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.
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: )
Aww thanks!
Band shirts are cool, by graphic tees many people mean the stuff with like generic catch phrases on them.
No bazinga allowed in my closet