The geography of knob size

You may have caught this map going round the interwebs recently. (You can get a better look here, and it's based on data from here.) Having done a couple of posts in the last couple of years about race and penises, how could I ignore this? It's not an obsession of mine, I swear.

Anyway, at this point I'll just say straight up that if you are somehow reading this from the Democratic Republic of Congo, take a moment's break from dodging bullets in order to bask in some national pride, since your country is apparently a world leader in big-dickedness. DR Congo is the only country in the survey in which the average length tops 7 inches. It's also particularly impressive because the average age of Congolese surveyed was apparently only 16.3 years, meaning that some of the subjects are still growing! Heavens. Congratulations Congolese, you should celebrate. Just don't celebrate too wildly, you might take someone's eye out with that thing.  On the other hand, if you happen to be from South Korea... well, you may wish to stop reading this now. You don't come out of this with a whole lotta glory, I'm afraid. In fact, Asians in general are not overly flattered by this study, as you can see in the map.

Of course, I don't really put a whole lot of stock in these things, partly because as someone who is part-Asian, it does suit me to say "I don't believe in these things." But also because I'm not sure how you accurately take measurements of guys' erections. I mean, if some scientist dude orders me to muster one up and approaches me with a ruler, I'm not sure whether I'm going to be able to perform to the best of my ability. And some of the measurements come from self-reporting, which is some cause for scepticism. Self-reporting surely adds on at least another inch, I figure. For instance, Lebanon (self-reported) is listed as having an average length almost 3 cm longer than neighbouring Turkey, where the members were actually measured.
Notably, some of the biggest results come from countries in which the subjects self-reported. Including DR Congo! So are Congolese guys really the biggest in the world, or just the biggest liars?

That average age of 16.3 for the Congo puzzled me as well. So how many people under 16 were part of this survey? Because, well, they are considered children, and it's a brave man who visits a country as horrifically violent as the Congo and then goes around asking kids how big their penises are. I'm sure they lost many a good researcher that way.

If you know a little bit about human evolution, you'll know that it makes sense that Africans might have longer penises. Africans in general have longer limbs in proportion to their bodies than populations from other parts of the world; it's an adaptation to hot climates. Whereas East Asians, having evolved in a cold climate, generally have shorter limbs. So if that applies to limbs, it probably wouldn't be surprising  if it applied to genitalia as well.

Does having a big penis confer an evolutionary advantage? Probably not really, unless there is some advantage in being able to shag your partner while standing slightly further away from them than the next guy. Or if you live on the dangerous African savannah and need a weapon to club a lion to death with. Does it improve your chances of landing a mate? Not really. The nature of human sexual courtship means that by the time your ladyfriend is staring down the barrel of your member and in a position to analyse it, you're likely to be getting some action (and thus potentially passing on your genes) anyway.

Weirdly, coming second on the list after the DR Congo is Ecuador. Ecuador? Wow. For all the jokes and stereotypes I've heard over the years about black fellas and their trouser snakes, I've never heard anyone joke about being "hung like an Ecuadorian". What's more, unlike the Congolese, the Ecuadorian samples were actually measured by researchers, rather than being self-reported.
Maybe they used sexier research assistants for the Ecuadorian fieldwork, and the local fellas responded accordingly?
But it's not just Ecuadorians, but their neighbours too. Colombians, Peruvians, Bolivians and Venezuelans are all packing a fair whallop, all more than any European country. Maybe it's all that coca they chew.

As for Asian dudes, well... not to worry, I guess. Maybe next time don't turn the aircon all the way to extra-cold when some researcher is trying to measure your penis. And as so many women have expressed to me in the past with thinly disguised pity, it's not the size that matters, it's what you do with it. So some of y'all might need to start learning some tricks.

More seriously, this sort of thing is not good PR for Asian men in general, but personally I don't think it's cause for major concern. Most of us don't normally spend our days looking at other men's penises, so there's little point in worrying about how you compare with something else you're unlikely to ever actually see. Most women don't really care, anyway. For sexual satisfaction, skill is by far the most important attribute, followed by girth, with length just not a high priority.

Anyway, Asians are clearly doing something right. Over 1 billion people in both India and China shows that even if these studies are true, it's no impediment to getting one's swerve on.

Above: A cock from the Congo. Very impressive.

See also:

Race, IQ and Penis Size

Top Gear provokes the ire of Mexicans

The hosts of the BBC's popular motoring program Top Gear found themselves under fire this week after some disparaging comments about Mexicans.
The actual offending footage of Richard Hammond, James May and Jeremy Clarkson is a bit hard to find but you should be able to see it here.

Hammond: Cars reflect national characteristics, don't they, so German cars are very well built and ruthlessly efficient, Italian cars are a bit flamboyant and quick, a Mexican car's just going to be lazy, feckless, flatulent, overweight... leaning against a fence asleep, looking at a cactus, with a blanket with a hole in the middle as a coat.

May: It is interesting, isn't it, because they can't do food, the Mexicans, can they? Because it's all like sick with cheese on it, I mean...

Hammond: Refried sick!

May: Yeah, refried sick.

Hammond: I'm sorry, but just imagine waking up and remembering you're Mexican: 'oh, no'.

Clarkson: No, it'd be brilliant… because you could just go straight back to sleep again.

They also joked that they were unlikely to get many complaints from the Mexican ambassador because he'd probably be snoozing in his chair. Snoozing or not, the ambassador did hear it, and made an official complaint.

And yes, you did hear that right: that was James May claiming that Mexicans "can't do food". May is British. Just think about that for a second.

