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What body types do women/guys find most/least attractive?

Musketeer4

Following on fromt he "are you a roide" thread, I got to thinking what body types do men/women find most and least attractive in the opposite sex?

I'm a guy and in the media we always see big, muscular guys being touted as attractive. Do women actually find this to be the most attractive body type? Or is it considered intimidatingly good looking?

Typically the male body types can be broken down into

Overweight/fat - simply fat. Upper end of dad bod
Skinny phag - thin and scrawny. Little fat or muscle. Phag bod.
Skinny fat - Think the lower end of dad bod. Healthy BMI but out of shape.
Buff - toned but not big. bf approx 10%. Think Edward Cohen.
Ripped medium muscle mass with bf% <10%. Hugh Jackman.
Jacked - big muscle mass but with a higher bf% 15-20%. Jason statham.
Shredded - Child of ripped and jacked, good muscle mass with bf% <10%
Swole - Very large. Bulging with muscularity. Dwayne Johnson.
Yolked - Complete freakshows. Not possible without mega 'roidz bruh. Think Kali Muscle or Arnold at his biggest.

What sort of male body do average Jane on the street find to be the most attractive?

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Grayson

tonygun wrote: »

5'7 is on the small side for a man alright, however it's not excessively small and is still taller than most women

It depends. If you're on a dating site you'll see a lot of women will put down tall or "taller than me" as their description of who they want to talk to.

wakka12

Grayson wrote: »

It depends. If you're on a dating site you'll see a lot of women will put down tall or "taller than me" as their description of who they want to talk to.

i always hear people say women do this but throughout my entire time on tinder and okcupid I have not seen one female user explicitly state anything related to the height of men she wants to talk to, I have no doubt they do filter by height without stating so though

tomwaterford

wakka12 wrote: »

i always hear people say women do this but throughout my entire time on tinder and okcupid I have not seen one female user explicitly state anything related to the height of men she wants to talk to, I have no doubt they do filter by height without stating so though

It's usually something along lines I'm 5ft10....just saying (or along those line) is what come up on tinder back when I used use it

Though great thing about tindr is therrs so many on it....literally something for everyoneðŸ˜႒

Colser

Would men have an issue with going out with a taller woman or is it more the woman's issue?

wakka12

Colser wrote: »

Would men have an issue with going out with a taller woman or is it more the woman's issue?

Ive heard several men say they'd prefer date a smaller woman though I don't know if its a deal breaker or anything. Certainly not as big an issue as it is for women

Wibbs

LLMMLL wrote: »

I'm curious how you reconcile your belief in Ev. Psych. and its influence on attraction with the fact that people have widely different types.

Indeed, though it could still be explained within that framework as seeking genetic diversity, with cultural influences playing a part. So if a culture favours say fatness in women, it makes good sense that a minority would find skinny women attractive, as an external environmental change could come along which would render fatness as a weakness. The minority that dug skinny would ensure enough skinny genes to survive and keep the group going. It's one theory why Europeans appear to be so externally diverse as a population. Europeans have the widest range of hair colour/texture and this can even be seen within families. The idea being that because the population was for so long quite small and less diverse, unusual features like blonde hair, blue eyes, red hair etc was sought out. Whereas with say Africans who have far more genetic diversity the "need" for such obvious external differences was low, so don't exhibit such wide differences. It could also be down to individual reproductive "value". People tend to pair up like with like.

Musketeer4

Colser wrote: »

Would men have an issue with going out with a taller woman or is it more the woman's issue?

A girl taller than me would put me off her no matter how nice she was.
Can't help it its just my preference.

LLMMLL wrote: »

I'm not going to quote your whole post but its pretty clear you are overly invested in Evolutionary Psychology.

There are at least two reasons why older women cut their hair. Its part of our culture, i.e. all the other older women do it. Secondly, grey hair (even when dyed) is of a very different quality to non-grey. Its kind of brittle. I Imagine a whole head of long grey hair (even when dyed) would be difficult to maintain. The idea that women over 40 have given up on their appearance when they cut their hair is laughable. All the women I know over 40 wear makeup, are into clothing, and try to look their best. Its just that they believe that short hair will make them look better, whether they are correct or not.

