I think women just don’t have as much of a culture of minutely dissecting the appearance of the opposite sex. We are more likely to just say someone is “unattractive” than to critique each individual part at length. So a woman might be thinking “Yeah, but his face is pretty gnarly” but not necessarily discussing it at length with her friends.
When we dwell over muscles in pop culture, a lot of time we are emulating men. When we are discussing things among ourselves there is a lot less posing and a lot less emphasis on bodies. Someone with a REALLY nice body might get a “Wow!” but for the most part body is kind of a pass-fail thing. Nobody is like “Well, his arms are HUGE but his butt is a bit squishy and his calves need some work.”
Really, spending too long in the gym is a turn off to women. Women (well, people) want a mate they can talk to, and you are going to be a boring dude if all you do is lift weights.
Just about 100%. Straight guys are notoriously blind to what makes a man attractive, and you tend to think straight women and gay guys are drawn to one particular type . . . and if he drops a few pounds and works out a little, any guy can be that type. I think the primary reason for this is that you just don’t pay attention to other men. A women enters the room, and you notice everything about her . . . her face, her hair, her boobs, her waist, her legs, etc. A guy enters the room, and all you see is a guy . . . maybe his height if it’s extreme, maybe his weight if it’s extreme. But you don’t notice things like the contour of his nose, the length of his eyelashes, the shape of his fingers, the angle of his chin, the fullness of his lips, the liveliness of his eyes, the angle of his hips, the shape of his eyebrows, etc. The fact is, you have no reason to notice these things. Aside from sexual attraction, these factors are meaningless.
you’re following the basic model of human heterosexual attraction: men like beautiful women while women like strong men. and a good thing because it’s the men who fight over the women. that’s the “beauty” of the model. fighting over a desirable female implies insufficient supply.
but cultures and the times can modify the model. for instance, a woman can construe money in a man to be the ultimate in power, something beyond strength. in some cultures, beauty simply translates to youth and height of nubility.
most women like tall men. some men, on the other hand, will settle for a doormat as long as she can cook.
now how many counter-cultures can you think of? in some places in asia, rich and upwardly mobile women will settle for useless bums as long as they stay and mind the house (smart, considering you won’t run out of those.) other women like being treated like queens or as long as the guy’s funny.
I don’t agree, age is a major factor in a woman’s attractiveness since it is a sign of how many years of fertility she has left. And she has no control over it, but can give the illusion of being younger (Jennifer Aniston is 42 and will hit menopause within a decade, but still looks early 30s) with diet, exercise, surgery, supplements, etc.
As far as men issues like height are important to our attractiveness and we can’t control that.
Plus women have tons of products on the market to alter their appearance while men have very few.
I’m guessing all the non-physical aspects of attractiveness aren’t being discussed (income, wealth, prestige, personality, etc). But those can be changed too, a guy who is well respected and financially secure will be more attractive than a social pariah who is in debt. But men are more drawn to women for appearances (ability to get pregnant and have healthy kids) while women are more drawn to men who will commit, stick around and provide resources to raise the kids (wealth, prestige, power, commitment, reliability, etc). So I think the question in the OP is kind of moot since physical attractiveness doesn’t have the same level of importance for both sexes.
I believe that physical beauty has very little to do with attractiveness and that the things you can do to change your physical appearance aren’t really that important overall. Can you go from being average looking to being attractive by working out? Yeah, I guess. You can also become very, very unattractive the exact same way and any improvement you may have gotten from the effort you put in is just as easy to lose as it was to gain. Personality, confidence, humor, etc. go a lot farther than the physical for both sexes IMO.
Daniel Craig is an excellent example of what I’m talking about in that to see a still picture of him he doesn’t really look like anything special but when you see him in motion he sort of oozes sex and confidence in a way that makes you want to touch him inappropriately. If you search Cafe Society threads there have been a number of, “Who is your unlikely celebrity crush?” threads and there are a significant number of women who answer John Goodman, Christopher Walken, Ron White, etc. and a significant number of men who answer Courtney Love, Tilda Swinton, Meg White, etc. There are some people who prefer a physical type and you can make small changes to yourself to fit into that individual’s definition of what is attractive but at the end of the day it doesn’t matter what you look like if the rest of the package isn’t there too, most especially if you are considering long-term attractiveness and not just being currently doable. There are people who don’t look beyond the currently doable status, of course, and for those people they will think I am completely wrong but for the most part people are looking for more than a pretty face or a sculpted bicep when they are defining attractiveness.
I think the exact opposite of what the OP says is true.
A woman who’s in shape/works out and dresses stylish/sexy will have plenty of guys who think she’s attractive, regardless of how unattractive she may be; look at Sarah Jessica Parker for an example of a not-so-hot woman who has/had a great figure, and plenty of men think is attractive. Plus, women have all the advantages of artifice, with hairdos, makeup, boob jobs, etc…
Men, on the other hand, don’t have any of the advantages of makeup, boob jobs, etc… and are judged on things like height, and the way their face looks. If a guy is short, the rest really doesn’t matter for something like 80% or more of women, and the same thing is true if he’s butt-ugly, or comes across as broke.
What seems to matter on a superficial level is height, build and signs of success. 2 of those 3 are pretty much out of most men’s control, at least on a short-term basis, and build is one that is somewhat out of their control as well; some guys stay skinny, no how much weight they may lift.
This. I know I’m not the only woman out there who can list off dozens of handsome, hot men and not be the least bit attracted to any of them. Looks just aren’t enough in a guy; it seems to be plenty enough in a woman, though.
