This whole dust-up has been perplexing to me because to my (lesbian) eyes, he was pretty damn well-built in the "before" picture anyway. He has visible abs there, they're just less defined! His arms were already huge! It's not like he had a big beer belly! I think most straight women would be perfectly happy dating the "before" picture, sure, but that doesn't mean they're not attracted to fit men... BECAUSE HE WAS ALREADY FIT. This whole conversation revolves around "do women like men with muscles?" when it should be "do women prefer a bulking or cutting physique?"
Yeah, this is confusing to me as well. He had a little extra fat on him but other than that already had a very good body. I really don't think this is most people's "before" when debating whether to get in shape; it certainly isn't mine. For the average person the question is gonna be more like "should I try harder to lose a few pounds" or "should I go from very little exercise to a quick morning routine", and the answer to either of those if you care about dating is absolutely yes. The law of diminishing returns very much applies to exercise, where the biggest benefits both to attractiveness and health come when you go from doing nothing to paying some attention.
And anecdotally, I'm overweight and not particularly muscular and my fiancee is still attracted to me, but I bet she sure as hell wouldn't mind if I got into shape. She probably would be less into me than she is now if I were really skinny, or if I were obsessed with fitness like CHH talks about, but those are different questions.
This gestures at the fact that this is once again an instance of men trying to prove that women are into whatever they happen to not be. It’s not enough to be upset that women don’t like you for having a standard shitposters body and argue with people who point out they have one and a gf too, you have to *also* argue they’re secretly way *more* into not-you than they admit, because they’re perfidious harlots
Yeah. The problem with the picture on the right is not that he's more muscular, it's that his body fat percentage is too low. It makes his face look gaunt. It's not healthy and I think my brain sees that and thinks he's ill. It's just not a natural physiology! I think women do genuinely prefer the left and it's because it looks like he could last three days without food lost in the woods unlike the guy on the right whose body would have to start digesting muscle.
The thing that annoys me about this photo is the guy’s pretty clearly fairly fit even in the “before” part, it’s just that he is much much lower body fat in the “after”.
I’ve gotten more into fitness in recent years, and I think people acting like the “before” photo is out of shape is toxic. I run 20-25 miles a week and do serious weightlifting twice a week, plus random other recreational activities like yoga or volleyball when I have time. I also eat plenty of protein. Even if you just look at young adults who are not overweight, I’m almost certainly significantly above average in my fitness level. And yet my body looks a lot more like the “before” than the “after”. To look like the “after” you need a very restrictive diet, and without good genes and/or steroids it is extremely difficult to maintain a body like that long term.
YES! that's what gets me about the whole discourse. People act like he was fat. I look at the "before" photo and think he's a guy who goes to the gym a decent amount, and maybe ingests a bit too much sugar. He's got abs! 🤣 He looked quite strong and fit already. Could stand to lose a few % of bodyfat, but hey, no one's perfect. If you have defined abs = you're fit.
And that restrictive diet is what women are saying is less attractive. Women understand that the after photo comes with eating unadorned chicken breast and cutting carbs and they find that lifestyle unattractive, which is also why such visible abs are unattractive. The before pic shows a guy who looks fit but probably eats like the rest of us eat.
And with that restrictive diet and handfuls of supplements comes endless self-absorption. The guy in the first photo is what I would call “normal fit.” His physique is more or less attainable with exercise and a decent diet and lifestyle. (To a greater or lesser degree.) Second guy looks like he is into ‘roids. Or, at the very least, will go on and on and on about Keto and Intermittent Fasting and Unpronounceable Supplements and His Superior Lifestyle to the point where you want to cram a Baskin Robbins ice cream cone down his throat.
Lots of women read about paranormal romances where human women are swept off their feet by vampires or something. (Pirates and highwaymen are so ‘80’s! That’s MOM stuff!) But we’re smart enough to know that fiction is fiction, and escapism. What we want in real life is a down to earth kind of guy who is fun to be around. Not Mister Lifestyle King.
I don't think it's just signalling. The extremely low body fat percentage is unnatural and his face looks gaunt. It makes him look sick.
I think this is actually women's instinctive visual preference; if we see someone with a body fat percentage that low it taps into something more primal. In our ancestral environment someone that lean probably isn't getting enough food and probably isn't a good provider, or something.
I have to agree. I got into martial arts and adventure sports in my 30s, and was fortunate to find a woman who enjoyed climbing, cycling, backpacking, skiing, snowshoeing with me. You know, the kind of life where someone's mom will make snarky comments about you two taking up a sport that doesn't require a helmet. Anyway, the next 3+ decades saw regular gym time for weights and cardio, and lots of outside time climbing (mostly in winter), backpacking, cycling (road and dirt), skiing, snowshoeing, and the odd Bolivia mountaineering trip. Typically I looked like the "before" pic. If I was really hitting it hard I might have reached "Mr CHH" level of cut. That "after" level looked counterproductive for what I was doing.
I think you are dead on - a seriously fit young man living a normal life will often look like that "before" pic. To get to "after" requires lifestyle steps that are hard to carry into an actual life. I think we get deluded by actors and fitness influencers into thinking that's what fitness looks like. It's actually rather maladjusted and hard to sustain. I hope the guy said "done it", shot the pic, and went for a burger.
That goes for women too BTW. Adventure sports require energy reserves, and that means having some body fat to dip into when the day turns out to be longer than you expected .
