To think a lot of men aren't that bothered about women being ultra slim?

[Voilafrancais]

From what I've seen around me, men seem to be happiest with average-sized/curvier women.

A colleague of mine is a football player and very into fitness and his girlfriend is quite overweight, they've been together 6 years.

A man I liked who is quite thin, he wasn't interested. His ex is at our workplace and is significantly overweight.

I know this sounds nasty and rude, it probably is. However I feel like on the whole men aren't that bothered about women having figures like Victoria's Secret models, and personality is more important.

Yes, you're right. Curvy no longer means actually curvy- because slim people can be very curvy too. Now it just means overweight. So from that perspective, I dont agree that "most men" prefer overweight women. Of course some do- we all like different things, but generally speaking I dont think either gender "prefers" their partners to be overweight. Depending on the degree- being overweight can seriously limit your lifestyle, and its associated with multiple negative health outcomes.

I am currently on holiday and around the pool you wouldn’t believe a word of the narrative on this thread with larger women thinking they look so much better than slim women because anyone over a size 12 is going around in baggy T-shirts or cover ups, constantly pulling them down over hips and fidgeting with them self consciously. It’s such a shame because they are of course very beautiful but after this thread I realise that there is a good chance they are the ones coming online talking about people like me being anorexic, lettuce leaves, bags of bones blah blah blah. The best part of course is them talking about how miserable slim people must be when I am walking around confidently not giving two shits what people think and they are essentially hiding away.

So yeah as I have said before, not buying the narrative of this thread.

Absolutely this.
I also think most men aren’t really that fussy and are kind of “love the one you’re with” types.

I’ve always been slim, not by choice - it’s genetic and every guy I’ve dated has been almost obsessed with my body type… or rather, they made out that they were and made out that they preferred slimmer women. Do I think most of them were just saying that? Yes, of course.

Bottom line - men like naked women. They like to have sex with women and a lot of the time the bar is “will she let me sleep with her” rather than having preferences.

@CuttingMeOpenthenHealingMeFine

I agree. It’s true that “curvy” is sometimes misused in place of “fat” or “overweight” and some larger people have been a bit unkind here.

But the spectacle of skinnier people trying to paint themselves as victimised minorities is unedifying and inaccurate.

The big picture (pun half intended) is that in the minds of the vast majority of people “skinny” or “slim” is seen as preferable to overweight. You only have to open a woman’s magazine or glance at the TV for ten minutes to realise that.

Leaving aside the health benefits of being lighter and slimmer, (which are indisputable) it’s very clear that the people lobbying on behalf of large as a desirable body shape still have some way to go to win the propaganda war. Overweight people suffer far more discrimination and distress than those who are thin. It’s unsurprising that some overweight people still feel they are fighting a PR war.

I have no problem with thinner people defending themselves against the “curvy women are more sexy” argument which is lazy discrimination. No one should feel it’s Ok to mock someone else’s body shape. But seeing people queuing up to paint themselves as persecuted victims of a fat establishment because they are slim and can’t take the criticism is absolutely pathetic.

Check your privilege as they say.

But the spectacle of skinnier people trying to paint themselves as victimised minorities is unedifying and inaccurate

I am naturally slim, always have been (was bullied at school for having "twiglet legs")- I dont consider myself a victim or marginalised in any way, shape or form. I think discrimination or rudeness towards anyone's size (whatever that may be) is completely wrong and out of order.

What I do object to in this thread is that whenever someone tries to celebrate larger women, it always turns into a bashing of slimmer women. Why? why cant one particular body shape be celebrated without having to slag off other women who arent that shape? It's so tiresome that this always happens whenever this topic comes up. You dont have to insult other women in order to celebrate one body shape - it's unnecessary and it completely negates the entire point people are trying to make- eg lets celebrate larger "curvy" women because they get so much grief from others- cue loads of comments about "no man wants skin and bone- yuck" etc

You cannot demand body acceptance for one type of body and in the very same breath slag off other body types. Whenever that happens I just discard that person's opinion due to their staggeringly ignorant hypocrisy.

But why should I just blithely accept criticism of my natural body shape just to make other people feel better about themselves? Why should I accept the narrative that I have an eating disorder, am boring and men can’t find me attractive (to be clear I am happily married so not bothered about this point but it’s the principle!) I am raising a daughter who, by the looks of it, will have the same shape as me, why should I allow this narrative to continue that there is something wrong with her because she is slim and sporty and healthy?

