Just How Deep Is the Average Vagina, Actually?

Asking for a friend.

In October, Rihanna quickly gained the attention of people around the world when she confessed in a New York Timesinterview with Miranda July that she fears having a deep vagina. The normally media-shy star raised eyebrows with this intimate vulnerability, and the world went into think piece mode. 

But it left us with a question: how deep is a vagina? We’ve addressed some research from Columbia that suggests 3-4 inches, but it turns out the issue is perhaps more complex, and the data has been there all along. Dr. Justin Lehmiller‘s blog frequently addresses pressing questions like this one, and quite frankly, we’re all ears.

Lehmiller points us to a few previously existing studies to expand on the issue. In 1966, the book Human Sexual Responseexamined 100 women and took an average length, in various states of arousal. They ranged from 2.8-3.1 inches unaroused, 3.7-4.1 inches when aroused, and 4.3-4.7 inches when aroused and with a speculum inserted. Meaning, my dear friends, vaginas are very resilient.

But if you’re looking to update your info a bit from the ’60s, fast-forward 30 years later to a 1996 study in Gynecologic and Obstetric Investigation, where researches took vinyl polysiloxane casts of the vaginas of 39 Caucasian women (some had experienced childbirth, some had not), and discovered an average length of 2.7-5.8 inches.

So there we have it. Rest easy, RiRi. 

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