I'm a straight man who wants to be attractive to women, but society's masculine sex figures (capeshit heroes, underwear models, etc) are shaped for the male gaze even when they're ostensibly meant to be attractive to straight women.* So I'm afraid that emulating their examples, or cultural "common knowledge" about how to perform attractiveness, is mostly making me more attractive to men. Recently I was looking at a male friend's Bumble with some female friends and felt like I totally didn't understand female desire. And men seem a lot more interested in me than women.
Does anyone have reading suggestions? I'm NOT interested in redditisms like "women like rolled up sleeves", I want something more holistic and contextualized.
This post was prompted by a /r/MensLib post but please don't continue their comment fights here.
* Except for "women's media". Boy bands, romance novels, reality TV, etc. I would much rather read theory than consume a lot of pop culture though.
edit: holy shit guys please give me THEORY RECS. I don't care about individual opinions, the internet is full of them already and the comments are full of what I already talked about: cultural "common knowledge" about how to perform attractiveness.
Look at horny women artists on twitter and see what they like - usually it's just guys that are nice to them, bodies be damned lmao
Is there anything wrong with being more attractive to men? :thinking-about-it:
I'm honestly not sure if there is a non-shitty self help book written by a woman about it. To me, when I was dating, I obviously cared about whether or not I was attracted to whoever I was looking to's face, but honestly everywhere else wasn't a big deal for me, I feel like because I'm bi I have a pretty wide range of body types that I like. I do like strong men with decent cardio, mostly for the sex cause that means I have to do way less work because when you're with an out of shape dude you are essentially gonna be doing squats for an hour which can be brutal and not exactly the most enjoyable thing at times and makes some types of sex very hard. Good arm muscles are great for prone stuff which a lot of people are fans of. A lot of stuff comes down to personal preference, but generally staying well groomed (re: regular hair cuts or taking care of your long hair and making it beautiful) and clean, and having a very very basic sense of style (re: graphic tees don't look the best) are good. Don't have to dress up all the time but sometimes thats a plus. Brush your teeth. Have hobbies that are of interest to your date (so, you like video games? try to find a girl that likes those). A lot of women seem kinda shallow about the pics guys put up, but I feel like the smarter women realize that men suck at taking photos of themselves (or at least my bf did, he looks WAY better in person). So maybe take into consideration bad luck is based on bad pictures.
For me, when I was on apps and looking for a date, I was miserable. I had guys constantly spamming me for sex, sending me insults or whatever, saying 'hey' and leaving it at that. Very few even looked at anything I had to say on my profile, and I gave a lot of lead ins. Books, socialism, video games, what I do for fun, a ton of things. Generally hated it when guys didn't want to talk about mutual interests because it felt like it was just a pump and dump situation. At the time, I made it very clear I wasn't in it for just the sex yet a lot of guys seemed to ignore this. Remember that sometimes women ghost you not because they don't like you, but because of fatigue from having hundreds of dudes trying to spam 'fuck me' at them.
If you have any specific questions you can hit me up, again, don't really know of any specific reading material. All of the stuff above are things that would immediately strike me from point a to z when dating people. Especially the teeth, for the love of god, brush your teeth.
Appreciate the advice, already well groomed + in shape. I'm looking for feminist literature about female desire and/or male sexuality. Would be surprised if a self-help book fit this niche.
Is there anything wrong with being more attractive to men?
It's useful for job interviews and stuff but I'm straight and already have lots of dude friends so accidentally putting time and energy into it is a waste.
having a very very basic sense of style (re: graphic tees don’t look the best)
Well shit that's like half my wardrobe. What kind of shirts should I wear?
Check r/malefashionadvice . If you wear those graphic tees because you think you're young and hip, check r/streetwear, pick an aesthetic, and you can actually dress young and hip.
Thanks, I'll check it out. I am definitely not young and hip. Most of my tshirts have nerdy shit on them like album art from weird bands
(fwiw, I think nerdy guys/guys who unapologetically wear the stuff they like are v cute :crush: )
Band shirts are cool, by graphic tees many people mean the stuff with like generic catch phrases on them.
