For context (if you’re a sane person and not extremely online), researcher William Costello recently did a simple, anonymous Twitter poll. Men and women were invited to rate pictures of British singer Olly Murs when he was huskier vs. when he really hit his gym goals and became legitimately shredded.
I like guys who are in shape, broadly defined. So anywhere from whip lean and skinny to muscular and padded (which is what I’d call that pic #1).
It’s not so much about looks, as the article notes, it’s about lifestyle. I want a guy who can keep up with me. Husband is fat but lifts 5 days a week at least, he is strong and healthy and muscular, just fat, overweight not obese.
I do also have hangups about being bigger than a guy, don’t think I am alone in that, and I’m pretty tall, so lean towards the fit and padded category but tall and a little too skinny also good.
I do think most regular people who are in good shape aren’t “shredded” because that takes an obsessive lifestyle for most people , and I don’t think an obsessive lifestyle is attractive. But a level of baseline fitness is.
It’s funny but that is how looks work for me in general. Look good enough, that’s a yes, and looking better than good enough is not any more of a yes. Looks are a primary filter but a yes/no binary not a scale.
Thank you for voicing your opinion! I can’t speak on behalf of all men, but when I was younger, the majority of my understanding of what women liked was told to me by men
Folks like you help correct that!
I don’t mean to imply that any man needs to change to please women’s “type”, even more important is that the guy be in the shape HE wants, of course. Just like I am not going to get fake boobs to please some “ideal”, neither should guys worry about any ideal. Best to please yourself and let things settle out around that. I just think it is interesting when there’s a disconnect.
I do feel happy for guys who achieve the bodybuilder physique, it’s an accomplishment worth noticing. I don’t think guys are doing that to be sexy, they are doing it as a project for themselves. I just personally don’t find it more attractive than a baseline fitness, if that makes sense, and think I’m in the majority on that, not just of women but of people.
I didn’t read it like that!
The main issue is that I (and likely many others) work on something we don’t want only because some dude told us women like that. Exercise is one thing, but “8 pack abs” is another