Sizing up your sex life

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Sexploration — By Brian Alexander

Being thankful ... you’re not like mom and dad
For all the fractured family dynamics a Thanksgiving gathering can expose, there are lessons to be learned about love, both by your partner and by you.

Vicarious thrill: He wants her to be hit on

Dangerous liaisons: Why we find vampires sexy

When she earns more, he aims to please

Allergic to sex? It really can happen

My clitoris seems too big/small. Is it?
In a study of 200 women, the average total length of the clitoris was about 16 millimeters, about half an inch. The transverse diameter was 3.4 mm. No wonder we men have a hard time finding it.

Do I make enough semen?
What is it with guys and semen? We want more, more, more. Aargh! (Imagine man flexing here). But ask a woman sometime. She’d be just as happy to minimize the mess. According to the World Health Organization, a man is just fine if he makes something over 2 ml of semen (slightly less than one-tenth of an ounce). A normal range is somewhere between 2 ml and 3 ml, a teaspoon or so.

Are my testicles too small?
Do bigger balls make you more of a man? Sort of. Size is related to sperm production and testosterone, but it’s not like most guys are walking around with a couple of Titleists down there. Ouch! One study comparing Japanese and American men showed that Japanese testicles had a normal range of volume greater than 14 milliliters (slightly less than half an ounce), while Americans had a slightly higher range, greater than 17 ml (slightly more than half an ounce). Other studies from around the world show about the same results. You may be interested to know that doctors measure this size with a device called an orchiometer. How about that?

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How long should I last?
One interesting study showed that men think they ought to last forever, but women are just as happy to have them last just long enough. Other research suggests the typical “ejaculatory latency” time ranges from over 7 minutes to around 10 minutes. But remember, guys, this has a lot to do with style. You could make it last longer if you just weren’t in such a hurry.

The lesson from all this? There aren’t many spectacular physical specimens or sexual performers out there. The norms, at least as far as research has been able to figure them out, are, well, pretty normal. And even if you fall outside the norm, so what? As long as it works, you’re fine. When Lincoln was asked how long legs should be, he said, “long enough to reach the ground.”

Brian Alexander is a California-based writer who covers sex, relationships and health. He is a contributing editor at Glamour and the author of "Rapture: How Biotech Became the New Religion" (Basic Books).

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