I want to ask an unusual question to you straight men

krackedy · 2026-05-18T23:06:27+00:00

I'm bi. I'd say 10-20% ish for men.

I'd say similar for women.

I'm a bit picky I guess.

aslfingerspell · 2026-05-19T02:06:22+00:00

Very interesting and original question! I hope my answer matches.

I would have to say that the men I find attractive, as in "I'd swap their body for mine.", is maybe in the single digit percent.

That's not to say I'm in the top % myself. Some men are taller, shorter, fatter, skinnier, more or less muscular, but visceral "Woah, he's hot! I'm jealous." reactions are definitely in the 5% or less. First off, around 3/4 of men are overweight or obese, and I want a muscular build. Of the "healthy weight" people, only a fraction of those will actually have the hypertrophy, vascularity, definition, etc. for me to value their muscles over mine.

I don't see myself and other men as ugly or anything. I just think that the nature of male beauty norms means that there really isn't a sliding scale. It really does seem like you can be better than most other guys but still feel like a complete loser.

It seems like you either have "It" or you don't. I can pass hundreds of men of all shapes and sizes walking through a city street and be able to point out I'm younger and healthier if you asked, but only the guy with the six-pack riding his bike shirtless is going to make me feel bad about myself. Plenty of men work out, but only the guy at the gym whose biceps are the size of my thighs is going to get me to look a bit longer and wonder how I can get some of that myself one day.

I suppose it's the fact that I'm heterosexual that I don't appreciate the more subtle things that women seem to be attracted to, but I also suppose male bodies just don't have a lot of room to be sexy.

For sake of comparison, literally every single part of female anatomy has been fetishized: from toes all the way to hair, and everything in between. Women have all sorts of interesting body types: pear shapes with wide hips, apple shapes with wider shoulders or busts, the classic hourglass, people who are skinny all the way down, women with muscle definition. Straight men like myself can think "Wow, she's petite. How hot!" and "OMG statuesque Amazon. How hot!" at the same time. Even conventionally unattractive women may still be the fetish of some subculture or community.

On the other hand, myself and other men just look like different sizes and colored rectangles or blobs to me. I can wear a suit instead of a t-shirt but I don't feel sexy. I just feel like I've traded "graphic tee rectangle" for "black plain rectangle." Women's clothing can be very selective and strategic in how much it shows off: bare shoulders? Backless dress? Boots, heels, flats, etc? So many choices, while men's "sexy clothing" is either shockingly conservative (a suit leaves only the hands, neck, and head exposed) or is basically naked (speedo). There really isn't a lot of room for a man to sexually tease his belly button or show off his feet.

In fact, I've even had a theory that one of the reasons men send dick pics is because they don't know how to sexualize themselves outside of their actual genitalia, and go from 0 to 100 because they have no idea of what "Sexual expression at 30% power" looks like for the average man. We just get so little feedback on what actually makes our bodies appealing. Sure, we can read people online who say "I love a man's arms." or "Grey sweatpants!", and I don't think anyone is lying, but as a man dressing carelessly is a blessing and a curse. For better or worse, we wear whatever we want and it doesn't seem to give us any more or less attention. A t-shirt, tuxedo, swimsuit, and hoodie all get the same level of attention, which is zero.

As a man who has struggled to become attractive for years I'm sad to say that there it really seems like you only become truly "hot" as a man at the very end of the scale, and there's only 2-4 ways to be it.

The "Male Performer" These are your singers, dancers, actors, K-Pop idols, and so on. They may not lift 200 pounds or have a six-pack, but they are attractive through a very well-rounded appearance that is often curated with a lot of help from others. Men may receive the benefits of professional makeup artists, personal trainers and dieticians, maybe even plastic surgery, on top of their sheer talent and charisma inherent in their profession. There's also, of course, the luck factor involved in being able to make it in such an intense industry, or succeeding in an industry basically synonymous with social status.
"The Muscle Man" He is That Guy at your gym. Often he is very tall and very wide, but with a ton of muscle (think powerlifter or NBA linebacker), or perhaps he could be a normal-sized man with disproportionately large biceps or thighs (I once had a teacher whose arms were trunks but you wouldn't notice unless you were close or knew what to look for).
Facial attractiveness. Very rarely, I'll see someone who really does have a genuine "movie star", "sexy Squidward", or "Chad" level face, just like in the memes! However, unlike as popularly imagined, their body may or may not match.
Subcultural flair. This man, usually already somewhat conventionally attractive, has also achieved the aesthetics standards of some other male subculture. (i.e. goth guy, femboy, being able to pull off a "man in uniform" look well). I group this under a single category because again, I feel like a lot of male subculture looks already depend on being somewhat conventionally attractive on a one-way scale, whereas for women, there is more of a duality i.e. being petite and being tall are both genuine ways for a woman to be hot to men.

