3D-Printed Penises Reveal That Women Prefer Normal Sized Dicks to Anacondas

If there’s one great thing about science (and there are many), it’s that we live in an age where developments in the field of penis study have finally allowed researchers to ask the real questions, like “how big is too big?” and “what is the perfect penis size for a long-term relationship?” The answer: Bigger is not all that special.

The Daily Beast reports that a new study published in the journal PLOS One by researchers from UCLA and The University of New Mexico reveals that women prefer regular-sized phalluses, but are likely to have different preferences for one night stands (new and exciting penis!) and long-term relationships (where you have to see the same penis day after day). And the way the researchers discovered this was by asking women to look and feel some 3D-printed penises and then decide which ones they liked best.

Here’s how they did it:

To perform the study, sexual psychophysiologist Dr. Nicole Prause and her team generated a matrix of 100 different erect penises with varying lengths and circumferences but eventually narrowed them down to 33 options, reasoning that “such a large choice set could overwhelm participants.” These 33 representative choices were then 3D-printed in blue plastic “to minimize racial skin-color cues” and sorted into baskets from which 75 women selected an ideal penis for both a long-term partner and a one-night stand.

33 options? That seems like way too many options.

To ensure that the women’s choices were not arbitrary, the researchers also required them to complete a pretest in which they attempted to recall the shape of a randomly selected phallus, both immediately and after a delay. The subjects proved themselves adept at remembering penis length and especially skilled at recalling penis circumference, which may indicate that they “care more” about the latter measurement.

Of course, the information people really care about is what the perfect penis size is, and it’s a refreshing reminder that everything the media (and porn) tells us about giant penises is actually not that true. Women, in fact, prefer a penis that’s about 6.3 inches in length and 4.8 inches around if they’re getting to know the penis over a significant period of time, and 6.4 inches in length and 5 inches in circumference if they’re choosing the perfect dick for a one night stand—which the researchers told participants belonged to a “kind, intelligent, and funny man with a great job.” Although, why does good job matter if you’re only going to see the guy once?

This information should be heartening to those dudes who are so worried about their own length and girth that they’re engaging in possibly painful techniques to turn their purple-headed warriors into the anacondas they know they can be. While women do prefer a larger size if they’re just having fun, it’s only slightly bigger than a penis they’d be seeing on a regular basis and that’s only slightly larger than average to begin with. That suggests that even an average penis would be fine, especially if there were other factors involved.

From The Daily Beast:

“Human penises evolved to be unusually long and thick, consistent with our findings about women’s preferences,” he [Dr. Geoffrey Miller] wrote in a press release accompanying the study. “Yet a man’s intelligence, kindness, sense of humor, and other mental traits are also extremely important to women.”

The results are also interesting because they’re the first ones to include touch as a factor in determining perfect penis size. And if you’re interested in trying this at home, all you need are two baskets, a 3-D printer, and a willing participant. All the models used for the study can be found here.