Penis Size Does Matter to Women. Maybe.

If your flaccid penis is 12.8 centimeters long, congratulations. 

BY LIZZIE PLAUGIC

The worst sex I’ve ever had was with a man who had a stallion-sized penis. Since then, I haven’t been that concerned with the heat in a man’s Jordaches, but it seems like I’m in the minority. A new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) found that women do care about penis size—to a certain extent. 

Researchers at the University of Ottawa showed 105 women 53 computer-generated images of the male form, and asked them questions about the men’s attractiveness based on height, shoulder-to-hip ratio and penis length. 

Women spent more time looking at the well-endowed men and women with higher body mass indexes “held stronger preferences” for large penises. But it’s not all good news for those who got the bulge gene. The researchers found a “ceiling effect” for each trait studied: a woman’s level of attraction to something will increase up to a certain point, until returns are diminished. In terms of flaccid penis length, once a CGI stud passed the three-inch mark, attraction increased, but in much smaller increments. 

Evolutionarily it makes sense: researchers say penis size may be associated with reproductive success. And if a dick is too large, someone might be afraid to procreate with it? 

Relevant side-note: the sample size was made up completely of Australian women...so, insert “down under” joke here, I guess? Study leader Brian Mautz says, “It's hard to extrapolate much from the data. More work needs to be done to connect the dots.” Ultimately, it’s a personal taste thing, and I don’t think any kind of penis-related thing should be a dealbreaker—unless like, your penis is anthropomorphic, and detaches from your body at night to murder people. But we did learn one thing: when it comes to penile aesthetics, average is pretty good.  If you have your tape measure handy, researchers posit that the most attractive penis would measure 12.8–14.2 centimeters while flaccid. Go on, I you know you wanna.