Relationship Between Sexual Position and Severity of Penile Fracture: The Fracture, Men Can’t Handle

It’s not just an urban legend — you really can break your precious penis. But since there aren’t any actual bones in your boner as polar bears’, it’s not quite the same injury as fracturing your arm. Instead, it is a rupture in the two areas of the penis responsible for erections: the corpora cavernosa and the penile sheath.

First, a quick reminder on what makes up your erection: Your penis consists of three cylindrical tubes. The two larger tubes are called the corpora cavernosa— “the balloons” — that fill up with blood when you become hard.
The “skin” of these balloons is the tunica albuginea, a tissue that expands both length and width during an erection.
The third, smaller tube — located on the underside of your penis — is your urethra, from which you urinate.
When you get aroused, blood rushes into those two larger tubes, and the pressure grows progressively. That makes your penis rigid and hard to bend. So if it experiences some kind of force, like if you accidentally hit your girlfriend’s perineum during sex, or she moves it too much when grinding on top, it can lead to pressure overload.
“The surrounding tissue that’s holding the pressure inside can’t withstand it anymore,” says Dr. Rajfer, M.D., professor of urology at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. “And that’s when the rupture occurs.”
A penile fracture will usually only occur when a man’s penis is erect. A flaccid penis does not typically fracture because the corpus cavernosa is not as enlarged as when the penis is erect. However, according to one review, most cases of penile fracture in the United States occur during intercourse.
Men are not necessarily having rough sex when a fracture occurs, but may be in a position where the penis is more likely to hit against a bone.
However, a penile fracture has also been known to occur in the following circumstances:
- Rolling over in bed onto an erect penis
- Hitting an erect penis on something, such as a door frame or furniture
- Falling onto an erect penis
What Are the Symptoms of This Disaster
A penile fracture is a painful injury that usually occurs in the lower two-thirds of the penis.

Symptoms of a penile fracture include:
- Experiencing dark-colored bruising to the penis
- Losing an erection suddenly
- Hearing a cracking or popping sound
- Bleeding from the penis
- Having trouble urinating
- Pain that varies from minimal to severe
A penile fracture will often cause the penis to take on what doctors call an “eggplant deformity,” where the penis appears purple and swollen. Rarer symptoms of a penile fracture include swelling in the scrotum and blood in the urine. As you can foresee, if you’ve fractured your penis, you’ll usually know immediately.
Relationship Between Sexual Position and Severity of Penile Fracture
A recent study, which published in International Journal of Impotance Research (IJIR) evaluated the relationship between sexual positions and the incidence of penile fracture. The authors divided 90 penile fracture patients into six groups based on the etiology of the fracture: masturbation or penile manipulation; “man-on-top” position; “doggy style” position; “woman-on-top” position; blunt trauma; and “rolling over” fracture.
Investigation of the injury mechanism identified sexual trauma as the main etiological factor, involved in 69 cases (76.5%). Penile manipulation was responsible for 16 cases (17.7%), rolling over for 3 cases (3.3%) and blunt trauma for 2 cases (2.2%). The exact sexual position at the time of injury varied, with 23 cases (25.5%) occurring in the “man-on-top” position, 37cases (41%) in the “doggy style” position and 9 cases (10%) in the “woman-on-top” position. Most of the patients (n = 87) identified as heterosexual, and all the patients for whom the etiology was sexual intercourse (n = 66) reported vaginal penetration when the trauma occurred. Regarding the sexual position reported by the patients, “doggy style” was the most common, representing with 34 cases (51.5%), followed by “man-on-top” in 23 cases (34.8%) and “woman-on-top” in 9 cases (13.6%). Three patients identified as homosexual, and all three reported the “doggy style” position.
“Sexual activity, particularly, sexual intercourse, was the most common cause of penile fracture, with injuries most often caused by the “man-on-top” and the “doggy style” positions.”
What Should You Do If You Fracture Your Penis?
While it might be super embarrassing to hit the emergency room (ER) with your penis problem, that’s exactly what you should to do. The doctors at the ER can confirm your penile fracture through a clinical exam and also by some screening tests. Occasionally, you may even need a cystoscopy — a procedure in which a hollow tube equipped with a lens can look directly inside your urethra — to determine whether it’s actually torn.
You’ll usually require a surgical intervention to repair the tear in your penile tissue. And it’s important that you go under the knife within 3 days of the injury. This isn’t a wait-and-see condition — if you put it off too long, you can raise your risk of complications down the line.
“It becomes much more difficult to repair it, and scarring can start to form,” says Dr. Rajfer.
This scarring can lead to a curve in your penis when you get an erection, or you might find yourself unable to even get hard in the first place. That’s because the tissue that holds the blood in with an erection is damaged, resulting in erectile dysfunction.
If you see a doc in a timely fashion and get the surgery within 72 hours of the injury, your prognosis is pretty good, says Dr. Rajfer. You should even be able to have sex again about 4 to 6 weeks post-op.
How to Avoid Breaking Your Penis
The good news: Penile fracture is a relatively uncommon condition, so you don’t need to brace yourself for that pop each time you get busy in bed.
Reduce your risk by making sure you’re fully erect before penetrating her. If you’re not, your penis may be more likely to torque or twist, which could raise the risk of penile fracture, says Dr. Rajfer.