Motosport_Titan · 2026-05-19T00:05:39+00:00

I’m not attracted to men but I see as many good looking men as women. But men and women don’t have the same criteria for attractiveness I guess. Like women say x woman is good looking and I can’t agree at all.

competitive_mogger · 2026-05-19T01:19:57+00:00

I'd say like 20% of men I see are conventionally attractive or above average, but I am in the gym a lot.

More than half are mid and the rest I'd consider below average. It's pretty rare that I see a truly ugly man (or woman).

For women I'd say its the same.

Although these numbers would change drastically if I considered all fat people unattractive lol.

sincerityappreciator · 2026-05-18T23:07:15+00:00

Ever hear of a bell curve?

DecisionPlastic9740 · 2026-05-18T23:29:06+00:00

BobtheArcher2018 · 2026-05-19T03:31:23+00:00

It's a continuum. It's hard to establish a cut off for attractive vs. non attractive. I think my curve in terms of this is a bit more similar to my curve for rating women than it is to how women seem to rate men.

That said, as some analysts have pointed out, who says that male beauty is distributed the same way as female beauty? Or that women aren't objectively more beautiful than men? Even on a theoretical level, you can posit some underlying objective reality for beauty here. But from another perspective, you can say people are only as attractive as other people find them. The underlying reality is at best a theoretical construct that is difficult if not impossible for humans to access directly.

matthedev · 2026-05-19T14:00:51+00:00

I can't speak for other men, but as a straight man, I barely notice other men's physical appearance. Most men look ordinary, unremarkable to me; they don't have gross deformities. I'm in the Midwest, so a lot of the men here have that conventionally masculine appearance; when I'm on a run, it seems there are no shortage of men who are also running or jogging and taking care of overall fitness in comparison to the majority of women I see, but anecdotal impressions are going to vary a lot from place to place. In other cities, I see the women are "putting in the work" in ways most of them just don't around here.

Maybe strategically, it's good to get a better idea of what the competition is doing 🤷 Other men just tend to fade into the background for me.

Lift_and_Lurk · 2026-05-19T01:44:02+00:00

I guess I’d say 5 percent of dudes I’d go “ok I get it” objectively if I heard women talking about how attractive they are.

I’m probably attracted to like 60 percent of women I guess? I had a wide range of ladies I’d chase

YourMrFahrenheit · 2026-05-19T12:30:42+00:00

Straight male. Honestly? The women saying 20% of men are attractive are being generous. Basic hygiene, basic fitness, basic attention to style and presentation. All extremely accessible, and I’d say if I’m walking down the street less than 20% of men hit all three of those. If you are genetically blessed in every other way you can maybe get away with skipping one (or two, if you’re really blessed) of those. But most men could get into that top 20% but just doing those three things.

ETA: for context, I see very few attractive women as well, for the same reasons.

growframe · 2026-05-19T01:08:33+00:00

Are you thinking more of "damn, that guy's a real looker" attractive, or passively thinking a guy could catch some eyes if he wanted to?

The former is like <5%. The latter is more around ~20%

Also, for curiosity and more context, could you also answer what percentage of women you find attractive?

Again, attractive as in "damn, she's drop dead gorgeous", or just generally someone I'd be down to date?

The former is about ~15%, the latter is around ~40% or so.

Outrageous-Floor-424 · 2026-05-19T01:09:08+00:00

Pretty much everyone in or around normal weight, for either gender

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ThrowawayHomesch · 2026-05-19T04:09:30+00:00

Depends on the area. At malls or movie theaters maybe around 70-80% of young guys I see are attractive. But if I go somewhere like Best Buy it would be something like 15-20% with over 50% of them being downright hideous.

Sapiopath · 2026-05-19T05:30:29+00:00

Cishet: I find about 5-10% of men objectively good looking. I find about 10-20% of women objectively good looking. Attractive to me isn’t about looks because I’ve had many experiences where I was wildly attracted to women who are not objectively good looking and also dated objectively good looking women who ended up being horrible human beings.