I didn't say women after 40 abandon their appearance. I said many MEN abandon it. They do, much more so than women. Its rare enough to see a guy 40+ without a belly. They are quite often dressed in ill fitting, thrown together clothes too, boot cut jeans + dress shoes and shirts of a "forgiving" baggy fit. Women generally look after their appearance much more effectively.

This is the problem with analyzing all human behaviour through Ev. Psych. You observe a behaviour, come up with a just-so explanation, and ignore all other factors. I'm curious how you reconcile your belief in Ev. Psych. and its influence on attraction with the fact that people have widely different types.

Cultural norms do come in to it definitely, but I believe evolution bears some influence on why certain cultural phenomenon exist and certainly influences the laws of attraction.

People today have wildly different types because to them that is attractive. The very existence of people with different types would indicate that no one type or other has a significant competitive advantage over some other type in evolutionary fitness terms. Each type was able to successfully procreate.

Wibbs

Musketeer4 wrote: »

People today have wildly different types because to them that is attractive. The very existence of people with different types would indicate that no one type or other has a significant competitive advantage over some other type in evolutionary fitness terms.

Diversity itself is the evolutionary advantage. Humans are a very diverse species and not just in what we find attractive. There's no one Human Diet for example. We're generalists, not specialists and constantly culturally adaptive and that is one of the killer apps that made us who we are.

pilly

Widdershins wrote: »

Me too. I don't like short hair. Why do women have to chop their hair off at a certain age.

Mainly because the hair becomes quite thin to be frank, sad fact of life. It looks terrible long if it becomes really thin and in bad condition. I still have mine long but I know at a certain age it will look classier short.

In saying that some women are lucky to maintain a thick head of hair and should keep it long if they like that way.

pilly

Deleted User wrote: »

I'm not going to tell you how you should feel about being that height but I know that I don't like it. (Actually about 5"6.75..) I love hearing from lads who actually are short saying that they don't mind it that much. I don't feel it instinctively as much as it probably appears but intellectually it makes sense for me that it is a bad as I think.

I do know where Onion Belt is coming from though to be fair. My son has a friend who is the funniest guy I've ever met but he's quite small. I'd say he's smaller than you now Onion Belt because I'm 5ft 4.5 and I think he's about the same. He has very little luck with the ladies. Has had great luck pulling them on night outs but not getting them to go out with him. I think a lot of todays girls are quite shallow and more concerned about how they will look in photos than actually living their lives.

Having said that my husband was 5ft 7 so if I wore heels we were about the same and it never bothered me.

pilly

Colser wrote: »

Would men have an issue with going out with a taller woman or is it more the woman's issue?

I think men have a big issue with it in my experience. I'm not tall but I've friends who are and they've rarely had smaller partners.

pilly

Dr Crayfish wrote: »

I couldn't even read that, whatever that is OnionBelt. As I stated earlier in the thread, I go out quite regularly as a 5'11'' man with my 6'5'' super handsome mate and I never get a look in! That's just the way it is. I don't resent him for it! He can't go out with all of them!
No matter who you are or what you look like there's always going to be someone better on paper. Life just isn't fair, the sooner you accept that the better

True, true.

suicide_circus

HughWotMVIII wrote: »

I always think I have a type until I meet someone who's not at all like my ideal but I am still attracted to him.
I've been attracted to: tall men, short men, good looking men and not so good looking men. What they had in common was that they were quick witted, kind - until they weren't - and funny with nice mouths.

Physically, the only thing I am not willing to compromise is a nice mouth.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVDN8yR3ig0

pilly

wakka12 wrote: »

Unfortunately it does pretty much the opposite and comes across as nobody cares stop whining!
But I do recognise that height is quite an arbitrary problem in the grand scheme of things. Though it just really irks me when women say it though, in a completely unsympathetic manner, 'oh it doesn't matter', when there is no such limiting physical factor for women on par with importance of male height.

