While this isn’t the whole story in regards to media and fashion, it’s important to remember that a huge amount of what’s promoted comes from people who have never been sexually attracted to a woman (i.e. women and gay men). I doubt men’s desire are nearly as influenced by fashions, whereas women themselves clearly are.
I like the message overall, but let me address two of these points:
1. Beauty is Culturally Determined - I think men's sense of women's beauty is less culturally malleable than Aaron seems to be suggesting, though more culturally malleable than the 0.0% that the manosphere seems to suggest.
Women's fashion doesn't really optimize for looking good to men, and it's far more variable than men's tastes are, so I think it's a mistake to associate the variability in women's fashion with men's tastes. For example, "mom jeans" were, for some reason, in style recently. I've never in my life heard a man say that's a particularly attractive cut of jean.
The issue is that there is a specific sort of look that will maximize male attention, and we all know what it is. It doesn't change that much, but it's perennially low-status and associated with prostitutes and the sexually promiscuous. Fashion is a way to signal both beauty and status, and men might be less drawn to it sexually, but the goal is for high-status men to see the woman as more marriageable. Of course, a lot of this operates on the subconscious; some women think very explicitly about ornamenting themselves in a way that will attract a high-value mate, but many just want to look good "to themselves" in order to feel better about themselves.
2. Beauty is Individually Determined - Yes, strongly agree here. Some of this is contained in what's called "chemistry", and it's why dating is a numbers game. There's probably something like a normal distribution of how much women are attracted to you. If the average woman thinks you're a "4", some small percentage of women will think you're a 7. This is partly how I'm married to my significantly more attractive wife.
There was an interesting study that asked men and women to rate photos from dating sites as well below average, below average, etc., up to well above average.
The men rated the women according to a typical bell curve. The "average" was about the 50th percentile. But the women rated men such that something like 79% were either below average or well below average. It seemed to be a genuine difference between the sexes.
I think people misinterpret this study quite a lot. People tend to assume that women are more "picky" than men rather than recognising that they are more "multi parametric" in their assessment of attractiveness. Women tend to rank the "whole package" rather than just simple physical attractiveness.
They only had pictures to go on, and were only asked about physical attractiveness. It is still odd that the average man rates below average in physical attractiveness, and an above average man rates as average, etc.
A woman might answer that she finds certain non-physical traits to be part of a man's overall attractiveness, but that does not explain why she cannot rate purely physical attractiveness according to a normal distribution.
While this isn’t the whole story in regards to media and fashion, it’s important to remember that a huge amount of what’s promoted comes from people who have never been sexually attracted to a woman (i.e. women and gay men). I doubt men’s desire are nearly as influenced by fashions, whereas women themselves clearly are.
I like the message overall, but let me address two of these points:
1. Beauty is Culturally Determined - I think men's sense of women's beauty is less culturally malleable than Aaron seems to be suggesting, though more culturally malleable than the 0.0% that the manosphere seems to suggest.
Women's fashion doesn't really optimize for looking good to men, and it's far more variable than men's tastes are, so I think it's a mistake to associate the variability in women's fashion with men's tastes. For example, "mom jeans" were, for some reason, in style recently. I've never in my life heard a man say that's a particularly attractive cut of jean.
The issue is that there is a specific sort of look that will maximize male attention, and we all know what it is. It doesn't change that much, but it's perennially low-status and associated with prostitutes and the sexually promiscuous. Fashion is a way to signal both beauty and status, and men might be less drawn to it sexually, but the goal is for high-status men to see the woman as more marriageable. Of course, a lot of this operates on the subconscious; some women think very explicitly about ornamenting themselves in a way that will attract a high-value mate, but many just want to look good "to themselves" in order to feel better about themselves.
2. Beauty is Individually Determined - Yes, strongly agree here. Some of this is contained in what's called "chemistry", and it's why dating is a numbers game. There's probably something like a normal distribution of how much women are attracted to you. If the average woman thinks you're a "4", some small percentage of women will think you're a 7. This is partly how I'm married to my significantly more attractive wife.
There was an interesting study that asked men and women to rate photos from dating sites as well below average, below average, etc., up to well above average.
The men rated the women according to a typical bell curve. The "average" was about the 50th percentile. But the women rated men such that something like 79% were either below average or well below average. It seemed to be a genuine difference between the sexes.
I think people misinterpret this study quite a lot. People tend to assume that women are more "picky" than men rather than recognising that they are more "multi parametric" in their assessment of attractiveness. Women tend to rank the "whole package" rather than just simple physical attractiveness.
They only had pictures to go on, and were only asked about physical attractiveness. It is still odd that the average man rates below average in physical attractiveness, and an above average man rates as average, etc.
A woman might answer that she finds certain non-physical traits to be part of a man's overall attractiveness, but that does not explain why she cannot rate purely physical attractiveness according to a normal distribution.