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Penis Size Influences Male Attractiveness

penis size penis dysmorphic disorder
The saying "Size doesn't matter" may be wrong.
The saying “Size doesn’t matter” may be wrong.

You’ve likely heard someone say the phrase,

“Size doesn’t matter.”

Guess what?  They may have been wrong. A new study shows size does matter to women, even before they have sex with you.

Penis Size From a Layman’s Point of View

Let’s look at the penile traits it doesn’t take a PhD to understand. Consider these facts:

  • Unlike many other mammals, a man’s penis does not retract.
  • The human male’s penis is proportionally larger than any other primate.
  • Man stands upright, placing the penis right out front when approaching a female.

It would appear, at least anecdotally, that the aesthetic quality of your penis could matter, at least prior to the development of clothing. It was likely one of the first things a woman saw. How could it not matter when she was choosing a mate?

49 life-sized, nude, male figures were reviewed and scored on attractiveness.
49 life-sized, nude, male figures were reviewed and scored on attractiveness.

The Importance of Penis Size Research

A new study conducted by researchers Brian Mautz, Bob Wong, Richard Peters, and Michael Jennings, released by Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences appears to indicate that a human male’s penis size does affect sexual attractiveness. Conducted at the Australian National University, the researchers found the size of a man’s genitalia was found to be directly related to “precopulatory female mate choice, based on male genital traits.”

Mautz and his colleagues created 49 computer-generated, life-sized, nude, male figures. These figures were a representation of three different traits:

  • Height,
  • Shoulder to hip ratio, and
  • Flaccid penis size

105 women, who averaged 26 years old, were then asked to review each figure and score them on their attractiveness, on a scale from 1 to 7. These women were alone in the room as they reviewed the figures, and their responses were anonymous.

Penis size was found to be just as important as stature.
Penis size was found to be just as important as stature.

The Importance of Penis Size Results

Some of the results of study confirmed past study findings. First, women do prefer taller men. They also prefer men with broad shoulders and narrow hips — think classic swimmer’s physique. These were not surprising.  However, when Mautz and his team controlled for these variables, one very interesting fact became clear –

Penis size (both length and girth) was nearly as important to women,
in rating attractiveness as stature!

As Mautz explained, “As you increase (flaccid) penis size, the amount of attractiveness scores gets bigger.” Not only did women score the figures with larger flaccid penis sizes higher, they also spent more time looking at the figures with larger penises.

Interestingly, women with a larger body mass index showed an even stronger preference for the figures with larger penises. It was also found that for the taller men, penis size was even more critical to the women in their attractiveness scores. Mautz theorized this was due to “a taller guy must have a disproportionately larger penis to sort of make it clear” that he is well-endowed.

In their findings, the researchers conclude, “The observation has generated suggestions that human size partly evolved because of the female choice. (…)  Our results support the hypothesis that female mate choice could have driven the evolution of larger penises in humans. More broadly, our results show that precopulatory sexual selection can play a role in the evolution of genital traits.”

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11 Comments

  1. In my experiences in life I find this study to be true .

  2. IM A GIRL —-

    THIS STUDY IS STUPID.

    No one finds those horrifying silver models hairless 3d models attractive or sexy, by any means.

    it’s completely detached from reality and doesn’t make any sense at all. Disregard it.

    xoxo
    bunny

    • Bunny – welcome! Great to have more females participating!! I think I should clarify, the image I selected of 3D male forms are stock photos. Due to copyright issues, we could not reprint the actual images used in the study. Nor did the study indicate how detailed (i.e.: skin color, hair, etc.) the models were; however, in scientific research, researcher try to minimize the number of variables. Therefore, it’s likely that the images were bald and a similar skin tone (although no idea if they were silver, as the research doesn’t state), to minimize the chance that the respondents had preference for factors outside of the study.

      As stated, this is research reported in a scholarly journal, with the rigors required to be published as such. In fact, the NHS has recently been citing these findings, further giving credence to the report. I think it definitely gives us a talking point and shouldn’t be so easily dismissed.

      Is it superficial? Absolutely!

      Guys – there ARE more important factors to women, in real life.

      However, there’s a reason why Playgirl features well-built and well-hung men. When purely looking at the physical aspects of a male, these findings shouldn’t be a surprise. Just as I would assume if a similar study was done with men looking at 3D models of women, the figures with nicely rounded breasts, a flat stomach and graceful curves would be favored.

  3. I will concede, based on REAL LIFE personal experience, height and build are a definite factor. I have been flat out told that “Sorry, no offense, really, I would love to go out with you, if you were a “little” taller.” Fair enough, I can, at least, respect her honesty. Human nature is what it is.

    But, as far as the endless argument of a “good” penis size, this study is crap. They used grey, lifeless, 2 dimensional, computer generated images showed to 105 women all in Australia????? For that matter, just how much diversity (height, weight, ethnicity, cultural background, etc.) did the group of women represent.

    Where is personality, skin tone and color, hair color, eye color, sense of humor and other characteristics of the living, good breath, bad breath, body odor, etc. figured.

    For the attractiveness factor, his huge penis may catch her eye, but as soon as he opens his mouth, it could mean a complete reversal from lust at first sight to “OH HELL NO!” This study is narrow minded, ridiculous, and useless.

  4. Is 107 people a large enough sample size for the world’s population? Hmmm, I believe that we have learned what Australian woman who have an average age of of 26 find attractive. Take this survey for what it is-some women like large cocks. You are a fool if you are surprised by the obvious! Isn’t that why we are here?

    • GrowingMine – that is definitely a limitation of the research, which is why I included the sample size and demographics in the review of the findings. However, yes, I think you would find similar results in a larger, more diverse sample.

      • Typically 40 is the magic number in sample sizes when conducting a statistical analysis, because it is large enough to provide a normal distribution. So, while you can always have a larger sample, 107 is plenty to get an accurate representation of a population.

  5. I don’t like this article, because I feel that the research is poorly backed and contains too many variables to consider it concrete.

    Additionally, this is a site where guys from all over the size spectrum generally come because they want to be larger. I can see how this sort of article could easily skew the views of guys with adequate penises who are already too self-critical.

  6. I have some criticism about the validity of this research. First of all, it is said that figures were created by computer-aid. Such methods does only restrict the complexity and multi-dimensional sides of human beings. When women make choice, they consciously and most importantly unconsciously pay attention to everything; his behaviours, his moral aspect, his trustworthiness, videlity, his stance, his speech, his intelligience and yes his physique. So creating these figures for selection means ignoring many other aspects of human which women actually care most. If you offer only one alternative(physical feature) for women, they are already expected to pick physically better ones(stronger body, longer penis etc.). As a male when I consider myself, I would definitely pick the girls with nice boobs, nice sweet ass and with tight pussy in this experiment. But in real life I dont mind much about these features for the person I love. Real life is not ideal to set such an experienment, it has much much more variations. In the light of all these information, I can tell you : this research is totally built upon the ignorance of other important aspects of human

    • I think you have a valid point, tyort22. In the real world, there are so many other qualitative factors that go into what women (myself included) find attractive. A guy who is confident and intelligent, for me, is incredibly sexy. However, setting aside all personality traits, I wasn’t surprised at these results.


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