On the one hand, men are portrayed as ravenous sexual beings who sleep with anything that moves. On the other, they have totally unrealistic expectations about beauty, wanting only the ‘hot babe’. Paradox?
On Lisa Hickey’s post Beauty, Obsession, Men, Women, commenter “Anonymous Male” speaks of a paradox that comes to light in many ways in the media and here on The Good Men Project:
On the one hand, men are super-particular about the kind of women they are attracted to. We men have totally unrealistic expectations about how average women should look, and we hold to this standard even in the face of evidence to the contrary. We are brainwashed to be only interested in women found on magazine covers, on runways, and in porn movies. Virtually all women fall far short of our exacting standards.
On the other hand, we men are ravenous, indiscriminate sexual opportunists. We will hook up with anything with an average of 2.01 legs. We are easily distracted by almost any woman who walks by, and we frequently “cheat down,” i.e., cheat on our partners with people who are less attractive or generally have less to offer than our current partners. In fact, I would guess in most cases men who step out on their relationships don’t leave for someone younger and more attractive, but more likely a “lateral” move or worse. (Tiger Woods, bless his heart, seems like a great example of this. Elin was simply not gorgeous enough, so he cheated on her with more attractive women? Sorry, I don’t see that, no offense to those charming young ladies.) You can’t trust us to be alone with any woman even remotely attractive because we will be easily tempted.
So, we are too discriminate and not discriminate enough. We have high standards and are total opportunists.
If these are both true, how do we navigate all this?
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If anyone has any insights on how either men or women negotiate this paradox, we would love to get thoughtful submissions on this topic. Please send posts to lisa@goodmenproject.com.
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Read Mik’s response to this column: Dear Anonymous Male: Here’s My Take On ‘The Beauty Paradox.’
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photo: uggboy / flickr
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Most straight men fantasize about the “hot babe,” but are not so much ravenous as desperate, since very few will ever get such a babe, hence they will settle for what they can get.
I certainly hope men aren’t merely settling for what they can get, or else I don’t blame society for portraying men the way it does.
I agree, merely settling for what you can get is pretty lame, but on the other hand you’re not supposed to be unrealistic, and you can’t get everything you want. Everyone is supposed to be able to settle for less than the perfect ideal, but you’re not supposed to settle too much. That’s another version of the too much/too little question.
If you’re just settling for what you can get, that’s insulting and condescending to the person that you’re with, and it’s unfair to her and to you. On the other hand, you should be grateful for the life that you have and not chase illusions. You should not let your unrealistic fantasies rule your life, but you are not supposed to ignore your fantasies, either. You should not just have sex because you have a chance to, but you are supposed to live in the present and be in touch with your desires.
Clear as mud.
Sarah, by your sentence, I don’t blame society for portraying women the way it does.
I don’t really agree with the premise of this post. I often fantasize about women I know in real life. I have seen women who are more attractive than any women I see on TV. Go to any club, bar etc on a Friday night. I can bet you will see tonnes of absolutely gorgeous women….almost too gorgeous to handle.
Amateur porn is incredibly popular and when I look at the women on FuckTube (amateur porn site) they look gorgeous to me. Fantastic. Even incredible.
Also my tastes are very peculiar and I think that is true of most guys. I was incredibly surprised when I talked to my friend and found the girls I considered fantastically hot, he thought were ok and vice versa. Get 10 guys in a room and have them comment on girls they find hot. Mostly you will find disagreement.
I don’t find myself fantasizing about movie stars. Ever. Quite the opposite.
there is the saying that the pay for a prostitute is for them to go away. Men are simply wired differently- and the “stepping out” is more a reflection of a physical need, and a reliable way to get it met, rather than deal with any uncertainty that goes along with relationships. If there is a roadblock in the relationship, and there are not the mechanisms built in to deal with it; membership in communities with opinions and advice on the subject, time in the schedule, or counseling, then there is a tension…
Two immediate thoughts about this too high/too low paradox:
1. Maybe this is the male equivalent of the madonna/whore dichotomy found in other branches of sexism. This is one of those either/or extremes that people slip into when they’re being simple-minded about the complexity of human experience. There is also a tendency for heterosexual people to look for simple explanations for the motives of the “opposite sex.” Men do this to women, but I think women do this even more to men. There is a very common assumption among women AND men that “men have simple programming” and “women are just more complicated.” Many of us just assume that men are simpler than women, and that tends to make people rest on extreme stereotypes. The great, powerful thing about the human brain is that we can believe totally contradictory things. We can cling to stereotypes that make no logical sense whatsoever, act on them, and then be totally surprised when reality doesn’t quite match.
