So what are the findings? For a majority of Indian women, the size of the penis is not important at all.  Also the size of the penis had nothing to do with happiness in general or happiness with sexual life or ability to achieve orgasm, in particular.

So then what actually matters? Better interpersonal relationships.

 However, having said that, there was a minority of women who said size mattered. These women felt that the length of the penis was more important than width. Women who disliked the look of their partner’s penis too felt that penile size mattered.

The study indirectly hints at how pornography, along with socio-cultural perceptions around masculinity that links bigger penis with greater virility, as possible explanations for this preference, along withunscientific propaganda that associates sexual satisfaction with penile size circulated through the mass and social media.

To know more about the research and its impact I talked to Dr TS Sathyanarayana Rao, renowned psychiatrist and sexologist, founding editor of the Journal Psychosexual Health and co-founder, Vvox.

Dr TS Sathyanarayana Rao: Nothing causes more anxiety in a man than the length and size of his penis. So therefore, finding out whether size actually matters to the opposite sex or not is important in alleviating that anxiety.

In the past, there have been studies abroad to find out the “normal” penis length. Across countries and continents that mean length of the penis was estimated to be 9.2 cm when flaccid and 13.1 cm when erect and the mean circumference was pegged at 11.7 cm when erect.

It may be mentioned here that anxieties over genital appearance are not something unique to men alone. Women too can feel inadequate and ashamed over the appearance of their vulva, driving them to go for cosmetic surgeries, despite a lack of scientific basis, for such concerns.