Women Are Not Rejecting Men For Being Too Muscular

(Maybe it's happened once or twice)

I initially wasn’t going to write about this because it felt a bit too “done” the second it went viral—like, almost too obvious CHH chum—but a guy’s before and after fitness photos went around Twitter this week, with men insisting he looked better after he got in shape, and women insisting he looked better before. TLDR: the usual annoying arguments ensued.

For those of you who don’t know what “the usual arguments” are, I’ll break it down for you. While women claiming to prefer the before image might have made some men feel relieved that they are good enough in their own skin, a lot of men felt a bit irritated because they just…didn’t believe them. I suspect many men felt gaslit by women’s claim that muscles are a turnoff, considering that male sex symbols, famous heartthrob actors, men on the covers of Booktok goon novels, and even Luigi Mangione all look more like the “after” photo.

My overall read of the situation is that you shouldn’t take women that seriously when they say muscles are a turnoff, even if they’re not actually lying (this sounds contradictory but it’s not, you’ll see why soon.) I’m sure it’s happened before, but in general, women do not reject men for the sole reason of being too muscular. Mainly because, well, the tier of musculature that would be “too much” to the point that it was actively a turnoff is so rare to find in nature that your average woman will probably never encounter a man who looks like that in real life, let alone have the chance to reject him, as

Aly Dee

pointed out:

I agree with most women that a competitive bodybuilder physique, where a man starts looking a bit like an oiled-up man-shaped challah loaf, is unattractive. But I spent my twenties going to the gym almost every day and while I did get hit on, I never once got hit on by a guy who looked like a professional bodybuilder. I have never rejected a man for being too muscular, and I would venture almost no woman has (I’m sure the four who have will jump in to correct me.) While plenty of women may be telling the truth about preferring the before image of the man above, the after image is not actually too muscular for most women, and I’d be shocked if I discovered any woman rejected him for that reason.

So are women lying? Are they pretending to like slightly soft guys so that people will think they’re not shallow? Maybe a bit—the same way guys insist they like “natural beauty” when they stare at Instagram models all day and find any female celebrity without filters and injectables “mid.” But I don’t think the lying is conscious. I think it all has to do with assortive mating, plus the fact that women’s attraction is deeply contextual. Allow me to explain.

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.

If you want my personal opinion, I think he looks slightly too shredded in the after photo, but I probably prefer it somewhat to the before photo. I don’t find either image unattractive. But I’m a woman who is pretty into fitness!

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. A female Bill Belichick will never exist. No self-respecting wealthy woman in her seventies would be caught dead wandering around in a torn sweatshirt and cargo shorts, standing next to a hot 24-year-old boytoy. Men will joke about being the ugly one in their relationship and be completely fine with it because at least they get to boink a hottie. Whether that hottie is genuinely attracted to them (or repulsed) doesn’t seem to matter—or they convince themselves the attraction is mutual. It’s a compliment to tell a man he “scored” a hot wife. If someone told me I “scored” my hot husband I’d be insulted, even though I objectively know he’s hotter than me (hey, at least I do a better Trump impression.)

I think for women who are not super fit or into fitness, a very muscular guy can be intimidating, especially because if a guy is jacked, there’s a natural assumption that he’s not going to be into you, or that your values won’t match—if you hate the gym but enjoy watching horror movies and going to restaurants, surely a himbo with washboard abs is going to be a bad match who spends all his time planking and eating unseasoned chicken breast in Tupperware. But that doesn’t mean it’s bad dating strategy to get fit, only to get fit and to make it your whole personality. If you’re attracted to fit women, being muscular will unambiguously help you, and if you’re attracted to other types of women, a lot of them are probably still into fit men, especially if you’re clearly into them and they don’t feel insecure about the pairing (plus, if you don’t exude major “gym bro” energy.) Muscles—unless you are in the top 0.01% of swole, a group of people so rare to find in nature that it’s absurd they keep getting brought up—are simply not a turnoff for the general female population.

This doesn’t mean that the “after” guy is necessarily more attractive to all women. It could be a bit much for some women, and there are many women who prefer a more natural-looking, lower maintenance look. Heck, there are women who prefer obese men, and who might think the before photo was too skinny. While fit or slim bodies are generally the most sought-after, that’s far from a hard and fast rule for any gender. I just don’t believe that a sizeable number of women would find the “after” body repulsive, or that attaining the “after” body would make a man’s dating life worse, unless that body came along with an insufferable personality. A fit body would almost definitely make his dating life better. It’s like asking if a guy’s dating life would improve if he went from 5’8” to 6’6.” I would prefer a guy who is 5’8”, it just seems logistically easier. But I wouldn’t reject a guy for being 6’6”. There are, however, plenty of women who would reject a guy for being 5’8”.

