DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: Long time reader and bona-fide straight woman here. Something struck me in your recent column, “What Makes A Man Attractive to Women?” The LW lists examples of “unattractive” men that masc-attracted women “claim” are hot to illustrate their question. This time, it was Pete Davidson (I only get the appeal in the academic sense there, so I sort of understand the LW’s confusion) and “that guy from The Bear.” And it honestly took me a second to realize he meant Jeremy Allen White. Jeremy Allen White, Twitter embodiment of the sexually competent dirtbag line cook (also, if straight men want to further understand the appeal, perhaps they should go back and reread the first 2 words of the meme). Jeremy Allen White, who looks like a ripped Botticelli painting come to life. Taste and attraction are both very individual and subjective, so I get if a specific person isn’t particularly into the Italian High Renaissance, but I don’t understand how someone could look at him and not understand how lots of other people would be into it?
This is something that has struck me in almost every iteration of that question that you’ve answered over the years. Nearly every time, the LW provides examples of “unattractive” men women are going nuts over to prove their thesis and those “unattractive” men are almost always men my straight and bi female friends consider very conventionally attractive. I find it baffling every time. I expressed my bafflement to the straight woman group chat and my friends and I quickly ended up with a list of straight men have, at some point or another, expressed confusion with regards to their appeal or have asked us to “explain” much to our confusion: Dev Patel, Oscar Issac, Ryan Gosling, Paul Rudd, Daniel Dae Kim, and Henry Golding.
Doc.
These are just hot people. Again, not all of the group chat are personally attracted to all of these men but they all fit comfortably into our collective conception of “handsome guy.”
Which leads to my question: what on earth is the standard straight men are using to judge other men as attractive to women? If Dev Patel and a dude who looks like he was commissioned by a Medici don’t qualify, who does? Is it like, Chris Evans, Chris Hemsworth and no one else? If the men on my list are showing up in Google searches of “actors who aren’t conventionally attractive,” what the blistering hell is the convention? (Clearly, whiteness is a factor in the list above, but it’s not the whole story).
Perhaps this is an unanswerable question, but I am honestly curious as to what the letter writers who are contacting you think we’re into.
Sincerely,�Fodder for the Group Chat
DEAR FODDER FOR THE GROUP CHAT: My God, it’s not even my birthday and you’re giving me a gift like this. Last week I got a chance to go on about the supposed mystifying appeal of Pete Davidson and this week you’re asking for me to talk about guys idea about whats attractive in other men.
OK, so as a long time reader, you’ve undoubtedly seen the recurring theme of “Am I too ugly to date“, and the usual comparisons to Chris Evans, Hemsworth and Pratt and occasional bonus Henry Cavill’s thrown in for good measure. And, of course, there’s the ever classic point of comparison, Brad Pitt – especially when Pitt was in his Tyler Durden shape for Fight Club.
These tend to be the touchstones for “guys who other guys think women find attractive” – or at least for the folks most prone to write in to advice columns and subreddits to complain about not being able to measure up. You know… extremely online guys. Which is part of the problem. A lot of the folks who are writing in to complain tend to also either be part of online communities – not just incels, but MRAs and redpillers, pick-up artists and various other gathering spots of mostly young men who are also either frustrated or isolated and frequently feel marginalized. There’s a lot of shared wisdom within those communities, the dating and attraction equivalent of “just-so stories” that purport to “explain” what women find desirable in men.
Needless to say, this… doesn’t lend itself well to diverse – or even accurate – ideas about attractiveness. More often than not, folks tend to drift to a few specific ideals and the men who, in their mind, best represent those ideals. It’s not that surprising, then, that the most common touchstones tend to be men in movies or TV shows predominantly aimed at men. And this is where part of the disconnect happens.
Now, I’m going to seem like I’m going off on a tangent in a couple paragraphs, but trust me: this is all tie together like the end of Unusual Suspects. Just stick with me.
See, the men who are portrayed in these shows – not to mention comics and video games – are, for the most part, primarily power fantasies for other men. They’re the avatar that represents who the viewer, player or reader wishes they could be, someone who dominates, who beats the forces arrayed against them and who is ultimately vindicated in everything he does. It’s not surprising that their look is all about power – six foot tall behemoths, jacked up muscles with single digit body fat, lantern jaws, gimlet eyes, etc. There are minor differences in personality – check the notable difference between Steve Rogers, Geralt of Rivia and Peter Quill – but these are ultimately superficial differences. The idea is that these are folks who can impose their will upon the world and be rewarded for it. And part of that reward is the adoration of women, either in general or one woman in particular. The idea is that power, as Henry “Face Like a Bulldog Licking P--s off A Thistle” Kissinger said, is the ultimate aphrodisiac.
(Nevermind the fact that Kissinger’s reputation as a lady’s man was more self-mythologizing than reality and that his entire game was “listen to what women have to say”, rather than the inherent appeal of being Secretary of State or something…)
But the thing is, the supposed “you can’t get laid unless you look like…” logic isn’t that these men are Sex Gods made flesh, and more about toxic ideals of masculinity. Now don’t get me wrong: nobody’s gonna honestly say that Chris Evans isn’t a good looking man or that his Captain America bod isn’t impressive as hell. But the idea that guys need to look like this isn’t about attraction. Not really. It’s about feeling powerless. It’s about feeling like you don’t have the ability to influence the world or impose your will upon it and this makes you lesser. This is a bitter pill for a bunch of folks who missed the point of Fight Club: that they’ve been sold a bill of goods about Being A Man, and the supposed rewards that they were promised will never actually be delivered.
