It was obtained by a group of scientists in Brazil that the woman-on-top position during intercourse is responsible for half of all penile fractures sustained during sex in cases recorded at three hospitals.

According to scientists, this may be because the woman controls the penis with her entire body weight landing on it and is unable to interrupt it when it suffers a ‘wrong way penetration’. The harm is usually minor for her and with no pain – but major in the penis.

Positions involving the woman on all fours was involved in 29 per cent of fractures.

44 men attended three hospitals in the city of Campinas, Brazil, with a suspected fractured penis over a thirteen year period and forty-two of the cases were confirmed by doctors as the cause of it  being the sexual position.

Twenty-eight fractures were sustained during heterosexual sex, four during homosexual sex, six after “penis manipulation” and four in circumstances which remain unclear. Half of the patients described hearing an audible crack and feeling pain after the incident. Most attended hospital within the next five or six hours.

Here the good news to all this- the safest position in the bedroom was revealed as the man-on-top or ‘missionary position’.