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Topics: Science, Sex and Relationships, Health
Callum Jones
A study has put to bed the long-running speculation over whether women find men with big penises 'more attractive' or not.
While some may say that size doesn't matter, the continued talk surrounding the topic probably suggests otherwise.
So, experts over at the University of Western Australia looked into whether the term 'big d*ck energy' is actually a thing.
The research published this month in PLOS Biology looked into whether the size of one's manhood has an impact on how attractive a bloke might be to the opposite sex.
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A team of experts led by Dr Upama Aich showed 600 men and 200 women hundreds of AI-generated male figures that varied in penis size.
As well as the attractive side of things, the boffins working on the study looked into whether the size of a person's penis could deter fellow males from launching an attack.
To put it simply, other men could see blokes with a lager manhood to have a better 'fighting ability' due to supposed higher testosterone levels.
So, experts put their theory that 'these traits influence perceived attractiveness and fighting ability' to the test in the ultimate study regarding penis sizes.
Those involved in the study found both genders 'favoured taller men with a more V-shaped body and a larger penis'.
"In both surveys, male participants rated rivals with a larger penis as more sexually competitive and physically threatening," the study's authors explained.
"To our knowledge, this is the first experimental evidence that males assess rivals’ fighting ability and attractiveness to females based partly on a rival’s penis size.
"Our findings suggest that female choice and male-male competition have jointly favoured larger penis size, greater height, and more V-shaped bodies in men."
As well as women finding men with bigger penises more attractive, experts also discovered they also like blokes who aren't the shortest and offer a greater shoulder-to-hip ratio.
And with the 'fighting ability', well, women think men with larger manhoods have a better of grasp of such too.
Dr Aich said: "Men rated rivals with larger penises as more physically threatening and sexually competitive."
Meanwhile, co-author, Michael D Jennions, added: "While the human penis functions primarily to transfer sperm, our result suggests its unusual 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."
There you have it! A long-running debate put to bed...