And being fat is in no way comparable despite the pressure women are under to be skinny . Because, you can lose weight. You cant grow. And to add insult to injury, Id say the top 20% fattest segment of women get 100 fold times more romantic attention than the 20% smallest group of men in society

What about tall women though? They can't get any smaller and a lot of men will show no interest because they're taller than them.

suicide_circus

In all honesty none of the short men I know have had any trouble finding female companionship or the tall women for that matter.

Musketeer4

Nor my friend. At a mere 5'6", he never had any problem getting women and I'd even say he was the one of the most prolific womanisers in our class in college. Still is. We were at indiependence recently and he was with a girl every night in the campsite.

What defeats less than average height guys in the dating department is not their height, it is the massive chip they often have on their shoulder, an inferiority complex and a bad attitude. A lot of these guys if they woke up 6'2" in the morning and still found themselves not getting girls they'd probably start blaming it on some other attribute they had a raw deal on.

My friend is the perfect example of why height is not really all that big of a deal.

Dr Crayfish

Oh yeah. I was recently in Holland. It's nuts, at a party I was at id say probably one in 5 of the women were over 6ft. So if you think it's bad here shorties, don't go to Holland!

snotboogie

Musketeer4 wrote: »

Nor my friend. At a mere 5'6", he never had any problem getting women and I'd even say he was the one of the most prolific womanisers in our class in college. Still is. We were at indiependence recently and he was with a girl every night in the campsite.

What defeats less than average height guys in the dating department is not their height, it is the massive chip they often have on their shoulder, an inferiority complex and a bad attitude. A lot of these guys if they woke up 6'2" in the morning and still found themselves not getting girls they'd probably start blaming it on some other attribute they had a raw deal on.

My friend is the perfect example of why height is not really all that big of a deal.

Yes but you are probably talking about somebody who has exceptional social skills or confidence or good looks or some combination of the three. Your average bloke who is 5'6 is going to have vastly different reactions from women than your average bloke who is 6'2. Of course their are going to be many outliers, on both sides of the equation but using these as proof to say height isn't a big deal is like saying a college degree isn't a big deal because Bill Gates never graduated.

DrPhilG

My wife would never look twice at a short man. I'm 5'11" so I made the cut.

suicide_circus

DrPhilG wrote: »

My wife would never look twice at a short man. I'm 5'11" so I made the cut.

She's probably getting ploughed by the seven dwarfs while you're at work

[Deleted User]

snotboogie wrote: »

Yes but you are probably talking about somebody who has exceptional social skills or confidence or good looks or some combination of the three. Your average bloke who is 5'6 is going to have vastly different reactions from women than your average bloke who is 6'2. Of course their are going to be many outliers, on both sides of the equation but using these as proof to say height isn't a big deal is like saying a college degree isn't a big deal because Bill Gates never graduated.

Yeah it annoys me when someone of even average height tells me "confidence is all that matters" .. ALL ELSE BEING EQUAL a tall guy HAS MORE REASONS BASED IN REALITY TO BE CONFIDENT than a short guy since TALLER MEN ARE ALMOST UNIVERSALLY CONSIDERED MORE ATTRACTIVE and the average height is constantly increasing, and many other reasons. I don't see a need to be tall though (lol), I just wish I was average height so I could feel average instead of inferior.
I have a friend who is maybe 6'1 who has very little confidence with women, socially awkward etc. and I've seen women literally stand in front of him, flutter their eyelashes, trying to get him to engage but he didnt want to or didn't know how. One even said outright, annoyed, that she was trying to get with him. Meanwhile I look invisible standing beside him and my other friends who are all taller.

pumpkin4life

For women, all else being equal:

Taller men will be more attractive than smaller men.

Muscular men will be more attractive than fat men.

Men with hair will be more attractive than bald men.

Extroverted, charismatic men will be more attractive than introverts.

Men with cash will be more attractive than poorer men.

