Just because you see ads for penis enlargement pills in the margins of your favorite adult sites does not mean enlargement is a new thing. 

Men have been making their penises larger for thousands of years, using a variety of techniques. 

That means two important things for modern men with smaller junk….

Number One: Penis Enlargement Works. I mean, if we started doing it millennia ago, and it didn’t work, you’d think we’d have stopped doing it by now. 

Number Two: Penis Enlargement is Time-Tested. Penis growth hacking is not some new kid on the block. We’ve been doing it a long time, and the experts know what’s good, what’s bad, what’s great and what’s ugly. 

But the history of enlargement in general begins (we think) before penis enlargement. What makes for lasting, permanent gains is a technique we first applied elsewhere.

Cell Hyperplasia, King Tut, and The Iceman

Stretched earlobes were the first incidences of using cell hyperplasia to modify the human body. We know that King Tut stretched his ears about 2300 years ago, and anthropologists found one 4,300 year-old mummified body (“The Iceman”) with evidence of intentional ear stretching. 

Ear stretching works via a process called “cell hyperplasia.” This is a process where the skin is stretched consistently over long periods of time. As the cells in the stretched tissue fatigue, some of them actually split and become two healthy cells. 

The split cells grow to healthy size, meaning there’s twice as much tissue in that tiny portion of the body. 

Do this enough times, and you see the impressive, wobbling earlobes of the Maasai in Africa, the Lahu in Thailand, and that one dude with the tattoos at your local Starbucks. 

Ancient Romans Were Into Penis Enlargement

There are fragments in fiction, poetry, and other records from India, Africa and the Middle east of penis stretching, but our first documentation is in texts from the Roman Empire. 

It’s likely that penis stretching, like so many things Roman, was something they found out about from the outskirts of the Empire, then brought home and systematized. 

Records suggest they used a combination of “heated massage” and weight hanging to achieve penis extension. 

Interestingly, “heated massage” sounds a lot like jelqing. Weight hanging is a technique we still use today, though (hopefully) with more technologically advanced equipment. 

Eleven Herbs and Spices

Meanwhile, in China, penis enlargement was part of general herbal treatment for sexual health and fertility. Men would use yohimbe, ginseng, and similar herbs to give themselves more “thunder down under.”

Some would also eat the powdered testicles and penises of tigers, rhinos, and similar mighty beasts to help give them a sexual boost. 

Like with the Ancient Romans, these practices have strong parallels to modern enlargement techniques. 

Generally, the herbal treatments worked by temporarily improving blood flow to the gonads. That improvement meant larger erections — which meant larger penises. Until the erection faded, that is. 

Some of the treatments also produced long-term health effects which could increase penis size. 

Usually, this was better cardiovascular health, or increased testosterone production. Both of these have been linked to improved erectile health in modern times (source).

The animal parts were less effective, but people had a strong mental association between powerful animals and powerful penises. 

This is another way the practice was similar to modern times: men will fall for all kinds of false remedies if they’re desperate enough. 

You’ll Wish You Hadn’t Read This

Although many of the techniques we use for penis enlargement today can be traced back centuries and millennia, here are two penis enlargement plans you’ll be glad are lost to history. 

In the 16th century, members of the Tupinamba tribe in Brazil would get bitten on the penis by a poisonous snake. On purpose. Apparently, some of the swelling never went away. 

About the same time and across the Pacific, men in Borneo would insert rods made of bone or metal under the skin of their penises. This stretched their members to abnormal size and gave them a permanent erection. 

Modern Penis Enlargement

Although different flavors of penis stretching and herbal treatment came and went over the centuries, modern penis enlargement uses the same concepts. Since the turn of the 20th century, four main techniques have been advanced and refined:

  1. Jelqing and jelqing devices, which use increasing blood flow to the penis and trapping it there to stretch penile tissue until cell hyperplasia occurs. 
  1. Penis enlargement herbs, many of which use the same plants used in ancient China for the same purposes. Most produce temporary size increases, though some still produce health benefits which improve penis size or slow age-related penile shrinkage.
  2. Penis pumps, which use mechanical means to temporarily increase blood flow to the penis, and thus make erections larger. 
  1. Penis stretching. This is done either with weights (like in ancient Rome), or via penis extenders. A penis extender holds your penis in a stretched position while you wear it for hours each day. 

Each of these technologies has its own history of development, improvement, and its current place in the male enhancement market. 

It’s worth noting that, of all the techniques above, only a penis extender has been repeatedly clinically proven to permanently increase penis size. 

Penis Enlargement History Conclusion:

If you wish you had a larger penis, you aren’t alone. Men have been wanting — and working toward — larger members for most of history. 

Hell, gents. We even have evidence from cave paintings that prehistoric men thought big penises made for big men. It’s in our DNA. 

The good news is modern times offer more options than ever before for you to find the penis enlargement method that works for your lifestyle, needs, and preferences. 

The better news is you won’t have to get bitten by a snake or jam bone shards into your member to do it. 

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