Can straight men recognise a good looking guy?

ongarboy

The Man Crush thread reminded me of a conversation I had a while back with friends. We were sitting in an open plan cafe in a shopping centre and a good looking guy walked by. The girls acknowledged his good looks and someone asked our male friend (straight) and I whether we agreed he was good looking. As a gay guy, I agreed the stranger was handsome but our straight friend said "How would I know, I'm straight!". We argued that surely he can still tell the difference between a good looking and ugly guy the same way women can rate other women but he was adamant he couldn't so we left it at that

I suppose my question is can straight guys recognise good looking men from not so good looking men and secondly, if so, why would some guys deny it?

seachto7

Absolutely. Though I look in the mirror, and don't think I am good looking at all, some women would say I am cute or whatever. I just don't see it. So what a guy might think is a good looking guy, maybe it wouldn't float everyone's boat. But, in the classical chiselled jaw good looking thing, surely it's pretty obvious to a guy if another guy is good looking.
Look at Aussie rules players, or pro rugby players, and a lot of them due to their physique would be considered good looking.........except the prop forwards obviously!

Rayne Wooney

I think I judge how good looking another lad is by the amount of women they get

weemcd

ongarboy wrote: »

The Man Crush thread reminded me of a conversation I had a while back with friends. We were sitting in an open plan cafe in a shopping centre and a good looking guy walked by. The girls acknowledged his good looks and someone asked our male friend (straight) and I whether we agreed he was good looking. As a gay guy, I agreed the stranger was handsome but our straight friend said "How would I know, I'm straight!". We argued that surely he can still tell the difference between a good looking and ugly guy the same way women can rate other women but he was adamant he couldn't so we left it at that

I suppose my question is can straight guys recognise good looking men from not so good looking men and secondly, if so, why would some guys deny it?

They will deny it and probably say "oymm nat a fookin qwuueeer"

Of course you can tell who is good looking and who isn't. However taste is all subjective, I've heard 2 girls i know around my own age 20-25 say paddy doherty is their ideal man, yes, big fat gypsy weddings paddy doherty, about 18 stone and twice their age, that paddy doherty.

no accounting for taste.

Sugar Free

They can and do, they just don't admit it for the most part.

Hazys

TBH i can't and i don't have a clue. It's not out of fear of somebody thinking i'm gay or anything.

I don't see how the two lads from Twilight are considered good looking for instance. To me, Taylor Lautner looks retarded and Robert Patterson looks like a pale homeless bum. Justin Bieber looks like a girl. I'm not saying that to be mean but thats how they look to me...

If i was to take a guess, it'd have to be a guy with good skin and a pretty symetrical face but once discussing this with friends of mine who are girls, i was wrong more times than i was right.

coffee_cake

I'm sure they can.
"Hey look that's Paul over there, hey Paul!"

GalwayGuy2

Of course we can I, for one, am straight, not stupid:P

cantdecide

If a guy was a 7> or a 4<, I'd get it. The middle of the scale is where I come a cropper. I'd regularly think a guy is not so good looking but the consensus would be that he would pretty decent looking and vice versa.

Stheno

Most of my male friends/colleagues would.

It sometimes comes up in conversation in work and some of them directly say "well so and so is defintely a good looking bloke"

Pat Mustard

I imagine that most men are able to tell if another man is ugly or not, so it would make sense that the corollary should be true.

Human beings are pretty good at sizing up the competition in other matters which have influenced human evolution. It would also make sense that a man should be able to analyse what kind of competition is against him, when looking for women.

It is accepted that facial symmetry is indicative of attractiveness. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facial_symmetry . My understanding is that the human brain is very good at identifying symmetry/asymmetry. Therefore,I think that one could reasonably assume that your average male should be capable of objectively evaluating the same when it comes to another man.

Perhaps men are reluctant to admit that they are capable of telling the difference, for one reason or another. Perhaps they are have not bothered to test their powers of observation in this way, for one reason or another. I don't know. What I do know is that women seem to have no such hesitations. My opinion is that if anything, many women tend to over-estimate the attractiveness of other women.

That friend of theirs that looks just like Jessica Biel - probably doesn't.

ongarboy

Hazys wrote: »

TBH i can't and i don't have a clue. It's not out of fear of somebody thinking i'm gay or anything.

So if Brian Cowen (no offence to him) and for example, Jonathan Reys Meyers was standing side by side, would you struggle to establish who was better looking if you were asked?

Hazys

ongarboy wrote: »

So if Brian Cowen (no offence to him) and for example, Jonathan Reys Meyers was standing side by side, would you struggle to establish who was better looking if you were asked?

Well obviously Brian Cowen is overweight.

TBH if i JRM was a normal guy walking down the street...i dont think i'd notice him. Looking at his wiki pic, to me i see no reason to say he is better looking than the average guy.