Realities of life, whether you like it or not. Anything else and you're kidding yourself.

gossamer

Musketeer4 wrote: »

Nor my friend. At a mere 5'6", he never had any problem getting women and I'd even say he was the one of the most prolific womanisers in our class in college. Still is. We were at indiependence recently and he was with a girl every night in the campsite.

What defeats less than average height guys in the dating department is not their height, it is the massive chip they often have on their shoulder, an inferiority complex and a bad attitude. A lot of these guys if they woke up 6'2" in the morning and still found themselves not getting girls they'd probably start blaming it on some other attribute they had a raw deal on.

My friend is the perfect example of why height is not really all that big of a deal.

Hallelujah, some sense at last.

I can only look to my own group of friends and with regards the lads on the shorter side, the short confident one's get women. Whereas the short one's with low self esteem do not, point this out to them though and they rubbish it. I think many people enjoy wallowing in their own self pity.

snotboogie

Deleted User wrote: »

snotboogie wrote: »

Yes but you are probably talking about somebody who has exceptional social skills or confidence or good looks or some combination of the three. Your average bloke who is 5'6 is going to have vastly different reactions from women than your average bloke who is 6'2. Of course their are going to be many outliers, on both sides of the equation but using these as proof to say height isn't a big deal is like saying a college degree isn't a big deal because Bill Gates never graduated.

Yeah it annoys me when someone of even average height tells me "confidence is all that matters" .. ALL ELSE BEING EQUAL a tall guy HAS MORE REASONS BASED IN REALITY TO BE CONFIDENT than a short guy since TALLER MEN ARE ALMOST UNIVERSALLY CONSIDERED MORE ATTRACTIVE and the average height is constantly increasing, and many other reasons. I don't see a need to be tall though (lol), I just wish I was average height so I could feel average instead of inferior.
I have a friend who is maybe 6'1 who has very little confidence with women, socially awkward etc. and I've seen women literally stand in front of him, flutter their eyelashes, trying to get him to engage but he didnt want to or didn't know how. One even said outright, annoyed, that she was trying to get with him. Meanwhile I look invisible standing beside him and my other friends who are all taller.

I would add a caveat that almost everybody in life has some disadvantage that is impossible or incredibly difficult to overcome. If you can't overcome it, people need to accept it, own it and focus on other areas of self improvement. For the guy who goes bald at 22, staring at the handsome guy with the hot girl running her fingers through his full head of hair and focusing on how the world screwed him over isn't healthy or productive. As difficult as it may be, the best and only course of action to take is to own it, look at how it is affecting your life goals and find other ways to gain a competitive advantage.

[Deleted User]

snotboogie wrote: »

I would add a caveat that almost everybody in life has some disadvantage that is impossible or incredibly difficult to overcome. If you can't overcome it, people need to accept it, own it and focus on other areas of self improvement. For the guy who goes bald at 22, staring at the handsome guy with the hot girl running her fingers through his full head of hair and focusing on how the world screwed him over isn't healthy or productive. As difficult as it may be, the best and only course of action to take is to own it, look at how it is affecting your life goals and find other ways to gain a competitive advantage.

Nah I agree that most people do have something obviously detrimental to their appearance, and most people also have something deterimental to their life in some other way. I'd say being my height is a walk in the park compared to going bald at a young age, to use your example. I do get told I look signficantly younger than I am so maybe I can benefit from that in coming years.

Mr Arrior

Tbh height doesn't seem to be that big a deal with the men and women in my social circle. Most of my friends are around 5'9" or smaller and they have had no problems with wonen. One guy would be about 5'6" and he has probably the best luck with them. I'm 5'11" but shy so have had the least luck. Its all about confidence, of course some women may prefer taller guys but at the same time some women prefer smaller guys.

ZeroThreat

Mr Arrior wrote: »

Tbh height doesn't seem to be that big a deal with the men and women in my social circle. Most of my friends are around 5'9" or smaller and they have had no problems with wonen. One guy would be about 5'6" and he has probably the best luck with them. I'm 5'11" but shy so have had the least luck. Its all about confidence, of course some women may prefer taller guys but at the same time some women prefer smaller guys.

