How Much Blood Does It Take To Get Hard

Exactly How Much of Your Blood Goes into Your Boner?

Your erection can hold about as much of the red stuff as a fruit punch Capri Sun

Apparently, all of the blood in your body accounts for around 10 percent of your weight. That's a fun little factoid, sure, but exactly how much of that blood goes into your boner?

"I'm sure that there's something generic, like four to five times the normal amount of blood flow of a flaccid penis, but I don't exactly know the answer," Joshua Gonzalez, a board-certified urologist and sexual health advisor for Astroglide, gamely admits. "I do know that it depends on the elastic properties of that particular penis — that is, how much it can stretch. You'll obviously have more blood in a bigger penis that's able to expand more."

For some measure of precision, Gonzalez directs me to a Healthline article he found on the topic. It cites a press release to a 2013 book, Erection: The User's Guide, by French cardiovascular surgeon Ronald Virag that claims the penis "requires" approximately 130 milliliters of blood to become erect. "I don't know how accurate that is, though," Gonzalez warns. "And again, it would probably depend on the size of the penis."

But who I am to question a French cardiovascular surgeon? So I decided to run with it. In fact, to figure out exactly how much liquid 130 milliliters is, I pulled out my measuring cup. Unfortunately, my Pyrex only contained markings for every 25 milliliters, so I did my best to fill it just slightly over the 125-milliliter mark, sitting right between the one-half cup and three-fourths cup mark. Next, I set my timer and chugged. With four big gulps, I downed my 130 milliliters of New York City's finest tap water in just over six seconds.

Empowered with my new knowledge, I Googled one final figure — the liquid contents of a Capri Sun. Per their nutrition label, each pouch contains 177 milliliters.

So… what I'm saying here is that a larger boner might have about as much blood as a Capri Sun has fruity sugar water. I'd estimate that it would take me an extra gulp and maybe another 1.5 seconds to drink.

Sleep with one eye open.

Magdalene Taylor

Magdalene Taylor is a staff writer at MEL. She covers internet culture, sex and the online adult industry. She lives in Brooklyn but is from God's Country, Western Massachusetts.