Revisiting beauty standards, many female fashion trends do not make women more attractive to men - and actually make them less attractive.

Men do not demand (or even like) these. In some cases they may appeal to a niche, but tend to impair attractiveness more than enhance it. 🧵 Nope men aren’t demanding that. Lowest on the list:

There is a widespread perception that women face stronger pressures to be physically attractive, but it doesn’t seem clear to me that this is the case.

There is pressure to be attractive and how that pressure is experienced. This is where I think you see the differences. 🧵 The bodies that are modeled for men and women as the ideal are as unrealistic (if not more so) for boys as they are for girls.

Big things have been made of Barbie being unrealistic - but she a body that is within a natural and healthy range.

Not so for many boys toys:

Fat women are perceived as less attractive and less feminine, and subsequently receive less benevolent sexism. From this paper:

I rarely comment on the “bad dating behavior” vid genre, but this one is worth seeing.

The affective shift between video part 1 and part 2 is remarkable. He calmly tells her he will just drive her home (after she refuses to leave the car because she doesn’t like the restaurant).

https://twitter.com/mixtapeminimus1/status/1712495446977913039

Part 2:

https://twitter.com/mmanomaly/status/1712604667447022057

Stated vs revealed preferences: we know women report wanting taller men (6' or bust!), but in actual partner selection male height is only a little above what you would expect from random mating.

journals.plos.org/plosone/articl… The median stature of men preferred by female reports: 178.4cm, or 5'10.

The median difference in actual partner selection: +.99cm, or .39 inches taller.

Very low correlation between stated preference and actual partner height:

journals.plos.org/plosone/articl…

As an undergraduate I remember learning that peer review was the litmus test for reputable, good science. It was this iron-clad thing. The ultimate seal of approval that lets you know if a paper is trustworthy.

But we were never taught what peer review actually consists of. 🧵 I suspect this is the case for most people: everyone learns that it’s really important, but not how the process works.

They imagine peer review as this well-oiled machine - rigorously vetting your methods and results - combing through your data to make sure it checks out.

Underlying this is an inaccurate mental model of the romantic landscape: the belief that physical attraction doesn’t (or shouldn’t) have any impact on your relationship.

It does, though. If you make major improvements to your appearance then your partner may like you more.

https://twitter.com/reddit_lies/status/1709601269768491263

Usually we see the opposite: people “let themselves go” in relationships and see a concurrent decline in sexual activity and relationship satisfaction.

We tend to think of passionate love as giving way to committed love with relationship duration. Basically, passion fades with time, but commitment remains (or grows).

However, passionate love may become increasingly important for relationship satisfaction in LTRs and marriage. This model of love - Sternberg’s triangular theory of passion, intimacy, and commitment - can explain a large degree of variance in relationship satisfaction.

The average relationship length beginning at age 18 is about two years. This increases with age; the older the cohort, the longer the relationship. 🧵

https://twitter.com/_rian_stone/status/1707447989621379537

What factors predict having a long string of short duration relationships?

1. Personality disorders and poor mental health.

2. Substance abuse.

3. Higher orientation toward short term relationships (indiv diffs in sociosexuality).

In the recent thread on risk aversion and asking women on dates, a lot of people asked:

What is making young men more risk averse?

As a starting point - risk aversion is heritable (20-60%). 🧵 Some people are simply more sensitive to taking risks.

With that as a starting point, you can ask “what changed” in the environment (if anything even did).

Why are so many young men single? Are they excluded from a brutal mating market by society?

Probably not:

45% of men age 18-25 have never approached a woman in person. These men are significantly more risk-averse than those men who do approach women.

I’m seeing a lot of “hold women accountable.”

You are not “holding women accountable,” you are whining into the void about the behavior of strangers who were never accountable to you to begin with. You cannot “hold women accountable for their unreasonable standards” any more than you can hold a bank accountable for not giving you a loan because you have bad credit.

A question related to this video and comments:

How many people would actually feel better if a man/woman told you, “I am no longer attracted to you, I don’t want to have sex with you anymore, and I’m leaving to go date someone else.”

https://twitter.com/datepsych/status/1703447741848834384

People always say “he/she should have broken up with them first.” I get it - I’m not trying to dispute it. We have a norm.

But I think you’d still find it about as brutal to be broken up with for someone else.

“Sorry, I’m leaving you for Chad” isn’t going to feel much better.

There is a body type not really shown here (perhaps closest to number 9) that is regularly featured on erotica novels (selected by women to represent female-authored sexual fantasies).

Women who say they prefer a body like 3 over 9 - why?

And thread on this: These are some examples from some popular heterosexual female-authored erotic novels:

Recent study on the attractiveness of the "bad boy" and "nice guy" stereotypes:

Dating app photos were manipulated to be more and less facially dimorphic, reported as high/low testosterone in this paper.