I'll generally agree with you. I've been athletically active my entire 78 years. When I was very young, it was basketball. When I started college, it was still basketball, but expanded that to jogging, cycling, and swimming. I had to give up basketball in my 60's: too much joint pain. So, now it's mostly cycling and swimming. I can jog a bit, but not much, too impactful on the joints. I've always been slender, and actually weigh a few pounds less than my high school graduation weight.
My youngest son was very thin in high school, definitely not into athletics. In college and esp. after that, he got into weight lifting. In high school at 5'11" he weighed 115. He now weighs 170. He looks actually more muscular than the after picture.
I have never wanted to look like the guy in the after picture. I was always into endurance activities, not strength. Now that I do a lot of physical activity farming, I do wish I were stronger. You are correct. If you want to look anything like the guy in the after picture, you have to dedicate lots of hours in the gym lifting weights until they hurt. Whenever, I even thought about doing this, I would end up getting injured.
I came here to make the very obvious point you raise in the first sentence. The guy has hypertrophied biceps and pretty significant definition in his abs.
As the person who showed me this put it, "the person on the right looks like a heterosexual relationship would be an annoying disruption of his workout routine". It's less the muscles that are unattractive (unless you're like me and prefer soft skin to rock hard skin), it's the implication that his entire personality revolves around having muscles. Which if you're a woman who's entire personality is having muscles great. It's the same reason why I'm turned off by pictures of women with their dogs on dating apps.
I think it was Whitney Cummings who commented about very fit guys like the "after" pic that she quickly figured out that she had a whole lot of poorly-padded bone coming at her....
i think the extremely low body fat look just doesn't really appeal to a lot of people. he seems like the male equivalent of the extremely thin runway model type, that a lot of men seem to think goes too far.
Somewhere the internet there was a collage of 4 photos; one before, one a month later, one two months later, and one at the end. I preferred #2, as in, one month later.
(Yes, I looked up more pics because my husband thinks I'm full of it. He thinks it's the hairline receding on the right that's putting the women off, including myself. So I cropped off the head and still preferred the left picture. He thinks if I just looked at more photos of his progression, I'd find the ripped version more attractive. He's not entirely wrong. Olly Murs could stand to lose a few % of body fat; the 1 month later photo was really attractive. But the ripped version was a bit uncanny.)
It’s the hairline, the neck, and the face: at low bf% his face is just too small (I guess he doesn’t have the cheekbones to pull it off) and his traps have disappeared making his head look like it’s on top of a stick.
I think maybe the more important reality is women don’t care so much about abs: they like arms, shoulders, legs and butts. If you cut to the point where you have visible abs you may be compromising somewhere else.
That’s a good point: the proportions are off. Some men can pull off the low fat totally ripped look. Others - most, probably - just look like they have pin heads.
So it's like men who can pull off a shaved head and those who can't. (and women too. We can't all be Natalie Portman and rock that buzzcut. She'd look great in rags) Interesting. Hair smooths us out and averages us.
"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."
It's not just that - looking at the "after" picture, I feel like, if I were hypothetically single and dating, that guy would judge me. Like I'd pick up a piece of chocolate and he'd say, "You're not going to eat that, are you?"
I don't want to be overly personal here, but from pictures you've provided, I don't get the impression you've ever struggled with your weight in any justified sense. Like, you might have felt you were "too fat" at some point in your life, but I get the feeling that if you've ever felt you were too fat, it wasn't because you were actually too fat by medical standards. And, having gained about thirty-five pounds and 2-3 clothes sizes since I had kids, I'll say from my own experience that sometimes women don't really understand "feeling fat" or feeling judged for their weight until they're actually in the position of being too heavy.
I was within five pounds of the exact same weight (140, at five foot six) from age 16 until I got pregnant when I was 27. Now I'm going to be 39 in a few months. I've only *just* gotten to the point where my mind has accepted that this is how I actually look right now, and that I medically qualify as overweight, and Hypothetically Single Me is *not* attracted to the idea of this guy. Hypothetically Single Me would not relish the idea of going places with the guy on the right and feeling like people around us are thinking, "Wow - maybe he's got a fetish for heavier women or something?" Hypothetically Single You would never have that problem. Hypothetically Single You would look super cute and "matched" with this guy, and anyone who thought you looked "too fat for him" would probably be sharing that opinion from an eating disorder ward.
Another reason why the guy on the right is not attractive to me. Let's pretend that, instead of the same guy, these pictures show identical twin brothers who have had different habits with food and exercise. If someone came up to me and said, "Where do you imagine the brother on the left met his partner?" I'd be like, "Uh...college? Work? A Super Bowl party?" If someone asked me, "Where do you think the brother on the right met his partner?" I'd jump to, "Either the local pride parade committee, or Grindr. Probably Grindr." Dude reads like a gay gym rat who spends his free time excessively manscaping and uploading pictures of his short-shorted bulge without the short shorts.
As someone who has never had a weight problem, I do often consider what it might be like for me or for another to be overweight. I think we can all agree that in our times it is very different for a woman than for a guy. When I look at a guy who is overweight, I know that I would not want to have to carry around all that "extra" weight. It's a matter too of what we mean by "overweight." My brother, who is my height, weighs 50 pounds more than me. He appears to carry it fairly well, but I would consider that being overweight. (I think he's lost a good deal of this weight since his second heart attack. Not a good way to lose weight.)
Still, it seems that guys don't appear to think their being overweight affects their appearance, unless they are "really," "medically" overweight - you know like those who have never played in the NFL and weigh over 300. But gals are more sensitive, or so it seems, esp. when they are less than 40. We're supposed to gain weight as we age.
