If I’m out of my mind and am imagining things, please tell me.
I’ve been on okcupid for two years, and I’ve noticed the more attractive, intelligent, classy, educated, etc. a lesbian is the more likely she prefers to date femmes, even if she’s a butch herself. I’ve looked at hundreds of lesbian profiles on there and it keeps coming up.
I’ve noticed this in straight women, somewhat. I won’t say that they are looking for sissies, but it seems that a lot of decent straight women are less attracted to men with stereotypical male traits.
If I am not imagining this, I find this an interesting sociological phenomenon. In this patriarchal society, what is “male” is good and what is “female” is bad. Why aren’t these “good” women attracted to “maleness”?
Anyone who is not familiar Paul Fussell’s book “Class”, he mentions that butch lesbians are more likely to be blue collar, and effeminate gay men are more likely to be white collar. But he wrote that book over 20 years ago. When I look around though, this seems to be true today.
Do you think heterosexuals think of their preferred sex in terms of maleness and femaleness the way gays do? I don’t know if I really understand the butch vs femme thing so I apologize if I’m characterizing it wrong. But as a man, I tend to evaluate women in terms of attractiveness. Feminine qualities generally contribute positively to attractiveness, but it’s only incidental.
For instance, symmetrical facial features, which aren’t feminine or masculine, are more important than having a feminine body shape. But they both contribute to a general sense of attractiveness. Your post and my fairly limited experience with gay friends suggests there’s a more explicit interest in how masculine or feminine a partner they’re attracted to.
All the straight women I know seem to think more like me, with masculinity being an implicit aspect of attraction and not an explicit factor per se. Also, to the extent that masculinity plays into attraction, women I know prefer masculinity in men, contradicting your observation. Body hair is masculine and I don`t know many women who particularly like it, but broad shoulders and a strong jaw? Most straight women still like that.
Women seem to, although they may not be conscious of it. Studies show that women’s taste in men varies from more “masculine” to less according to where they are in their menstrual cycle. IIRC birth control pills can also affect this.
Perhaps lesbians and gays are simply more conscious of gender roles when it comes to sexual attraction?.
In my experience, blue-collar men tend to exhibit more overt homophobia than white-collar men, whose homophobia is still there, but not “in your face.” Plus, we seem to gravitate toward creative careers, which are basically white-collar.
For the most part, neither do we. People tend to gravitate toward guys who have compatible sexual desires (top/bottom), but that has nothing to do with maleness and femaleness.
As a heterosexual sissy I am overjoyed lately to discover that there’s a lot of truth to this, at least on OKCupid. Finally we’re a commodity! ::flips long hair behind shoulders and blushes and smiles::
Manly men intimidate me. I want to be with someone I feel equal to and not dominated. This is not 1940. I don’t need someone to empty the mousetrap; I have the balls to do it myself. That’s not what I’m looking for in a relationship.
Ah, but what do you, or any of us including Diamonds02, call “manly”?
Wide shoulders? Oh, nice. As dunlop says, I’ve never heard a woman say she disliked this.
Strong legs? Raaaawrrr. Major attractor in my specific culture.
Body hair? I know women who believe that “men should be like bears, the hairier the better” and others who find any body hair at all absolute yuck.
Sweeping the woman in his arms to cross the threshold? Culturally dependant. Please don’t do it to me, because that triggers my “I am a woman, not a COW!” reflex.
Deciding what I am going to eat? That’s not masculine, that’s jerkish for anybody other than the parent of a small child to do (and sometimes, for the parent).
Putting funiture together? I’m likely to do it better than him, but if it makes him feel good, I’ll be happy to hand him the power tools and “hold here”.
Electrical work? See, that I don’t do, so for a man to be able to do it and do it right would be a plus. But then, it would be a plus if he could clean bathrooms, too, and that’s not a “traditionally masculine activity” despite soldiers having cleaned latrines for thousands of years.
Well, OkCupid is hardly an trusty estimator for female trends. OkC caters to whimsical, geeky, nerdy (or whatever you call that shit) people. The most you are in that range, the more success you have.
Despite having nerdy interests towards math and arthouse cinema, I unfortunately happen to have broad shoulders, short hair and strong legs. Which places me in an excluded third between OkCupid and other dating sites catering to ripped-guy fangirls. I don’t have success with any, as a consequence.