ABSOLUTELY SHOCKING!!

The study was done at Griffith University in Australia and published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B in December, 2017. As the abstract states:

Upper body strength is a key factor in men’s bodily attractiveness

  • "Three sets of photographs of men's bodies were shown to raters who estimated either their physical strength or their attractiveness. Estimates of physical strength determined over 70% of men's bodily attractiveness. Additional analyses showed that tallness and leanness were also favoured, and, along with estimates of physical strength, accounted for 80% of men's bodily attractiveness. Contrary to popular theories of men's physical attractiveness, there was no evidence of a nonlinear effect; the strongest men were the most attractive in all samples."

Along with strength, BMI was also found to be a major predictor of a man's attractiveness levels.

  • "BMI – like weight – becomes a significant negative predictor of attractiveness once cues of physical strength are controlled. This likely reflects women’s mate choice mechanisms avoiding men with large amounts of body fat."

Ultimately, women just want a guy who can fuck other dudes up.

  • "Indeed, evolutionary psychologists have shown that women's mate choice mechanisms track many cues of men's genetic quality and ability to invest resources in the woman and her offspring. One variable that predicted both a man's genetic quality and his ability to invest is the man's formidability (i.e. fighting ability or resource holding power/potential). Modern women, therefore, should have mate choice mechanisms that respond to ancestral cues of a man's fighting ability."

...No shit, eh?

Me have stuff you can't have. Woman mine. You can't touch!

I love how the authors of the study are breaking things down to almost-caveman levels. According to their findings, women want a guy who is going to be able to beat the shit out of other guys, and secure/protect resources for them. I don't know if you can necessarily draw that conclusion from their experiments, but that's how they put it (in a science-ey way). Of course women would want that though. I think most people would agree that a lot of our behaviors and thoughts relate back to instincts we've had for millions of years. For women, those thoughts are fear and submission. So, instinctually they want a man who can protect them and keep them safe. And there's no better indicator for that than big muscles and an imposing figure.

I guess the lesson is: Lift.

Griffith University article:

https://app.secure.griffith.edu.au/news/2017/12/13/upper-body-strength-key-factor-in-mens-bodily-attractiveness/

Link to study (main page is the abstract):

http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/284/1869/20171819