Study finally answers question of whether ‘size matters’ to women

Well, well, well, despite what the saying suggests, it seems size really does matter to women. But only to a certain extent that is.

In the UK, the average penis size is said to be a little over five inches with a previous study finding that about 45 percent of blokes wanted to be bigger.

That can’t quite be said for the bloke with the largest in Britain though, as he regularly opens up about the struggles of having such a whopper.

Meanwhile, a new study seems to blur the lines on just how much size actually does matter to sexual partners.

Researchers from Australia used penis size, height and frame, to look at the levels of attractiveness according to women.

They took 200 heterosexual women to assess computer-generated images of naked male figures, with variance in the length and girth of penis as well as how hip width, shoulder broadness and how tall and broad-chested they were.

The study had straight women assess the figures. (Getty Stock)

Women were then to rate the attractiveness of the man in front of them and on the whole the study says they 'rated a more V-shaped body, being taller and a larger penis as more sexually attractive'.

However, past a certain point, it seemed that ‘further increases in penis size, height and shoulder breadth had diminishing benefits’.

Essentially, attractiveness pretty much stopped going up after about four inches in length. So size does matter to women, but not as much as men think and it’s simply not the sole factor in physical attractiveness.

The study also added: “A female’s body mass index did not influence the strength with which height or body shape affected how she rated male attractiveness.

"Female age did not influence how strongly penis size, height, or body shape affected her rating of male attractiveness.”

The study showed different male figures. (Aich U, et al., 2025, PLOS Biology)

The study led researchers to find that the human penis being ‘unusually large compared to that of other primates’ likely evolved as a ‘sexual ornament’.

Essentially, it ended up bigger to both impress and attract women and scare off other males.

Researchers had also had 600 men asses how threatening they found the images of the men as both rivals for female attention and to fight.

The males consistently ranked the figures ‘with more exaggerated traits as more of a sexual threat’.

But as the increased penis size continued to increase jealousy and ‘fighting ability’, it pretty much suggests that: “Males tend to overestimate the importance of these characteristics for attracting females.”

Hmmm, who’d have thought…