Every penis in the womb starts as a clitoris before hormones "sex" the brain of the to-be male. The penis retains the mark of its female heritage: its dark underskin and the thin ridge or seam, known as the raphe, which runs from scrotum to anus, are remnants of the fusion of the vaginal lips.

Fetuses have erections. That’s right, and ultrasound scans prove it. So many newborn males greet the world with an erection that the sexologist William Masters in his earlier obstetric days set himself the challenge of trying to cut the umbilical cord before it happened.

King Louis XVI of France was circumcised because of a too-tight foreskin, which caused the procedure to become fashionable among the aristocracy. But what made circumcision common among the proliferating nineteenth-century middle classes on both sides of the Atlantic was the hysteria about masturbation; removing the foreskin helped its prevention, doctors declared, and also cured bed-wetting and other conditions.

Every year at least two hundred Americans, and thirty to forty Brits break their erect penis. Most do so during violent intercourse. But there are also cases where men snap their member by falling out of bed with an erection. The cure for a broken penis? Six weeks of bed rest with a penis splint.

They didn’t have Cialis ads at the turn of the century, but they did have monkey-ball transplants. In order to cure impotence, doctors began experimenting with xenotransplantation: surgically transplanting testicles from goats, chimpanzees and baboons into male humans. Thousands of men around the world in the 1920s went under the knife for the supposed benefits of what were known as "monkey glands." By the way, it didn’t work.

Asparagus gets a bad rap for causing gnarly-tasting semen, but red meat and dairy produce are said to result in the least pleasant flavour.

Taste aside, semen contains only one to seven calories. That’s about the same as a cup of fresh spinach — but don’t expect to see ejaculate added to your Weight Watchers points system any time soon.

The largest human penis ever to be medically verified was 13.5 inches long and 6.25 inches in circumference. (Apparently pornstars are too busy for medical studies). Just to put that in perspective, the average vagina is three to four inches deep.

When Lorena Bobbitt cut off her husband’s penis, it spawned a worldwide phenomenon. Across America, and from China to Peru, copycat cases began to occur, with Thailand becoming the epicenter: By the end of the millennium, over a hundred cases had been reported to Thai police, who admitted there were probably many more but the victims preferred to keep their loss to themselves. Cases surfaced of women feeding dismembered penises to farm-life and one wife in India who attached her husband’s severed member to a helium balloon.

Don't forget about the cherries! Testicular research of a more sociological kind has deduced that men with large testicles are likely to be more unfaithful, the converse being true of men with small testicles.