By Sola Ogundipe
Previous studies on women’s preferences for male genital size have been mixed, and even though it is the men who typically worry about the size of their own genitals, it is not unusual for women to prefer large-size male genitalia, even if it is up to a point.
But scientists have always argued that the old studies relied on questionnaires, which they say may not always provide honest answers.
However, it is now scientifically proven that size does, indeed, matter significantly because women tend to be more attracted to men with large genitals.
A new study by Australian researchers found that while the average woman rates the average man with large genitals more attractive, large genitals also give tall men a bigger attractiveness boost than shorter men.
A publication of the study result in the journal of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, however, notes that the returns on bigger genitals start to decrease at a flaccid penile length of 2.99 inches (7.6 centimeters).
The study suggests that women’s preferences for bigger male genitals could explain why human males have relatively big genitals for their body size.
In previous related studies, scientists only asked women to judge the attractiveness of male figures in photos with only penile size varied, when in fact no trait is ever evaluated in a vacuum.
But in the Australian study, researchers at the Australian National University, showed 105 young Australian women life-size computer-generated figures of nude men, varying the figures’ flaccid penile size, height and shoulder-to-hip ratio.
Height and shoulder-to-hip ratio have previously been shown as factors used by women to judge attractiveness. The computer simulations varied penile width in sync with length, so that all penises were proportional.
The results revealed that women preferred taller men as well as high shoulder-to-hip ratios (meaning that the wider the shoulders were than the hip, the more attractive the man).
Shoulder-to-hip ratio was a major determiner of attractiveness, accounting for 79.6 percent of the variation in hot-or-not ratings.
Though the effect was less extreme, women also preferred larger male organs, at least up to 5.1 inches (13 cm) flaccid, which was the largest computer-generated penile size in the study. Beyond 2.99 inches, however, the additional attractiveness per extra length started to decline.
When the researchers controlled for shoulder-to-hip ratio, they found that a larger penis had a greater effect on attractiveness for taller men, hinting that a larger penis just looked more proportional on a taller man’s body, the researchers wrote, or it could be that women were biased against shorter men to the extent that even large genitals didn’t help. Interestingly, women’s own features mattered as well. Researchers found that taller women were more likely to find taller men attractive. Women with greater body mass per height were slightly more likely than thinner women to weigh penile size more heavily in their judgments of attractiveness, though the difference was small.
Researchers say the findings might help explain why humans have remarkably large genitalia given their average body size.
It is a fact that male humans have the largest penises that any other primate species: For example, male gorillas can weigh as much as 180 kilograms, but their erect penis length is only about 1.5 inches (4 cm).
Human males weigh about half of what gorillas do, but studies peg average erect or flaccid-but-stretched penis length from 4.7 inches (12 cm) to 6.5 inches (16.7 cm).
Evolutionary biologists theorize that large human penises might help remove sperm from
competing males during sex, but in an era before clothing, women may have been drawn to mating with men whose genitalia caught their eye.
Men with larger penises, then, may have passed on their genes more readily, resulting in the large-genitals trait being handed down the generations.
In other words, males may have females to thank for their greater-than-gorilla-sized genitals.