So, when I see someone who is "overweight" I can't help feeling sorry for them. I keep wondering what it would be like if I had to carry a 50 lb sack on my back all day long. It would be exhausting. It's like being in the gym all day long. I do a lot of exercise every week. Perhaps if I didn't, I wouldn't notice that extra weight so much.
But I also know how very, very difficult it is to lose weight once its taken up residence.
So, I have no advice since I have no experience. I can only say that I do empathize and sympathize with your situation. I would wish that the weight did not add an extra burden to your self-esteem. We have to all learn to live with the way things are and find some peace with it, even if we work for some kind of improvement.
Women tend to read a lot more into what photos are *trying to convey through their aesthetics* - hence why women are so into Instagram, Pinterest, and aesthetic microtrends ("I'm just a Basque tavern girl in my bucketcore wenchmaxxing era"). Men's perspective on this topic seemed to be purely physical - "his muscles are more defined in the second pic" - whereas women used phrases like "in the second pic, he seems like the kind of man who...". It's more focused not on the muscles, but on the associations - what's the context, where is he, what are his priorities, what does he feel, what ideas and moods does the image produce? For example, I think there's a particular kind of 'shredded' photo - hard, bulging, veiny, vaguely dry-looking like well-cooked bacon - that isn't the sexiest to women, maybe because it reminds them of WWF posters in smelly boys' rooms from their childhood. (I would emphasise that if men like being shredded, they should do it anyway because it makes them happy, and some women will always be into it.) By contrast, if you see a buff shirtless guy in a romcom aimed at women, there's usually a soft, smooth look to the way their bodies are presented that feels friendly, youthful and unintimidating - like a firefighter who saves puppies, or a kindly surfing instructor.
I think this is probably a common trap men fall into with dating app photos - thinking purely of which photos make their body look impressive, rather than using the right 'mixtape' of photos to convey an appealing overall picture, helping women imagine an attractive picture of what it might be like to actually spend time with them. A candid photo of a guy smiling while doing yardwork in a muscle tee says "I'm outdoorsy, strong but not vain, down to earth, community-minded, and have at least one friend who could take this picture of me. Couldn't you see us hanging out in a beautiful garden, on a bench I made for you?" A shirtless selfie in a gym just says "I went to the gym. And took this selfie with my shirt off."
And if this sounds like reading way too much into images....I mean, these are the kind of ideas marketing is based on, and these associations have an undeniable effect on the brain, whether someone's conscious of them or not. This is probably why there are a lot of women in marketing! (Maybe we could find a group of young women in marketing willing to demonstrate the point, by filming themselves doing a TikTok dance while chanting about their own personal aesthetics or something.)
I think you nailed it with: A candid photo of a guy smiling while doing yardwork in a muscle tee says "I'm outdoorsy, strong but not vain, down to earth, community-minded, and have at least one friend who could take this picture of me. Couldn't you see us hanging out in a beautiful garden, on a bench I made for you?" A shirtless selfie in a gym just says "I went to the gym. And took this selfie with my shirt off."
So not to tell on myself here, but I'm a heterosexual woman, I do like to look at pictures of men that I find attractive (for both sexual and non-sexual reasons), and while this guy is not my type period, he looks fine in his before photo and like the underside of a creepy crab monster in the after. It's especially the defined muscles of his tummy that squick me out -- nothing soft and furry to nuzzle there -- but I also don't like the idea of touching those ropey, sinewy arms. Even his skin tone has become pinker and more crustacean (tanning bed maybe?). I think I judge cuteness in men by how much I think it would be pleasurable to touch them, and the after photo is getting a zero on that scale.
To be clear, I'm sure neither version of this guy would find me attractive either. In middle age, I am cupcake-shaped with many chins and even when I was younger and more conventionally attractive, I had no interest in physical fitness. I have not owned sneakers since college and if you want to see me exercise, you will probably be subjected to a view of me in a swimsuit which ain't nobody got time for who is taking mirror selfies at the gym.
However, not to be all "believe women," but I do remember when the term dad bod first popped up in the culture and got a huge amount of backlash that was very much along the lines of the argument you make in this post: that even if women say that they want a certain body type, they probably are just lying to appear virtuous or at most they wouldn't reject somebody for being ripped. Call me superficial, but if I were single and on dating apps I would reject guys for being ripped, even if they didn't reject me first.
I think a lot of women share your preferences, but as noted elsewhere in the thread, guy 1 is already in better shape than most men. Most men aren't debating going from photo 1 to photo 2, they're debating going from standard nerd body to photo 1, which will absolutely help them. Note that the "dad bod" thing generally applies to guys with quite a bit of muscle and a little extra body fat, which it is not surprising that women are attracted to. It generally does not describe super overweight guys.
As this discourse is again showing, being honest about how you experience attraction online is literally praxis lol bc none of us seem to know how others - even those like ourselves - do it
At age 63, I showed my wife the before and after picture. I look pretty similar to the before picture and for being 63 that's pretty fit, age-adjusted. My wife didn't like either picture and said "I only like you" then added "and Ethan Hawke."
I do think one secret to a happy marriage is assortative mating on many levels with attraction/fitness being one of them. Sustained mutual perceived "hotness" really helps. This may be shallow but it's also real.
Hilarious that CHH's take on the phenomenon of most women preferring the left photo and most men thinking women prefer the right photo, is to join the men in thinking most women prefer the right photo.
Women like the left photo!
Left photo looks cuddly, honest, and safe. The right photo looks high maintenance, volatile, narcissistic. They want as much muscle as the guy on the left, and the rest is overkill.