At the end of the day, length, rather than height truly matters to women.

LLMMLL

Wibbs wrote: »

Indeed, though it could still be explained within that framework as seeking genetic diversity, with cultural influences playing a part. So if a culture favours say fatness in women, it makes good sense that a minority would find skinny women attractive, as an external environmental change could come along which would render fatness as a weakness. The minority that dug skinny would ensure enough skinny genes to survive and keep the group going. It's one theory why Europeans appear to be so externally diverse as a population. Europeans have the widest range of hair colour/texture and this can even be seen within families. The idea being that because the population was for so long quite small and less diverse, unusual features like blonde hair, blue eyes, red hair etc was sought out. Whereas with say Africans who have far more genetic diversity the "need" for such obvious external differences was low, so don't exhibit such wide differences. It could also be down to individual reproductive "value". People tend to pair up like with like.

A lot of types aren't down to genetics though. My sister goes crazy for a guy wearing geek glasses. There's hardly a gene for that.

This is pretty much the problem with Ev Psych though. You can come up with any explanation and it's completely untestable. People have a certain type. Oh it must have a competitive advantage. There are lots of types. Oh we need genetic diversity. There's no fossil record for people's preferences.

I have a friend who is solely into women well past child bearing age. His ex is 60. That provides zero advantage, even if all the under 60s are wiped out. She'll never be able to reproduce.

And if these traits that people find attractive are not evolutionary it would suggest that others such as fat vs skinny, blonde or brunette aren't either.

Wibbs

LLMMLL wrote: »

A lot of types aren't down to genetics though. My sister goes crazy for a guy wearing geek glasses. There's hardly a gene for that.

Oh I don't think there's a gene or suite of genes for that L. The problem with genetics is that it's the science flavour of the decade and is applied to everything willy nilly. So if all you use is a hammer, everything starts to look like a nail. Ditto for the exalted position of evolution*.

However your sister may be attracted to that type because a) it's a type prominent in her inner template and/or b) she is more that type herself and like tends to seek out like and/or c) "geek glasses" is more likely to signify higher intelligence(of a certain kind) in a man. Put it this way, in very general terms which group is likely to be more bookish and book smart, a gathering of bespectacled nerds or a gathering of bodybuilders? Again it would make sense that a species would have variability within the population for mate choice in changing environments. EG in a educated protected suburban environment the bespectacled highly educated "geek" is a better bet than the hyper masculine "jock" of average intelligence and education. Whereas if a war kicked off and protection required a more personal direct approach the muscled guy is the better bet. Regardless of environment it makes good sense for a generalist species to keep some minority traits on the go at any one time.

There is also culture and the evolution of same alongside the obvious physical. EG Chinese culture is extremely exam results focused. One explanation for this is that for a thousand plus years civil service entrance exams(and continuing exams within) formed the basis of pretty much the only way to climb through the social ranks(within limits). In European cultures this was far less in play and social mobility was far higher. Even in slave cultures. Many was the wealthiest and most connected Roman who was the offspring of previous slaves, or ex slaves themselves. Look at some populations of the Jewish diaspora who are very much over represented in the sciences. Go back to ancient Greek or Roman times and Jews were just another bunch of funny little middle easterners of little note. They have had quite the suite of social and environmental external pressures and a quite isolated population with it and one that heavily selected for education and learning. Both traits seen as sexually attractive in mates.

This is pretty much the problem with Ev Psych though. You can come up with any explanation and it's completely untestable. People have a certain type. Oh it must have a competitive advantage. There are lots of types. Oh we need genetic diversity.

Diversity is the competitive advantage. We are a species of generalists with an allowance for outliers of all types, in case they may be required in changing environments and this is reflected in our variable tastes.

There's no fossil record for people's preferences.