I don’t give a fuck what size people are, until they start on me then I won’t hold back. Lots of people are lazy and greedy and, frankly, jealous. They want to be slim but can’t be arsed to do anything about it so instead want to make themselves feel better by making others feel bad and I for one am just not going to sit back and take it.

I was just on S and B asking for office clothing suggestions for size 4 DD and someone has posted making a derogatory comment about " teeny tinies". 🙄 Predictable really. Body acceptance for everyone but the slim.

@CuttingMeOpenthenHealingMeFine and @fantasycake

But why should I just blithely accept criticism of my natural body shape just to make other people feel better about themselves?

I’m absolutely not saying you should accept criticism of your body shape. I have gone out of my way to say the opposite. And there are some nasty comments here on both sides of this discussion. It’s not OK for people to be offensive to people because they are thinner.

But I also think we need to look at this discussion in wider societal context. The bottom line is that there is still far more taboo against people who are fat or overweight than against people who are skinny.

I don’t think attacking anyone for their body shape is OK but think allowing people who are overweight to do a bit of positive PR for themselves is relatively harmless.

It’s unedifying that on these threads people are very quick to pile on in defence of the “pro thin” camp to say: “but overweight is soooo unhealthy”. It’s specious and unhelpful to try to defend yourself but then get a nasty little dig in at the end that implies both that overweight people are on the wrong side of the argument and that they are being unkind.

If these people were really just defending themselves they would leave it there rather than trying to imply they have some moral superiority.

The tone is smug, ungracious and a bit manipulative (for the record I am not talking particularly about either of you. I am mainly talking about the poster who made a reference to “chubby boobs”. These people undermine their position by being catty and nasty.

The cup size is irrelevant without the band size, fyi.

I actually think it goes in phases...

When I was younger, it was all about boobs. I'd guess maybe 80% were boob men, hence all the Page 3 models, boob jobs, push-up bras etc. I literally didn't know anyone into curvy women/bums etc.

Now it's very much shifted! I;d say 80% are now bum men, with emphasis on squats, twerking, and in general, more 'curvy' women.

Me personally (man), I like elegance, which 'tends' to be more slim, sleek, tall and thin. I go more for figure as a whole than boobs or bum. For me, it's more about how someone walks and acts than their figure. Gala gowns over Instagram bikini models any day of the week.

There will always be men interested in every woman, so I wouldn't fret.

I don’t think attacking anyone for their body shape is OK but think allowing people who are overweight to do a bit of positive PR for themselves is relatively harmless

But isnt that the point? its not "positive" if your entire argument for body positivity is "men dont want skinny". I am completely supportive of positive PR for people but that really isnt it. All it does is pit women against each other. It's the classic - focusing your anger at the wrong people when it should be our society who created these ridiculous "ideals" in the first place- challenge them by all means.

DD is MN speak for daughter, not cup size. Admittedly it is a cringe acronym!

Agree this type of PR is self defeating, not least because it has encouraged a bunch of men to come on here and tell us whether they are boob or bum men. 😒

I agree, I am all for saying larger women can look amazing, I mean let’s face it most of what makes someone look good is how they carry themselves it has nothing to do with size whatsoever but when it comes to making me, or my daughter when she is old enough to ‘get it’, feel bad and insulting us for doing nothing other than existing then I will fight back.

All the theorising in the world is pointless really, and as is apparant from this thread, invariably leads to women hurting each other. If you care about whether you're attractive to 'men' because you want to find a male sexual partner, there is only one way you'll find out...from your direct experience in the field. If you want to attract men and go to places where men are, you'll find out pretty quick if you have the combination of characteristics that will lead to success. These will be a mix of your body, face, presentation, personality and your choice of target audience. If those things add up to an 'attractive' package to your target market, you will learn this from their approaches to you. If they don't, you will then have to decide whether to make changes to yourself, or to your preferred type broadening your criteria and widening your pool of consideration, or be without a partner. Whether MN thinks men prefer size 16 Emna over size 8 Clare is entirely irrelevant to your personal prospects, because you are an individual with a lot of factors that make up the whole, and the posters on MN are presumably not who you are trying to attract.

oh I stand corrected and apologise!

