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The Four Functions of the Penis

by
Blog
September 28, 2025

Understanding the Key Functions of the Penis

The functions of the penis go beyond the obvious. Most people recognize its role in urination and reproduction, but the penis has additional biological and sexual functions that play a crucial role in male and female health and pleasure. In fact, the male genitalia have evolved to maximize sexual function, sensitivity, and natural lubrication to increase the likelihood of successful reproduction.

But what are these lesser-known functions? Here are the four primary functions of the penis and why they matter.

1. The Penis as a Handy Tool for Urination Without Disrobing

The penis plays a vital role in urinary excretion, providing a precise conduit for the controlled release of urine. It allows for greater autonomy in positioning and directionality during urination, a feature that has been preserved across human evolution for its efficiency and adaptability.

2. The Penis as a Vehicle for Reproduction

At its core, the penis plays a vital role in fertilization. Since humans are mammals, and mammalian fertilization occurs deep inside the female body, a biological mechanism is required to deliver sperm efficiently. The penis serves as this vehicle. The erectile function of the penis enables penetration and sperm delivery, ensuring that sperm reaches the female reproductive system for possible conception.

3. Sexual Pleasure and Sensory Function of the Penis

Having the means to fertilize is not enough. In a dangerous world full of survival threats and challenges, something is needed to compel a male to fight for the opportunity to mate. The human penis is highly evolved with unique features to motivate mating.

To motivate reproductive success, the human penis is highly sensitive and contains thousands of specialized nerve endings, particularly located in the foreskin. The foreskin of the intact penis retains an estimated 20,000 light-touch nerve endings. These sensory cells, called Meissner corpuscles, play a significant role in sexual arousal, pleasure, and orgasm.

Uniquely, the skin of the penis is not anchored to the tissues below, allowing it to move freely.  This natural, dynamic movement of the foreskin over the glans is crucial for full sensory stimulation, allowing for a more nuanced, responsive, and pleasurable experience.

Additionally, the foreskin protects the glans, ensuring that its delicate mucosal tissue remains sensitive. Without this protection, the glans becomes keratinized (hardened) with 12-20 layers of dead cells, reducing sensation over time. Many men who have undergone circumcision later in life report a significant loss of sensation, likening the experience to losing the ability to see in color after being used to full-spectrum “vision” while intact.

Thus, sexual pleasure is not an incidental byproduct—it is a critical biological function of the penis, designed to encourage reproduction. Limiting sexual pleasure (“lust”) was the very reason Victorian-era circumcision was introduced in America!

4. Partner Satisfaction and Friction Reduction

Beyond individual pleasure, the penis plays a role in partner satisfaction during intercourse.

Pre-ejaculate fluid retained within the foreskin enables gentle, friction-free insertion, ensuring a gentler experience for both partners. The foreskin’s natural mobility then acts as a gliding mechanism, reducing unnecessary friction and preventing vaginal dryness or irritation. The foreskin is “hugged” by the vaginal walls and seals in lubrication while the vaginal walls are pressed in and out. This “sleeve within a sleeve” function allows for smoother penetration while preserving natural lubrication. Women frequently report that sex with an intact partner feels more natural, intimate, and pleasurable due to these factors.  Scientific studies and anecdotal evidence have demonstrated that intact men experience heightened sensitivity, contributing to more fulfilling sexual encounters for both partners.

The Impact of Circumcision on the Functions of the Penis

Many religious and Victorian-era medical advocates explicitly sought to reduce male sexual pleasure, fearing that sexual desire led to moral corruption.

Rabbi Moses Maimonides, a 12th-century scholar, stated:

“As regards circumcision, I think that one of its objects is to limit sexual intercourse, and to weaken the organ of generation as far as possible.”

Similarly, Victorian doctors promoted circumcision in America as a method to curb masturbation and “excessive lust.” To justify the practice, numerous unproven medical benefits were later attributed to circumcision—ALL of which have been debunked or heavily contested.

Today, medical research acknowledges that removing the foreskin can alter sexual function by:

  • Greatly reducing or eliminating the contribution of pre-ejaculate
  • Reducing natural sensitivity
  • Eliminating the friction-reducing movement of the foreskin
  • Increasing keratinization of the glans

While some argue that circumcision reduces infection risks, ordinary hygiene among intact males eliminates these concerns without permanently altering the natural functions of the penis. Circumcision also dramatically increases the likelihood of damage to the meatus, leading to infections and meatal stenosis.

