>>18287641Nah. It's just that A: there's more to what makes a man appealing than just physical attractiveness, and B: there's some evidence in other studies that women judge faces differently from bodies. Even in this study, they say:
"Of course, the fact that physical strength is assessed as more attractive in virtually all our subjects is still consistent with the fact that some subjects may put a higher premium on physical strength than other subjects (i.e. strategic pluralism [7]). For example, evidence shows that women who are more afraid of crime show a stronger preference for formidable men [51]. Women who are less afraid of crime are presumably still attracted to physically strong male bodies, but they may value other characteristics more highly. Also, it is important to remember that male visual bodily attractiveness is one small aspect of overall mate value in men [5,9,52,53]. Nothing we have found contradicts the theory (and evidence) that there are ovulatory cycle effects such that women in different cycle phases may shift weightings on different preferences [54,55].
However, the data presented here are puzzling for theories that suggest that some women will prefer less formidable men. For example, data show that some women prefer less ‘masculine' faces and this has been interpreted as an evolved strategy to navigate the trade-off between securing high-quality mates and leaving one vulnerable to exploitation by powerful men [49]. In other words, it would not have served a woman in past environments to prefer the strongest men because such men may be more likely to exploit them or be less interested in investing in them. This claim is a component of ‘trade-off theory' which argues—consistent with much evidence—that women's mate choice mechanisms calibrate themselves in response to ecological variables that ancestrally predicted the genetic pay-offs for those preferences [7]. However, regarding the specific claim that some women prefer less dominant, masculine or formidable males because these males are more investing: we could find no evidence that a substantial (or even insubstantial) number of women found less strong men attractive when assessing the body. Why some women prefer less dominant or less masculine faces and voices (e.g. reference [56]), and yet prefer more physically strong bodies remains to be explained (note that ratings of dominance and ratings of strength are extremely highly correlated [57]). There appears to disunity between face and body processing such that strong bodies, but not the faces that accompany them, are seen as most attractive"
So in some sense, the ideal man is a jacked pretty boy. Basically a man who is physically strong and looks like he can fight but has a gentle cute type pretty boy face that shows his accommodating personality. The ideal man is a trade off between a guy who is strong enough to destroy other men who might hurt her, but without the roided high t personality that tends to make HIM more likely to hurt her. Different women are making different trade offs because it's ridiculously rare to get a muscle bound pretty boy. Boy band culture is built off love more than sex appeal. They want a nice boyfriend who is high status, but ideally he would be good at fighting too (this is why women got disappointed when they found out a star of the twilight movie was a manlet). The jacked pretty boy is rare because masculinization tends to happen to both the face and body and so he needs specific genes to be that ideal. So mostly women are choosing based on the options available. Their dream man, however, would almost certainly be a korean boy face idol who is also inexplicably jacked.
