What do men actually find attractive about women?

[kellyspark]

After being divorced after a long marriage (adultery, his) I have started to cotton onto the fact that a lot of men like certain attributes about women that are quite surprising to me.
In a sporting hobby, some men have shown interest in me - flirting - but I wasn't ready for dating, so have treated them more like mates. This seems to have increased their attention, so I infer that they either like the chase, or they cannot figure out why I'm not flirting back and want to find out why I'm not.
Another thing seems to be that men don't automatically go for the most glamourous looking woman in a group. I'm still trying to figure that one out, but wondering if men worry about women being 'high maintenance' or maybe they think glam women are out of their league?

@hotpinkkettle

if a man looks me up and down and gazes, it is a boost to my self-esteem.

That’s a brave admission on MN.

I’m kind of prepared to be flamed and told this is not a healthy way of boosting my self-esteem 😬

Anothergreatday

You have attributed a quote to me above that I never made

Anyway,

It’s interesting that three male posters above are all getting there panties in knots but I doubt one of them has experienced almost daily sexual comments and /or harassment since their teens

No knots here. The times I received daily sexual comments / harrassment was when I spent a summer working in a bar in a certain south coast seaside town popular with hen and stag do's. Sadly it is a common theme for anyone who works in the night time economy. I also used to play decent level rugby (national league) and women wondering into the changing rooms post match to gawp at naked players or shouting sexually crude comments from the touchline was seen as 'funny'.

I have had inappropriate touching and grabbing by women in both the work place and when out socially, I have been on the receiving end of some pretty crappy comments and have been shouted at from a car while out running. However, none of this is a 'daily' experience and women put up with way more harassment. It is happening less frequently as I get older. The difference is that I have never been in fear of my life when a women has behaved appallingly towards me. I am a physically big bloke who does not have to worry as much about getting injured for turning down a womens advances. Generally speaking I only have to worry about getting beaten up by other men when out and about. Still, it's not much fun getting my cock (painfully) grabbed in bar and then getting rounded on and verbally abused by her mates when I object. There are some twatty people out there, both men and women.

@Hrpuffnstuff1
I didn’t see one person here deny some women can behave that way , but that has nothing to do with the question you were asked about whether you have experienced sexual harassment from the age of a younger teenage and almost daily
What your describing is a far cry from what women here are talking about
Your trying to not only negate womens experience but compare your experience which are nothing like on the scale women are receiving
That is , unless that are daily and have been happening from a very young age even from women twenty thrifty years older when your very young ?

@SparklingStars10

There’s absolutely no denying that men are visually stimulated by a woman’s body, if they wasn’t, OnlyFans etc would cease to exist. Women know this, they would not post half naked/naked pictures if they did not want to entice men to liking and paying for their pictures. This may not be a popular opinion but for me, if a man looks me up and down and gazes, it is a boost to my self-esteem.

One of the very first things taught in psychology is that a healthy self esteem is intrinsic not extrinsic In other words if your getting self esteem from other people it’s not SELF esteem, it’s validation and it’s very unhealthy

@hotpinkkettle

if a man looks me up and down and gazes, it is a boost to my self-esteem.

That’s a brave admission on MN.

Not brave just misguided and not very insightful No one ‘ gives ‘ us our self esteem . That’s why it’s called self esteem Needing to look to men for validation is hugely problematic

@DillonPanthersTexas

Anothergreatday

You have attributed a quote to me above that I never made

Anyway,

It’s interesting that three male posters above are all getting there panties in knots but I doubt one of them has experienced almost daily sexual comments and /or harassment since their teens

No knots here. The times I received daily sexual comments / harrassment was when I spent a summer working in a bar in a certain south coast seaside town popular with hen and stag do's. Sadly it is a common theme for anyone who works in the night time economy. I also used to play decent level rugby (national league) and women wondering into the changing rooms post match to gawp at naked players or shouting sexually crude comments from the touchline was seen as 'funny'.

