Why Size Matters?

We’ve seen how body symmetry, because it indicates good health, is attractive to women. Body symmetry is also linked with men’s muscularity, and studies conducted both in the United States and on the Caribbean island of Dominica have found that symmetrical men have a larger number of sex partners than asymmetrical men. When women identify the specific qualities that attract them to a sexual partner, they frequently mention “the person had a desirable body”—the sixteenth most frequent reason cited for having sex in our original study. But what sorts of bodies do women find sexually desirable?

 

Perhaps the most obvious characteristic is height. Studies consistently find that women consider tall men to be attractive, although only to an extent—taller than average, but not too tall. In analyses of personal ads, 80 percent of women state a desire for a man six feet tall or taller. Men who indicated in their personal ads that they were tall received far more responses from women. Women prefer tall men as marriage partners, and place an even greater emphasis on height in shorter-term sex partners. Women even take height into consideration when partners. Women even take height into consideration when selecting sperm donors!

A study of British men found that taller than average men have had a greater number of live-in girlfriends than their shorter peers. Two studies found that taller than average men tend to have more children, and hence are more reproductively successful. Women seem to find tall men better candidates for romance and reproduction.

Could there be a logic underlying women’s desires for tall men? In traditional cultures, tall men tend to have higher status. “Big men” in hunter-gatherer societies—high-status men who command respect—are literally big men, physically. In Western cultures, tall men tend to have higher socioeconomic status than short men. Another study found that recruiters choose the taller of two applicants for a sales job 72 percent of the time. Each added inch of height adds several thousand dollars to a man’s annual salary. One study estimated that men who are six feet tall earn, on average, $166,000 more across a thirty-year career than men seven inches shorter. Taller policemen are assaulted less often than shorter policemen, indicating that their stature either commands more respect from criminals or causes them to think twice before attacking. Height deters aggression from other men. In the jargon of evolutionary biology, height is an “honest signal” of a man’s ability to protect. Women report simply feeling safer with tall mates.

Another answer comes from recently discovered correlates of male height. Tall men, on average, tend to be healthier than short men, although men at the extreme high and low end of the men, although men at the extreme high and low end of the distribution have more health problems. So tall men tend to have better job prospects, to have more economic resources, to enjoy elevated social status, to afford physical protection, and to be healthy—a bounty of adaptive benefits.