Men like muscles, women like size

of course I have a take on this

I read the post aloud here:

I originally started this essay assuring you all that I don’t usually want to dedicate whole essays to this kind of cycling discourse slop or whatever, but then as the takes started rolling in, I saw that that’s how everyone is starting their whole essays about this kind of cycling discourse slop, so I figured I’d delete that and start over. I’m already adding enough redundancy to the pile here.

Anyway you know I couldn’t keep my male attractiveness-rating paws off what I guess we're calling torsogate. It’s a timeless debate, anyway, when you think about it.

Also, I just want to note at this point that maybe it is a little weird that we’re all just talking about this guy’s body like this, but I guess you can't be a famous singer and post photos like this and not expect that some guy is going to turn your progress into a poll that becomes an investigation into the psyches of women everywhere.

I'm also just using plain, blunt language going forward because we're all grown-ups and we know I'm not trying to insult anybody. I’m also broadly generalizing men and women and we’re just going to move forward knowing that and accepting them for the generalizations they are and not get hung up on all the exceptions we identify with.

Let's get started.

You know by now: a guy did a Twitter poll and found that the women overwhelmingly prefer this dude’s physique on the left to his new-and-improved muscular and very-low-body-fat glow-up on the right.

Men preferred the opposite by a long shot.

I am only a little surprised at the results, and I think the only reason it even registers as surprise is simply because I have been reading too many dudes on Substack complaining about women’s apparent sky-high standards for men and briefly forgot that I am a woman who already knows at least one answer to this because I, too, find the guy more attractive in his “before” photo on the left, and the reason is super simple when you reduce it to its most basic ingredient:

He's bigger.

I made the mistake of logging into Twitter for the first time in ages to look at the original comments on this tweet and other related ones and oh boy do people have some takes. Women have a handful of recurring ones that I agree with, like some variation of “the guy on the left looks more approachable and the guy on the right looks like he lives at the gym and would never spend time with me or eat a burger with me.”

There were also plenty of accurate reminders that women tend to need more context than a photo to determine overall attractiveness, but with that came confusion about whether we were talking about which version was more immediately hot upon first glance, or whether we were talking about marrying the guy (it would be the former, I thought obviously enough).

I was pleased to see a number of other women had come to the same, more base-level conclusion that I did, though, and for the same reasons which, if we're going to evopsych this, I think make much more sense than some of the other theories:

this one really says it all: dude on the left just looks more powerful. That's what bigness does

The skinny guys I know are way more insecure than the fat guys I know about their weight because they know, instinctually or experientially, that this is a pretty common attraction pattern in women.

Yes, of course there is aesthetic value in defined, visible muscles and the dude on the right¹ surely does not hurt for female attention. Also, any actually-skinny guy can definitely “glow up” by adding muscles to his frame. And, as many have pointed out in the cursed twitter threads, if you put shirts on both versions, the guy on the right just looks like a fit dude, not a skinny dude, and the guy on the left just looks like a normal dude. But half naked and with that lighting? Everything about the left image is just more alluring here, and that’s what we’re really judging, not the guy himself or even his muscles, really.

Visible, big muscles are great and even preferable aesthetically to women; it’s the near-total lack of fat that so many women seem to find unappealing. Women don't love obesity any more than men do, but the guy on the left is not anywhere close to being big enough for his body fat to make him less attractive to most women, so his relative size to the after picture makes him the winner in a simple, photo-based, quick, instinct-based choice.

The fact that more men find the super cut version more appealing shouldn't be all that surprising when we consider that women and men also prefer vastly different looks on women, with women liking more makeup and especially different clothing styles, as well as more angular, “model-esque” facial features and men preferring a more natural, youthful appearance.

yes, yes it is

It's really amusing to me how differently this revelation among the men compares to that of women who find out that men report that they don't actually like the apparent over-the-top styles we often wear.