Artistic_Speech_1965 · 2026-05-19T16:49:30+00:00

Before knowing about the female gaze men and women where evenly attractive in my eyes

But attractivity differe between men and women since men value hyperfeminine women and hypermasculine men the most while women tend to more androginuous traits

Also for me a woman can be pretty but not attractive. Like I could find a building pretty without being attracted to it. So make up don't really influence my selection process (except when there is too much. It's not my cup of tea)

DzejSiDi · 2026-05-19T22:34:23+00:00

My opinion of men aged 20-35 match the bell curve. Around 50% of them is "mid", so maybe 25% is attractive?

BTW friendly reminder that famous 20% meant that only 20% were above median score in attractiveness, according to women.

could you also answer what percentage of women you find attractive?

For women aged 20-30 I think every 3rd is "attractive", because portion of "around average" women is still attractive for me. Also we have a bell curve here, but women take care about their looks more. Or I am just biased.

mikiencolor · 2026-05-19T23:15:38+00:00

I'm bi.

Probably over 50% of men and women I'd say are physically attractive, but there is a lot more to attraction for me than physical attraction. Men and women do things that make them unattractive to me. They tend to be different things, but they are very prevalent in both, and that knocks the number of people I actually find attractive down very much in practice. Probably to less than 1% when all is said and done. It's not because of their appearance, though.

jajaja123321 · 2026-05-20T00:18:48+00:00

I would say I find about 50% of men to be attractive and around 75% of women

just_a_place · 2026-05-20T07:25:41+00:00

Now, as straight men you aren't attracted to men, but you somewhat have some sense of attractiveness in men.

Actually no. The majority of us cannot tell or distinguish which which men you women find attractive. We have a vague sense and some idea like height, strength and symmetrical facial features but out in the wild it's not possible to tell what you women actually find attractive. I know I am attractive because women just tell me, or they behave like it around me.

you can recognize if a man is attractive.

No, I cannot. Most men can't even though they pretend to and you women always call it out.

My question is as a straight man, what percentage of men do you find attractive?

Zero because I just cannot tell. But judging by the percentage of men that women fawn over I would say about 1 to 5% of all men at best are somehow attractive to women.

what percentage of women you find attractive?

About 60-75% The rest are of course too old, too young, disabled, or just out of the dating pool for whatever reason.

NoClerk951 · 2026-05-19T00:04:56+00:00

I am straight. If we take all ages into account I'd say I find 30% women and 20% of men attractive. If we narrow it down to 20-40 age bracket it's 50% of women and 60% of men.

firetrap2 · 2026-05-19T07:56:00+00:00

It's not that women only find 20% of men attractive; it's that they rate 80% of men as below average. While I agree that very few men are highly attractive, I can still objectively look at men and rate them on a 1–10 scale, and the results would roughly form a normal distribution.

wtknight · 2026-05-19T12:17:53+00:00

I don’t find any men attractive. That’s why I’m heterosexual. I can judge things like “that actor’s face looks symmetrical and none of his facial features look strange”. But that’s not attraction.

GyrosEnjoyer · 2026-05-19T00:26:38+00:00

I see attractive men all the time, but I only see like one attractive woman once a month. I think it's just that men are expected to care about our own appearance more. It wasn't women who invented looksmaxxing.

Training-Cook3507 · 2026-05-19T00:18:27+00:00

Not attracted to men. For women, most are attractive in some way when they are young, most aren't attractive as they age.

nonedat · 2026-05-19T04:40:54+00:00

Depends if you mean the western world or the whole world.

Western world, I would say about 60%. Entire world, definitely 20%.

Then I would just add 10% for women - 70% western, 30% worldwide.

AreOut · 2026-05-19T09:24:49+00:00

my sense of attractiveness in men is based on men women look to and that's definitely way below 20%

Title	I want to ask an unusual question to you straight men
Author	Fit-Mountain2917
Upvotes	17
Comments	43
Date	May 18, 2026 2:57 PM UTC (2 months ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/PurplePillDebate
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/PurplePillDebate/comments/1tgp4sv/i_want_to_ask_an_unusual_question_to_you_straight/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/PurplePillDebate/i-want-to-ask-an-unusual-question-to-you-straight.1580704 https://theredarchive.com/post/1580704

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