Sizing up your sex life

Brian Alexander • E-mail

Doris Richards is very concerned about my sperm count. I know this because just today I received an e-mail from her telling me that for a small fee she could boost my boys by 500 percent! Imagine, I thought, scads more swimmers wriggling their way through the triathlon of reproduction.

As grateful as I am to Richards, and all the other spammers who show such concern for the state of my penis, my hairline, my testicles, my sexual stamina and even my bra cup size (!), I’m pretty satisfied, thanks very much. Nobody has complained, at least not out loud, and as far as I can tell, everything seems to work.

But many people are not satisfied, or at least they’re worried. Sexploration gets many e-mails from readers, as you might imagine, and an awful lot of them want to know “Am I normal?”

When I see these e-mails, I want to ask the sender “Why do you care?” So what if your neighbors are rutting twice a day? Nobody says you have to.

There is money to be made in anxiety. Advertising, both on TV and the Web, promises to improve you sexually in ways you never knew you should. I ran across one the other day called VaginaInstitute.com, a combo porn site and “research” outfit that purports to know the dimensions and appearance of the “perfect” vagina and vulva. Penis enlargement ads make men feel insecure about their package.

So maybe it will help if Sexploration provides you with a little data about some of the questions you most frequently ask.

Is my penis normal?
Suddenly everybody is fretting about penis size. Women are even getting more aggressive about stating their preference for big ones, at least on TV. In real life, many women tell me they prefer something in a medium. A 2002 study of 52 men younger than 40 found that the average length of a stretched, flaccid penis was 4.8 inches. Another study of 80 men found the stretched flaccid length was about the same. The unstretched state was only 3.5 inches. An Italian study agreed. Just this month, another study, this on Chinese men, confirmed these findings. 

How often should we be doing it?
Should be? Or would like to be? You should be doing it as often as you’d like to be doing it. If that’s every time a Democratic administration is elected, fine. If it’s every time you see a Cialis commercial, fine. In a survey of over 3,000 men and women between the ages of 29 and 31, the average frequency of intercourse was between 6.6 and 7 times per month — less than twice per week. This jibes with similar reports. Other studies have shown that frequency decreases with age to about once or twice per month in your 60s. Couples with newborns use negative numbers. By the way, people lie about this stuff so much that even experts treat these results with caution.   

Is my vagina the “right” size?
If you’re dating Mr. Ed, you ought to hear your echo in there. Otherwise, take heart. According to a study just out in a British obstetrics journal, “women vary widely in genital dimensions.” In other words, variety is normal. Vaginas tend to mirror body type. Bigger, taller women tend to have somewhat larger vaginas. And of course, age and child-bearing affect dimensions. The older you get, the more kids you have, the bigger you become. (But remember, Kegel exercises can do a lot to help return vaginal muscles back into pre-kid shape.) In a 1996 study of 39 women, doctors found the length of the vagina varied between 2.7 inches to 5.8 inches. Width varied from 1.9 inches to 2.5 inches.

Do I have enough sperm?
If you make enough to do the job, you make enough sperm. Average count per milliliter is around 50 million to 100 million sperm. This varies a lot according to age and between men (Did your mother smoke?) as does the number of sperm that can still swim the channel. At least 50 percent of them ought to head in the right direction.   

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