A bunch of these guys think women are just straight up lying, whether it's out of petty jealousy and narcissism or long-game homicidal malice:

I really couldn't tell in which direction this dude thought we were lying, so I had to investigate the comments for clues. I sometimes forget how many men actually just really can’t stand women:

too perfect

committing bullycide: the dream of fat, lazy women (that’s all of us) everywhere

jesus christ dude

Some of these guys think we’re lying because they have the body on the left (or a much less fit one that they imagine looks close enough to the one on the left) and they’re not getting the attention they want from women, while some of these guys think we’re lying because they have a body like the one on the right and they do get a lot of female attention. I think that maybe the reason for the lack of attention is possibly multi-faceted (and not every “before” picture looks like this guy’s, let us not forget), and the reason for the attraction is mostly that like attracts like, and also, muscles are just impressive, which is a fact that should not be buried for the sake of point-proving here in the land of takes. Gym People are probably attracted to other Gym People because they have something in common which coincidentally makes you both hotter and hornier.

Men don’t rate super or even moderately muscular women very high, either, by the way, if that wasn’t obvious enough. I’m being super general here because I know plenty of men who actually literally do, but most men would also probably not rate narrow hips and even a leaner muscular frame as their top choice for body type (or very thin with no real muscle tone), just like women do like slender, toned men but not the most. And while men tend to prefer thinness in women to being overweight, they don’t like super thin women any more than women like super thin men.

And, just like with muscley guys who women say they don’t prefer when situated immediately next to a “chubby-jacked” guy, as

LastBlueDog

calls them², men will still probably not think of her muscular, slender body and reject her for that reason alone. Even if he might prefer a curvier, softer, “more feminine” body, the fact that she’s fit and assuming she’s otherwise compatible with him, I’m sure her body being less curvy would not be much of an issue to him, because everyone can recognize the inherent value of a toned, healthy body and it is going to be at least baseline attractive to most people, women and men alike.

Again, the version of this guy on the right is very unlikely to be rejected by scores of women, especially on the basis of his muscles. It’s not that he’s gross or ugly or that women don’t actually like muscles — it’s that these photos are right next to each other. It’s about an immediate reaction based strictly on appearance; this is not a virtual dating show and no one has seen this guy with a reasonable amount of clothing on his body (if they didn't already know who he was, anyway, which I didn't until this whole thing).

Ultimately no one is even saying that the “after” version of the guy is unattractive — they just like the first picture better for a multitude of reasons and fill in the blanks for the whole human person based on what they see.

Mikala Jamison

and

Cartoons Hate Her

have both argued somewhat on the side of the people who think women are (at least somewhat subconsciously) lying or telling themselves they don’t like something more than they do, but in a much more nuanced and sensible way than a lot of these twitter dweebs, and I can see their points. Mikala says:

I don’t think women are lying, either, but I think some semi-subconscious reasons for preferring the thicker physique have less to do with “He’s more cuddly” and more to do with “The fitter body makes me feel weird about my own” and “If I concede that a gym-shredded body is attractive, won’t I be held to that standard myself?” That’s not a criticism (I’ve felt these ways, too) — those thoughts would be predictable and normal outcomes of our body culture.

Mikala is a fitness professional and obviously has good insight here. CHH is a fitness enthusiast and also has good, similar insight about whether, and for whom, this is true:

One reason that a muscular guy will almost never get rejected for his body type is because with some exceptions, guys like this usually date fit women with similar values and looks. Most people date people who are somewhat similar to them, even if things like ethnicity or height are different. And if fitness is a big part of your life, you’ll probably want a partner who cares about it too. Generally, fit women are not turned off by fit men.

They both make the points that normie women (those who don’t also “live at the gym”) might feel intimidated by a noticeably more fit man, and that (most importantly, imho): gym people like other gym people. People tend to attract and be attracted to people who are similar to them, and fitness is no exception to this tendency.

As a fellow fitness enthusiast and almost/kind of fitness professional³, I am very familiar with these environments and the men and women who inhabit them. I’ve definitely done my share of covert glancing around at some of the regular hotties who work out there, despite my vote for Left Picture. But I’m not a Gym Person in the same way that a guy who makes that 12-week transformation is a Gym Person. I can definitely appreciate his physique and respect the work that goes into it while also preferring the appearance of the guy on the left with maybe some added muscle mass instead of so much fat loss.

