that Kinsey and his colleagues never conducted research on children, nor did they ever condone sexual behavior with children.
That those unproven/disproven allegations continue to affect the Institute’s funding almost 70 years after the researcher himself died proves that we love a good sex scandal so much we stretch them out over lifetimes. (It also proves something about people like Anthony Comstock and Judith Reisman, people who are so obsessed with being against pornography that they spend their careers looking at it. I’m just not sure what that something is… )
The research coming out of the Kinsey Institute today is not salacious. Some of it covers Reisman’s favorite topics like the soon-to-be-published article “Is oxytocin nature’s medicine?” Other upcoming articles look at condom use, sexual behavior, and consent. I’m sure Reisman, who died in 2021, would object to these as well, but they are important contribution to our public health knowledge.
Democratic Representative Matt Pierce defended the Institute saying Sweet’s accusations were based on “warmed over internet memes” and conspiracies that have already been proven false. He said that this “defunding” was uncalled for and would end up being a bookkeeping headache for the University. (State funding allocations account for less than 15% of the University’s total budget.) The measure passed despite seven House Republicans joining all House Democrats in voting against it. The final decision, however, may not be made until the budget is passed in April.
Alaska Lawmaker Suggests the State Benefits When Abused Kids Die
Ever since Trump’s pussy-grabbing comment went viral with no repercussions it has seemed like we’re living in a post-shame world where Republican politicians can say whatever the f**k they want with little-to-no blowback. This week in Alaska, however, we finally learned what it takes for a MAGA Republican to get slapped by his own party. (Spoiler alert: it takes a lot!)
David Eastman—a Trump loyalist with ties to the Oathkeepers who attended the January 6th rally but swears he never entered the Capitol—was questioning a witness during a hearing on the impact of traumatic experiences during childhood. He asked this:
How would you respond to the argument that I have heard on occasion where, in the case where child abuse is fatal, obviously it’s not good for the child, but it’s actually a benefit to society because there aren’t needs for government services and whatnot over the whole course of that child’s life?
If you read that question as Eastman suggesting that we would be better off if abused kids were just killed so that society wouldn’t have to pay to “fix” them, you’re not alone. The witness, Trevor Storrs, president and CEO of the Alaska Children’s Trust, was just as taken aback as the rest of us and asked: “Did you say ‘a benefit for society?’” Eastman’s clarification did not change the meaning his question:
Talking money. It gets argued periodically that it’s actually a cost savings because that child is not going to need any of those government services that they might otherwise be entitled to receive and need based on growing up in this type of environment.
Eastman’s idol Donald Trump is famous for couching every opinion in qualifiers like “people are saying” as a way to make up his own ridiculous argument without taking responsibility for its outrageousness. That seemed to be what Eastman was doing here because no one is saying that abused children might as well die at the hand of their abusers so we don’t have to deal with the fallout. No one.
A text to media outlets a few days later, however, suggested that there was a line of reasoning buried under what he said—albeit a convoluted and illogical one. It seems that Eastman was trying to compare the fate of abused children to that of aborted fetuses. To do so, he was pointing to arguments that say by forcing women to have children they do not feel emotionally or financially prepared to raise abortion restrictions are bad for the woman, the child, and society. Such arguments suggest that abortion restrictions trap families in poverty, may increase child abuse, and ultimately cost the government. (Research supports this, by the way.)
I suppose if you really, seriously believe that there is no moral difference between a zygote and an eight-year-old, you could make a tenuous connection between this argument against abortion restrictions and Eastman’s query. Yet, while I understand some people believe that abortion is murder, I don’t think that most, if any, of them see it as equally horrifying as the fatal abuse or neglect of a full-blown third grader.
Eastman has said some absurd things about abortion before. He once suggested that people in Alaska get pregnant on purpose so they can get a free trip to Anchorage and that others “… want to carry their baby past the point of being able to have an abortion in this state so that they can have a free trip to Seattle.” Only someone without a uterus would suggest that those who have one frequently sign up for invasive medical procedures because travel is cool. Eastman was censured for these comments in 2017 but that was less remarkable because Democrats controlled the state house at that point.
Last week, however, he was censured again by Democrats and Republicans alike. In fact, the only person in the chamber who voted not to punish the lawmaker was Eastman himself.
Penis Size Is Rising (Pun Obviously Intended)
A new meta-analysis that includes measurements of over 55,700 penises from around the world found that the average size of an erect penis has grown 24% over the last three decades. While that may sounds like cause for celebration, it’s most likely a result of chemicals in our environment messing with our hormones which is usually not a good thing.
The researchers, who published their review in World Journal of Men's Health, actually began with the hypothesis that penis size would be going down. No, they were not swayed by Tucker Carlson “research” on the loss of masculinity or his suggestion that men start tanning their testicles, but they had noticed other changes in male reproductive health measures such as reduced sperm count and wondered whether penis size was going down too.
The team limited their meta-analysis to those studies in which an investigator measured penises from the root (where it attaches to the body) to the tip of the glands (where the urine/semen comes out). Studies that relied on self-measurement were excluded. Nonetheless the results comprised 75 studies conducted between 1942 and 2021 that included a wide swath of penises across all geographic areas.
Instead of shrinking, the length of the average erect penis went from 12.3 centimeters (4.8 inches) to 15.2 centimeters (6 inches) over the last 29 years. There was no change in the average size of penises when flaccid or stretched, but I think that we can all agree that a 1.2-inch change during the aroused state is, well, sizable.
While it is possible that measuring techniques, temperature, and arousal state of subjects could account for some of this, the change in length seems to go beyond that. Lead author Michael Eisenberg, a urology professor at Stanford, noted in a press release: “If we're seeing this fast of a change, it means that something powerful is happening to our bodies.”
Eisenberg and his team believe that the same chemicals in our environment that are causing young people to go through puberty at earlier ages are likely involved in mankind’s growing members, but the exact mechanisms are still unknown. He believes we need to confirm these finding and set to work figuring out what is causing them.
Before anyone who feels left behind on this growth curve buys one of the countless male enhancement methods on the market, I feel compelled to note that these changes cannot be attributed to Enhancerx™, ActiGain™, Phalosan®, or any penis-stretching exercise/device. There is no way to grow your own penis on demand (save for painful surgery). But hey, if trends keep going this way, it’s almost guaranteed that your great, great grandson will be hung like a horse.