2. One way out of this paradox is to note what Anonymous Male suggests about affairs. Perhaps when men are interested in more than one woman it is not only about sexual opportunity, nor is it only about finding the perfect physical specimen. Different men in different situations are motivated by different things. Heads are turned by one thing, penises by other things, and hearts by still other things.
This reminds me of the Sex and the City episode in which the key issue was trying to find men who were not “modelizers” (men who only date models). Is this really a problem in the dating world, even in Manhattan? I think there are some extreme ideas out there about what men are looking for.
Actually, men are a lot more complicated than this snippet allows. They are wired to protect and provide. When it comes to relationships, that is the deeper more noble level of existence that has to meld effectively with what occupies a guy’s major investment of time- his job. Relating to and with a woman sexually is not how he is going to spend all his time, unless he is stunted, skewed or out of balance. But the relationship with the woman, physically and emotionally is the anchor for the rest of what he does- like an azimuth or trajectory, if the guy is really going to be fulfilled. A safe ‘place’ where he is who he is, gives himself unconditionally and merits and receives the same in return from a woman he regards, admires and by whom he is captivated is the why behind the going, doing, and being for a guy who is actually happy in a well rounded way. But our culture confuses and confounds men into thinking that a a particular form of ‘attractive’ is optimal- when really learning to look a little deeper with more patience would be wiser before using another person or allowing themselves to be used as some recreational outlet with consequences. I think men are bored and discouraged. There are alot of beautiful women out there, but few beautiful women worth dying for. Beauty is a superficial and passing trait- and at the core of it all, even drop dead gorgeous men know this. Frankly, you can buy beauty in a bottle, a jar, or a surgical site- but men are looking for the woman worth dying for.
I’ve wondered about this very thing before.
wellokaythen:
Maybe this is the male equivalent of the madonna/whore dichotomy found in other branches of sexism.
I think you may be on to something. As women are treated in that dichotomy (women being expected to want sex but women who want sex are shamed for it) I think something similar is happening with men here. On one hand we are supposedly willing to have sex with any woman while on the other we are supposedly so picky that we commit all sorts of -isms.
WTF?
Well sex is a compulsion for men, we are naturally programmed to aggressively pursue it. Millions of sperm cell in our balls looking for one egg to fertilize. We lower our standards to get sex cause it’s not a long term commitment. But once want to commit we look for more desirable quality and beauty is usually on the top of that quality list.
There’s not necessarily a one-to-one correlation between what a man finds sexually attractive and what he finds beautiful. There are forms of feminine beauty that are sexual and some that are not. There are forms of sexual imagery that are kind of grotesque, and they appeal to some men precisely because they are not “beautiful” in an idealized way. There are fashion models who are beautiful enough but their photos come out “too sexy,” which is the wrong kind of beautiful for the photo shoot. (I’ve seen it on America’s Next Top Model, so it must be true.) There’s also what you might call “cold beauty,” which can take your breath away but not really inspire sexual fantasies. (A young Grace Kelly is like that for me – breathtaking but not actually sexy.)
It makes no sense for women to worry about men being too picky and not picky enough. Choose one of the two insecurities, or choose neither, and just be done with it. The lesson for women is that ultimately a man will make his own choices, and ultimately your primping won’t be the decisive factor. No amount of dieting and plucking will be insurance enough, and your boyfriend may be out to sleep around with less attractive women anyway. Your physical appearance is no insurance against infidelity.
Or, on the up side, if he’s attracted to you the way that you are and loves you for you, you won’t lose him if you are not physically perfect, because clearly you aren’t, because no one is.
