Women Prefer Men with Bigger Penises

The old sayings are true-bigger is better. And that can certainly be true of the male reproductive organ, too.

According to a study released this month in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, it offers a bit of insight into exactly why, well, women prefer big penises.

"Penis size does affect attractiveness," lead author Brian Mautz, a University of Ottawa post-doctoral researcher said in an NBCNews.com interview.

However, some studies dispute this fact. So Mautz and his team at the Australian National University designed an experiment to settle the controversy, creating 49 unique, computer-generated, nude, life-sized male figures. Each figure varied in three traits according to height, shoulder-hip ratio and flaccid penis size.

The researchers then displayed all the figures to 105 Australian women with an average age of 26. The women, who were not told which traits varied, were asked to rate the attractiveness of the figures as sexual partners on a scale of 1-7. The women were alone in the room and their responses were anonymous.

The study showed that women preferred taller men with broad shoulders and narrow hips, like that of Olympic swimmers. 

However, when Mautz controlled for those variables, it turned out that penis size (overall length and girl) was about as important as stature.

 "As you increase penis size, the amount of attractiveness scores gets bigger" in a linear fashion, he explained, until 7.6 centimeters, or 3 inches. After three inches, attractiveness still increased, but in smaller increments.