Perhaps the worst comment of the lot, which surprisingly hasn't got that much attention, comes from Richard Hammond. "Imagine waking up and remembering that you're Mexican," he says, making a disgusted face.

That so offended Manchester United's striker Javier "Chicharito" Hernandez that he participated in a campaign with PowerAde, that turns the comment on its head. Next to an image of the proud Hernandez reads, "Yes, imagine waking up and remembering that you are Mexican." Beneath it reads, "Less prejudice. More exercise."

The BBC have duly apologised, but also said that remarks centring on stereotypes of various nationalities are part of British humour.

I don't necessarily have a problem with that in theory. Jokes about various ethnic stereotypes can be and often are funny. But there's only a certain extent to which you should take them, and I would certainly say that the Top Gear hosts stepped way over the line.

It's notable also that this is hardly an isolated incident. There's plenty of form there, and it wouldn't be overly cynical to assume that it is mostly about attention-seeking. It was after all a scripted segment, not an impromptu riff.

Jeremy Clarkson, for example, has been referred to as a "dazzling hero of political correctness", which is certainly one way of putting it. In one incident in 2007, he found himself being criticised in the Malaysian Parliament after describing the Malaysian Perodua Kelisa car as one of the worst in the world, claiming its name was like a disease and suggested it was built in jungles by people who wear leaves for shoes. He then attacked the car with a sledgehammer and then blew it up.

Should Mexicans, and any other ethnicity offended by Top Gear and its presenters, just grow a thicker skin and deal with it? Is it any worse than the jokes British comedians make about Americans and Australians and Scots and Northerners and Welsh and French people? Or for that matter, the jokes Australians make about Brits and New Zealanders, and so on?

And at what point does someone cease being "cheekily irreverent" and "politically incorrect" and just become an offensive tosser?

I cannot express it any more eloquently than another British comic, Steve Coogan, who confesses to being a big fan of the show, and has appeared on it, but wrote in The Guardian that the hosts have well overstepped the mark this time.

If I say anything remotely racist or sexist as Alan Partridge, for example, the joke is abundantly clear. We are laughing at a lack of judgment and ignorance. With Top Gear it is three rich, middle-aged men laughing at poor Mexicans. Brave, groundbreaking stuff, eh?

There is a strong ethical dimension to the best comedy. Not only does it avoid reinforcing prejudices, it actively challenges them. Put simply, in comedy, as in life, we ought to think before we speak. This wasn't one of those occasions. In fact, the comments were about as funny as a cold sweat followed by shooting pains down the left arm. In fact, if I can borrow from the Wildean wit of Richard Hammond, the comic approach was "lazy", "feckless" and "flatulent".

Richard has his tongue so far down the back of Jeremy's trousers he could forge a career as the back end of a pantomime horse. His attempt to foster some Clarkson-like maverick status with his "edgy" humour is truly tragic. He reminds you of the squirt at school as he hangs round Clarkson the bully, as if to say, "I'm with him". Meanwhile, James May stands at the back holding their coats as they beat up the boy with the stutter.

It's not entirely their fault, of course. Part of the blame must lie with what some like to call the "postmodern" reaction to overzealous political correctness. Sometimes, it's true, things need a shakeup; orthodoxies need to be challenged. But this sort of ironic approach has been a licence for any halfwit to vent the prejudices they'd been keeping in the closet since Love Thy Neighbour was taken off the air.

...

The Lads have this strange notion that if they are being offensive it bestows on them a kind of anti-establishment aura of coolness; in fact, like their leather jackets and jeans, it is uber-conservative (which isn't cool).

Here's another perspective on Top Gear's brand of "edgy" humour, which precedes this particular incident.



See also: Racial humour - is it ever OK?

Fear-mongering, US-style

With the US congressional elections fast approaching, the campaign is heating up, and hence ads like these are popping up to stoke the fear of the foreigner.




One explores the theme of shifty Orientals taking over the world - made possible by Obama introducing universal healthcare, of course. The other is all about the marauding Mexicans, and prompted Joy Behar on The View to describe Senate candidate Sharron Angle as "a bitch" who "is going to hell."

Of course, no one should be surprised that the Repubs and their friends would resort to stirring up xenophobic sentiment in order to get elected; it's actually their stock-in-trade, as anyone who has followed the way they have been depicting Barack Obama for the last few years would be well aware.

Some interesting coverage of these ads around the net... Spin Season analyses Sharron Angle's ad and looks at what makes the Chinese professor ad so effective in playing on the audience's fears, and Angry Asian Man has a post describing how the Asian-American extras in the Chinese professor ad were not aware of the nature of the ad they were filming.

UPDATE: Also check out Jeff Yang's article at NPR entitled Politicians Play the China Card.

RIP Greg Giraldo (1965 - 2010)

Comedian Greg Giraldo passed away this week after an overdose of prescription drugs. He was 44.

I first came across Giraldo with his many appearances on Tough Crowd with Colin Quinn, in which he was almost always the funniest of the many comedians who appeared there. Like a surprisingly high number of comedians, he started out pursuing a career in law. Giraldo was born in the Bronx to a Colombian-born father and a Spanish-born mother. His Hispanic background, or lack of it, is explored hilariously in the below clip.

Jokes.com
Greg Giraldo - Not That Hispanic
comedians.comedycentral.com
Greg Giraldo Stand-Up Greg Giraldo Jokes Hasselhoff Roast Videos

One of Giraldo's areas of expertise was roasting other comics on Comedy Central's roast specials. Below is his appearance at the roast of Cheech Marin and Tommy Chong. (You need to wait about 2 minutes in before Giraldo comes on, although the first 2 minutes ain't bad.)