I have had inappropriate touching and grabbing by women in both the work place and when out socially, I have been on the receiving end of some pretty crappy comments and have been shouted at from a car while out running. However, none of this is a 'daily' experience and women put up with way more harassment. It is happening less frequently as I get older. The difference is that I have never been in fear of my life when a women has behaved appallingly towards me. I am a physically big bloke who does not have to worry as much about getting injured for turning down a womens advances. Generally speaking I only have to worry about getting beaten up by other men when out and about. Still, it's not much fun getting my cock (painfully) grabbed in bar and then getting rounded on and verbally abused by her mates when I object. There are some twatty people out there, both men and women.

Yeah I get shouted at and honked by cars consistently when out walking and have been for years and have sexual winks or comments most days on the train there will be at least one guy who does something When did this start and how many women are doing this to you each day ?

@SparklingStars10
‘ I’m kind of prepared to be flamed and told this is not a healthy way of boosting my self-esteem 😬’

No not flamed but no it’s not healthy and the fact you expected people to tell you that means you probably already know that anyway

Obviously, some nerves are being hit calling out the very real behaviour that many men experience

@SparklingStars10

There’s absolutely no denying that men are visually stimulated by a woman’s body, if they wasn’t, OnlyFans etc would cease to exist. Women know this, they would not post half naked/naked pictures if they did not want to entice men to liking and paying for their pictures. This may not be a popular opinion but for me, if a man looks me up and down and gazes, it is a boost to my self-esteem.

Its your perogative to be flattered, but many women are not, and the men who are doing this have no way of knowing if the woman is one of the (very few?) who find the leering of a random man welcome, or one of the many who do not. Yet they do it anyway. And unfortunately expressing views like yours provide them with justification. While it may boost your self esteem, a woman, particularly a young one, who faces it daily while going about her everyday business, is likely to feel very differently.

My point was an answer to the implication that women are more qualitative or virtuous in choosing partners than men.
My argument is neither group is virtuous.
All people on initial meet asses for attractive physical qualities the rest comes after. I don't have an issue with that.

When did this start and how many women are doing this to you each day ?

Probably when I was about 16/17 onwards, I was very sporty as a teenager and got selected by one of the rugby academies so used to get comments off some of the mums at school
pick up and drop off or asked to 'show off my muscles'. I was painfully shy so just felt awkward and did not really do much about it.

I never claimed it was a daily experence, just that it happened enough times to be noticable. As I have alluded in my post above, the dynamics are very different and the risks and outcomes are very different for a man compared to a woman.

@hotpinkkettle

Obviously, some nerves are being hit calling out the very real behaviour that many men experience

Lol yet not one man who can say he’s experienced this from teen years almost daily ( and from women thirty years older )

@DillonPanthersTexas

When did this start and how many women are doing this to you each day ?

Probably when I was about 16/17 onwards, I was very sporty as a teenager and got selected by one of the rugby academies so used to get comments off some of the mums at school
pick up and drop off or asked to 'show off my muscles'. I was painfully shy so just felt awkward and did not really do much about it.

I never claimed it was a daily experence, just that it happened enough times to be noticable. As I have alluded in my post above, the dynamics are very different and the risks and outcomes are very different for a man compared to a woman.

So when you were 16/27 ( much older than 13 btw were the women 49or 50 yr olds . Because the experience for many women is MUCH more than just to be noticeable It’s literally almost daily harassment and unwanted for many women Being A12 yr old girl and having 50yr old men salivating and making comments is beyond gross Being a grown woman and having to deal with DAILag unwanted attention is gross That’s the big difference that you don’t seem to be understanding

@hotpinkkettle

Obviously, some nerves are being hit calling out the very real behaviour that many men experience

If nerves have been hit it's by the tired old cliche of men responding to women's experiences by starting some weird race to the bottom.

If nerves have been hit it's by the tired old cliche of men responding to women's experiences by starting some weird race to the bottom.