Really for me plain tees are fine. A lot of graphic tees just... Don't look good
I have like only one graphic tee shirt that looks good lol. The rest I purely wear around the house.
Wish they would actually make something that actually looks good and not like crap.
I like henleys and button downs. You can also tailor button downs so they fit better.
I mean body wise scientific studies have been done and they found that women actually don't find the bodybuilder look the most attractive on average. They still found muscular fit guys attractive, but leaner guys. Think Brad Pitt from Fight club, swimmers, short to middle distance runners, middleweight boxers, etc. If you're prepared to put in a lot of work over a long period of time and eat right, I'd say a similar body type is attainable naturally (without steriods and performing enhancing drugs) for most men. Your "genetic limit" is not going to stop you from being lean and muscular. That only comes into play if you want to be really large and lean at the same time like a pro bodybuilder.
This is just on average though, many women like the bodybuilder look, bigger guys, skinnier guys, chubby guys, "bears" etc. Many conventionally "unattractive" people still have relationships.
But to be honest, the most attractive thing, in terms of personality and in terms of your body, is confidence. Confidence in your thoughts, opinions, in your fashion choices, in how you carry yourself. Not arrogance though. Confidence.
Treating women as legitimate equals will also take you far in our current sexist society. Valuing what they think, taking their opinions onboard, no "mansplaining", etc. As another comment in this thread said, just being nice can take you a long way.
The least attractive thing I've found is desperation. People can instantly sense it and it's a massive turn off. Think of people always "orbiting" around women, guys that would change everything about themselves to get a girl, guys that move on trying to get with every single women in the workplace or at university, etc. Second least attractive thing is over the top thirstyness, though I guess that's another form of desperation.
Just my observations as a bi guy watching everyone date and personal experience.
I think Lacan has interesting things to say about female desire and male sexuality. I'd recommend the book Jacques Lacan: A Feminist Introduction by Elizabeth Grosz
Thanks! I don't know anything about Lacan. Will check it out, my library has a copy.
Removed this because I was being an asshole and have no clue how strikethrough works
Stumped on a reading suggestion, but seriously I feel it's not conforming to these traditional standards of male attractiveness, but what they give you- confidence and a little bit of "disinvestment" as it regards to attaining the desire of someone else. :gigachad: ain't sweating rejection.
Also it's conspicuously absent from your post: what was your male friend doing in those photos? I feel like it's sort of important to show a little bit of yourself just beyond appearance (and also they're conversation starters and all that)
“Fellas is it gay to be attractive to women?”
This is actually more annoying to me than somebody calling me gay. Cut it out please. I don't mind that men hit on me in clubs, but if that's the primary effect of my gym time or outfit choices then it's wasted effort.
My male friend was just posing. Sitting down, wearing a stylish but not adventurous outfit. It was a photoshoot with no props or activities. It was just something that clicked as "very hot photo" for my female friends and not at all for me.
Sorry - That was shitty of me. You're asking a serious question so I shouldn't just spout meme bullshit.
That's interesting about your friend though - I think the photographer might have just caught him putting out a "vibe" that came through on camera.
This is interesting because on the one hand cis hetero males are so hegemonic and so you would think they'd be the object of critique and study. But I guess you're asking about women's perspectives on attraction, which would make sense for why no one has been able to give you good theory recs (including me lol). The main artist that comes to mind is Sapho, but she wouldn't be very helpful for you all things considered lol.
My sister did her degree in gender studies, I'll ask her if there's any good recommendations for you and then check back in.
