What physical features do guys find attractive
The 11 Physical Features Men Can’t Resist, According to Science
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We all know that every time a man gives us the once-over, he's probably thinking about sex. But now, science can explain why men are constantly checking us out. Turns out, there's a specific formula for their once-over. Some of it's silly, but most of it you can easily nail.
According to Business Insider, every time a men checks out a woman, he's performing a reproductive fitness assessment. Men were designed to look for key features in women. These features make women attractive because they are associated with good health and fertility. When men notice these features, they are subconsciously thinking, she could have my babies! Making them subconsciously, or very consciously, attracted to you.
Science has proven men to be attracted to women with these 6 features. According to the data, here's what it takes to be "attractive:"
A Wider Waist to Hips Ratio. A ratio of 7:10 is particularly pleasing, apparently. The waist and hips are related to childbirth, making men think, those big hips would be great for delivering my baby!
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A High Voice. According to a study cited in the video, a high-pitched voice evokes youthfulness and signifies a small, feminine body, both of which are attractive to men. Let's just say our high-pitched shrieks at the scandalous happenings on the Real Housewives is a sign of evolution at work.
Healthy Hair. Shiny, full, and long hair is very attractive.
Again, it's a sign of health and fertility. And thankfully, very fake-able with regular salon visits and blowouts. Remember, it's for the future of the human race.
Smiles. Well obviously, happy people are attractive people. But science has also proven the whiter the teeth, the better.
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Less Makeup. You may think that contouring, layers of eye shadow, and bold lips are making you more beautiful, but it turns out, the natural look is more appealing to men. The video says that men prefer women who use up to 40% fewer cosmetics. But it shouldn't take science to tell you that the natural you, is the best you.
Wearing Red. There's a reason red is associated with lust. Scientists have proven that wearing red enhances attraction.
In fact, they've found this phenomenon to hold true in other animals as well. Note to self: dry clean red dress for Saturday date night.
Dark Strands. Gentlemen don't, it turns out, prefer blondes, according to a 2008 survey of 130 men (and 112 women) published in the Scandinavian Journal of Psychology. "Contrary to expectations … brunettes were rated more positively than blondes," the researchers write. Hair length, on the other hand, "had only a weak effect on ratings of attractiveness."
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Height. One (incredibly thorough) 2010 analysis conducted by experts at The University of New South Wales in Sydney — titled "Much More Than a Ratio: Multivariate Selection on Female Bodies" — showed that although factors such as waist-to-hip ratio and bust size affect how men perceive women, they don't tell the whole story.
Taller women were rated as more attractive, but — at least evolutionarily speaking — men aren't necessarily after willowy, runway-ready figures. The men surveyed preferred women with legs that were proportionate in length to their height.
Arm Length. Long legs weren't shown to be a feature men seek out, but long arms were. "Scanned bodies of taller women who had longer arms were strongly preferred," the Sydney-based researchers write. Upper arm girth played a role too — apparently men are attracted to women with long and slender arms.
Big Boobs. Hope you're sitting down: Believe it or not, men like big boobs. But especially in combination with a narrow waist, which, the researchers note, several previous studies had already established. In more news that will surprise no one, studies that tracked eye movement showed that when looking at images of women, men first checked out their breasts and waists.
"Men also looked for longer at breasts, but attractiveness scores were more likely to be based on waist scores alone than the breast scores," they write.
Overall Grooming. In a 1997 study published in the journal Current Psychology, changeable features like how people groom themselves and posture were shown to be just as important as fixed features like height. The reason: Evidence of self-care signals to others that you're healthy and strong (and thus, a good reproductive partner).
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This all said, there's plenty of counter research that men are just happy to be getting laid at all. One thing's for sure – they're lucky to have us, just the way we are.
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Jessica Leigh Mattern
Web Editor
Jessica Leigh Mattern is a web editor and writer who covers home, holiday, DIY, crafts, travel, and more lifestyle topics. Prior to working for Country Living, she wrote for several lifestyle and women’s magazines including Woman’s Day, Cosmopolitan, and Redbook
6 Physical Traits That Grab Men's Attention (According to Science)
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Love and Sex
by Stephanie Lee
Updated November 6, 2022
Science can put a person on the moon, turn sunlight into electricity and now it can answer the single straight girl’s big question: “What do men really find attractive?”
