I thought this post by body-builder and fitness blogger Noelle was really great:
Here’s the thing though: This woman already has pretty much what I would consider the ideal stomach for a woman: flat-ish but without visible ab cuts. Personally, I can tolerate, even celebrate, a significant amount of fat on a woman, so long as it doesn’t reach a truly obese level. I think most straight guys feel the same way: not too fat, not too thin is just right.
The definition of what a “six pack” means to guys and gals may vary, but for guys it invariably means the aforementioned ab cuts, which requires a low body fat percentage. I’m assuming it means basically the same thing to Noelle.
I’ve never had a girlfriend with visible ab cuts. That doesn’t look sexy to me; it looks unnatural. Women typically have a higher body fat percentage than guys, on average, and they need that fat in order to get pregnant and have healthy babies. IOW, there is no evolutionary reason for women thin enough to have a six pack to appear more attractive to straight men for that reason.
What do you think? Do you want your woman to have a ripped gut? Is that attractive to you? Thanks for your replies!
I also am in the don’t care camp. I have been aware for some time that “six-pack” abs are created more in front of the refrigerator than in the gym. They result from fairly extreme leanness and low body fat. Additionally, I can’t quite help wondering if the poll has a bit of a misogyny-fishing feel to it.
I find many fit people attractive. That doesn’t require a six-pack, but it’s certainly not a negative. I also find many not so fit people attractive It’s no an either-or situation.
I’m a hetero woman, if it matters, and I don’t particularly think a six-pack on either gender is attractive sexually. IOW I can admire it objectively as a great testament to their hard work, but I don’t find it overly desirable. I think the woman in the picture has a great figure and not having read the article, I’m not sure why she’s going out of her way to tell us what she *doesn’t *want. *I’ve *known the secret to not having six pack abs for a lonnnnnnng time.
Where’s the “neither unattractive nor particularly attractive” option? I don’t find six-pack abs particularly attractive, but they’re not repulsive or a turn-off either.
For me, there’s a pretty wide range of figures that I find very sexy- anything from the more zaftig figure of an Ashley Graham to the more lean look of many fitness models.
I suspect the author of the article gets some degree of judgement for being fit, but not taking it all the way to six-pack super-lean land, and this is her response to that pressure.
I don’t think it’s because it’s masculine that I dislike it - I like a sexy androgynous look in women (hot), it’s the hardness. What I like about women is their softness.
The level of effort in the gym and with diet for a woman to have actual ab cuts is not normal. “Close to impossible” is more like it. It may be very close to actually impossible without heavy gym work, since a woman will tend just to have a flat stomach, even when her body fat is very low.
It’s also quite hard for a guy as well, but a rare few guys will have a six-pack without trying.
The idea that I’m “six-pack shaming” women walking around with a natural six-pack isn’t going to work, but nice try.
Dude here. I’m a fan. Of course, I’m a fan of just about everything between the extremes of supermodel skinny and >25% bodyfat. A sixpack says she knows how to take care of herself and is willing to work at it. That in itself is attractive.
Outside of famine, a woman having sufficiently low bodyfat as to display six pack abs is certainly not statistically normal. It’s actually pretty damn rare. Either the woman has a maniacal dedication to achieving the look (which, as pointed out in the article can have serious consequences for the woman’s life outside the gym) or she has some sort of lipid metabolism and storage disorder (lipodystrophy), which can have some extremely serious medical consequences.
No, it’s not normal. Pointing that out is not inherently misogynistic, any more than pointing out someone is left handed is hostile towards lefthanders.
At most, six packs on a chick is interesting from a “oh, that’s unusual” viewpoint, but I wouldn’t call it attractive. Then again, I don’t really find women attractive physically anyway. I can make general judgements on what society considers attractive, or what my spouse considers attractive, because I’m familiar with some of the criteria used but women with six pack abs are such statistical outliers I really have no way to make a judgement.
