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The question of whether penis size matters to women—and maybe some of you men, too—has been probed by a team of international scientists who have concluded, yes, ladies do find larger men more attractive.
What's more, prehistoric gatherer women who could see the sex organs of their scantily clad hunter men may have influenced the evolution of huge genitals in guys by choosing to mate with partners who had bigger schlongs.
Researchers said they decided to tackle the topic because past studies had offered conflicting answers, and may have been sullied by asking the women too directly.
"Since penis size is a sensitive subject, it's hard to determine whether females lied or self-deceived in their responses," said lead author Brian Mautz, a postdoctoral researcher in evolution and sexual selection at the University Of Ottawa.
So they embarked on a new type of study, using computer-generated images of generic male figures with varying heights, body shapes and flaccid penis lengths. A sample of 105 Australian women were asked to view 53 of these life-sized robot-like pictures, which rotated so they were visible at different angles.
The women—all heterosexual—weren't told they were participating in a study about willy sizes. They were simply asked to rate the figures according to sexual attractiveness. Their answers were collected anonymously.
Researchers found that women rated tall men with long peckers as the most attractive. The women also tended to gaze longer at the generously proportioned men—but not too long as each rating was made in about three seconds. But how big is best? On that question, researchers were stumped.
"We didn't find an ideal (most attractive) penis size," Mautz explained. "The attractiveness scores were still increasing at the largest values for these traits."
The findings were published in a scientific journal in the US called The Proceedings Of The National Academy Of Sciences. The results "directly contradict claims that penis size is unimportant to most females" and also hint at why human males tend to have relatively larger genitalia when compared to other primates.
"Our results show that female mate choice could have played a role in the evolution of the relatively large human male penis," they wrote. "Before clothing, the non-retractable human penis would have been conspicuous to potential mates."
The study didn't get into the racial background of men and whether that affects penis size—you know, once you go black, you never go back—but it documented the ethnicity of the women it was studying for hints about whether size mattered. More than 70% of the women were of European origin, 20% were Asian and 7% were from elsewhere. Their average age was 26.