Yes, scientists claim that they’ve found some answers. As Business Insider reports, when a man “checks out” a woman, what he’s really doing is performing a quick “reproductive fitness assessment.
” The heterosexual male brain is subconsciously (and sometimes consciously) searching for women to make babies with. Apparently, what men are physically attracted to are features that make a woman look healthy and fertile.
So, let’s talk about these findings and what it all might mean for those trying to better understand the straight male brain.
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Low waist-to-hip ratios
The widely accepted myth that men find low waist-to-hip ratios (read: hourglass figure) attractive because it signals things like fertility and health may finally be debunked.
A study with findings from the journal Evolution and Human Behavior suggests that men are into this female figure because it's some reliable sign that the woman they're interested in is physically and sexually mature enough — and they're probably young and haven't been pregnant.
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The waist-to-hip ratio is a thing though
For some reason, across cultures and around the world, the whole waist-to-hip ratio (WHR) thing (AKA hourglass figure) seems to be consistently noted as attractive in women — and often the theory is that it indicates fertility.
But research is suggesting it's not only heterosexual men that dig this WHR — homosexual men also note it as attractive — and it's less about fertility but more because this ideal WHR suggests a more optimal level of health — and potential for reproduction.
The other finding was that a higher WHR may suggest that the woman may have already reproduced — and one of the experts pointed out that men may not want to invest resources in another man's children (which is a terrible attitude to have, by the way).
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Attractive female voices
Communication is key to any relationship — and there are certain vocal features in a person's voice that can make them more attractive. While women tend to dig deeper voices, men tend to prefer higher ones.
The sexual attraction born from hearing a certain pitch is linked to the body size it signals and "good" hormone balance.
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The higher pitch suggests biological traits
Straight women often find themselves attracted to deeper voices in male partners as it may suggest higher testosterone levels and strength.
The heterosexual man seems to prefer women with higher voices because it suggests youth — and they're subconsciously calculating all the "benefits" they may get from getting with a more youthful mate.
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Beautiful, shiny hair
Men really do like shiny, healthy hair. (Don't we all?)
Long, luscious locks will reel in male attention, according to German scientists who found that men equate healthy hair with a woman's overall health and fertility.
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Long and luscious locks
Whether it's a product of great genetics, good nutrition, your amazing hair stylist or that new leave-in conditioner, having healthy hair implies that you have a healthy body (which may imply that you have the potential for reproduction).
Having problems growing out your locks? Check out our top 10 tricks to make hair grow faster.
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Smiling
Smiling is another attractive physical feature that men like — as you probably know because they love telling women to smile (and it's never appropriate).
Studies show that women who smile more frequently are seen as more attractive to the other sex. It's also been reported that a lot of men view smiling as "subservient, weak and vulnerable."
So, feel free to decline if you're asked to smile — after all, it's sexist and never necessary.
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Bright and white teeth
It's just just about smiling more:, having whiter teeth was also proven to be a factor in physical attraction. Let's be honest, good oral hygiene is attractive to everyone.
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Less makeup
The natural look is in. According to research, men preferred women who wore up to 40 per cent less makeup than the average woman, like these celebrities who still manage to stun without makeup.
But, of course, if you feel better wearing whatever amount of makeup you like — don't modify your routine in attempts to attract some male statistic. You are perfect exactly as you are.
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Natural beauty
So, if you want to, forgo that heavy foundation, for a lighter, more natural look.
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Red is the most attractive colour on a woman
According to research, the colour red is said to enhance male attraction to women. Some cultures incorporate the colour in wedding rituals and some folks have been conditioned to connect the primary colour with romance — and Valentine's Day. It's a thing.
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Red-hot red is…hot?
So, say yes to that red dress and catch some attention. A powerful red hue on your lips, nails and body is bold and beautiful, so rock it!
