Can I Break My Penis?

Breaking your penis is not ideal, it must be said. Luckily, in most cases, a broken penis will make a full recovery. But don’t trust us on that – trust Dr Nick Knight, who is helping Coach readers with a variety of concerns, from back pain to ball ache

About our expert
About our expert
Dr Nick Knight

Dr Nick Knight is a doctor in a London hospital, with a degree in exercise and sports sciences and a PhD in human performance. Dr Knight has trained a four-man crew to row 5,000km across the Indian Ocean and has carried out medical research at Mount Everest Base Camp.

So if you’re wondering “Have I broken my penis?” and “How bad is it if I have?”, read on to find out what really happens when you break your penis, and what to do if you experience this.

First things first, it’s not like breaking your arm. “You can’t fracture your penis like you can a bone because there are no bones in your penis,” says Knight. “Your penis is actually a bunch of sponges that have two large cylinders in. When you get aroused, blood flows into those cylinders and squeezes the outgoing blood vessels. That means that the blood stays in the penis and you have an erection. 

“What can happen sometimes, in the throes of passion, is that if you have a mistimed entry, you can violently bend and twist your penis. This can cause a ‘broken’ penis. If you think this has happened, get yourself to your doctor or accident and emergency because there can be long-term effects.”

If you don’t get medical help you might have issues with sexual or urinary function, or your penis may heal crooked.

With treatment there’s every chance your penis will recover completely and in time will be fully functional again.

Now your mind has hopefully been put at ease, why not brush up on the symptoms of testosterone deficiency it’s worth being aware of and find out how to increase your testosterone levels.

Sam Razvi wrote for Men’s Fitness UK (which predated and then shared a website with Coach) between 2011 and 2016.