Mental Health

Penis Size Preferences May Determine Women's Romantic Intentions

By Christine Hsu | Update Date: Jun 10, 2014 05:22 PM EDT

Size does matter when it comes to sexual relationships, according to a new study on women.

Researchers found that women looking for flings prefer larger penises than those looking for love.

The latest research revealed that women looking for one-night stands preferred thicker penises with larger girths.

However, it's not all bad news for men lacking width. Researchers found that women were bad at estimating sizes. The findings reveal that women almost always overestimate the size of their partners' penises.

Lead researcher Shannon Leung, an undergraduate in biology at the University of California, Los Angeles, and her team studied 41 women who looked at and felt penises made on a 3D printer.

The penis models ranged from 4 inches long and 2.5 inches in circumference to 8.5 inches long and 7 inches in circumferences.

Participants were asked to pick one penis they preferred on a short-term partner and another for one they preferred on a long-term partner.

"They preferred larger-girth (but not longer-length) models for one-time partners than for longer-term partners," the researchers wrote in the study, according to the Daily Mail. "Women's sexual selection may help explain why human penises are unusually thick compared to other primates."

The study revealed that the average woman preferred penises that were 6.5 inches, regardless of the type of relationship. However, they preferred thicker penises for one-night stands, and thinner ones for long-term relationships.

Participants were also given one of the 33 penis models for 30 seconds. Then they were asked to identify the same model from a collection of 33 models 10 minutes later.

The findings revealed that women consistently overestimated the size of the penis they had previously looked at.

'For men who are considering surgery to increase their phallus sizes, maybe they do not have to after all, if women tend to overestimate' the size of a penis they've seen, Leung told Livescience.

The latest findings have not yet been published in the peer-reviewed journal.

© 2023 Counsel & Heal All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.

Join the Conversation

Real Time Analytics