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Secrets of sexuality, or what kind of men attract women
What do women want? Why do they like some men at first sight, while others remain unnoticed, as if they merge with the surrounding landscape? But, according to scientists, this happens instantly and on an absolutely intuitive, unconscious level: either a man is recognized by a lady as a potential sexual partner suitable for her, or not. And to change this later can be very difficult, often almost impossible. nine0003
What does it depend on and how to increase one's attractiveness for the weaker sex? Mir 24 dealt with this issue with the help of psychologists, coaches and personal growth trainers who work with successful men.
Self-confidence is half the success
Nothing attracts women more than a man's self-confidence: "I know who I am and what I want from life," is read in his eyes.
He feels like a master in his world, soberly assesses his strengths and capabilities, consistently achieves what he wants. Only with such a man does a woman feel safe and reach out to him on a subconscious level. “In a woman’s life, as in bed, a man creates an atmosphere, he sets the direction in a relationship,” says psychologist, gestalt therapist Elena Shpundra . - Attraction arises for a man who is confident and unambiguous. He knows what kind of woman he is looking for, he knows what kind of relationship he wants and is not afraid to show a woman that she occupies a significant place in his life.
If you want to be sexually attractive to women, boost your confidence! Here is what Irina Yergina, the leader of personal growth trainings, advises : “Exercise every day: motivate yourself, praise, tell yourself how strong, smart, beautiful, charismatic, athletic, attractive, courageous you are. Can't praise yourself? Hire a specialist! There are a lot of them in this topic, and they will help with pleasure.
In the end, just find a person you trust, let him praise you. It can be a friend, mom, dad, sister, bartender, trainer at the gym. Good deeds also help build confidence. He did a good deed - he fixed it for himself. Or just note for yourself mentally that right now you are doing great! It's like in childhood - to collect colored candy wrappers! nine0003
Intelligence and sense of humor
There is a lot of truth in the popular belief that the brain is the sexiest part of a man, psychologists say. It's amazing how much a man's mind is attractive to a woman. Moreover, it is not the IQ of a man that is important to women, not his encyclopedic knowledge, not even higher education. Rather, it attracts a passion for knowledge, a masculine desire to discover new things, to understand the essence of things and events. The mind, as a tool for mastering the world, is what excites the female imagination and delights the ladies. It is important that she be interested in talking to him, arguing, listening to his opinion.
If he charms her with his intellect, sexual desire will not keep you waiting, it has been tested many times! nine0003
As for the sense of humor, it is an important component of sexuality, closely related to intelligence.
Only self-confident people are able to joke and feel relaxed, this is an indicator of inner strength. Weak, insecure people are most often afraid to seem ridiculous.
“What could be more asexual than a man who takes everything literally, does not smile and does not take your jokes? And a completely different thing is a man who can amaze and make a woman laugh. It brings you closer, removes barriers, makes you friends. The coincidence of "cultural codes" is very important here. If the same things confuse you, the path to mutual understanding is open!” Elena Shpundra says. nine0003
Vulnerability and sensitivity
In most cultures, men traditionally suppress their sensitivity, try not to show vulnerability.
But it is not "reinforced concrete" men that turn out to be sexually attractive to a woman, but those who are capable of dosed manifestations of these seemingly completely non-male qualities. For women, this is a signal that a man is open to her, that she is significant to him. And also confirms his ability to sympathy and understanding, tenderness and care. As if under the outer layer, she sees its depth, connection with the earth, the country, the change of seasons, real naturalness and naturalness. It is truly impressive, captivating, this is something you can fall in love with! It is important that sensitivity in no case should mean helplessness, weakness. This is a very subtle point. nine0003
Vulnerability is attractive only if it is combined with a man's reliability, his ability to master any situation.
Warmth and tenderness
“Men's warmth is in caring, and also in some kind of indulgence towards women's weaknesses,” says psychologist, trainer Elena Shpundra.