@fantasycake

But isnt that the point? its not "positive" if your entire argument for body positivity is "men dont want skinny".

Of course: it depends on your definition of “positive PR”. If it means “men don’t want skinny” it’s obviously pretty toxic. Not to mention obviously untrue.

But you see the argument on here a lot that body positivity = celebrating obesity, invariably followed by a long rant about how unhealthy it is to be overweight.

Again, definitions are important. If we are genuinely talking about “celebrating” the morbidly obese then there’s a problem. But usually “body positivity” means someone who is a size 14 feeling comfortable allowing themselves to wear a short dress.

I don’t see why a long knee jerk rant about how unhealthy it is to celebrate obesity is helpful in this context. Which often happens on here. Quite a lot of this is stealth smugness and it doesn’t help those people who are not dangerously overweight but slightly large to have lots of people pearl clutching about “celebrating obesity”.

The tone of the thread was set in the first two lines of the OP 'men are HAPPIEST with average/curvier women'. Any hopes of positivity towards larger women without unfavourable comparisons with slim ones flew out of the window when the OP chose to say 'happiest' rather than simply 'happy'. This didn't happen by accident. The attempt to be positive about larger bodies via comparison with smaller ones was quite deliberate on OPs part, and no one but a fool could imagine it wouldn't lead to retaliatory responses the OP and other larger women might find offensive.

I think men are happy just get some sex . Let's get real . Most men know that most women don't have supermodel bodies just like. All bodies are different and men like variety anyway so it would be boring if we were all the same . My husband says most men are comfortable with miss average who can scrub up well . Extremely good looking women intimidate them .

@5128gap

That’s fair and the OP probably did have a bit of an agenda.

And as you say pitting groups of women against one another based on their size is never edifying.

Yes, I totally agree. It was a very deliberate choice of word to use "happiest" rather than "happy" and it's pretty damn obvious that it was motivated by projection on OP's part to reassure herself.

Quite a lot of this is stealth smugness and it doesn’t help those people who are not dangerously overweight but slightly large to have lots of people pearl clutching about “celebrating obesity”.

I don’t recognise any of this on this thread, what I recognise is the growing narrative that slim women are boring, have eating disorders and are unattractive.

They use weird statements made my their husbands about how they prefer them bigger (not at all said because Husband doesn’t want the sex to dry up) to justify how all men must prefer this.

Look at all these poor, poor men married to miserable slim women who don’t eat anything and only ever think about being slim.

Funny I don’t see any of the Victoria Secret models that the OP mentions struggling desperately to find partners.

A colleague of mine is a football player and very into fitness and his girlfriend is quite overweight, they've been together 6 years

A man I liked who is quite thin, he wasn't interested. His ex is at our workplace and is significantly overweight

This makes no sense whatsoever - so, of a total sample size of two random men you know, one is with a woman who is overweight and one is no longer with a woman who is overweight- so how on earth do you conclude from that, that all men prefer "curvy" women? They cant have been that "happy" if they broke up surely....

How do you know the second man didnt want to date you due to your body size?- maybe he just doesn't like your personality. I am not trying to be deliberately rude but you are making huge assumptions here and there could be all sorts of reasons why he doesnt want to date you, it may be nothing whatsoever to do with your body shape.

🙄

Depends what you are attracted to I suppose - my DH is a boob man 😂 so prefers curvier girls - I’m a size 14 and his two longer term exes are both bigger than me.

My brother is a gym bunny and his girlfriends are always tiny, he values being slim because he thinks it’s an indication that you look after yourself. I think he’s wrong purely because I was a size 8 when with my abusive ex and was the unhealthiest I’ve ever been. I could definitely lose a stone but I’m much more active, vibrant and healthy at this weight than I was then.

My DH has put on a couple of stone since we met but I don’t care he’s gorgeous to me. I’d only worry about his weight if it became a health concern or he was lethargic and couldn’t keep up with pace of our life.

I’m in complete agreement with this. People are u duly nasty towards slim women. When mainly we do nothing other than ‘exist’
Do I have a fast metabolism and is it partly genetic? Probably
Do I have what I consider to be a healthy relationship with food? Definitely.
I won’t make assumptions about why anyone else is the weight they are but I won’t stand for people assuming I am boring and that I starve myself because I don’t.