Final Thoughts: Don’t Mess with Mother Nature

The functions of the penis are far more complex than most people realize. Beyond urination and reproduction, the penis serves critical roles in sexual pleasure and partner satisfaction.

The intact penis is designed to maximize sensitivity, natural lubrication, and overall function, ensuring that sex is both pleasurable and biologically efficient.

For millions of years, evolution has refined the design of the human penis to optimize its sensory and reproductive functions. Despite historical attempts to diminish male sexual pleasure, scientific evidence continues to support the importance of preserving the natural anatomy of the penis.

If human biology has spent thousands of generations perfecting the penis, perhaps it’s time we trust nature’s design.

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Marilyn

Marilyn Fayre Milos, multiple award winner for her humanitarian work to end routine infant circumcision in the United States and advocating for the rights of infants and children to genital autonomy, has written a warm and compelling memoir of her path to becoming “the founding mother of the intactivist movement.” Needing to support her family as a single mother in the early sixties, Milos taught banjo—having learned to play from Jerry Garcia (later of The Grateful Dead)—and worked as an assistant to comedian and social critic Lenny Bruce, typing out the content of his shows and transcribing court proceedings of his trials for obscenity. After Lenny’s death, she found her voice as an activist as part of the counterculture revolution, living in Haight Ashbury in San Francisco during the 1967 Summer of Love, and honed her organizational skills by creating an alternative education open classroom (still operating) in Marin County. 

After witnessing the pain and trauma of the circumcision of a newborn baby boy when she was a nursing student at Marin College, Milos learned everything she could about why infants were subjected to such brutal surgery. The more she read and discovered, the more convinced she became that circumcision had no medical benefits. As a nurse on the obstetrical unit at Marin General Hospital, she committed to making sure parents understood what circumcision entailed before signing a consent form. Considered an agitator and forced to resign in 1985, she co-founded NOCIRC (National Organization of Circumcision Information Resource Centers) and began organizing international symposia on circumcision, genital autonomy, and human rights. Milos edited and published the proceedings from the above-mentioned symposia and has written numerous articles in her quest to end circumcision and protect children’s bodily integrity. She currently serves on the board of directors of Intact America.

Georganne

Georganne Chapin is a healthcare expert, attorney, social justice advocate, and founding executive director of Intact America, the nation’s most influential organization opposing the U.S. medical industry’s penchant for surgically altering the genitals of male children (“circumcision”). Under her leadership, Intact America has definitively documented tactics used by U.S. doctors and healthcare facilities to pathologize the male foreskin, pressure parents into circumcising their sons, and forcibly retract the foreskins of intact boys, creating potentially lifelong, iatrogenic harm. 

Chapin holds a BA in Anthropology from Barnard College, and a Master’s degree in Sociomedical Sciences from Columbia University. For 25 years, she served as president and chief executive officer of Hudson Health Plan, a nonprofit Medicaid insurer in New York’s Hudson Valley. Mid-career, she enrolled in an evening law program, where she explored the legal and ethical issues underlying routine male circumcision, a subject that had interested her since witnessing the aftermath of the surgery conducted on her younger brother. She received her Juris Doctor degree from Pace University School of Law in 2003, and was subsequently admitted to the New York Bar. As an adjunct professor, she taught Bioethics and Medicaid and Disability Law at Pace, and Bioethics in Dominican College’s doctoral program for advanced practice nurses.

In 2004, Chapin founded the nonprofit Hudson Center for Health Equity and Quality, a company that designs software and provides consulting services designed to reduce administrative complexities, streamline and integrate data collection and reporting, and enhance access to care for those in need. In 2008, she co-founded Intact America.

Chapin has published many articles and op-ed essays, and has been interviewed on local, national and international television, radio and podcasts about ways the U.S. healthcare system prioritizes profits over people’s basic needs. She cites routine (nontherapeutic) infant circumcision as a prime example of a practice that wastes money and harms boys and the men they will become. This Penis Business: A Memoir is her first book.