Okay, she said she wasn't aware of much on what you could call "the female gaze," but did give me a bunch of recommendations. I can't vouch for thow applicable they are to you, but here's what she recommended:
- The Charmed Circle Gayle Rubin (I think she mightve meant her essay called Thinking Sex)
- Judith Butler (in general)
- From Gender to Sexuality, specifically chapter 9
- Full Frontal Feminism Jessica Valenti
- Bell Hooks in general, but her stuff on Masculinity Studies (she recommended We Real Cool for just one thing)
- The Beauty Myth Naomi Wolf
I don't know how helpful these will be, but it's something to point you I guess. Like I said she also thought there wasnt much on feminist theory/critique for what women find attractive.
Thanks for asking. I'll dig into these a bit. It does seem like something worth writing about but I guess the "female gaze" doesn't have power/consequences like the male gaze. (Or maybe there's no unified gaze at all.)
I think that what people find attractive is shaped by their culture to a huge degree. Everybody knows the example of how the Greek statues all have small dicks because that was aesthetic back then, but it goes way deeper. A woman is probably paying more attention to your group signifiers than she is your fitness level, fashion, or anything. I for sure do this because I'm always trying to figure out if a particular man is safe for me to interact with basically.
Any theory that would who to understand this would have to be about culture, group identity, and media. It would also probably be too abstract to really be practical. Judith Butler comes to mind, but I don't really know for sure.
For sure, it's gonna be a cultural analysis. I read The Sexual Politics of Meat recently and it made a lot of stuff explicit that was previously just a background hum to me.
I know I said I wasn't interested in anecdotes but I'm curious about this group signifier thing - are you talking like socioeconomic or friend group level? Or like subcultures
The Sexual Politics of Meat
Looks like an interesting read, thanks.
As far as groups go, I was kinda thinking about queer culture (sorry ik you're straight). There are a ton of different queer subgroups, and some people work very hard to indicate one allegiance over another. If you go look at fashion advice social media, there are literally a ton of posts asking things like "how can I look more like a lesbian, but not too much?"
I think straight relationships actually work the same way. Like recently I was talking about dating app profiles with some friends. The women were all complaining about guys who have fishing pictures, and I joked that it's the male version of women with a bunch of pics with horses. Both of these are usually bad pic ideas, because they signal that you're part of a group who statistically is dominated by one gender. If there was no "horse girl" culture, then maybe it would be a great idea for a pic because the men would think it's cool they share a hobby.
Political affiliation is a pretty important group in modern American dating as well. I know it relies on dumb stereotypes, but I'm absolutely trying to figure out how likely a guy is to be a chud or something before I interact. In practice, and as long as you meet a basic standard a conventional attractiveness, I think the culture / group identity stuff is way important than how well you appeal to some nebulous idea of what women actually like.
This is interesting. Do you think your friends feel the same way? For me that's not how I approach desire. Being in the right groups (at least sort of leftist, not a rich kid, compatible sense of humor, etc.) affects whether I want to get to know them more, and I might think someone is less hot if they open their mouth and they're an awful person, but the base starting point of whether I'm attracted to them or like emotionally desire them is mostly physical. Hard to tell through apps of course.
I always viewed this as a class thing - men usually say horse girls are "crazy" which is gross but it is an expensive pursuit. Cars/guns/probably fishing have like an actively misogynistic culture so I get how that gives you a politics/personality preview. Is there a fucked up horse girl culture I don't know about?
I think that just because you start with physical features when thinking about attractiveness doesn't mean you're not working with cultural preferences or assigning groups. One of the first things I notice about someone physically is their age. I'm only interested in people around my age, so what I'm doing here is assigning them a group based on my observations of their appearance. This is even mediated by culture to some degree, because part of the way I guess someone's age is how they dress and act and stuff. Also, if one lived in a culture where different age relationships were normalized, maybe that would affect their attraction.
Somebody else in your thread said they were into nerdy looking guys in graphic t shirts, which isn't at all uncommon. What I don't think is happening here is that people are imagining the platonic ideal of exactly the type of man they want to have sex with is a cute but nerdy one. That doesn't mean the attraction isn't real though.
I didn't read too much into the horse girls and fish guys thing. It's just that both groups are notorious for being obsessive I guess.