This is absolutely true. A woman’s looks are not insurance against infidelity. See Halle Berry, Liz Hurley, and any number of lovely women stars and everyday – who have been cheated on. Men just like more sexual variety and like several of you dudes have stated, infidelity is as much a crime of opportunity as anything. Also, I think women are the main initiators, because unless it’s rape, men don’t f* unless a woman says he can.
Ironic that the worse you think men are, the more insecure you will be as a woman. The more extreme the anti-male stereotype she has, the more depressed and desperate the woman feels about her relationships with men. Ironic that anti-male stereotypes wind up hurting women so much.
Doesn’t sound ironic at all, it sounds perfectly straightforward. If you want to have a relationship with someone, it helps not to have prejudices against them.
So when are we going to bring up the ridiculous standards that woman hold men too?
We have to be Good looking, we have to be nice (but not too nice), funny, charming, successful and rich as well.
Oh and I should point out that I actually think woman hold guys to these ridiculous standards just about as much as guys hold woman to unrealistic expectations about the way she looks.
I am truly disappointed in many of the readers comments. A sleeping conscience still I suppose. I see so many women struggling with this beauty myth. At a time I did as well. Simply look at the gender imbalance in cosmetic procedures. You would be a fool to not see there is something seriously wrong. I completely agree and have personally experienced men using women as a pawn piece to prove their virility to other men.
So, does this mean you’re coming down on the side of men being TOO specific about their choice of sexual partners? Are you saying the stereotype of men as wanting to have sex with everything that moves has no basis?
Pickup a magazine for body building. Male cosmetic surgery is on the rise (female too I believe), eating disorders are increasing too for men (prob same for women too), there is a musclebound beauty stereotype for men that many overweight and “scrawny” men feel very insecure against. I’ve seen quite a few guys try hard at the gym, spending quite a lot of money on protein powders, creatine and all sorts of performance enhancers trying to “man up” and get bigger muscles. Not many seem to want to do it for overall fitness, just pissing contests of strength.
Men have used women to prove their virility, and women have used men to prove their social status. If the stereotypes etc are true and more men want casual sex vs women, then it’s much harder to use a guy for sex but there are other ways women can use men and 1 very horrible example is lying about paternity to use a man for his resources to raise a child that is not his, but he think’s he/she is their child.
I think i can clear this up somehow.
Attraction is not, NOT a scale of 1 to 10
It is often something personal, that only triggers a specific responce on this specific male,
and another key on the same woman may trigger a different specific responce in another specific male.
So yes, a chic that I don’t consider attractive, might be considered very attractive by someone else.
People are different.
What paradox? There are world wide many women who have the qualities men are looking for. Those men without the money or connections to have access to the “pretties” have not but the leavings to “choose” from. This society is to economically exploit while selling “romance”. More men than women on singles sites many more. Women complain that there are no good men because they bought into the lie that males will hit on anything that moves which is a myth. It is those misplaced beliefs that start the myth.
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It’s not a paradox at all. I’ve literally had men tell me that they would screw a woman they considered not up to par but would only take as a girlfriend or wife one they deemed to be hot.
I think a distinction has to be made between Alpha dudes and Beta dudes. Beauty is currency for women who want access to Alpha guys and the the good life. If a guy is a pro athlete, movie star, politician on the prowl, or super hot himself, he will seek out only the babe because that’s who he can afford to hold out for. Beta guys lust after the babe, but they can’t afford to get her more often than not. It is rare. Every man wants the best looking chick he can get. Hot body, attractive face. If he can’t have her in real life, he buys her image in the form of porn or devours images of super models and actresses or strippers. At the same time, no man is turning down any pussy that presents itself to him.
Men are by nature polygamous. Legally enforced monogamy is anti-men. It is against basic nature of men. Men must try to devise families which suits them more than feminists devised family system.
This statement is so incredibly ridiculously false, and if anything, it uncovers the insecurity of its author.
I often hear insecure and/or inexperienced women say something like “oooooo men only want the most beautiful women”.
I’m pretty sure there’s studies on this (can anyone search?) but I think when men rated women they would date, showed that men were FAR MORE realistic about whom they would date than women. The one informal study everyone brings up is the okcupid study where men were far more realistic.
Anecdote shows me the same.