– But in condescension, not arrogant, but in understanding the difference between our natures. The ability to hear a woman and give her the necessary emotional response makes a man very sexy.” nine0003
Here's what blogger and journalist based in Los Angeles, columnist for The Huffington Post Erika Jagger says :.
“Tenderness is a light kiss on the neck when I wash the dishes and he passes by. It's when he strokes my knee under the table or cheers me up when we talk to his friends at dinner. When he puts his head on my chest just because it's more comfortable for him to sit next to me and watch a movie. A man who loves touch for its own sake, and not for the sake of sex - that's sexy. nine0003
Figure? No style!
A common misconception among men is that women are sexually attracted to jocks. For the vast majority of women, this is not the case at all. Although appearance is still an important factor influencing the sexual attraction of women.
It is here that a purely biological mechanism works: ladies unconsciously choose the most healthy and genetically prosperous father for their potential offspring. A handsome partner with a good classical figure and broad shoulders - this is the ideal basic type, written in the archaic depths of the female unconscious. nine0003
The good news is that the boundaries in which a real man can be perceived by a real woman as quite fitting into her standards are very wide. Moreover, for many women, those men who look like her father are more sexually attractive.
Therefore, it is not necessary to strive for ideal proportions. But to keep yourself in relative sports shape and take care of your grooming is necessary. These are the mechanisms that civilization has given to the modern man so that he can look sexy, even if he does not have athletic proportions. The same opportunities include the formation of your own unique style, which is worth working on. nine0003
Well-groomedness and own style are the mechanisms of influence that civilization has given to the modern man so that he can look sexy, even if he does not have athletic proportions.
How exactly? Here is what coach Irina Yergina says: “Choose your clothes: your style, your color, your styles. The one that decorates, corrects, emphasizes the best features of appearance. In such clothes, you will like yourself, and therefore most of the women who see you. How to choose your style? Contact specialists, read literature on style, look for advice on the Internet. Now there is so much information that it is quite possible to find the answer to the question in terms of your colors, styles and other things! nine0003
High energy level
High level of sexual energy in men is what attracts women in the first place. That's what the fair sex's brakes fail, their knees tremble and their body gets goosebumps. Psychologists and poets write about it, women themselves admit it. And no one undertakes to clearly explain what this term means, originally from Eastern philosophy. They only clarify that these are not at all special opportunities in bed, and in general "not about that.
" nine0003
Here's how they describe it at the everyday level: if you have energy, you are "rushing" through life. I want to do something, achieve something, strive for something. And there are forces to implement it. The person is positive and "charged". In addition, a high level of energy outwardly manifests itself as dignity, self-confidence, self-esteem, charisma, and also as a passionate involvement in some business.
It turns out that material well-being also depends on sexual energy. And this relationship is direct. Even if we do not consider any esoteric theories on the topic of energy attraction of money, sexual energy gives us connections, support in society, success with superiors. And this, in turn, is a trap for money. So the attractiveness of wealthy men in the eyes of women is not a myth. But the secret lies not at all in the commercialism of women, but in the fact that wealthy men, as a rule, have a very high level of sexual energy! It is thanks to this energy that a man, even without being handsome, can attract representatives of the opposite sex to himself.
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Tatyana Rubleva
A lot of personal things: how men choose their future wife others don't? How do we choose our partner? What determines our sexual desires? Why do we even want sex? These and other questions are answered by Daria Varlamova and Elena Foer in the book Sex: From the Neurobiology of Libido to Virtual Porn. Popular science guide. The book is published by the Alpina Non-Fiction Publishing House with the support of the Evolution Foundation at the end of August. Forbes Woman publishes an interesting piece. nine0084
Finished reading here
You go on a date through a dating site with a hopeful heart. The interlocutor (or interlocutor) looks good, tells interesting things, listens carefully and laughs at your jokes. In theory, you should be delighted. But instead, you mentally calculate how much you will need to tip the waiter, and try to at least nod your head at the right moments - because you are fantastically, terribly bored.
