I think that this thread is worth reading. But, maybe you’re in a rush. Or you simply don’t want to read my thread. That’s fine, we’ve all been there. I’ll be adding a TLDR with the most important statistics and highlights at the end, so be sure to check that out.
Introduction
Surprisingly, this is one of the few sites that believe having a good physique is not important whatsoever, or atleast not that important. This absolutely baffles me. How can you see both women and men show interest in good physiques, and then make the assumption that they are simply lost and bones, acne, height, etc are the only things that matter? Keep in mind, I won’t only be talking about muscle. I’ll also be talking about bone structure.
In this thread i’ll be documenting studies that have been published. We only use credibly sources here on org, so feel free to fact check me. If you disagree with anything I say, don’t hesitate to reply! I’m all for discussions and think they are some of the most important things we can do as a society to better our understanding of the world. Enjoy!
What Credibility Do I Have? I could be making all of this up!
I have zero credibility as a person. I don’t have any degree, and am relatively unsuccessful with women. With that being said, statistics from credibly sources don’t lie. All of my sources are peer reviewed and generally academically accepted as credible sources. Every source scored a 10/10 on credibility.
The studies I will go over are:
Frederick and Haselton, 2007
Sell et al. 2017
Dixson et al. 2010
Maisey et al. 1999
All studies are relatively recent considering what we are studying.
Frederick & Haselton
This is one of the strongest studies out of the five. It tested the idea through multiple different pathways, not just one.
1. This section goes over the perception of muscular men from women’s point of view. I have some huge random animal flying through my house wtf it’s like a huge fucking fly it’s like hitting the walls and shit wtf is this and it’s super loud okay i think it left
Anyway, multiple women viewed illustrations and descriptions of multiple men with different levels of muscularity and rated them on several traits. These traits were:
Physical attractiveness
Sexiness
Dominance
Commitment
Agressiveness
And most importantly in my opinion, desirability as a partner
The findings were that women rated more muscular men as more attractive, more sexy, and of course more physically dominant. They ALSO perceived more muscular men as more likely to commit to or pursue short term relationships, more volatile (ex: like a crypto that constantly goes up and down, so more swings ig), and less committed. These three things are not good, however, these three things don’t matter if you’re already not desirable. This study finally showed that moderately muscular men (not huge, more likely an aesthetic physique), are the most attractive overall. This should be water.
2. This is very important. Instead of simply asking women what they want. they looked at women’s real life relationship histories. Women would report the muscularity of their most recent short term partner and their other partners. Quick update on the flying insect, it’s back. I don’t know why it’s so big, but it’s quite frankly terrifying. I’m not hearing it anymore, so maybe it’s sitting down or something. This shit is concerning. Anyway, back to what I was saying. The study found that women’s most recent short term partners were significantly more muscular than their other partners. These were considered meaningful differences, and the sizes, for anyone who understands psychology are
d = .36
d = .47
I don’t know what the fuck that’s supposed to mean.
3-5. This highlights men’s own reports. The researchers looked at muscular men’s dating outcomes. And yes, they checked bodyfat and other variables. Muscular men reported feeling that women found them sexier, they had more lifetime sexual partners, having more short term sexual partners, and reported in more affairs with women who were already actively in relationships. This all kinda points to short term stuff, which i’m not the biggest fan of. I personally think that having a long term relationship is ideal and healthier. But you do you ig.
The biggest conclusions were;
Women don’t like huge people, like how many would perceive bodybuilders. They prefer athletic, strong, and still muscular physiques. However, as most of us know, what many people consider to be athletic is just a mediocre bodybuilding physique.
Flaws of the study:
Many participants were college students, so the statistics don’t account for older people.
A lot of this was self reported by participants. However it still has credibility due to the large sample size.
Sell et al.
This study wanted to answer this question: What physical characteristics do women find attractive in men?
What this study did was take three different sets of male body pics and have large groups of women rate them independently. Idk if this included the face or not, but I don’t know if that would skew the results that much anyway. In the photos on my source, it blurs out the face, but I believe they were shown to participants. Some participants rated physical attractiveness while others rated how physically strong each man looked. I don’t know how important the other one is tbh I feel like it’s pretty obvious if someone seems strong based off just looking usually.
The main finding was that perceived upper body strength accounted for over 70% of the men’s bodily attractiveness ratings. Another excuse to skip leg day lmao.
Perceived strength explained 73% of variation in ratings. 73%. That’s a lot.
But this doesn’t explain everything. In fact, if strength was the only factor, this would somewhat disprove my other point of aesthetic physiques being the best. But wait. This study isn’t over.
Height and leanness also mattered a lot. This should already be water but I might as well go over this too. The researches checked height, weight, and bodyfat. When these factors were added, strength + height + leanness explained roughly 80% of the variance in bodily attractiveness.
Taller men were generally rated as more attractive. Brutal.
Men carrying excess bodyfat were rated as less attractive after accounting for perceived strength.
Strength, SURPRISINGLY, remained by FAR the greatest factor. That’s fucking crazy to me. It’s never over.
However, this study also showed that there was no evidence of a nonlinear effect. Strongest men = most attractive. Meaning athletic physiques did not always = best. I don’t agree with that personally, but that’s what the study said. I assume they didn’t get big enough guys. The test wasn’t using competitive bodybuilders, so that should be noted.
Strength mattered for ability to compete with other men, ability to protect the partner, and overall health and physical capability indicators.
Flaws:
This study measured perceived strength. I don’t know how much of a flaw this is, if it even is one.
It focuses on physical attractiveness, not romantic attractiveness, so personality and whatnot was not included.
Dixson et al.
This measured the same features as the last few. Bodyfat, body shape, and muscle size.
Women consistently prefered men who were more muscular than average, lower body fat than average, and had an athletic build. This backs up my personal beliefs. They did not prefer:
Thin physiques (skinny), high bodyfat physiques, or exadurated bodybuilding physiques (huge guys)
The study found that women rated muscular guys significantly higher than non muscular people. To sum up the rest, women preferred muscular men, but not extremely muscular men. Women also showed more preference to muscles than men did when rating male bodies.
Maisey et al.
Questuon: What features of a male body make it more or less attractive to women?
Basically the same question as the other studies.
Instead of studying height, etc, they studied body proportions.
Researchers created male body pics that varied in physical traits.
The main finding was that women prefer men with a larger shoulder to waist ratio. This backs up the idea that frame matters. This means that broad shoulders, narrow waist, and a v shaped torso were extremely attractive.
A V taper was consistently associated with higher attractiveness.
The prefered shoulder to waist ratio was 1.6. This means shoulders should be 1.6 times the width of the waist optimally.
Conclusion
I think that this is one of my most high effort threads. If you liked it, drop a rep and bump it! Thanks for reading! The real conclusion is in the TLDR.
Cues of upper body strength account for most of the variance in men's bodily attractiveness - PubMed
Evolution equips sexually reproducing species with mate choice mechanisms that function to evaluate the reproductive consequences of mating with different individuals. Indeed, evolutionary psychologists have shown that women's mate choice mechanisms track many cues of men's genetic quality and...
pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
Thanks for atleast reading this. The studies found that perceived strength was an incredibly large factor in bodily attractiveness. Aesthetic physiques were preferred over exadurated bodybuilding physiques in most studies. However, it was also found that a 1.6 shoulder to waist ratio was very important. This means these are very important:
V taper
Height
Strength
Muscle size
leanness
V taper
Height
Strength
Muscle size
leanness
