Size 'does' matter in the bedroom

Washington D.C.: It's an ongoing bone of contention among many for centuries: does size matter? Well, a team of researchers has an answer and it isn't good news for shorter people.

Researchers at Chapman University studied 60,058 people and found a link between bodily size and the number of previous sexual partners.

They found that taller guys tend to get more action, while men who were shorter than average had one to three fewer sexual partners than larger lads and the shortest men had the least previous bedroom encounters.

Study author Dr. David Frederick said the findings show how important height is when it comes to the "mating market" and reckoned that women might have a minimum height in mind when looking for male suitors.

He explained, "Research has repeatedly shown that women prefer men who are slightly taller than they are. It is possible that for most women there is a certain minimal threshold of height, after which they will consider a male as a potential sex partner, and thus men above that height will end up with similar numbers of sex partners." With regard to women, underweight women had notably fewer partners than other women.

"There are numerous possibilities as to why underweight women had few partners," explained Frederick. "They may be highly dissatisfied with their weight and suffering from anorexia and thus not motivated to show their bodies; additionally, being underweight is associated with a relatively high mortality rate and/or they could be suffering from a variety of ailments that cause weight loss and thus have fewer sex partners because they are dealing with serious health issues."

The study appears in the journal Evolutionary Psychology.