Seems to me that women are either born beautiful or they aren’t, but pretty much any guy can become a lot more physcially attractive by getting in shape and developing some muscle mass. So, male attractiveness has a larger work component whereas female attractiveness has a larger luck component. This seems to fit in with the genders’ traditional roles as provider v. producer of attractive babies.
To illustrate, if you take any ol’ regular schlub of a guy, throw his ass into a gym for a while and get him to eat right, then eventually he’ll develop some decent muscle mass and will graduate to “physcially attractive” (he may not be Brad Pitt, but the average person attracted to men would find him attractive). However, assuming a woman isn’t obese, there really isn’t much she can do to increase her attractiveness (hair and makeup and plastic surgery only go so far). If she’s in the “not attractive” category, she can’t do anything to bump her up. On the flip side, she doesn’t have to do anything to bump herself up either (ie, there’s no pressure to hit the gym).
So, make sense or am I all washed up? I’m a hetero male, so I wonder how much that perspective plays into it.
Assuming my theory is correct, if you were asked before you were born (ie, so you aren’t answering with the body you have, but as a currently bodiless person), would you rather be born a man or woman?
I’ve always thought it was the opposite. I mean, if you have an unattractive face as a guy, you can’t do much because men generally don’t wear make up.
Also, I’d think there’s quite a lot of pressure for women to hit the gym/diet.
Nah, (almost) anyone can become at least moderately attractive if they really work on it. Sure, there are a few with really ugly faces/deformities who can’t really do anything about it (although if you count plastic surgery, sometimes they can). But anyone who is really dedicated to their appearance from either gender can do a lot to clean themselves up. Most people just don’t try/care.
Probably the most important factor for men is height, which is totally out of their control. How attractive their face is is mostly out of their control. Hair loss is mostly out of their control. Sure, they can bulk up, but a short, ugly, bald body builder is not going to be at the top of the attractiveness scale.
Women can more reliably become attractive simply by being physically fit, but because of their lower muscle mass it is more difficult for them.
So women have much more potential to improve their physical attractiveness, but it requires more work for them to do so. Men are kind of resigned to the luck of the draw (though some resort to desperate measures which don’t work anyway).
I think another difference between the sexes is the diversity of body types that the opposite sex finds attractive. A woman can have almost any shape, and some men out there will find her attractive: there’s a niche for men who are into really thin women, really fat women, really muscular women, really short women, really tall women, or anything else. Women don’t all go for the exact same type of man, but I think they do agree a little more on a mainstream ideal of physical attractiveness. Just compare the number of men who really like smaller breasts to the number of women who really like smaller penises.
I’m sure a woman will come along soon and tell me I have this all backwards.
This is only true of men who don’t have ugly faces. If he has an ordinary or appealing face, your theory is probably going to work for him. But if he’s got an ugly face, it’s no better for him to become a gym rat than it was for Sandra Berhard in the 90s.
But what exactly is there for a guy to do about his face? As a woman, when I want to look really good, I can blow dry my hair nicely and wear foundation to even skin tone and eyeliner to bring out my eyes. A guy can also put effort into his hair, though it seems like there are fewer options as there isn’t a lot of variability in hair cuts for guys. Plus it isn’t really that socially acceptable for a man to wear make up. There is clothing–the right clothing can make both men and women look better. But it seems it’s more socially acceptable for a woman to make changes to her face.
I don’t really agree (since I’m a shallow girl who needs a pretty face - more muscles, less fat sure don’t make a guy attractive to me personally, although certainly I can recognize when people have made improvements in their appearance).
I do think the standards of ‘attractive’ for male faces are more flexible than for women, plus more women than men don’t make the conventional physical attractiveness of their partner a big priority.
But people without conventionally attractive, much less ‘beautiful’, faces can do a great deal to present themselves attractively. Nice hair, a shapely body, good grooming (including makeup) and dressing in a way which plays up your good points, counts for a HELL of a lot, for both sexes. Have you never looked at pictures of celebrities in bad lighting with no makeup? Or watched The Swan (plastic surgery sure can do the trick)?
I’m an average-good-looking guy, and I think the #1 thing that would make me more attractive to more women on average is if I were taller. Not much I can do about that.
Sure, but it doesn’t make a damn bit of difference. I have black hair and though my wife claims to hate my beard it generally takes her days or weeks to notice when I shave it off. Female friends and acquaintances too.
I think you have a distorted idea of what women care about in men- which is probably more about what men see in other men than anything else. We do it, too. We all know fashion is for other women. Muscles, I think, are more for men than women.
For example, I like guys with medium toned skin, dark features, curly black hair and a baby face. I prefer men who are my size or slightly taller. I like them slim- slim and wiry is good, slim and sickly skinny is good. Any kind of slim as long as there is no flab jiggling around. Really, going to the gym isn’t going to help any of this. A pug-faced redhead rugby player could spend all day in the gym, and I’d never give him a second glance because he just isn’t the type of guy I find attractive.
Just like male attraction to women is complicated, women’s attraction to men is about more than one or two factors.
And, FWIW, way back when I took a Social Psych class there was a rather lengthy discussion about a large body of research that suggests that not only do women use artifice to appear more attractive to men MUCH more than men do, but men actually fall for it pretty much all the time.
So many of those ‘good looking’ chicks you’re scoping at the office Rand are actually dogs with good makeup and lighting.
I say this as someone who has a hard time judging whether a man would be considered attractive or not but I’ve always assumed that men had a greater leeway for what is considered a passably attractive face.
Both men and women I know tend to talk about attractive members of the opposite sex, but I’ve never heard a woman call a man a butterface.
First of all, I doubt that would prevent a woman from using it to describe a man. And second of all, I wasn’t literally referring to just the use of the word “butterface”. The sentiment behind the word is one I’ve only heard expressed by men about women.
Ok, just so we’re clear, butterface means hot body but ugly face. As in, that chicks hot, but her face (butterface).
I think there is a reason for this. Don’t ask me for a cite, but I figure the things that help a man have a good body contribute to face development as well. So for example, a guy who is naturally able to put on more muscle is likely to have a stronger jaw, and other masculine features.
Men, imho, have it both easier and more difficult. Men’s clothing tends to be more flattering and less form fitting. This makes it easier to get away with a flabby body, but more difficult to show off a good one. Women can gain a step on other women through makeup, hair, and fashion, whereas a Man can’t do all that much. The last thing is that Men need to have low body fat and muscles, where women only really need to have low body fat.
It’s true that breast size is a nature crap shoot, but so is height for men. Furthermore, you can always get a boob job. There’s no tall job for men. Plus, most men will make exceptions for less than perfect tits. For a lot of women, it’s be taller than me or you’re out.
I don’t think this is true at all. My best friend is a woman, and she has mentioned to me that she’s not attracted to men who “look like they spend all their time at the gym”. Some women prefer thin men, or fat men. Some like their men on the boyish side, others prefer very “manly” types, and still others like them a bit feminine.
Tastes differ, and I think they differ just as much for women as for men. Very skinny and very fat men are still getting laid. They can’t all be pity fucks.
It may seem like only certain characteristics are considered attractive in men, but that goes both ways too. Any woman will tell you that women are pressured by society to fit a certain relatively specific standard of beauty. Even though that standard doesn’t correlate with “reality” in any way.