Pat Mustard

Hazys wrote: »

Well obviously Brian Cowen is overweight.

TBH if i JRM was a normal guy walking down the street...i dont think i'd notice him. Looking at his wiki pic, to me i see no reason to say he is better looking than the average guy.

If we put it into a sweeping mathematical equation, it'd be along the lines of:
Brian Cowen = Jonathan Rhys Myers.

This is a classic example of reluctance to admit basic powers of observation or deliberate failure to exercise same.

A 3 year old child could tell you that Biffo is on a loser here! The first Apple Computer, from 1976, in its wooden box, could tell you that!

RDM_83 again

I think you can obviously tell if a guy is that sort of stereotypically classically handsome look or a really obvious pretty boy but thats more because you know X is meant to be handsome cos he's the male lead etc look at some of the men that are considered really attractive by a lot of woman

Also men aren;t good looking woman are therefore its easy to tell if a womans good looking but impossible to tell if a man is!!!

The Mustard wrote: »

It is accepted that facial symmetry is indicative of attractiveness. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facial_symmetry . My understanding is that the human brain is very good at identifying symmetry/asymmetry. Therefore,I think that one could reasonably assume that your average male should be capable of objectively evaluating the same when it comes to another man.

Perhaps men are reluctant to admit that they are capable of telling the difference, for one reason or another. Perhaps they are have not bothered to test their powers of observation in this way, for one reason or another. I don't know.

I'd argue (pseudo-scientifically) that the reason for this is that recognizing good looking guys doesn;t bring the same evolutionary/reproductive advantage to men as recognising good looking woman does to females, men can be attractive prospects without being attractive (look at Mick Jagger)

Galvasean

For the most part I can recognise a handsome man when I see one. Heck, I can even see why so many women fancy Russel Brand. But every now and then I see a guy that has millions of females swooning over him and I just don't get it. Someone mentioned Taylor Lautner earlier and he is one of them. I mean sure he's got the muscles, but his face just looks... off to my eyes - like some kind of weird child. Perhaps he's some sort of male 'butterface'?
I also don't understand the 30something women who went ga-ga for a 13 year old Justin Bieber or the lads from 1Direction when hey were 15. I mean sure, they're nice looking lads for their age (so I see why their own age group would like them), but seriously, they're just kids! I suppose it reminds me of the men who perved on the Olsen twins when they were 12. What's up with that?

Napper Hawkins

Brian Cowen looks like someone fused a bouncy castle to his face and burst it.
I can tell if a guy is particularly good looking and if a guy is particularly ugly, but there's definitely a large grey area inbetween.

You just have to look at the men a lot of women drool over; Ryan Gosling, Depp, Pitt, Damon etc. and you can clearly see a pattern. But I've been surprised on occasion when I learnt that certain others were deemed to be good looking/ugly also when I originally assumed the opposite.

I also agree that many women overestimate the looks of other women.
My gf and some of her female friends reckon Angelina Jolie is (or at least, was) the best looking (famous) woman in the world.

I think she's great looking myself but the best? Far, far from it. But then, personal opinion and all that.

oldyouth

ongarboy wrote: »

We argued that surely he can still tell the difference between a good looking and ugly guy the same way women can rate other women but he was adamant he couldn't so we left it at that

From my experience, women are terrible judges of other women . The amount of times that different women have pointed out complete barkers to me as 'really pretty (and vice versa) is unbelievable. I don't know if it is always their genuine opinion or just being bitchy.

seachto7

A lot of women assume lads think a tanned blonde with big tits is going to be "good looking".

Eve_Dublin

seachto7 wrote: »

A lot of women assume lads think a tanned blonde with big tits is going to be "good looking".

Why wouldn't we think that though? A lot of men do consider that good-looking. I see women like that out and about and they get a huge amount of attention. I think it makes sense that women would presume that what many men goes for, even if you don't.

desertcircus

I can recognise what I think is a good-looking man, but I'm not sure I'm using the same metric as the women I know are. I don't see much in Jonathan Rhys Meyers or Rob Kearney, but most women I know would crawl over broken glass to get their hands on either of them. I suspect most of what I notice is actually envy over physique - I don't know if Stephen Ferris has a better-looking face than me, but I'm dead certain his body is about a hundred times more attractive than mine.

That said, there are some men I can definitely see the attraction of. If Ryan Gosling decided he was gay and asked me out on to dinner, I'd be at the restaurant before he finished speaking.

seachto7

Eve_Dublin wrote: »

Why wouldn't we think that though? A lot of men do consider that good-looking. I see women like that out and about and they get a huge amount of attention. I think it makes sense that women would presume that what many men goes for, even if you don't.

Wouldn't float my boat. You could be in a bar and there could be 50 blonde women, all dolled up the same. They could all be sisters. I dunno, it's like an assembly line of "good looking women". A little bit of originality goes a long way for me. But that's just me.....

