Taller Men and Number of Sexual Partners

So taller men make more money, are more attractive to women, and have healthier hearts.

It doesn’t take a study to show women prefer taller men. You can see this on any woman’s dating profile:

One study found taller men were more likely to be selected for dates at speed dating events and in another study of personal ads, shorter men were less likely to be contacted than other men.

According to one study, women prefer taller men because height is a “cue to dominance, social status, access to resources, and heritable fitness….”

You would think that all this means that taller men get laid more than us shorter guys.

I’m here to tell you that taller men DON’T have more sex except when compared to very short men.

A new study found there was no significant difference among men except for very short men who reported fewer partners than other men.

Height and Sex Association Study

The study, “Height and Body Mass on the Mating Market: Associations With Number of Sex Partners and Extra-Pair Sex Among Heterosexual Men and Women Aged 18–65“, examined height, education, age, ethnicity, and body mass index (BMI) as predictors of sexual history among men and women.

The primary goal of this study was to determine if height is linked to sexual history for men.

An online survey was analyzed for the study. The survey was advertised as the “ELLE / MSNBC.com Sex and Love Survey designed for both men and women” in order to attract a diverse group of participants.

Over 60,000 men and women participated with the average age being 37 years old. 52% of the participants were men.

Participants were asked “how tall are you” and were given a drop-down menu where they could record their height from 4’10” or under to 6’7”+.

The study broke down the height into the following categories for men:

Very short: 5’2”–5’4”; 1% of participants.
Short: 5’5”–5’7”; 9% of participants.
Average: 5’8”–5’10”; 33% of participants.
Tall: 5’11”–6’1”; 40% of participants.
Very tall: 6’2”–6’4”; 15% of participants.
Extremely tall: 6’5”+; 2% of participants.

Participants were asked “In total, since you’ve been sexually active, about how many sex partners have you had?”

Study Results

The study hypothesized taller men would have more sexual partners but the study found that there was little difference in the average number of sex partners across most of the height range with the exception of very short men.

If you look at the graph below you’ll see that there’s no large difference for men in how many partners they have except when men are 5’4″ or shorter.

The study concluded that height was a “weak but statistically significant predictor of number of sex partners in the overall sample, with height being linked to higher sex partner number more so at the lower end of the height continuum than at the higher end.”

In other words, height makes no difference for how many sex partners men have unless the men happen to be short. Shorter guys have much less sex according to the study.

Final Thoughts

Why do women prefer taller guys?

Maybe because height is a cue to certain genetic benefits that being tall may provide.

Maybe height is associated with dominance, masculinity, and power.

So tall guys are more attractive to women, have better jobs and make more money, at least they aren’t having more sex than the rest of us.

Well, unless of course, you’re short. Then you’re out of luck.

Please leave a comment below because I’d like to hear what you think.