The other piece of the equation is that women’s attraction is not purely visual. Women absolutely care about looks, and fitness is part of that, but I’ve never met a woman who enjoyed masturbating to pictures of hot guys (granted, this isn’t usually my first question when I meet a woman—it’s at least the fourth.) Most women aren’t attracted to photos of men at all. In fact, when I was a teenager and I found myself unable to get aroused by images of men, I began to wonder if I was a lesbian (clearly I wasn’t, because photos of women didn’t do it for me either) and then I concluded that maybe I was asexual. But I think most straight women need some kind of context behind an image in order to feel true attraction. To most of us, a photo of an attractive man is about as exciting as a very pretty vase of flowers—perhaps even less, depending on how pretty the flowers are. This could explain the whole “women rating most men below average” thing which I wrote about last week. I don’t have data on this, but I would venture that most women would prefer a sext made up entirely of dirty talk than a photo of an erect penis, even from a man they already find attractive. Women’s attraction isn’t not visual, but it is visual + contextual. Without context, a cigar is literally just a cigar.

Many such cases (original content)

A shirtless, muscular man in a photo is devoid of context. The only context we see is that he got into shape and is pretty happy with himself. For some women (especially those not interested in fitness) this can come off as self-absorbed or vain (and by the way, men complain about fit women who seem vain all the time!) But if that same man were wearing, uhhh, clothes, and approached that same woman with an interesting conversation that didn’t involve pectorals or deltoids, she’d probably think he was really attractive. It’s not so much that muscles aren’t attractive, but static photos of men aren’t attractive, and static photos of men who are clearly aware of their looks in a very preening way are even less attractive. It’s giving Gaston.

While I don’t think most women were consciously lying, I also think that women have a tendency to make unnecessary concessions when it comes to their physical preferences. They probably don’t even know they’re doing it. Little girls have it drilled into their heads that it’s shallow to care about looks—that you have to kiss the frog and fall in love with the beast in order to earn the handsome prince. Little boys are given no such lesson—the beautiful princess is the reward for being a hero, and her own attraction to the protagonist is taken for granted. It’s no surprise that as girls get older, we tell ourselves there’s something wrong with preferring attractive men.

I remember being seventeen—right around the age where I wasn’t sure what I found attractive, or whether I was hot enough to deserve a hot partner anyway—and trying to convince myself that I found receding hairlines and beer bellies attractive. It wasn’t that I was lying to appear virtuous, but I hated the idea of being shallow, and I also knew that strategically I’d have more dating options if I wasn’t (and by the way, I practiced what I preached—I lost my virginity to a balding guy whose nickname at school was Ugly Fuck. Don’t worry, he was a student.) Before I met my husband, I purposefully went out of my way to date guys I felt were “realistic” for me. I even looked down on my female friends who openly preferred conventionally attractive men. When my girlfriend told me she liked “buff” guys, I laughed at her for having such uncreative taste. But shortly after, I met my husband, who is pretty buff. Once I realized he was interested in me (and straight) I was pretty damn interested in him. Then I got into fitness myself and now I feel like I can safely say that muscles are, in fact, hot (as long as you don’t look like one of those genetically modified pitbulls that keep eating people.)

This doesn’t mean men have to be fit to be attractive, or that women never truly prefer anything else. According to a recent survey I did, women were more open to dating a chubby or obese person than men were—and almost everyone is happy to date someone whose body type is average, or only slightly fit. Some people genuinely prefer chubby guys or skinny guys. Don’t mistake this article for me urging all men to give up their non-physical hobbies, clear their schedule, hit the gym for six hours a day and turn into Turbochad. I just…don’t think Turbochad is getting rejected for his abs.

Getting in shape will basically always be good for your dating prospects, your health, and your mood. While this doesn’t apply to orthorexic fitness addicts and roided out bodybuilders, I have to be honest and say that your average person is nowhere near in danger of turning into that, and it’s ridiculous that these extreme examples keep getting used to make the point that women secretly hate fit men. Your average person could care about fitness 100x more than they do now, and still be nowhere near bodybuilder territory. It’s almost impossible to accidentally become too muscular, unless there’s a himbo monster under your bed secretly injecting you with anabolic steroids.

This should be good news for everyone. Women: you can be a little shallow, and it doesn’t make you evil. Men: there’s something within your control you can do which will basically always make you look more attractive. Just don’t post your before and after photos to Twitter.

You might also like…