But instead of confronting the ideals that make them miserable, that exclude them and clearly were never going to actually pay off the way they were taught, they instead focus on the idea that this means either they did something wrong… or that they’re being cheated of something.
Now, you may notice just how many of the supposed “masculinity” gurus – the ones who’ll teach you how to be a REAL MAN like your ancestors were and how you’re meant to be – put so much emphasis on muscling up. Andrew Tate and the weirdos with self-given nicknames like The Golden One or the dude who called himself Liver King or some s--t and dozens of TikTok randos all make a big deal out of trying to look like Ivan Drago all put huge emphasis on “I’m a real man, look at my abs, look like me and you’ll be a real man too unlike the pussified wimps who’re trying to hold you back”. They’re playing to the power aspect, and looking like a body builder is – theoretically an outward sign of being powerful. And the theory is, to quote yet another movie that dudes misunderstand, “you get the power, then you get the women.”
Never mind that they’re running Potemkin lives, fueled by grift, overextended credit, blatant lies and steroid abuse… they’re going to make you a “REAL man”, which means being powerful and in charge and dominant. And only dominant men can succeed. And since these dudes are (supposedly) successful, these are what DOMINANT REAL MEN look like.
But again: it relies on folks’ ignorance. Body builders aren’t actually strong. In fact, when you see someone in superhero shape taking their shirt off on screen, you’re seeing someone who’s actually at their weakest. The dehydration, starvation and overall poor health outcomes give you results that look great on camera – especially when enhanced with makeup and favorable lighting – but leave you feeling like ten pounds of s--t in a five pound sack. Cavill, in particular, has been outspoken at just how miserable it is to be in that shape and how they need to get those scenes done in one or two takes, because he’s about to collapse into a puddle.
There’s a reason why the literal strongest men in the world look like ambulatory beer kegs, not like Arnold at the height of his Mister Olympia days. Visible muscle isn’t the same as strong. It looks great, but it’s an illusion.
But since it represents power, and power makes you a “real” man and “real” men are the ones who get women… you get a bunch of guys who think that women reject them because they don’t have eight-pack abs. It’s why the idea of guys who know how to dress decently, trim their nails and don’t douse themselves in Axe was so weird to some folks that people started calling them “metrosexual” – hinting ever so subtly that yeah they’re straight but we can all agree it’s kinda gay, right? Right? Guys? Right?
Now, part of what solidifies this disconnect is the underlying belief that they’ve been lied to, but they’ve figured out the truth. Part of the reason, for example, that a lot of the same guys can’t understand the appeal of Henry Goulding or Dev Patel or Jungkook (besides, y’know, racism), or Pete Davidson or Paul Rudd for that matter, is because they refuse to believe that those guys – who don’t meet those supposed “bio truth” standards – could be attractive. The core of their belief – power, dominance, etc. – is predicated on looking powerful and thus being attractive. They’ll dress it up in language like “being able to provide” or “defend your family” but it’s about imposing their will on others.
Since nobody’s going to accuse Randall Park of being a dominant powerhouse, they feel like the women who “supposedly” find him attractive must be lying for… reasons. Call it virtue signaling, call it wanting to seem woke, but the guys who’ve most bought into the idea of the power fantasy being a sex fantasy will just come up with new, bizarre rationalizations as to why women be lying. Or they’ll complain that birth control makes women want feminine guys instead of REAL men or some other way of protecting their ego.
Meanwhile, girls are having their sexual awakening at David Bowie in Labyrinth and Disney’s animated Robin Hood, or getting squishy feels because of non-physical qualities. The specific way that Michael B. Jordan says “hi, auntie” in Black Panther or Keith David’s basso profundo as Goliath in Gargoyles, or the sometimes weird intensity and passion of Matt Smith as The Doctor… these have all been massive, massive turn-ons for folks, despite these characters NOT being power fantasies.
Once you see that, it’s everywhere – in movies, magazine covers and advertising. If you dig deep enough – though let’s be honest, it ain’t that deep – it’s easy to see how much incel phrenology conforms to the idea of power and dominance, not actual attractiveness. Between body frames, jaw shape, brow ridge, index fingers and testosterone levels… it’s not about being attractive, it’s about looking powerful, while they’re feeling powerless.
And of course, we can’t ignore the social aspect of it either. Men already have fewer friends – especially close friends – than women and even fewer sources of emotional intimacy or support. You’re not going to find a bunch of (straight) guys pumping each other up about how good they look or how sexy they are because it’s “gay” or “girly” or “weak”. Combine that with the belief that women are lying to them because F--k YOU, PENIS, THAT’S WHY, and it’s not hard to understand why a lot of guys have mistaken ideas about what makes them attractive to women.
And until guys stop confusing power with attractiveness or giving away their own power… well, that’s probably not going to change any time soon for a significant number of men.
Please send your questions to Dr. NerdLove at his website (www.doctornerdlove.com/contact); or to his email, doc@doctornerdlove.com