(I do think all the other CHH analysis about assortative mating etc still applies)
One small correction. I agree a lot of women might genuinely prefer the before photo, but a guy who looks like the after photo is probably really into fitness and wants a woman who is too! A woman who spends a lot of time on fitness will probably prefer the after. I just don’t think guys who look like the after are being rejected en masse for their bodies lol
Is anyone saying that though? The poll wasn’t “Who would you always reject because they’re hideous,” it was “Do you think he looks better before or after?”
The title of the post was that women aren't put off by muscles. This guy's journey, at least as portrayed, just isn't the best illustration for that. In the "before" pic the guy was already well-muscled and obviously fit. He doesn't look any more muscled in the "after" photo; instead he's taken other measures to better define his muscles. I think women other than those who are also taken those measures are probably put off by the lifestyle implications of looking that cut. I sympathize; it's a challenging lifestyle to maintain.
I’d actually prefer something in between I guess. Muscles are good but I prefer a little more body fat, maybe because I like to eat! But I don’t think that look is unattractive by any stretch of the imagination. It shows he had a lot of dedication (and yes I’m somewhat similar in fitness enthusiasm!)
I personally find the before pic more visually appealing. At least in these pics, with this lighting and wardrobe, this particular man’s fitness journey has left him looking *smaller.* His ripped muscles don’t stand out to me as much as the wiry, marathon runner physique, the way his head looks too big for his body, the weird little shorts, etc. Either way, he is out of my league, too young for me, I’m married, and I’m not going to be rejecting either version of him anywhere IRL. But the after photo is just not a flattering photo.
Is anyone gonna mention the confounding variable that the "after" pic has all the usual sins of a "before" pic that's selling some product? It's poorly-lit, unflattering, his facial expression is a bit weird compared to the "before" pic, his hairline is receding a bit (or maybe just combed differently)... sorry, I feel rude to point that out lol.
Anyway, I think the before is hotter, but I'm truly wondering if he'd made equally flattering before and after photos (and also didn't dehydrate himself in the second pic) what I'd think.
Over on X we had people saying the "after" version of this guy was both "emaciated" (lol) and "obviously on steroids" (also lol). I think if you lift/workout a lot, you see this entirely differently. "Before" version of this guy looks like a lot of the strong-as-shit dudes in my gym and powerlifters I've trained with, "after" version is simply what a solid 12-week cut looks like on a dude that already had a foundation of muscle. People are out here suggesting he had to "starve himself" to get those results, as if you make obvious upper-body muscle gains like that by literally starving. I'm tired of the drama!
I look at both versions of these dudes and simply see someone who's in a bulking/maintenance phase and someone who's in a cut. If you're generally into fitness/are into men who are into fitness, I don't think you read much more into it than that.
Woman also basically hate karge mirrors in overly bright strip light spaces. We want warmth, and before photo has plenty of warmth, whereas after photo is Arctic.
That “what guys think women want” comic is so funny and accurate I had to save it to my phone.
There is so much truth to the idea that women usually need context to really feel a sense of attraction. If you showed me a photo of the most conventionally attractive men just standing and wearing nothing but briefs I would be bored, but if they were wearing an interesting outfit and had a little blurb about who they are and what their personality is like I’d probably be more interested. This is why fanfiction and romance novels are so popular.
Yeah, that's one of the more interesting things about gendered sexuality: women consume as much porn as men, but they're much more likely to read it than watch a video.
I really don't know get how women preferring the before pic in this combo inspired rage, this wasn't Jason Alexander vs Jason Momoa or some shit, the guy isn't even out of shape in the before
I think it really makes some men of the online commentariat (probably some overlap with incels) angry because they are CERTAIN that the source of their woes is that women prefer chads and that's why they aren't getting dates, yet they won't stop lying about preferring chads. If women don't actually prefer muscle bound chads, then the problem lies elsewhere.
I think this is mostly correct. I and a lot of my gym friends are on the really extreme end of muscular (like, I’m 6,1 280lbs and some of my buddies are even bigger) and as you said that is a turn off to some women (and men). But the guy in the pic photo is just toned, he’s not even big, if you walked by him on the street in clothes he would just be a good looking dude. I feel like there’s a skewed idea among normal people about how big a man can really get haha.
I think it’s more that he’s extremely low body fat which gives off the suggestion that he can’t enjoy food, but I think if he met someone irl and clearly wasn’t a neurotic weirdo about it, nobody would care.
That’s very true, the lifestyle is a big turn off for potential partners. I mean I think the potential for male violence can also play a role. Guys like me could easily do a lot of damage if we wanted to and I think that ups the amount of trust required from a partner.
I think he’s Olly Murs and I looked up Wikipedia to find he’s married in 2023 with two kids! It also sounds like he had some anxiety and panic issues so I assume exercise is a way to handle that too?
(I edited one of the wedding videos for my friend’s wedding and I used one of his songs “Dance with me Tonight” btw lol)
This whole dust-up has been perplexing to me because to my (lesbian) eyes, he was pretty damn well-built in the "before" picture anyway. He has visible abs there, they're just less defined! His arms were already huge! It's not like he had a big beer belly! I think most straight women would be perfectly happy dating the "before" picture, sure, but that doesn't mean they're not attracted to fit men... BECAUSE HE WAS ALREADY FIT. This whole conversation revolves around "do women like men with muscles?" when it should be "do women prefer a bulking or cutting physique?"
True, the before pic is still fairly fit. There was a different one (maybe taken earlier?) that was less so.