If the sexual interest has not “turned on”, you can’t take it with rational arguments, but if you have earned it, hold on all living things. In one study, scientists found that people in a state of arousal are ready to do things that they would not do “on a sober head”: cheating, neglecting the feelings of a partner, or even their own safety. In a word, sexual desire literally turns us into other people. For some time. But how is it that we want some and do not want others? Why, for example, do some people like blondes and others like brunettes? The hero of Woody Allen in the film "Everything you wanted to know about sex, but were afraid to ask" was turned by a lamb, and we are afraid to think whether this has happened in world history and how often. Usually, answering the question of how this mysterious choice happens, people shrug their shoulders and say: “Chemistry!”, implying that, in addition to conscious ideas about the ideal partner or partner, there must be a biological component.
Of course, cultural aspects play a role, and yet conscious and such changeable ideas about beauty are far from the only component of desire. nine0003
Gender differences
Of course, today no one thinks that any woman, assessing the attractiveness of a man, thinks about how healthy their offspring will be. At the same time, evolutionary scientists suggest that we perceive some hints of fertility and “good genes” of a partner unconsciously. If we accept as an axiom that this is how, unconsciously, we choose the ideal parent for our children, it becomes obvious that the criteria for attractiveness for men and women in this case differ significantly. The cost of producing offspring for most females in nature is much higher - in the case of homo sapiens, this is at least nine months of gestation. For men at the same time, the minimum investment is one ejaculation.
It turns out that the potential number of children a woman has is much less than that of a man, which means that she should be more selective. nine0003
Another difference, partly stemming from the first, is that the benefits of short-term relationships for women are lower than the possible costs, while for men it is exactly the opposite. However, a man entering into a long-term monogamous relationship should be no less picky than a woman, because in such relationships the reproductive potential (that is, the probability of leaving offspring) of the partners is approximately equalized. Of course, all this is not what people consciously think about when going on a date. According to evolutionary theory, the best option for a woman may be a partner who is ready for a long relationship, with good genetic material and reproductive potential - the desire and ability to produce and raise offspring. Numerous studies confirm that for women the socio-economic status of a potential partner is much more significant than for men.
Of course, success alone is not enough - what matters is the willingness to invest your resources in the future of children. nine0003
In general, if you leave out age and physical attractiveness, women are much more demanding in all other criteria. This is quite justified: according to studies, in different countries, among the children of socially successful men, mortality was lower, while indicators of physical and psychological health were higher. At the same time, the living conditions of a woman are also important: if the cost of living is not very high, and the woman herself earns well, she will be less worried about the socio-economic status of her partner. nine0003
What about men? Evolutionary research suggests that their choosiness depends markedly on how much of their own resources they plan to invest in raising their offspring. For them, the choice between short-term and long-term relationships is much more acute than for women.
At the same time, no matter what is said on the pages of glossy magazines, many men are looking for long-term relationships. For such relationships, in addition to appearance, personal qualities in women are important for men, such as friendliness and a sense of humor. nine0003
Appearance
In almost any romance novel, the main characters are handsome. Indeed, choosing an attractive partner makes biological sense. Beauty is to some extent related to health, but beyond that, a beautiful parent is more likely to have beautiful children who can also excel in finding the right partner. Those criteria by which women (for the most part) determine the beauty of men, as a rule, are most strongly associated with health. According to research, women prefer men who are taller than average, proportionately and athletically built, but not too “pumped up”.
Facial features that women find attractive are large eyes, a wide smile, a large chin, prominent cheekbones. All these features, according to scientists, one way or another indicate either physical health or an evolutionarily promising set of genes. For example, prominent cheekbones and a masculine chin are associated with levels of male hormones, androgens, and the ratio of androgens to estrogens (female sex hormones) during adolescence. Androgens, among other things, are also responsible for the production of spermatozoa, which means that women, choosing men whose chin indicates that they are doing well with the hormonal background, act quite evolutionarily justified. nine0003
Men rated their partner's appearance as a much more important quality than women, and this news is unlikely to surprise anyone. According to a number of studies, the main things that distinguish men are wide hips, facial features that indicate youth and at the same time sexual maturity, facial and body symmetry, and age.
