A study assessing the preferences of various sex toys suggests women actually prefer an average penis size.
University of Kent researchers came to this surprising conclusion after assessing the popularity of 265 sex toys, looking at their size, material, price and reviews.
A deep-dive into user preferences concluded that "women don't place considerable emphasis on large phallus size".
Researchers came to the curious after examining user preferences of 265 sex toys
Getty Images
This was based on them discovering that women didn't subscribe to the idea that bigger is always better, dispelling a widely-held myth.
Writing in the Journal of Sex Research, the academics found the toys most favoured by women "average" circumference of 4.85 inches.
To put this into perspective, the average erect penis has a girth of around 4.59 inches, concludes a 2015 study involving more than 15,000 men.
Toy length was several orders of magnitude longer, coming in at 7.07 inches.
It turned that this was "not a significant predictor of a toy's popularity", the researchers wrote.
Given that the average length of an erect penis is around 5.16 inches, this led them to the conclusion that women prefer a more average size.
Writing in the journal, the experts said: "Contrary to what we expected, we found no preference for products with realistic features, other than presence of veiny texture, when not controlling for price."
The researchers acknowledged that a number of limitations call into the question the reliability of their results. Firstly, they relied on only one average penis size measurement to compare their findings, which potentially distorted their results.
LATEST DEVELOPMENTS
The average penis size had grown 24 percent over nearly three decades, research suggests
Getty Images
"We recognise this study itself might not be accurate given the many methodological difficulties in determining average penis size so some caution is perhaps warranted when considering presented results comparing our sample to 'reality'", they added. What's more, Love Honey is a UK-based retailer, so the findings might not reflect broader consumer preferences. They also accept the possibility that some men may have submitted user reviews, given they are able to purchase and review the toys, potentially biasing the results.
It comes after a study published in the World Journal of Men’s Health last year discovered that the average penis size had grown 24 percent over nearly three decades.