Yeah, this is confusing to me as well. He had a little extra fat on him but other than that already had a very good body. I really don't think this is most people's "before" when debating whether to get in shape; it certainly isn't mine. For the average person the question is gonna be more like "should I try harder to lose a few pounds" or "should I go from very little exercise to a quick morning routine", and the answer to either of those if you care about dating is absolutely yes. The law of diminishing returns very much applies to exercise, where the biggest benefits both to attractiveness and health come when you go from doing nothing to paying some attention.
And anecdotally, I'm overweight and not particularly muscular and my fiancee is still attracted to me, but I bet she sure as hell wouldn't mind if I got into shape. She probably would be less into me than she is now if I were really skinny, or if I were obsessed with fitness like CHH talks about, but those are different questions.
This gestures at the fact that this is once again an instance of men trying to prove that women are into whatever they happen to not be. It’s not enough to be upset that women don’t like you for having a standard shitposters body and argue with people who point out they have one and a gf too, you have to *also* argue they’re secretly way *more* into not-you than they admit, because they’re perfidious harlots
Yeah. The problem with the picture on the right is not that he's more muscular, it's that his body fat percentage is too low. It makes his face look gaunt. It's not healthy and I think my brain sees that and thinks he's ill. It's just not a natural physiology! I think women do genuinely prefer the left and it's because it looks like he could last three days without food lost in the woods unlike the guy on the right whose body would have to start digesting muscle.
Well said.
In the after picture he just looks like a really boring guy. Not interested in someone who spends all his time at the gym or making protein smoothies.
The thing that annoys me about this photo is the guy’s pretty clearly fairly fit even in the “before” part, it’s just that he is much much lower body fat in the “after”.
I’ve gotten more into fitness in recent years, and I think people acting like the “before” photo is out of shape is toxic. I run 20-25 miles a week and do serious weightlifting twice a week, plus random other recreational activities like yoga or volleyball when I have time. I also eat plenty of protein. Even if you just look at young adults who are not overweight, I’m almost certainly significantly above average in my fitness level. And yet my body looks a lot more like the “before” than the “after”. To look like the “after” you need a very restrictive diet, and without good genes and/or steroids it is extremely difficult to maintain a body like that long term.
YES! that's what gets me about the whole discourse. People act like he was fat. I look at the "before" photo and think he's a guy who goes to the gym a decent amount, and maybe ingests a bit too much sugar. He's got abs! 🤣 He looked quite strong and fit already. Could stand to lose a few % of bodyfat, but hey, no one's perfect. If you have defined abs = you're fit.
And that restrictive diet is what women are saying is less attractive. Women understand that the after photo comes with eating unadorned chicken breast and cutting carbs and they find that lifestyle unattractive, which is also why such visible abs are unattractive. The before pic shows a guy who looks fit but probably eats like the rest of us eat.
And with that restrictive diet and handfuls of supplements comes endless self-absorption. The guy in the first photo is what I would call “normal fit.” His physique is more or less attainable with exercise and a decent diet and lifestyle. (To a greater or lesser degree.) Second guy looks like he is into ‘roids. Or, at the very least, will go on and on and on about Keto and Intermittent Fasting and Unpronounceable Supplements and His Superior Lifestyle to the point where you want to cram a Baskin Robbins ice cream cone down his throat.
Lots of women read about paranormal romances where human women are swept off their feet by vampires or something. (Pirates and highwaymen are so ‘80’s! That’s MOM stuff!) But we’re smart enough to know that fiction is fiction, and escapism. What we want in real life is a down to earth kind of guy who is fun to be around. Not Mister Lifestyle King.
I don't think it's just signalling. The extremely low body fat percentage is unnatural and his face looks gaunt. It makes him look sick.
I think this is actually women's instinctive visual preference; if we see someone with a body fat percentage that low it taps into something more primal. In our ancestral environment someone that lean probably isn't getting enough food and probably isn't a good provider, or something.
I have to agree. I got into martial arts and adventure sports in my 30s, and was fortunate to find a woman who enjoyed climbing, cycling, backpacking, skiing, snowshoeing with me. You know, the kind of life where someone's mom will make snarky comments about you two taking up a sport that doesn't require a helmet. Anyway, the next 3+ decades saw regular gym time for weights and cardio, and lots of outside time climbing (mostly in winter), backpacking, cycling (road and dirt), skiing, snowshoeing, and the odd Bolivia mountaineering trip. Typically I looked like the "before" pic. If I was really hitting it hard I might have reached "Mr CHH" level of cut. That "after" level looked counterproductive for what I was doing.
I think you are dead on - a seriously fit young man living a normal life will often look like that "before" pic. To get to "after" requires lifestyle steps that are hard to carry into an actual life. I think we get deluded by actors and fitness influencers into thinking that's what fitness looks like. It's actually rather maladjusted and hard to sustain. I hope the guy said "done it", shot the pic, and went for a burger.
That goes for women too BTW. Adventure sports require energy reserves, and that means having some body fat to dip into when the day turns out to be longer than you expected .
I'll generally agree with you. I've been athletically active my entire 78 years. When I was very young, it was basketball. When I started college, it was still basketball, but expanded that to jogging, cycling, and swimming. I had to give up basketball in my 60's: too much joint pain. So, now it's mostly cycling and swimming. I can jog a bit, but not much, too impactful on the joints. I've always been slender, and actually weigh a few pounds less than my high school graduation weight.
My youngest son was very thin in high school, definitely not into athletics. In college and esp. after that, he got into weight lifting. In high school at 5'11" he weighed 115. He now weighs 170. He looks actually more muscular than the after picture.
