What do Women Actually Find Attractive in Men? "Alpha" Men Need Not Apply
- 5 days ago
- 10 min read
Okay, so what do we definitively know about the research into human attraction and so-called alpha males? If you’re coming from my video about the real science behind the concept of alphas in nature, then welcome back. Right now we’re going to talk about alpha male humans and what women actually find attractive in men. No nonsense talking points or weird ideological theories, just real science. We’re going to get into some complicated social topics as well as some weird and random and pretty subjective values determining attractiveness in men. So stick around for the full thing because there’s a lot to unpack here.
Multiple studies of human male attractiveness have found that likeability as a partner is not defined by the characteristics the manosphere is currently pushing. Sorry, fellas, bro culture is just a little too skibidi Ohio rizz these days. In fact, listening to the manosphere altogether is a bad idea if you want to find dating success as a man, because over 96% of women surveyed have reported manosphere content to be the absolute most unattractive male hobby in existence.
One of the main ideas prevalent in all the different subcultures of the manosphere is the concept of dominance. Big masculinity, big muscles, big aggression. Just a medieval viking berserker, I suppose. What the data shows us is that dominance actually can be attractive, but with a major twist, because it’s only actually attractive if it’s a positive form of dominance, and it doesn’t at all resemble the negative forms that toxic manosphere influencers are preaching about. On its own, a negligible number of women, one out of fifty according to one study, thought that dominance was an attractive trait in a partner. Womp, womp.
The big winners proven out in the data are always positive qualities. 76% of women in the same survey said they preferred men who were sensitive, and 68% said they found easy-going men to be attractive. As for dominance, the form that becomes attractive when combined with those qualities is more of a confidence factor, a quiet self-assurance, an ability to handle things. It is not at all the super demanding and highly needy quality that the bro culture really pushes. Neediness was evaluated as attractive by 0% of women. And that’s exactly what this kind of toxic dominance is. Anyone who thinks that being loud and stupid and aggressive is going to get you dates is trying to sell you something, and it’s a faulty product, so you should return it and demand a refund. Be dominant about it if you want, because alpha male influencers for the most part seem to be very emotionally insecure buttheads with the maturity of a half-sour pickle and the mental fortitude of a can of week-old spam. It’s all just appearances, is what I’m saying. It’s literally the Wizard of Oz with these guys. Dominant alpha personas are needy, projecting, fragile little peaches who fall apart at the slightest resistance.
What else do women genuinely find attractive in a potential partner?
One thing that won’t be surprising is that humor is a big predictor of dating success for men. The ability to make people laugh really is a highly valued skill in human society, and it’s very much also a large factor in finding a potential partner. Some research has established a link between two triangular points when it comes to humor. One is that humor production may be an indicator of higher intelligence levels, at least according to studies involving tests of both factors. And, it may also be an evolutionary aspect of human attractiveness, actively evolving as a feature of attracting a partner. So humor being so successful in dating scenarios makes a lot of sense in light of the data. Now, big angry manosphere dudes may be unintentionally funny, but that’s not the same thing.
Research also tells us something else that I think is really surprising, especially if you’re listening to a lot of these pick up artist influencers these days, and that is that altruism and kindness are enormous indicators of dating success for men. 88.9% of women in one international study said that kindness is an attractive quality in a man. Other studies show us that men who are express the qualities of selflessness and altruism are consistently rated as more desirable than men who are rated as highly physically attractive but lack the altruism. Another huge point I need to emphasize here that’s going to blow the manosphere boys out of the water is that altruism was also found through research to be more valuable in a partner than what study authors called resource potential. This is a combination of factors that ultimately equates to whether or not a partner represents a good investment option. The realities and the manosphere version differ quite a bit, but it’s ultimately derived from a Darwinian view of mating preferences in the wild. Darwin called his original theory about this mate value. And manosphere slop talkers are always going on about this, and making men feel like complete failures unless they’re constantly hustling to keep up appearances and pretend that they’re worth a bazillion dollars, posing in front of expensive cars, wearing expensive clothes, and posing in provocative, Scarface-inspired scenes everyday on their instagram. I keep wanting to apologize to these people, but it’s not really like this is my fault, and it’s actually a good thing that women don’t actually even want any of this, because it frees up men who are chasing ghosts here to just live their lives and be their more authentic selves. And this was the original founding principle of the Men’s Rights Movement back in the 60s and 70s, which was a complimentary idea of second wave Feminism. Both men and women wanted men to break out of the stereotypical male gender prisons of the time. You can find out more about that in the video I did about the history of the manosphere and toxic masculinity, and how it all got started. But the important thing for us to come away with here is that altruism is way more important to women than this perception of wealth that men believe is all that stands between them and a healthy relationship.
Prosocial behavior, everyone. It’s just what the data tells us is good for the world and for us as individuals. We find this over and over again. And if you want to keep finding out the most important points about all of the big issues of our time, please do subscribe to the channel and stick around with me and the other people I’ve gotten to join me on this journey of genuine discovery. Also consider liking the video and commenting about your own experiences below, and sharing this with someone you think will benefit.
Another thing that women seem to prefer in men is having at least a couple of years on them. Studies have demonstrated that women tend to prefer men who are older than them. This can range from a couple years to a few more than that. Researchers have dubbed this the George Clooney Effect. Dundee University did a study with 3,770 people to confirm this. Also a study from 2010 that found that 75% of married men were at least one year older than their wives. The potential idea weaving its way through here is that women might see men who are older as having more time to become more established and mature. So there’s definitely something to the silver fox phenomenon, or what British people apparently call, “Dad or Shag.”
