So, are you a ‘grower’ or a ‘shower’?
Rightly or wrongly, it’s a question that gets asked when it comes to penises, because the world never tires of obsessing over their shape and size.
For the uninitiated, a ‘grower’ refers to a man whose penis becomes considerably larger when it gets hard. Whereas, a ‘shower’ is someone whose penis does not become drastically larger when aroused.
And now, scientists have created a study to determine which camp the majority of men sit in.
(Spoiler: the average member becomes 42% larger when going from flaccid to erect.)
For the study, ultrasound scans were conducted on 225 men in both flaccid and then erect states.
Males whose members grew more than 56% from flaccid to erect were considered to be ‘growers’.
On the opposite end of the spectrum were the men whose penis size increased by less than 31% when hard. These were considered ‘showers’.
About 24% of men were found to be ‘growers’ while 25% of men were ‘showers’.
However, more than half of the men in the study were found to be neither one or the other, sitting comfortably between the grower and shower categories.
The study found no correlation between age, weight, smoking habits, co-morbidities and penis growth. So don’t worry, everyone is different – and that’s something to celebrate.
If you’re a ‘shower’ it’s likely, like the men in the study, that you have a longer penis when flaccid, measuring around 4.44 inches on average.
‘Growers’ had smaller flaccid penises at 3.46 inches, but both categories had similar sized penises when sexually aroused.
Spanish urologists presented their research findings last year at the European Association of Urology Congress in Milan, Italy.
But these scientists weren’t just doing it for a giggle. It’s actually vital that urologists are aware of size fluctuations if they’re performing penile surgery.
‘It is important to be able to predict if a patient is a grower or a shower as when we see them, they are usually in a flaccid state,’ lead researcher Dr. Manuel Alonso-Isa explained.
‘If they grow a lot when they get an erection, it might mean they need a different surgical approach compared to someone who doesn’t grow much.’
While there is no medical implications of being either a ‘grower’ or a ‘shower’, it can have a psychological impact on many men, according to Professor Maarten Albersen, a urologist at the University of Leuven, Belgium.
But the long and short of it is, you shouldn’t be concerned about your penis size.
This article was originally published on 15 March 2023.
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