Science Says: Don't Date Muscular Men

[maynardsong]

According to a study conducted at the University of Westminster, stronger men make awful boyfriends. The study surveyed 327 straight British men, more than a third of whom were single, and discovered that the more muscular the participant, the more likely he was to have sexist beliefs and hostility toward women. Yikes

Comments

[mycenaes]

lol, I have met many a skinny/scrawny dude who has been sexist as hell, so this article is kind of pointless. Just think of nerd/geek culture and the sexist bullshit within it, for example. Those dudes don't necessarily work out, and yet they still say/think misogynistic things.

[miss_sassy]

MTE re: nerd/geek culture.

[katyblue]

Exactly. I saw a comment on DA slamming overweight female cosplayers and their costumes, and then when I go check his profile I find the skinniest, geeky lookin dude. (With shitty costume to boot)

[sherlockholmes]

If you're sourcing Jersey Shore... I feel like you're rendering your argument invalid, article.

[maikamariel]

This.
They didn't even consider the intelligence factor...

[mythrai]

eh all men are sexist to varying degrees so science isn't really telling me anything new there. it's always just been a degree between NeoLiberal covert douchery and the more traditional Aggressive Dude douchery.

i disagree with your premise though, if only because muscular men have never been a female sex fantasy so much as they've been a male power fantasy. See the constant outcry in movies/games/comic books about how Men Are Objectified Too. But it's not for sex - it's for physical power. Women can have sexy, fit bodies so long as they don't cross the ~masculine~ line that heavyweight female weight lifters do, for example.

[mycenaes]

eh all men are sexist to varying degrees so science isn't really telling me anything new there. it's always just been a degree between NeoLiberal covert douchery and the more traditional Aggressive Dude douchery.

Perfectly put.

[mythrai]

okay sure, but the argument is cyclical (and to be fair, so is the one in the 'science' report) - are muscular men attractive because society conditions women to want power, to find power sexy, in order to uphold the status quo?

[riath]

It's like...I don't know, everybody in existence wants to make sure that in heterosexual couples, the woman's the one with the sexier body?

See I didn't really get that message from the article at all. It seems to be saying that men who subscribe to patriarchal ideas that men ought to be well-muscled are also more likely to buy into the same patriarchal ideas that women are objects.

However I don't like it, the article or the study. It generalises far too much with a very small subsection of men. I've met a few guys who do fit the 'muscly and sexist' stereotype but I've also met a few non-muscly sexist assholes too. A sexist asshole is a sexist asshole regardless of body shape or image.

[safmonster]

See I didn't really get that message from the article at all. It seems to be saying that men who subscribe to patriarchal ideas that men ought to be well-muscled are also more likely to buy into the same patriarchal ideas that women are objects.

That's exactly what I took from it as well.

I also wonder if testosterone plays a part. Testosterone is required for building muscle so perhaps more muscular men have higher testosterone levels and while they might not be more misogynistic they might be more aggressive about their beliefs.

[xochitl]

Stop trying to "prove" what makes men sexist (with "science", hahahahaha... no) and just work on educating them. -_-