I have never wanted to look like the guy in the after picture. I was always into endurance activities, not strength. Now that I do a lot of physical activity farming, I do wish I were stronger. You are correct. If you want to look anything like the guy in the after picture, you have to dedicate lots of hours in the gym lifting weights until they hurt. Whenever, I even thought about doing this, I would end up getting injured.
I came here to make the very obvious point you raise in the first sentence. The guy has hypertrophied biceps and pretty significant definition in his abs.
As the person who showed me this put it, "the person on the right looks like a heterosexual relationship would be an annoying disruption of his workout routine". It's less the muscles that are unattractive (unless you're like me and prefer soft skin to rock hard skin), it's the implication that his entire personality revolves around having muscles. Which if you're a woman who's entire personality is having muscles great. It's the same reason why I'm turned off by pictures of women with their dogs on dating apps.
I think it was Whitney Cummings who commented about very fit guys like the "after" pic that she quickly figured out that she had a whole lot of poorly-padded bone coming at her....
i think the extremely low body fat look just doesn't really appeal to a lot of people. he seems like the male equivalent of the extremely thin runway model type, that a lot of men seem to think goes too far.
Agreed. He’d probably be at peak attractiveness for most women with a body fat percentage somewhere in between the two, I’d suspect.
Somewhere the internet there was a collage of 4 photos; one before, one a month later, one two months later, and one at the end. I preferred #2, as in, one month later.
(Yes, I looked up more pics because my husband thinks I'm full of it. He thinks it's the hairline receding on the right that's putting the women off, including myself. So I cropped off the head and still preferred the left picture. He thinks if I just looked at more photos of his progression, I'd find the ripped version more attractive. He's not entirely wrong. Olly Murs could stand to lose a few % of body fat; the 1 month later photo was really attractive. But the ripped version was a bit uncanny.)
It’s the hairline, the neck, and the face: at low bf% his face is just too small (I guess he doesn’t have the cheekbones to pull it off) and his traps have disappeared making his head look like it’s on top of a stick.
I think maybe the more important reality is women don’t care so much about abs: they like arms, shoulders, legs and butts. If you cut to the point where you have visible abs you may be compromising somewhere else.
That’s a good point: the proportions are off. Some men can pull off the low fat totally ripped look. Others - most, probably - just look like they have pin heads.
So it's like men who can pull off a shaved head and those who can't. (and women too. We can't all be Natalie Portman and rock that buzzcut. She'd look great in rags) Interesting. Hair smooths us out and averages us.
Look, man, my gender was being slandered. I HAD to prove to myself I knew what I was attracted to 😂
You believed it with fact.
He's clearly been cutting and looks dehydrated, but give him 48 hours of decent meals and he'd look like he has a "hot" body to most women.
"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."
It's not just that - looking at the "after" picture, I feel like, if I were hypothetically single and dating, that guy would judge me. Like I'd pick up a piece of chocolate and he'd say, "You're not going to eat that, are you?"
I don't want to be overly personal here, but from pictures you've provided, I don't get the impression you've ever struggled with your weight in any justified sense. Like, you might have felt you were "too fat" at some point in your life, but I get the feeling that if you've ever felt you were too fat, it wasn't because you were actually too fat by medical standards. And, having gained about thirty-five pounds and 2-3 clothes sizes since I had kids, I'll say from my own experience that sometimes women don't really understand "feeling fat" or feeling judged for their weight until they're actually in the position of being too heavy.
I was within five pounds of the exact same weight (140, at five foot six) from age 16 until I got pregnant when I was 27. Now I'm going to be 39 in a few months. I've only *just* gotten to the point where my mind has accepted that this is how I actually look right now, and that I medically qualify as overweight, and Hypothetically Single Me is *not* attracted to the idea of this guy. Hypothetically Single Me would not relish the idea of going places with the guy on the right and feeling like people around us are thinking, "Wow - maybe he's got a fetish for heavier women or something?" Hypothetically Single You would never have that problem. Hypothetically Single You would look super cute and "matched" with this guy, and anyone who thought you looked "too fat for him" would probably be sharing that opinion from an eating disorder ward.
Another reason why the guy on the right is not attractive to me. Let's pretend that, instead of the same guy, these pictures show identical twin brothers who have had different habits with food and exercise. If someone came up to me and said, "Where do you imagine the brother on the left met his partner?" I'd be like, "Uh...college? Work? A Super Bowl party?" If someone asked me, "Where do you think the brother on the right met his partner?" I'd jump to, "Either the local pride parade committee, or Grindr. Probably Grindr." Dude reads like a gay gym rat who spends his free time excessively manscaping and uploading pictures of his short-shorted bulge without the short shorts.
This is a great comment. Thank you for articulating my thoughts more effectively than I was capable of doing.
You’re welcome! 😁
As someone who has never had a weight problem, I do often consider what it might be like for me or for another to be overweight. I think we can all agree that in our times it is very different for a woman than for a guy. When I look at a guy who is overweight, I know that I would not want to have to carry around all that "extra" weight. It's a matter too of what we mean by "overweight." My brother, who is my height, weighs 50 pounds more than me. He appears to carry it fairly well, but I would consider that being overweight. (I think he's lost a good deal of this weight since his second heart attack. Not a good way to lose weight.)
Still, it seems that guys don't appear to think their being overweight affects their appearance, unless they are "really," "medically" overweight - you know like those who have never played in the NFL and weigh over 300. But gals are more sensitive, or so it seems, esp. when they are less than 40. We're supposed to gain weight as we age.