I also don’t get the height thing, but I’m short-ish. (5’4") Only dated one guy shorter than me 'cause I’ve only MET one guy shorter than me. I would absolutely go out of my way to trip Peter Dinklage if he were nearby, trust me! <swoon> His eyes…holy crap. He’s a beautiful man.
Anyway…character matters a lot more than looks, past the first date, anyway. Or for me, the first 10 seconds.
I have to add: Out of 100+ guys I’ve ‘dated’ over the last 25 years, 70+ that were more…intimate…40+ longer than a couple of weeks…I could line them all up in front of you and there wouldn’t be a single commonality among them, looks-wise. However…they were <nearly> all witty, funny, and not big fat jerks. (Ok…the jerks might have lasted a night or two, on occasion).
Anyway…character matters a lot more than looks, past the first date, anyway. Or for me, the first 10 seconds. I realize this is but a small sample but it stands.
This idea that women can “just get a boob job” is pretty silly. I think a book job costs around $10k (I’m not pricing them here) plus time off work. Think about how many hours of work it takes to earn that. For the average woman, that’s a pretty significant chunk of a yearly salary. It’s not exactly a pleasant experience, either. It comes with a great deal of pain, the daily feeling of having a large foreign object implanted in your body, and various health risks.
Working out would probably take a lot fewer hours to achieve the same increase and attractiveness, and working out comes with the benefits of having a healthier body.
My wife went to high school with a girl who grew up to be a Playboy Centerfold. We ran into her one time at McDonalds. She was wearing jeans and a T-shirt, no makeup and had her hair pulled back. Other than an impressive pair of boobs, there was nothing that would set her apart from any other woman in town. Her face was ordinary, she had no butt and was overall on the skinny side.
But with the right hair and makeup she was - well, she was a Playboy Centerfold who went on to a minor career in TV and movies.
Yeah, I see a shit ton of guys every day who will never be attractive to me, no matter how skinny they are or how muscular. There are definitely unattractive male faces.
edit: I do forgive a lot for tall guys. I’m 6’3" so when I run into those few who are over that, I tend to get weak in the knees just on principle.
I’m giggling. I’m picturing some plug-ugly, bald sneering villain right out of a comic book, bulging out of his clothes with enormous muscles, and the OP looking, clueless, thinking “yeah, that’s what any woman would want - tall, too - yeah, El Destructo is solid beef, no woman could turn that down”. I would point and laugh, regardless of how swoony tall this citizen is - “lookit the goon, built like a brick shithouse. Compensate much?”
I’m not going to ask for a cite ;), but I haven’t noticed this to be true. I’ve known many weak-chinned bodybuilders /natural strong guys and plenty of lanky, thin guys with strong jaws.
Here’s another thing (I’m not picking on you, even sven, just using your example) that I’ve seen.
Women have a specific type that tends to be more carved in stone; even at my most physically fit, she’d never have been interested in me- I’m almost the antithesis of what she finds attractive- tall, large framed, straight medium brown hair, blue eyes, pale skin.
In my experience, men tend to have a type like that, but it’s not a set-in-stone type like for many women. A hot woman is hot, regardless of whatever your preferences are; for example, a guy who likes busty blondes may rate a blonde girl a 10, and a guy who likes petite asians may rate the same blonde girl an 8. The point is both are still attracted to the blonde.
It’s always sounded to me like women are far more draconian in their attractive/non attractive judgments than men are.
For the most part, all a woman has to do is refrain from getting fat. But a man who is short can’t do anything about it. Likewise, a man who is bald can’t do anything about it.
I’m 5’ 6" and balding, which are two major strikes against me. And I can’t do anything about it. I try to make up for it by being fit and mean, but that only goes so far.
Staying slim will keep you from being qualified as “not hot,” but it doesn’t automatically make you “hot.” Make it a point to look around you today- at real women, not women on TV or in magazines. I think you’ll find plenty of slim women- but only a percentage of them are actively “hot.” I’m plenty skinny, but I also have a pretty flat butt and small breasts. I’m not automatically disqualified, but I’m not going to turn heads when I walk into a room.
That bird-boned granny isn’t hot. The gangly girl with a horse face? Not hot. The lady with the body of a pre-teen boy, with no curves whatsoever? Not hot. The girl who is small but with no tone, with a tiny saggy butt, limp arms and a miniature distended belly? Not hot.
I also thing age is very relevant to this discussion. Women are much more likely to be disqualified as attractive by simply looking the age that they are than men are. Looking 40 when you are in fact 40 can be a dealbreaker for women in a way that it isn’t for men. Women have maybe a scant 15 years or so when they can be considered "attractive’ without qualifiers (like “She looks nice for her age” or “MILF.”) It’s just a small chunk of our lives- and most of it is spent being too young to really know what to do with it. I know I spent my “hot” twenties getting bad homemade haircuts and skulking around in punk rock clothes- not cashing in on the “attractiveness dividend” in a career or seeking out stable relationships.
bump, I think there is some truth to what you say, but it should be qualified a bit. I think women are more likely to be okay with dating/sexing/marrying someone they don’t find especially attractive in the objective sense.
Women don’t expect to be with someone who looks like an underwear model, or even someone who is good enough looking to be on TV. As long as they are not actively repulsive, it’s a possibility. I think men, on the other hand, expect to be with women who are objectively attractive- probably attractive enough that other men would comment on their attractiveness. Or maybe attractive enough that they could model for local advertisements- not supermodel hot, but pretty good looking. Most of us ladies don’t aim that hight. There are relatively few objectively hot guys out there, and so a lot of guys can get by just hitting the bare minimum of attractiveness.