Actually there is. One could argue the fossil record, both in bones and genes above all shows direct evidence of people's preferences and evolution of what is considered "beauty" in people today, even with the cultural dressing on top. Certain features may have sprung up as a "fault" but were sexually selected for and became more common. EG blonde hair looks to be only about 15-20,000 years old as a feature. It seems women(and men) with such hair colour were having more kids over time.

Take the human waist. The aforementioned hip waist ratio in women is universal regardless of culture and time. The Venus de Milo has the same ratio as Marilyn Monroe and the same as Kate Moss and the women in Rubens paintings and so on and so forth. Hell the same ratio is present in the enormously obese sculptures of women in the paleolithic, the first sculptures of the recognisably human form in art history. Now consider previous humans before us. They had a different ratio. Neandertal women for example had no waists to speak of(neither did the men). Their rib cage kept flaring out towards the bottom, so they were more square, even an inverted V. At some point in our history this waist ratio was positively and heavily selected for as such an attractive feature it became universal among modern peoples**. To the degree that this ratio also shows to have actual reproductive advantages with more healthy hormonal profiles in women with this ratio. Not just in women. Men also have a ratio going on, where shoulders wider than hips was selected for as "attractive".

I have a friend who is solely into women well past child bearing age. His ex is 60. That provides zero advantage, even if all the under 60s are wiped out. She'll never be able to reproduce.

Sure, but in any population, especially one that is more open to diversity, outliers even individual "faults" are allowed. Or it's simply a "fault" in your friend. I mean there are folks who have fallen in love with objects, even buildings.

*caveat; I am NOT a doubter in evolution as a general and damned fantastic theory, I do sometimes doubt its blanket application based on our current understanding of the underlying processes involved.

** maybe this is why so far we've only found Neandertal gene flow into us coming from their male lines. Maybe their women's waist/hip ratio was sufficiently unattractive for our men to largely avoid them as mates? They themselves may show strong sexual selection for some of their traits too, as some traits make little environmental sense. EG they had enormous noses. This is a deleterious trait for living in colder climes. We see this today. Populations native to colder climates have smaller noses and the hotter the climates get the bigger the noses get. Maybe their bog noses came about by "accident" like blonde hair and was positively sexually selected for.

Musketeer4

LLMMLL wrote: »

My sister goes crazy for a guy wearing geek glasses. There's hardly a gene for that.

.............

I have a friend who is solely into women well past child bearing age. His ex is 60. That provides zero advantage, even if all the under 60s are wiped out. She'll never be able to reproduce.

And if these traits that people find attractive are not evolutionary it would suggest that others such as fat vs skinny, blonde or brunette aren't either.

Obviously your sisters attraction to geek glasses is not directly genetics related. However she might have an emphasis for selecting on the basis of intellect and popular culture has also associated geekyness and glasses with high intellect. Hence your sister associates the two and is attracted to those with the glasses because they may have a higher intellect.

And regarding the guy who is attracted to post menopausal women, I'd put him into the same outlier evolutionary category as people who are sexually attracted to vegetables, animals, apple tarts or the same gender. Such individuals are so rare because their skewed preferences mean they are unlikely to reproduce. Then why do we still have a few you ask? Perhaps it is just chance, or perhaps they do have some low level reproductive success. For example your friend, he might have a one night stand with a fertile woman and have one child to pass on the granny sex gene, but nonetheless spend the rest of his days balls deep in batty aul geriatrics with the reproductive potential of a peat briquette.

No offence to our older readers intended, but from a purely evolutionary perspective post menopausal females, reproductively and sexually inert, would have been dead weight on prehistoric societies, consuming resources but yet not producing any children in return. Humans have a natural design life of about 40 years and menopause occurs because there was no real selection for a longer reproductive life because most humans were dead by 40 throughout most of our pre-history.

However, I would suspect that given our society's move towards having children later in life there is probably some ongoing natural selection and evolution in which women who are fertile well into their late 40s or even early 50s might have a competitive advantage over women who go through a normal menopause. The high high fertility potential of younger women in their 20s say would be of neutral advantage because very very few people that age have babies anyway.