You don’t have to be sexually attracted to a man to be able to judge his looks. I can easily determine who is attractive of either sex.
Straight male. I don’t notice good-looking men in real life, unless they’re stunning. I notice women with bodies I find attractive. Women with pretty faces are a dime a dozen.
Joe
I am the same way. I truly can’t tell what men are attractive other than judging them like livestock (good teeth, healthy looking hair etc.). I learned how to tell some men are good looking over time just based on other similar examples but even that takes effort. The first one I ever figured out on my own was that Pierce Brosnam is supposed to be good looking because he was a close enough match to other men people told me were good looking. Outside of that though, I am lost. I have no idea why some guys are supposed to be more attractive than others. Michael J Fox was supposed to have been good looking when he was younger. I would have never figured that out on my own. I wouldn’t have figured out Brad Pit or Kirk Cameron either in a million years. I mean, they aren’t terrible looking but they just look like a million other males to me. I can’t see it instinctively.
I feel the same way. I think that I am “okay looking”, but I have always enjoyed noticing other men, and perhaps envying (just briefly, without obsessing over it, of course) various physical features that they might possess. For example, I am only 5’ 5", and quite often see guys that tower over me, and think “I wish I were that tall”. Or I might see someone with nicer hair or a better-looking beard than I have. Another thing that I like to see is hairy arms and chests, because I always wished that I was hairier. So, it is a “compare and contrast” type of thing going on.
Sure, i can look at Brad Pitt or Christiano Ronaldo and say they are attractive, but that is simply using the male standard of beauty on the other gender. Travis Baker or David Tenant or Justin Bieber look completely different than Brad Pitt and just as many women find them attractive and i simply can’t understand why on any of those cases. Robert Pattinson is probably the leading star in the grand majority of female fantasies at the moment and he has absolutely nothing going for him that would peg him as attractive in my book, he looks like a malnourished albino with stupid hair. With women this is simply not the case, what makes them attractive is fairly standard.
Straight male here- I often find myself attracted to attractive guys, but I’m not sexually attracted to them. Sometimes a guy is just put together really well, more than the sum of his parts would imply. I frequently think “damn, look at him!” and only occasionally mention it to my wife (“wow- that is one good-lookin’ dude”). I like looking at beauty, whether it’s the male or female form. There’s nothing jealous or envious about it though; not because I’m any physical specimen myself, but because my average looks were enough to attract a pretty hot wife (I definitely married up), and I’m not in competition any longer. Thank God for that.
Oddly though, my wife is more likely to point out specific physical attributes of other women, rather than the whole package. She’ll do the subtle elbow bump/head nod, and I’ll realize she’s directing my attention to the woman with the nice rack, or she’ll say “damn, look at her tits” or “check out the ass on that one” in admiration.
So? I’m disinclined to fuck furniture, but I’m still capable of gauging its aesthetic appeal.
I notice attractive people of both genders, because I like looking at pretty stuff.
Straight male
I think I take extra notice if a guy’s good looking AND a good person. To be honest, I look at all sorts of guys, and the way they look/the way they act.
If I see a short balding man, I sympathize because I’m the same way… but I also look to see what their wife, (or SO), looks like, or if they have kids, or if they look successful.
Straight, homely guy here:
I notice if a guy is really good looking but not in the sense of being attracted to them. It’s more envy I guess or wondering what life would be like to be that good looking. Often it’s thinking “Yes, if I could pick out a whole new body…one similar to that one would do nicely!”
Yes, I do recognize that some men are attractive. And my women friends usually agree, although not always. On the other hand, there are men that they find attractive that make me go "why?’
However, I don’t have any emotional/physiological reaction…mine is pretty much intellectual and envious.
On the other hand, I find many women attractive, even ones that the same female friends go "Why?’ Often it is some intangible air…the way they carry themselves, or the tilt of an eyebrow, or the sound of a voice. I do have an emotional/physiological response - not that I do anything about it, being happily married and an old duffer.