So, when I see someone who is "overweight" I can't help feeling sorry for them. I keep wondering what it would be like if I had to carry a 50 lb sack on my back all day long. It would be exhausting. It's like being in the gym all day long. I do a lot of exercise every week. Perhaps if I didn't, I wouldn't notice that extra weight so much.
But I also know how very, very difficult it is to lose weight once its taken up residence.
So, I have no advice since I have no experience. I can only say that I do empathize and sympathize with your situation. I would wish that the weight did not add an extra burden to your self-esteem. We have to all learn to live with the way things are and find some peace with it, even if we work for some kind of improvement.
Women tend to read a lot more into what photos are *trying to convey through their aesthetics* - hence why women are so into Instagram, Pinterest, and aesthetic microtrends ("I'm just a Basque tavern girl in my bucketcore wenchmaxxing era"). Men's perspective on this topic seemed to be purely physical - "his muscles are more defined in the second pic" - whereas women used phrases like "in the second pic, he seems like the kind of man who...". It's more focused not on the muscles, but on the associations - what's the context, where is he, what are his priorities, what does he feel, what ideas and moods does the image produce? For example, I think there's a particular kind of 'shredded' photo - hard, bulging, veiny, vaguely dry-looking like well-cooked bacon - that isn't the sexiest to women, maybe because it reminds them of WWF posters in smelly boys' rooms from their childhood. (I would emphasise that if men like being shredded, they should do it anyway because it makes them happy, and some women will always be into it.) By contrast, if you see a buff shirtless guy in a romcom aimed at women, there's usually a soft, smooth look to the way their bodies are presented that feels friendly, youthful and unintimidating - like a firefighter who saves puppies, or a kindly surfing instructor.
I think this is probably a common trap men fall into with dating app photos - thinking purely of which photos make their body look impressive, rather than using the right 'mixtape' of photos to convey an appealing overall picture, helping women imagine an attractive picture of what it might be like to actually spend time with them. A candid photo of a guy smiling while doing yardwork in a muscle tee says "I'm outdoorsy, strong but not vain, down to earth, community-minded, and have at least one friend who could take this picture of me. Couldn't you see us hanging out in a beautiful garden, on a bench I made for you?" A shirtless selfie in a gym just says "I went to the gym. And took this selfie with my shirt off."
And if this sounds like reading way too much into images....I mean, these are the kind of ideas marketing is based on, and these associations have an undeniable effect on the brain, whether someone's conscious of them or not. This is probably why there are a lot of women in marketing! (Maybe we could find a group of young women in marketing willing to demonstrate the point, by filming themselves doing a TikTok dance while chanting about their own personal aesthetics or something.)
I think you nailed it with: A candid photo of a guy smiling while doing yardwork in a muscle tee says "I'm outdoorsy, strong but not vain, down to earth, community-minded, and have at least one friend who could take this picture of me. Couldn't you see us hanging out in a beautiful garden, on a bench I made for you?" A shirtless selfie in a gym just says "I went to the gym. And took this selfie with my shirt off."
If Basque-tavern bucketcore wenchmaxxing turns out not to exist I'm going to be extremely disappointed.
So not to tell on myself here, but I'm a heterosexual woman, I do like to look at pictures of men that I find attractive (for both sexual and non-sexual reasons), and while this guy is not my type period, he looks fine in his before photo and like the underside of a creepy crab monster in the after. It's especially the defined muscles of his tummy that squick me out -- nothing soft and furry to nuzzle there -- but I also don't like the idea of touching those ropey, sinewy arms. Even his skin tone has become pinker and more crustacean (tanning bed maybe?). I think I judge cuteness in men by how much I think it would be pleasurable to touch them, and the after photo is getting a zero on that scale.
To be clear, I'm sure neither version of this guy would find me attractive either. In middle age, I am cupcake-shaped with many chins and even when I was younger and more conventionally attractive, I had no interest in physical fitness. I have not owned sneakers since college and if you want to see me exercise, you will probably be subjected to a view of me in a swimsuit which ain't nobody got time for who is taking mirror selfies at the gym.
However, not to be all "believe women," but I do remember when the term dad bod first popped up in the culture and got a huge amount of backlash that was very much along the lines of the argument you make in this post: that even if women say that they want a certain body type, they probably are just lying to appear virtuous or at most they wouldn't reject somebody for being ripped. Call me superficial, but if I were single and on dating apps I would reject guys for being ripped, even if they didn't reject me first.
I think a lot of women share your preferences, but as noted elsewhere in the thread, guy 1 is already in better shape than most men. Most men aren't debating going from photo 1 to photo 2, they're debating going from standard nerd body to photo 1, which will absolutely help them. Note that the "dad bod" thing generally applies to guys with quite a bit of muscle and a little extra body fat, which it is not surprising that women are attracted to. It generally does not describe super overweight guys.
As this discourse is again showing, being honest about how you experience attraction online is literally praxis lol bc none of us seem to know how others - even those like ourselves - do it
At age 63, I showed my wife the before and after picture. I look pretty similar to the before picture and for being 63 that's pretty fit, age-adjusted. My wife didn't like either picture and said "I only like you" then added "and Ethan Hawke."
I do think one secret to a happy marriage is assortative mating on many levels with attraction/fitness being one of them. Sustained mutual perceived "hotness" really helps. This may be shallow but it's also real.
If you look like that at 63 that’s a massive fitness accomplishment!
Hilarious that CHH's take on the phenomenon of most women preferring the left photo and most men thinking women prefer the right photo, is to join the men in thinking most women prefer the right photo.
Women like the left photo!