Anyhow, back on topic. I wouldn't consider Daniel Craig good looking. Is he? Yeah, he is buff, but from the neck up, would he be considered good looking? Would someone like Noel Gallagher be considered good looking?

Pat Mustard

RDM_83 again wrote: »

I think you can obviously tell if a guy is that sort of stereotypically classically handsome look or a really obvious pretty boy but thats more because you know X is meant to be handsome cos he's the male lead etc look at some of the men that are considered really attractive by a lot of woman

Yes, a number of people mentioned that at the more extreme ends of the attractiveness scale, they would be able to tell, but around the middle ground, they would not. I find it hard to disagree.

RDM_83 again wrote: »

I'd argue (pseudo-scientifically) that the reason for this is that recognizing good looking guys doesn;t bring the same evolutionary/reproductive advantage to men as recognising good looking woman does to females, men can be attractive prospects without being attractive (look at Mick Jagger)

Interesting proposition. If we assume that what you write is correct, could a reasonable explanation be that women are considerably more forgiving of men in the looks department, than men are of women? If that is the case, wouldn't there be less reason for capability of assessing attractiveness in the competition? Obvious extremes would stand out, leaving a certain grey area in between.

And Mick Jagger is peculiar looking.

mikemac1

To answer the OP, yes of course

Though some seem bizarre

Pete Doherty hooks up with a supermodel and gets a modelling contract for himself.

The Clown Man

I read somewhere that the basis of the power of attraction comes from a particular region of the brain and depending on its size you are either more attracted to men or more attracted to women. In general 14% of people are at either extreme, with preference in the middle tending towards the opposite sex while being capable of judging attractiveness of the same sex to varying degrees. Some guys are really good at telling whether another guy is attractive or not, some guys just simply can't and some guys only see other guys as attractive.

I don't know how true that all is but it seems to make sense to me.

I don't think that guys in general have any problem with admitting another guy has got good looks as much as some people may imagine. But where guys and girls do tend to differ due to a psychological factor other than attraction is actually acting upon the mild attraction. A girl doesn't need to worry so much about stigma when kissing another girl but the guy may worry about being emasculated and frowned upon by other guys.

Personally I have never been able to tell if a guy is good looking or not and honestly it bugged the hell out of me when I was in my teens. I had a row with a gay guy and his female friend once because they refused to believe that I couldn't tell the difference between a good looking guy and an average looking guy and they assumed that I was just trying to hide it on account of my "image". This of course was very insulting to the gay guy and even more so for me because I had no desire to pretend anything or cause any insult. But they simply couldn't accept that I had no idea what made a guy attractive. I might as well be comparing cats was my analogy I think.

So my view is that guys having a certain understanding of what makes guys attractive is perfectly normal. Being absolutely attracted to one or the other sex is the minority either way to equal extent there or thereabouts.

At least thats how I now justify my complete lack of understanding of male attractiveness nowadays!

Pherekydes

bluewolf wrote: »

I'm sure they can.
"Hey look that's Paul over there, hey Paul!"

Paul Newman? Yeah, he's gorgeous.

iptba

Of course, what (heterosexual) women find attractive in men is a bit complicated:

A woman prefers a more masculine man when she is fertile and looking for a fling rather than a mate for life, according to a new study.

The finding suggests the value that women place on masculinity changes with context and with women’s reproductive cycles and immediate goals. A woman's preference for manly men also was found to vary based on how attractive she rated herself.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18077810/wid/11915773?GT1=9303#.UIwUmG-HKxU

HellFireClub

ongarboy wrote: »

The Man Crush thread reminded me of a conversation I had a while back with friends. We were sitting in an open plan cafe in a shopping centre and a good looking guy walked by. The girls acknowledged his good looks and someone asked our male friend (straight) and I whether we agreed he was good looking. As a gay guy, I agreed the stranger was handsome but our straight friend said "How would I know, I'm straight!". We argued that surely he can still tell the difference between a good looking and ugly guy the same way women can rate other women but he was adamant he couldn't so we left it at that

I suppose my question is can straight guys recognise good looking men from not so good looking men and secondly, if so, why would some guys deny it?

Bit of a stupid question to be honest. Show him a picture of Brian Cowen and then a picture of George Clooney, if he can't work out which one of them is better looking, there is something seriously wrong with him.

MaroonAndGreen

put it this way, I can tell if a lad is fcuk ugly or not!

but wouldnt be able to judge at the other end of the scale

Strawberry Fields

When I see a bloke eg Jack L now on the telly I think great singer, if I turned over to graham norton I'd think poof, if I turned on match of the day I'd think Gary Lineker boring knob. Whether any of them are good looking doesn't really come into it.

walshb

Of course straight men can recognise a generally good looking man. Everyone has their own view on what is good looking, but generally speaking I think any person can recognise an aesthetically good looking person.