Bios were written as "bad boy" and "nice guy" archetypes.

Four profiles were generated from this:

High T / high risk = "bad boy"
Low T / low risk = "nice guy"
High T / low risk = incongruent 1
Low T / high risk = incongruent 2

The "bad boy" was not rated as more physically attractive by participants. Rather, the incongruent condition - High T / low risk - was the most attractive profile.

There were also no significant differences across conditions on perceptions of short term sexual desirability.

And there was no difference in short term relationship versus long term relationship appeal across conditions. No differences in interest in a hook-up versus interest in a committed relationship.

The main effect of high T (actually facial dimorphism) was significant: these photos were rated as more attractive on average.

"This suggests that it is not whether a man is perceived as a bad boy or a nice guy but whether a man possesses features evidencing high testosterone."

A few thoughts on the results from this paper:

1. Facial dimorphism (a more masculine face, wide jaw etc) isn't closely related to serum T levels. It might be related to prenatal T exposure. What we're really looking at here is an effect of facial masculinity. Articles on testosterone and facial dimorphism:





2. Risk-taking behavior and the "bad boy" archetype has been associated with greater attractiveness and more short term sexual desire fairly consistently across past research. The author here covers that as well. So, I wouldn't take these null results as the final word.

3. The high T / low risk face emerging as the most attractive isn't entirely surprising. The "bad boy" archetype bio was written kind of like an asshole ("I know you'll swipe right"). It resulted in lower scores both in the high T / low T facial conditions. A lot of people confuse the "bad boy" archetype with this, which is usually not what women have in mind.

4. Being perceived as a "bad boy" may require "honest signals," or hard-to-fake signals. A lot of "PUA/game" has focused on the emulation of behaviors associated with the "bad boy," but only in interpersonal interactions with women: "don't care what she thinks, be confident, etc." But imagine someone who is a boxer or who has been to jail. The life history of an actual "bad boy" looks very different from that of someone who is just pretending.

5. Why are bad boys attractive to women and how do we reconcile this with the abundance of research indicating "good" and prosocial traits/behavior also are? It's the harm/protection trade-off. The same traits that make you a good protector also make you more dangerous to potential mates (women) and to other men. Women have a high sensitivity to threats, but also want a man capable of being a threat. Important though - they don't want a man who is a threat to them. Antisocial behavior towards a potential partner isn't desirable to them, even if the capacity for antisocial behavior towards others might be.

6. The high T / low risk profile - the one that scored the highest - might have signaled this best. Higher masculinity indicated in the face and a behavioral profile that indicates he is "safe" in some sense.


More broadly outside the scope of this paper: a lot of guys really could benefit from being more of a "bad boy," taking more risks, being more masculine, etc.

Sex differences in reasons for infidelity 🧵:

Men are more likely to cheat when the opportunity is available.

Women are more likely to cheat when unhappy, not attracted to a current partner, and to switch relationships.

link.springer.com/article/10.100…
Consistent with the mate switching hypothesis in this study. An equal number of men and women reported infidelity, but:

Men who do cheat tend to cheat with more partners over time.

Women who cheat tend to do it less frequently.

A common narrative is “society told me women/relationships were like X,” but I wonder why fiction, romantic comedies/dramas, and Disney cartoons have been so influential in shaping the mental maps of so many people. 🧵 Fiction has tropes and archetypes. It builds on stereotypes (that may reflect real averages trends). It also reflects the aspirations, dreams, and fantasies of its creators - things that probably don’t happen most of the time, but that they wish would or should.

Snipping these Tweets for reference. What do they get right and wrong? 🧵



1. Women do use sex to secure long term relationships. We see in some past research, for example, that this strategy may be used more by women of average attractiveness. Earlier sexual investment to secure a mate.

CICO is 100% the basis for weight loss. If you expend more energy than you consume you will lose weight. If people are able to do it - if they are able to keep the food out of their mouth - is another question.

https://twitter.com/_celia_bedelia_/status/1682756633393258499

When we see high heritability of obesity - from 40 to 70% - a lot of people get confused about what it means for weight loss or obesity to be genetic.

nature.com/articles/s4157…

People ask about this a lot - effects of attractiveness on extra-pair sexual behavior and the role of hormones.

A thread and recent paper on this.

Dinh and Gangestad are two of the authors; some of the main researchers of the dual mate hypothesis of ovulatory shifts. 🧵 Women are sexually active across the cycle, but conception is mostly limited to a small window of ovulation:

"The periovulatory phase, the conceptive window encompassing the day of ovulation and the few days prior."

"Positive illusions" in relationships, or cognitive reframing.

People who view their partner's faults and virtues as an integrated whole are more likely to remain in stable and lasting relationships.

https://t.co/XLjrQibxNptandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.120…
A difference between those in good and bad relationships:

1. In good relationships, they link faults with virtues.

2. In bad relationships, they link faults with other faults.