I'm with you. More realistic sounding. Self measured though. I'm sure I come up with a bigger number than someone in a lab coat measuring for me. I squeeze and stretch first!
Trying to figure out why a thread from 2006 was bumped, but anyways...
This is complete garbage. Numerous things wrong with it. Firstly, it's self reported (as you pointed out). Not only is the penis size, but it appears the height is too, seeing as how the average height of participants was nearly 5'11". An inch to inch and a half taller than the average US man. So obvious and significant exaggeration going on.
Secondly, I see no mention of how measurements were supposed to be conducted or what tool was supposed to be used. There's not a single mention of "bone-pressed", or conversely; "non-bone-pressed" anywhere on the entire thing. That's an extreme flaw. Another flaw is the fact that there was no mention of the fact that a
ruler must be used to determine length, not a soft tape, since length is a one-dimensional measurement, and tapes leave room for extreme error in this regard.
Lastly, the study claims to omit submissions in the "top 2%", yet we still see a max measurement (out of merely 3,100 participants) of 10.2". So we are to believe this study produced what this site (656,000 members and counting), the entire history of the porn industry and thousands upon thousands of other "dick pics" and web users haven't
ever legitimately proven (BP or NBP) with a complete and accurate "hard ruler, penis perpendicular to the pubic bone, directly on top" measurement, couldn't? If we are to believe this, then apparently it shouldn't be too uncommon to find at least one 10"+ penis in a large high school or small college in America. And that's
not even including the "top 2%" omission referenced earlier. This is utter nonsense.
If you're (not you, the author) going to go around masquerading this as in any way accurate or scientific (which it in no way is) at least fix some of these hideously obvious flaws.