Anyway, it’s likely true that the prospect of dating a guy who is serious about fitness can be intimidating to your average woman, and while I’m less inclined to agree with the twitter ghouls that women are maliciously rejecting “competition” with him or other women by rebuffing the muscular version of this dude for those reasons alone, I think what CHH said about this is fair:

An important thing to remember about straight female sexuality is that generally, women need to be the pretty ones in the relationship. Women do not enjoy feeling like the lovable ogre played by Jack Black who scored a hottie with her dazzling wit. Men might be okay with such an arrangement, which is one reason they’re so much more open to dating younger than women are.

Women really are much better at translating Manosphere shit to the normie public than a lot of men are sometimes.⁴

Two more things stand out about this before-and-after set:

1. the lighting in the second set is absolute garbage, his face looks older and less handsome because of it, and he is wearing too little and so looks much thinner than he probably appears IRL when he's not clearly dehydrated and cutting for a competition or something

2. there are different types of “big” and they are not all equal

I posted a note about this and got some responses challenging my theory that his after pic was too skinny and that women prefer “big.” It’s true that there is some nuance here, shockingly enough! Proportion is the primary heuristic.

Apparently this guy took a lot of before and after photos:

The comment read: “These are allegedly around the same time as the left and right in the original pics, except the lean photo is more hydrated and the fatter photo has less pump. Do you still prefer the fatter to skinnier version?”

The difference here is pretty clear to me. The first photo is almost comically engineered to be an unflattering “before” pic: the lighting makes him look pale and bluish, the waistband of his underwear are digging into him making the love handles pop, and he’s got a bizarre, pained facial expression on. And why did they put him in white tube socks? Come on now. I see you.

The one on the right is noticeably warmer, almost as though they used a warm filter after the fact, he’s smiling, his underwear fit him, and his upper and lower bodies are more proportional. His muscles also look more natural rather than engineered and prepped for a show like in the first set. He is not wearing white tube socks for no reason. It’s clear that, compared to the final “after” picture, he still has some body fat and hasn’t dropped all that weight yet. Of course he’s more attractive in the “after” picture here, and that's why.

Another person posted this photo and asked which one I preferred:

I hope the difference between the man on the right and the original man on the left is clear enough that the following commentary will prove redundant

The reason why it’s obvious that the left is more attractive than the right is because the guy on the right has a gut. Clearly. He is more “round” than what your average woman would typically find immediately attractive without context, and excessive belly fat relative to the rest of your body is not proportional, and proportionality matters.

Women and men can both recognize the inherent, pretty objective attractiveness of a “gym bod” in either sex, and missing here in most of this dumb debate is the fact that no one who looks like the dude on the right of the original photo is actually having a hard time with their preferred sex (and neither is the guy on the left, probably, especially since they’re probably not both asking out the same girl at the same time). Twitter women have not collectively condemned them to inceldom. They’re getting as laid as they want to get. The guy on the right is likely healthier than most people because he’s regularly active enough to look the way he does, and it shows he’s dedicated and achieves his goals, which is also attractive. There’s a lot to be attracted to! Like CHH says in her take, working out is very obviously not a bad dating strategy — and in fact, it’s a good strategy, period, to maintain your health and strength and mobility and overall attractiveness and everything else that makes people lift and exercise.

But if we’re just looking at pictures here — and that’s what we’re doing! — a guy like the one on the left just has more to him (but not too much that he looks disproportionate), and in the end, I think that’s why it’s the more instinctual, immediate choice. Big man strong, protect from bear, make good mate.

Or maybe I just want to make sure no other hoes steal my man, you never know. Bitches be lying, after all.

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1. I know they're the same person but I cannot stop talking about him like he is two (2) men

2. it should be acknowledged that that before picture in no way showed a guy who anyone should consider “fat” or even “chubby.” I just really like the term “chubby-jacked.”

3. I don’t know that I’d call teaching yoga being a “fitness professional,” at least in my specific case, but I’ll be certified as a personal trainer soon, and I’m pretty sure that definitely counts

4. I know appealing to women and normies is not the point, but still