That's right, after spending most of their lives in the cold, and experiencing the obvious associated 'shrinkage', UK men are delighting in the fact that warmer weather equals a larger penis. If this sounds ridiculous, you only have to turn to social media platform Twitter, where #SummerPenis has become the largest trending topic of the last 24 hours.
Before the record temps hit the UK, the average size of a British man's penis was 14.2cm erect (Aussies come in at 15.7cm just as an FYI), but perhaps these figures need to be readjusted given their new-found length.
So is there any truth to the Summer Penis myth?
According to Tracy Moore of MELMagazine, who is credited with coining the phrase 'Summer Penis', yes. After all, everything swells in the heat.
But some experts do weigh in with more logical explanations. “Summer or winter, your penis size should remain the same,” Orlando urologist Jamin Brahmbhatt told MEL. “When it’s cold outside, your body does try to maintain its internal heat, and therefore things may appear to be more contracted. When it’s cold outside, blood vessels near the skin contract to maintain the internal heat."
“When it’s hot outside, your body does try to evaporate the heat through sweat,” he continued. “Also when it’s hot outside, you may take in more water, which may in combination with the sweating make it appear like your body or skin is bloated. And that may give you the perception that things are larger.”
However Summer Penis can really only be explained in the erect form, according to another urologist Dudley Danoff, author of The Ultimate Guide to Male Sexual Health.
“The warmer the ambient environment, the more the blood vessels dilate, and the warmth allowing vasodilation increases blood flow,” he explained. “So if we think of the penis as these two sausage casings that fill with blood, and the one channel that carries the urine, then the sausage casing will swell and expand to its genetic limit depending on the volume of blood. The increased blood flow will increase, and the corpora [the erectile tissue] will be expanded, and the penis will be ‘larger.’ But I don’t think it holds true in the flaccid state. There would be no explanation for that.”
Be right back, booking a flight to Fiji ASAP.