I’m surprised no one has commented on the biggest science news of the day:

Penis evolution: Is bigger really better?

Brace yourselves, gentlemen: Not only does size matter when it comes to penis length, but female preference for large genitalia is probably what drove the evolution of your manhood to begin with.

In a study published Monday in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers concluded that penis length was just as important as height when it came to sexual attraction among women.

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It’s not a new hypothesis, so I don’t know why writers are acting like this is new news or something…

Anyway, here is the PNAS article:

Penis size interacts with body shape and height to influence male attractiveness

Compelling evidence from many animal taxa indicates that male genitalia are often under postcopulatory sexual selection for characteristics that increase a male’s relative fertilization success. There could, however, also be direct precopulatory female mate choice based on male genital traits. Before clothing, the nonretractable human penis would have been conspicuous to potential mates. This observation has generated suggestions that human penis size partly evolved because of female choice. Here we show, based upon female assessment of digitally projected life-size, computer-generated images, that penis size interacts with body shape and height to determine male sexual attractiveness. Positive linear selection was detected for penis size, but the marginal increase in attractiveness eventually declined with greater penis size (i.e., quadratic selection). Penis size had a stronger effect on attractiveness in taller men than in shorter men. There was a similar increase in the positive effect of penis size on attractiveness with a more masculine body shape (i.e., greater shoulder-to-hip ratio). Surprisingly, larger penis size and greater height had almost equivalent positive effects on male attractiveness. Our results support the hypothesis that female mate choice could have driven the evolution of larger penises in humans. More broadly, our results show that precopulatory sexual selection can play a role in the evolution of genital traits.

The National Geographic story:

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Although body shape was the most important factor in whether or not women rated a male shape as attractive or not, penis size also significantly influenced attraction.

However, the relationship wasn’t necessarily linear—i.e., “as you get a larger and larger penis, it doesn’t necessarily mean you’re getting more and more attractive,” Mautz noted. (Read about the barnacle, which has the longest penis relative to body size in the animal kingdom.)

For example, the rate at which women rated the men as attractive fell when flaccid penises were longer than 2.99 inches (7.6 centimeters).

What’s more, height was also a factor: “Tall guys with really large penises ended up being most attractive relative to other figures,” Mautz said.

It’s not totally clear why women prefer bigger penises, but studies have shown that women prefer larger sizes because they can increase sexual satisfaction, Mautz said.

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Hmmm… I wonder if this little bit of science will make it into those private religious schools Jindal has the state of Louisiana funding?