Study: women find strong men more attractive

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NorthCascades
NorthCascades Posts: 10,968 Member
in Fitness and Exercise
Researchers created a database of photos of shirtless men, obscured their faces, and showed these pictures to women. They were “faceless, soulless blockheads.” Their strength was measured and correlated with their photos. Women were asked to judge the men’s attractiveness.

Women, when asked in a study to judge photos of men's bodies, rated the strongest men as the most attractive. Height and leanness were appealing attributes, too, but strength played an outsize role in the ratings of a man's torso, per a report published Tuesday in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

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There was no nuance to these results, he said. Zero of the 160 women surveyed showed a statistical preference for weaker men.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2017/12/12/women-rate-the-strongest-men-as-the-most-attractive-study-finds/
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  • hesn92
    hesn92 Posts: 5,967 Member
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    Duh....
  • NorthCascades
    NorthCascades Posts: 10,968 Member
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    The other day, there was a scrawny looking guy at my gym, picking up 360 pounds, and dropping it on the floor. Repeatedly. It was very annoying. The guy was skinny and didn't look especially muscular. I've seen guys with bigger looking muscles seem to struggle to lift less weight. You can't judge a book by its cover. I'm surprised attractiveness tracks strength as measured in a gym, and not muscular appearance.
  • jseams1234
    jseams1234 Posts: 1,218 Member
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    NorthCascades wrote: »
    The other day, there was a scrawny looking guy at my gym, picking up 360 pounds, and dropping it on the floor. Repeatedly. It was very annoying. The guy was skinny and didn't look especially muscular. I've seen guys with bigger looking muscles seem to struggle to lift less weight. You can't judge a book by its cover. I'm surprised attractiveness tracks strength as measured in a gym, and not muscular appearance.

    I've seen my share of outliers who are much stronger than they look. I saw a guy a few days ago come in a load up a couple of plates onto a bar and knock out a few sets of 10. He was so skinny I would have been surprised if he could of benched the bar let alone adding another 90 pounds. However, was he "strong" by any conventional metric? Not really. Stronger than he looked, definitely. I do wonder, how strong he's going to be once he actually gains some mass. I hope he keeps coming in - it will be interesting to see his progression.

  • PAFC84
    PAFC84 Posts: 1,871 Member
    edited December 2017
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    On paper I'm sure it works. Stronger man, stronger genes. Whilst this might be what attracts a woman, it doesn't mean anything really. Its a bit like guys like fit women who are younger than them (for fertility reasons). It doesn't factor in personality or the missing ingredient that can't always be explained.
  • Keto_N_Iron
    Keto_N_Iron Posts: 5,385 Member
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    why was this even a question? easy answer! :D:D:D
  • JeromeBarry1
    JeromeBarry1 Posts: 10,182 Member
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    Earlier studies tested women's responses to the faces of men. Those were interesting, with women's preference for higher- or lower- testosterone men fluctuating with the same cycle as their TOM.
  • jseams1234
    jseams1234 Posts: 1,218 Member
    edited December 2017
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    JeromeBarry1 wrote: »
    Earlier studies tested women's responses to the faces of men. Those were interesting, with women's preference for higher- or lower- testosterone men fluctuating with the same cycle as their TOM.

    I thought that was about the smell of a high test man... ;)

    https://amp.livescience.com/28812-women-prefer-smell-of-manly-guys.html
  • HellYeahItsKriss
    HellYeahItsKriss Posts: 906 Member
    edited December 2017
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    Does strong mean they had abs? Cause i see those kinds of photos floating about all the time and women drool all over them.. i find nothing sexy about abs. lol.. maybe i am broken..

    bqo96hte21q3.jpg

    This kind of shows what i like a bit more.. not over weight but not ripped, I like a guy with that kind of build, i dont know if that is what would be considered strong or not.
  • NorthCascades
    NorthCascades Posts: 10,968 Member
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    PAFC84 wrote: »
    On paper I'm sure it works. Stronger man, stronger genes. Whilst this might be what attracts a woman, it doesn't mean anything really. Its a bit like guys like fit women who are younger than them (for fertility reasons). It doesn't factor in personality or the missing ingredient that can't always be explained.

    I think every research study that's ever between done, was in an area that can be affected by other things, that's what scope means. Like somebody did a study and found out that wearing a seatbelt is safer than not wearing a seat belt, but it didn't factor in that drinking gasoline is another thing that's not safe. Just like a good personality is also attractive.
  • Lean59man
    Lean59man Posts: 714 Member
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    Now on to the next study to determine if women are more attracted to rich men than poor men.

    Results to follow.

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