One thing that looksmaxxing culture tends to talk about quite a lot is facial structure. Gen Z uses words that I’ve never heard of to describe the accurate scientific terminology of tiny, minute facial features. It’s kind of crazy that they’re just throwing out these terms out of an anatomy textbook that I don’t think anyone has read before the year 2020. But exact facial configurations are said by influencers to be more attractive than others, it’s part of the whole soft and hard looksmaxxing culture, which takes body modification from either a simple hygiene makeover to really severed surgical procedures. But are they right about any of this? Most of the data we find here seems very subjective, and up to the particular beholder. But there is an interesting study about women preferring more feminine faces in men when they also perceive a higher aggressiveness, and they prefer more masculine dimorphic faces when they perceive a face to be less aggressive. So there’s potentially something to facial features exhibiting a traditional masculine affect, but only when features signifying aggressiveness are not as prevalent in a man’s face. So there you go, just something else to think about when you’re watching your angry yelling manosphere bros.
If you’re still with me at this point, it’s time to get into some weird ones. And by weird, I mean, I either don’t know how to take them, or there’s really not a ton to add other than this is just the way things are. So let’s talk about beards.
Beards seem to be pretty much up to personal preference. Love them or hate them, because women definitely do both. One big viral study out of the University of New South Wales did the rounds some years ago on social media, and it claimed to uncover that the optimal facial hair configuration for male attractiveness was a light beard or heavy stubble. Again, take that with a grain of salt, because lots of research about facial hair seems very conflicting. I know this is one of those things men stress about, or have very strong opinions about, and culturally we have moments when facial hair is in and out and all around, but it really does just seem to be a matter of personal preference when it comes to attracting a partner.
Okay, here’s one that I don’t totally know what to do with, but that is fascinating. One super interesting study has found that women are more attracted to men when they’re wearing the color red, or standing in front of a background that’s red. There’s not a lot of followup on this, so we don’t officially know what the deal is. It was adjusted for other factors, and like the same men who were in blue were rated less attractive than when they were in red. In the animal kingdom, there is research about male members of a species who are adorned with red attracting more mates, even when the red they’re wearing is artificial. Not really something we can say with certainty, but this might be a built-in thing that’s come to us honestly through evolution.
Last thing I want to bring up is body ratios. This one I think is weird because it’s just something I don’t think anyone consciously thinks about. It seems like the idea behind it is about judging the physical characteristics to determine healthfulness. And there is a very specific ration that women tend to be more attracted to in the men they date. If you watch my legs video that I did about the history of the cultural attractiveness of legs, you can find out all about leg-to-body ratios and what men and women find attractive in each other according to those physical proportions. If you haven’t checked that out, not only will it further open up the conversation about the physical aspects of attraction, but it’s also just a fascinating ride through a cultural history that spans probably the entire length of human history. Turns out, legs are something we’ve always been obsessed with.
It’s important to note that there are a lot of studies about physical attractiveness in the research. So there are lots of precise things that women are telling us they find attractive in men, in terms of their physicality. And this has been used by manosphere influencers to further talking points that drive more men to pick up artist or black pill or looksmaxxing or incel communities. We need to get these guys back to reality. Just because someone finds something physically attractive, doesn’t mean that person wants to spend the rest of their life with it. And we see this in the research, too. Plenty of non-physical characteristics and qualities are cited over and over as more important to women who are looking for a potential long-term partner. And there are some differences in what women are shown to prefer in life partners versus casual dating scenarios.
Overall though, it really does seem to be the case that just about everything that manosphere influencers are harping on about is just the complete opposite of what the data tells us that women actually want in a man. The two main points, especially, which are physical characteristics like muscles and height, and the kind of aggressive dominance that people conflated with the mistaken views about alpha wolves which have long been debunked.
What we’re looking at with manosphere types is that women do not like them, because many of them can see through them, and other people just don’t want to be around aggressive morons. This is a pretty easy calculus, honestly. Remember, women like men who are genuine, basically confident enough to be themselves. This is a cliche for a reason. The one out of fifty who like the dominance factor on its own above all else might want to live the trad wife lifestyle, but 99.9% of potential partners out there will have a negative interest in such regressive cultural nonsense.
I really feel compelled to help clear up a lot of what’s been going around on the dumber parts of the internet these days. Young men today are especially very susceptible to this for whatever reason, with all the looksmaxxing and toxic manosphere nonsense getting very much entwined with modern culture, and the slang coming out of this has even become the common vernacular of the younger generations. This is just how they talk now, and it’s all taken from debunked science from a faulty experiment that gave us this idea of the alpha, or completely made up ideas about what makes a man attractive. But it’s really entrenched now, and so it’s important that we set the record straight with actual data. It’s good to just know how the world actually works in reality, and that’s an important thing on its own. It’s important for a lot of other reasons, too, like bolstering a functional and cooperative society and also for making both men and women feel more comfortable and be able to flourish. Be our best selves all around. Slay, queen, slay.
So if you want to do some more of that, and do some f*cking good in the world in general, then make sure to subscribe to the channel and come with me on this journey to drag the world back into a rational state, kicking and screaming. And make sure to check out the other videos I referenced in this video, like the history of the attractiveness of legs and the real research into the alpha wolf myth, and I’ll see you whenever I show up on your feed next time.
Sources:
Comments