From ABC News in Science, 9 April 2013:
After aeons of speculation, science has finally answered the biggest question of all – Does penis size matter? – with a resounding ‘yes’.
Australian researchers have found that penis size is just as important as height when it comes to female assessment of male attractiveness, and that bigger is indeed better – to a point.
The results of the study, which asked a group of women to rate the attractiveness of a series of computer-generated images of varied height, body shape and penis size, are published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science .
“We found that flaccid penis size had a significant influence on male attractiveness,” the authors write.
“Males with a larger penis were rated as being relatively more attractive.
“Our results directly contradict claims that penis size is unimportant to most females.”
The researchers decided to vary not only penis size but also height and body shape to make it less obvious which characteristic was being manipulated in the digital images.
They found an interaction not only between penis size and height, but also penis size and body shape.
“There was an interaction – penis size was more important if you were a tall individual or a V-shaped, more muscular individual,” says co-author Professor Michael Jennions from the Australian National University.
However biggest is not necessarily best. At a length of 7.6 centimetres – an under-average penis size according to large-scale survey of Italian men – the proportional increase in attractiveness began to decrease.
The female participants were told the study was investigating male attractiveness but were not told which male traits were being varied in the life-size projected images.
After aeons of speculation, science has finally answered the biggest question of all – Does penis size matter? – with a resounding ‘yes’. Read more.
Bianca Nogrady 