Bigger really is better.
They say it’s not about the size, but how you use it. However, it turns out that women generally prefer men who are well-endowed, per a new academic study published in PLOS Biology.
“We confirmed our earlier finding that women find a larger penis more attractive,” wrote lead author Dr Upama Aich, from the University of Western Australia, in a Conversation Piece discussing the phallic findings.
The team had set out to determine why, relative to our body size, the human penis is disproportionately thick and long compared to other great apes, when it’s primary function is to “transfer sperm.”
They found that a titanic tallkywacker served two purposes: To attract mates and to also threaten rivals — much like a deer’s antlers or lion’s mane.
To determine this multipurpose tool’s dual functions, the researchers recruited more over 600 male and 200 female participants — and had them rate computer-generated male figures that varied in height, body shape, and, most importantly, penis size.
They asked female participants to rate figures’ sexual attractiveness while men were asked to assess how threatening they appeared, both in terms of fighting ability and as a competitor in the sack.
Schlong story short: Women rated men who were taller with a V-shaped upper body and larger penis more attractive. However, there was a point where a further increase in penis size or height had diminishing value.
Meanwhile, their male counterparts saw being well-hung as an “indicator of a rival with both greater fighting ability and as a stronger sexual competitor,” researchers argued.
From this, the researchers deduced that penises evolved to be big due to both the sexual preferences of females, and as sign of combative prowess in males.
They noted that humans walked upright long before the invention of clothing, meaning that one’s manhood would always be on display, like an badge broadcasting their status to rivals and potential mates alike.
However, ultimately the researchers surmised that sexual preference played a larger role in penis proportions, given that the “effect of penis size on attractiveness was four to seven times higher than its effect as a signal of fighting ability,” per the study.
“While the human penis functions primarily to transfer sperm, our result suggests its unusually large size evolved as a sexual ornament to attract females rather than purely as a badge of status to scare males, although it does both,” said co-author Michael D Jennions, a Professor Emeritus of Evolutionary Biology at Australian National University.
Of course, there were a few caveats to this codpiece-centric study. They noted how they only had participants rate penis size, height and body shape without factoring in how other characteristics like personality and facial features affected the subjects’ perception.
The researchers also noted that “cultural standards of masculinity vary across the world and change over time.”
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