Study suggests most men are too small for most women (Part 3)
A 2015 study investigated women's preferences in penis size using 3D-printed cylinder models. The results showed women overestimated the average penis size and preferred penises even larger than that.
Researchers from the University of California conducted a unique study on women’s preferences in penis size in 2015 using 3D-printed cylinder models.1 The most striking results of the study were largely overlooked by the authors: the women who participated significantly overestimated the average penis size in the male population, and preferred penises larger than even their own overestimation of the average. In this review, I critically examine this study and highlight these overlooked results.
⬅️ Previous part
In the previous part, I delved into the estimation of the average penis size.
🍆 Result #2: Women prefer larger-than-average penises
To investigate women’s preferences in penis size, the participants were asked to select cylinder models that they thought corresponded to ideal penises in two different scenarios: for short-term partners, such as in a one-night stand, and for long-term partners, like a boyfriend or a husband.
For the short-term partner, the participants were presented with an elaborate scenario:
Imagine you're single and you're out at a restaurant with some friends. You meet an attractive man who is also single. He seems kind, intelligent, funny and has a great job. You are feeling sexually aroused. He says he's in town for a conference, but he has to fly back home tomorrow afternoon. If you could spend only this one night with him, what size would you want him to be?
For the long-term partner, the question was straightforward:
What would be the ideal size for a husband or serious, long-term boyfriend?
The study’s authors gave the following explanation for the discrepancy:
The question regarding shorter-term partners clearly included much more detail. This was done in an attempt to control for intervening variables not of interest. For example, if a woman doubted at all for her safety with an unknown partner, she might select smaller models in the event of sexual assault. Thus, safety cues were included in the characterization.
It’s odd to think of women hoping their one-night-stand partners would have small penises just in case they turn out to be rapists… But in any case, 63 of the 75 participants completed the task of selecting a cylinder model for the long-term partner scenario, and 60 completed the task for the short-term scenario. The results were similar, so we’ll focus solely on the former.
The women, on average, preferred a penile length of 6.3 inches. Again, the suprapubic fat pad issue is relevant here, so these should be considered skin-to-tip estimates. Compared with the women’s average estimate of the average penile length in the male population—which was 5.75 inches and also skin-to-tip—they preferred a penis that was approximately half an inch longer.
Translated into bone-to-tip estimates, the women preferred a penile length somewhere between 6.8 and 7.8 inches, which is longer than the real average bone-to-tip penile length in the male population by approximately two inches on average. Taking the average suprapubic fat pad length to be 1 inch again, only 5% of the women preferred a penis corresponding to the real average—cylinder models that were 4 and 4.5 inches long—while the rest preferred a longer penis.
According to a nomogram of penile length from a 2015 meta-analysis,2 these preferences in penis size are well above the 95th percentile. In fact, according to that nomogram, only 2% of men have a penis that’s 6.8 inches or longer, which means very few men in the world actually have penises as large as what the women who participated in the study chose as ideal for a male partner.
The authors’ conclusion is that women “prefer penises only slightly larger than average”. This erroneous conclusion was partly due to the fact that the authors themselves overestimated the average penile length in the male population, taking it to be 6 inches instead of 5 to 5.5 inches, and partly due to their overlooking the important issue of the suprapubic fat pad length, which should have been taken into consideration in penile length estimates.
With all this in mind, the real findings of the paper were as follows:
The women overestimated the average penile length in the male population by approximately 1.5 inches.
The women preferred male partners with penises approximately half an inch longer than their own overestimation of the average, which means approximately 2 inches longer than the real average in the male population.
💬 Discussion
As I said in the beginning, no conclusions can truly be drawn from this small study of 75 college women. But if the findings are representative of the female population at large, then it shouldn’t really surprise anyone to learn that women prefer penises larger than average. In many other traits and attributes, women prefer their male partners to be better than average: they want men who are taller than average, who are stronger than average, and who make more than average money. So why would they want just average penises?
The suggestion in this review’s title—that most men are too small for most women—should therefore not surprise anyone given that it holds true for women’s preferences in many other traits and attributes. Of course, there is a world of difference between women’s ideal preference in any one aspect of a man and their decisions of who to select as a long-term mate. These decisions take into consideration many traits and attributes as a whole. Therefore, there is no contradiction between, on the one hand, the likely fact that most men are too small for most women, and, on the other, the fact that most men are still successfully selected as mates by women even if they may not live up to their ideal preferences in penis size.
Therein perhaps lies the key to answering the puzzling question of why a substantial number of men with average-sized penises and even some with larger-than-average penises are insecure about their size.3 These men’s dissatisfaction with the size of their member perhaps stems not from their supposed mistaken belief of being lesser than average, but from their very real inadequacy with regards to women’s preferences in the ideal penis size.
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Prause, Nicole, et al. (2015). Women’s Preferences for Penis Size: A New Research Method Using Selection among 3D Models. PLOS One, 10(9), e0133079.
Veale, David, et al. (2014). Am I normal? A systematic review and construction of nomograms for flaccid and erect penis length and circumference in up to 15 521 men. BJU International, 115(6), 978–986.
Lever, Janet, et al. (2006). Does Size Matter? Men’s and Women’s Views on Penis Size Across the Lifespan. Psychology of Men & Masculinity, 7(3), 129–143.