Left photo looks cuddly, honest, and safe. The right photo looks high maintenance, volatile, narcissistic. They want as much muscle as the guy on the left, and the rest is overkill.
(I do think all the other CHH analysis about assortative mating etc still applies)
One small correction. I agree a lot of women might genuinely prefer the before photo, but a guy who looks like the after photo is probably really into fitness and wants a woman who is too! A woman who spends a lot of time on fitness will probably prefer the after. I just don’t think guys who look like the after are being rejected en masse for their bodies lol
Is anyone saying that though? The poll wasn’t “Who would you always reject because they’re hideous,” it was “Do you think he looks better before or after?”
Some people said it!
The title of the post was that women aren't put off by muscles. This guy's journey, at least as portrayed, just isn't the best illustration for that. In the "before" pic the guy was already well-muscled and obviously fit. He doesn't look any more muscled in the "after" photo; instead he's taken other measures to better define his muscles. I think women other than those who are also taken those measures are probably put off by the lifestyle implications of looking that cut. I sympathize; it's a challenging lifestyle to maintain.
I’d actually prefer something in between I guess. Muscles are good but I prefer a little more body fat, maybe because I like to eat! But I don’t think that look is unattractive by any stretch of the imagination. It shows he had a lot of dedication (and yes I’m somewhat similar in fitness enthusiasm!)
I personally find the before pic more visually appealing. At least in these pics, with this lighting and wardrobe, this particular man’s fitness journey has left him looking *smaller.* His ripped muscles don’t stand out to me as much as the wiry, marathon runner physique, the way his head looks too big for his body, the weird little shorts, etc. Either way, he is out of my league, too young for me, I’m married, and I’m not going to be rejecting either version of him anywhere IRL. But the after photo is just not a flattering photo.
Is anyone gonna mention the confounding variable that the "after" pic has all the usual sins of a "before" pic that's selling some product? It's poorly-lit, unflattering, his facial expression is a bit weird compared to the "before" pic, his hairline is receding a bit (or maybe just combed differently)... sorry, I feel rude to point that out lol.
Anyway, I think the before is hotter, but I'm truly wondering if he'd made equally flattering before and after photos (and also didn't dehydrate himself in the second pic) what I'd think.
Yeah, that pic is not well-lit for anything except maybe showing those cut abs.
Over on X we had people saying the "after" version of this guy was both "emaciated" (lol) and "obviously on steroids" (also lol). I think if you lift/workout a lot, you see this entirely differently. "Before" version of this guy looks like a lot of the strong-as-shit dudes in my gym and powerlifters I've trained with, "after" version is simply what a solid 12-week cut looks like on a dude that already had a foundation of muscle. People are out here suggesting he had to "starve himself" to get those results, as if you make obvious upper-body muscle gains like that by literally starving. I'm tired of the drama!
I look at both versions of these dudes and simply see someone who's in a bulking/maintenance phase and someone who's in a cut. If you're generally into fitness/are into men who are into fitness, I don't think you read much more into it than that.
Agreed!!
Re context
Woman also basically hate karge mirrors in overly bright strip light spaces. We want warmth, and before photo has plenty of warmth, whereas after photo is Arctic.
True he looks like he’s about to be experimented on in a lab
That’s what’s hot though like omg he could be MY experiment 😳
Yes that lightning is good for showing ab definition but very unflattering for everything else.
That “what guys think women want” comic is so funny and accurate I had to save it to my phone.
There is so much truth to the idea that women usually need context to really feel a sense of attraction. If you showed me a photo of the most conventionally attractive men just standing and wearing nothing but briefs I would be bored, but if they were wearing an interesting outfit and had a little blurb about who they are and what their personality is like I’d probably be more interested. This is why fanfiction and romance novels are so popular.
Yeah, that's one of the more interesting things about gendered sexuality: women consume as much porn as men, but they're much more likely to read it than watch a video.
I really don't know get how women preferring the before pic in this combo inspired rage, this wasn't Jason Alexander vs Jason Momoa or some shit, the guy isn't even out of shape in the before
I think it really makes some men of the online commentariat (probably some overlap with incels) angry because they are CERTAIN that the source of their woes is that women prefer chads and that's why they aren't getting dates, yet they won't stop lying about preferring chads. If women don't actually prefer muscle bound chads, then the problem lies elsewhere.
I think this is mostly correct. I and a lot of my gym friends are on the really extreme end of muscular (like, I’m 6,1 280lbs and some of my buddies are even bigger) and as you said that is a turn off to some women (and men). But the guy in the pic photo is just toned, he’s not even big, if you walked by him on the street in clothes he would just be a good looking dude. I feel like there’s a skewed idea among normal people about how big a man can really get haha.
I think it’s more that he’s extremely low body fat which gives off the suggestion that he can’t enjoy food, but I think if he met someone irl and clearly wasn’t a neurotic weirdo about it, nobody would care.
That’s very true, the lifestyle is a big turn off for potential partners. I mean I think the potential for male violence can also play a role. Guys like me could easily do a lot of damage if we wanted to and I think that ups the amount of trust required from a partner.
I think he’s Olly Murs and I looked up Wikipedia to find he’s married in 2023 with two kids! It also sounds like he had some anxiety and panic issues so I assume exercise is a way to handle that too?
(I edited one of the wedding videos for my friend’s wedding and I used one of his songs “Dance with me Tonight” btw lol)
His wife is a fitness influencer/bodybuilder, so I think it’s really nice that he’s apparently getting into one of her interests, too.
Ohhh good to know!
Yeah the more I learn about the detail the more this Olly Murs discourse fells decontexualized and silly lol