One confounder is women’s laziness in initiating
One thing that women use to come to this ridiculous notion (in addition to insecurity) is that their perception is warped by being lazy and waiting around to be asked out or approached. They don’t get asked out – hence – they conclude “oh, you must be a pamela anderson to get asked out”.
The reason men don’t ask out average and below-average women is because they have learned that the REJECTION RATE and HUMILIATION is the same. If I as a man have to face 10 harsh rejections to get a date no matter the type of woman I ask out, of course I’m going to go for the beauty!! Duh!!
One easy way to falsify this is getting women to stop being lazy
IF you get the average woman to go and ask guys out she fancies, she will find they don’t say no, in fact they will gladly jump at the opportunity to date her. The studies on women asking out men found that women get CRAZY success rates (they almost never get rejected) and they weren’t using supermodels in the study. Whereas men got immense rejection rates with the exact same approach…
Another confounder is fantasy
Yeah men fantasize about and have wallpapers of Megan Fox, but they don’t ACTUALLY expect to date her. Women on the other hand watch hollywood movies, and then actually expect men who ask them out to have HOLLYWOOD-LEVEL charisma and confidence (anything less is deemed creepy).
Yeah, I’m an average woman and I have a 90% failure rate. Most guys I approach aren’t interested in *dating* me (sex, probably, dating, not so much) … based on my experience in internet dating services.
So, you’re wrong.
I agree with Sara, in my dating life in my younger years, I went through a phase where I asked men out. Usually not formal dates but “do you want to get coffee,” that sort of thing. Well, I found I had very little success. I’d say I was turned down more than 90% of the time when I asked a guy on a date. I was reasonably attractive but I wasn’t a super hottie. I was thin but too tall and awkward looking to be really comsidered highly attractive. I was also a geek. So, I didn’t get many takers. I even had a guy tell me once that he only dated “attractive women.” ouch. Another guy went on one date with me, then told me he didn’t want to see me again because he didn’t like to be “pursued.” So, I found that if I waited for a man to ask me out,at least that automatically that weeded out all the guys who weren’t attracted to me, so I wouldn’t waste my time. Also, whatever some guys say, there are many men who do find it emasculating if a woman is too assertive.
I went through that same phase as a female. I would say I had about a 90% failure rate as well and it could just be the men I was talking to. I know at least a few of them were heavily into their fantasy world and were looking for that playboy bunny sort of girl (which is fine but not me). Some openly admitted it too. There were your average guys too in all possible ways. I would also say a bunch of the 10% were really looking for a lay (which is fine but not what I was I looking for). Occasionally I’ll approach men but a lot less now because just like for men, that whole rejection thing sucks for women as well.
So I would bet if you have a women who is asking about simply hooking up with a guy I bet the success rate is high, especially for one night stands. But for relationships I think men and women are about even in rejection rate land.
A women who isn’t a stress bunny of insecurities, attention whoring moments and a seemingly innate compulsion to change “her” man is incredibly attractive, even if on pure looks she is average. Women who are socially attractive to men are uncommon; in the absence of a good person men will sleep with an attractive person. The sliding scale of looks – personality is already well known to men.
I believe that the media has created unrealistic expectations for both men and women and it is really sad to watch this disconnect grow between the sexes. As a 39 year old female, I don’t hate men for wanting the “hot babe”. I feel sorry for them because that women only exist in their minds. The ones in real life aren’t interested in the average joes and never will be. The fact that they’re so elusive makes them even more attractive to the average joes. So, they spend endless hours on dating websites hoping to snag that 9 or 10 or at the least an 8. Even if the guys themselves are a 6 or 7. What happens to this new generation of men and women when we are in our 40s and 50s and 60s. Marriage is on the decline, more children born out of wedlock. Have we become so senseless and selfish that we no longer are capable of creating and maintaining a family unit. Are we all destined to grow old alone, divorced, and depressed? Why can’t we start respecting each other and our needs and wants. Ladies, dress up more. You can’t be that 10 but carry yourself like one on a daily basis. Men, you all aren’t God’s gift to the world. Learn a little humility and stop treating women like dishrags. The dating scene has become so vicious now. It’s changed a lot in the last 10 years alone. Dating use to be fun, engaging, thrilling. Now, people are paranoid, obsessive, vain, insecure about EVERYTHING.