To have more sex partners, height, not size, matters

The old saying suggests that “size matters,” but new research finds that for men, the number of sexual partners they have may be more related to their height.

Research by California’s Chapman University published in the journal Evolutionary Psychology relied on surveys of more than 60,000 men and women who identified as heterosexual, according to a Huffington Post story. The study looked for links between height, weight and the number of sexual partners reported by participants of ages 30 t0 44.

The study found that the subjects’ on average had eight sexual partners. But short men averaged up to three fewer partners than tall men, and underweight women also had significantly fewer partners.

Overall, the study found most men and women reported having more than five partners, with about a quarter of men and women reporting having more than fourteen partners. Men of average and above average weight reported having the most sexual partners.

The researchers suggested that underweight women may be having fewer partners due to body image issues and poorer overall health. Shorter men may suffer, they say, as women may perceive a height threshold below which they tend not to consider a man as a potential sexual partner.

A previous study also had bad news for short men, finding that they were likely to marry later than taller men and more likely to divorce.