Once again, women have it easy picking out the attractive women, men do not.
Well based on his thread, a few men have said they have no problem picking out attractive men. Again, it’s not about sexual attraction.
I’m oblivious to male attractiveness. A woman, to me, is attractive or unattractive to various degrees. But a man just has a face.
It’s pretty obvious what women find attractive. Look at every example put out so far:
George Clooney
John Hamm
Brad Pitt
David Tennant
Chris Noth
Sean Connery
Christiano Ronaldo
Robert Pattinson
What do these guys have in common?
Tall (at least 5’10")
Reasonably good to very good shape
Good hair (or shave your head…there is no in between)
Symetrical features (except for Hamm who looks like a cartoon character of a handsome man)
They are also cool as shit (or at least the characters they portray are). Who would you be attracted to? The confident “smirking tool” who swaggers around as if he has it all figured out? Or the angsty, whiney mope?
Well, I’ve not watched Mad Men, but based on 30 Rock, where his character is mild-mannered, I’d still include Jon Hamm in that list. (I think David Tennant is the one who looks like a cartoon character.) I’d put Robert Pattinson in the angsty, whiney mope category, myself, but teen girls love that look; fewer older women do, I’d imagine. Do people really think Chris Noth is handsome? I think he looks like he has a strong character, but not exactly handsome. I do think that Brad Pitt might not be included in the list if it weren’t for his confidence and swagger, which move him up a level or two.
I notice good-looking men and am straight, and consider myself above average. Let’s say a 6.8-7.3 on a 1-10 scale for the sake of arbitrary, speculative, subjective purposes. I would definitely not consider myself vain.
I sometimes think to myself “that is a good-looking guy” but it is detached from anything else. Sometimes I wonder to what extent men think they are good looking, meaning if someone seems striking to me, I wonder what he thinks of himself.
Rarely do I feel envious, although when I see an older man (someone 10-30 years older) who looks good I hope to myself that age will be as kind to me as it has been to him. Somehow, I doubt it!
I’m sure those men would be completely befuddled by what some women found attractive. Men can pick out attractive men that follow the “Brad Pitt” male model type of attractiveness, but that is only a small sub set of the whole.
I can recognize a good body on a man when I see one (and there are a lot of those around here-- Montanans are a very physically active lot), but for faces, beyond the obvious extremes, I just don’t know what to look for.
For that matter, I can’t really pin down what makes a woman’s face attractive, either. The difference is, with woman, I can tell without pinning it down, by the simple standard of “if she arouses my interest, she’s hot”. But since no men arouse my interest that way, I can’t use that standard, and have nothing else to fall back on.
I think I can appreciate a handsome man quite easily. Bone structure in the face often is what makes or breaks a good-looking face for a man. Prominent jaw lines I’ve noticed, tend to lend to masculine, powerful look. I think I notice and look at these things because I compare them to myself; often in envious ways. I also think everyone is their own worst critic. 
My straight 20-something daughter complains “good looking celebrities” all look the same to her, barring differences in coloring, age, or hair length. Ryan Reynolds, the flavor of the month earlier this summer, she says suffers from a malady known as having “generic man-face”. To her, most men kind of all look the same. (She despises Robert Pattinson, who I think is good looking. She doesn’t like his ‘angsty’ look.) She’s more apt to find a man’s personality traits to be more important, and loves geeks, which may account for some of the odd fellows she hangs out with. A geeky man saving puppies and kittens from a burning building is in like Flynn (ask your grandma what that means). A preening, well-groomed, well dressed guy with looks and nothing else is invisible.
Women are much easier to dissect, judge, and pick apart - there’s more variety there, more clothes, makeup, hairstyles, and shoes. We can agree on which women are attractive. (again, their personalities are rather important - if they’re stuck up bitches, they are despicable ugly hags. If they’re budding Mother Theresas, they’re lovable and attractive no matter what they look like.)