Ah, the tired old MN “race to the bottom” cliché.

Often trotted out in an attempt to belittle the experiences of others.

[quote wingscrow]@5128gap Oh dear, you have described a Barbie doll crossed with a 1950's house wife...FFS.[/quote]
🤣🤣 stepford wives....

"I think it’s more to do with the way so many men so often assess womens fuckability and appearance even when dealing with them on levels completely unrelated to personal or partner seeking
Although some women may look at every man and assess that , I think men do this way more than most women"

I agree with this. Infact there have been men who I have really fancied who have approached me day to day with the looking-you-up-and-down approach and that has meant I have quickly decided i did not like them in the first place. Its a shame but it is true.

To begin with it’s obviously all about looks and this will be different for every man or woman for that matter. It’s pointless believing it’s about anything else at first because unless you’re visually impaired that is the first thing anyone notices.

Of course there are then ways a person could easily become unattractive when they open their mouths to speak. For example, I found a man attractive once years ago until he spoke and was ridiculously dopey. I bet lots of women would find that appealing, he was funny in a dopey sort of way but it isn’t for me.

So it’s a bit of an open ended question because everyone will be into vastly different things and they could easily be put off someone they find physically attractive when they actually speak to them.

@5128gap

That’s why I said it boosts my self-esteem ‘for me’. How does my view provide men with justification to ogle other woman?

[quote Riddlemecat]@SparklingStars10
‘ I’m kind of prepared to be flamed and told this is not a healthy way of boosting my self-esteem 😬’

No not flamed but no it’s not healthy and the fact you expected people to tell you that means you probably already know that anyway[/quote]
I say I expected it because it’s the default people switch to if they don’t agree with something, just because it doesn’t fit their general view about something. If another man glances and finds me attractive then yes off course it’s a boost to my self-esteem, I wouldn’t be lying if I said it wasn’t.

I've had women make inappropriate sexual comments and advances towards me in situations that have made me uncomfortable.

But I wouldn't for one minute suggests that's anything like the scale of endemic, widely accepted harrassment of women by men, or the way such harrassment is integrated into society and culture. That's a really silly false equivalence.

Actually although I'm straight, and never sought to give anyone any other impression, I've probably had more inappropriate unwelcome attention from gay men than from women.

I will also add, I often glance at handsome men. When me and my sister were out one evening a few years ago, we ended up getting chips at a kebab shop and the man who served us was really handsome, me and my sister both said after we couldn’t keep our eyes of him. Men and women are naturally drawn to attractive people. I have a Facebook friend who often shares images of half naked men and the responses are pretty much along the lines of ‘I wouldn’t kick him out of bed!’ ‘He’s hot!’
Also women have OnlyFans for a reason, they are not trying to attract women, they sexualise themselves to make them appealing to men, to say they don’t, is a lie.

[quote SparklingStars10]@5128gap

That’s why I said it boosts my self-esteem ‘for me’. How does my view provide men with justification to ogle other woman?[/quote]
Because its one of the more common defences. 'It's a compliment' 'You should be flattered' When men hear women like yourself saying this, it confirms their belief that they are doing no harm, and that any woman protesting is uptight or 'a bitch' because other women like it. Unless you're saying this is the first and only time you've shared this view of course.

@5128gap I have never shared this view with anyone, so I can’t see how this would encourage men to ogle women. I appreciate not all women like it and am not condoning this, I’m just sharing my own personal view.

[quote SparklingStars10]@5128gap I have never shared this view with anyone, so I can’t see how this would encourage men to ogle women. I appreciate not all women like it and am not condoning this, I’m just sharing my own personal view.[/quote]
Fair enough then. Like I said it's your perogative to enjoy whatever you like. And a view you don't share or act on, impacts no one but you.
Without being pedantic I didn't say encourage. I don't think they need any encouragement and women aren't to blame for their behaviour. My point was that if they think women like it they will view it as perfectly fine, rather than at least seeing it for what it is.