Simone de Beauvoir called it "a small person ... an alter ego usually more sly ... and more clever than the individual." Leonardo da Vinci said it "has dealings with human intelligence and sometimes displays an intelligence of its own." Sophocles said that having one was to be "chained to a madman."

These great thinkers were referring so exasperatedly, so powerlessly, to none other than the penis. That's a lot of hype for a body part that can "be seen as something the Creator doodled in an idle moment," as Tom Hickman puts it in the new book, "God's Doodle: The Life and Times of the Penis." Then again, our fascination with the penis has long belied its relatively small size (the average one is believed to be 6.2 inches long when erect). It's fitting, then, that Hickman, a journalist, has written an expansive history of the male member covering everything from biological explanations of its shape and size to analysis of phallic myths.

It's a well-researched, dryly witty and worthwhile read. But even a history of the penis can use some ... snipping. Below, you'll find the top 10 most surprising facts about the penis -- from monkey-ball implants t...