Stressed men fancy bigger women....

[SardineQueen]

Can anyone explain to me what a useful purpose of this study might be?

BBC

LRD "Not that people shouldn't research male erections"

TBH I don't really think there is any call for research into male erections. Google probably has all the statistical data you could possibly ever need/want.

Men are falling over themselves to find reasons to research their erections, and although there really is pretty much zero call for it, they still tie their daft hypotheses in knots to find excuses to fund each other to do it. There really is no area of male sexuality that has been left unchartered. The world is totally over-exposed to male sexuality and male sexual preferences and it is b.o.r.i.n.g.

In a perfect feminist utopia, I wouldn't care if people wanted to research erections. In this world, yup, I agree with you, it's time (and past time) to do something else!

I disagree male sexuality has really been researched though - I bet there is lots that never gets looked at because it doesn't fit the patterns of what researchers think. I do not believe for one minute male sexuality is as one-dimensional as we're led to believe.

"I do not believe for one minute male sexuality is as one-dimensional as we're led to believe."

Y'know what? I feel like even that is a cliche too: I am fed up of hearing about how, in spite of the mainstream view, there's a subtle, multi-faceted nature of male sexuality with diverse manifestations.... YAWN!

The only refreshing thing would be to hear about something other than male sexuality - maybe women's sexuality, for example.

That's true, it would be good to hear more about women's sexuality.

I didn't know it was a cliche, I'm sorry - I've not come across it much except in the dodgy, Pamela Stephenson-esque forms (which to me don't seem like anything but more of the same rubbish, so I don't count them).

Sorry, I'm not wanting to put you down... just heard it a few too many times - usually from men trying to defend their porn, lechery and rape myths.

Oh, no, not at all, don't worry!

I do know what you mean.

I think, to me, all that stuff 'oh, I'm so out there, sexually, I do all these diverse things' ... no, that's just more of the same. For example I know a guy who thinks he's really really counter-culture and alternative, because he likes the idea of sleeping with lots of women instead of just his wife, and that makes him cool and different.

Well, no, it doesn't. I'm not necessarily judging him for who he wants to sleep with, but I judge him for thinking he's somehow breaking the usual pattern. He's not, because underlying what he does is the same old 'men need sex' message.

It is very hard to talk about men and sex without backing up that same old story. It's why men being impotent is a personal tragedy, whereas every few months some poor woman on here will post about how she hasn't really fancied sex for a while and it huts her but her DH, well, he just needs it doesn't he?

I firmly believe there is far more to it than 'men need sex'. But you're right, that probably the best way to get away from that idea is to research other things - like women and sex.

Yes I am interested in the emergence of people - including men -defining as asexual. I also notice a lot of 'I'm so heterosexual' crap most men spout to bond with/avoid bullying by other men. But still, I'd much rather hear about something other than men. Its not just their sexuality that's overexposed - its everything they think, say or do. I'm so bored of it.

Sure, I can understand that.

To answer a couple of questions that came up on this thread, as I know this literature very well...

-Why these wierd, spread eagled pictures of women and why only women?

The images come from an older study into the way women with eating disorders look at the female body (what interests them vs a 'healthy' viewer, how do they judge attractiveness etc). They are women (with EDs as I recall) of known BMI and body proportions and the images have been used over and over and there's a lot of good comparative data on them. There is no male data set which would allow study of perceptions of men nearly as well. However, this annoys me too and since I'm currently writing a grant to do some related work I shall put that in and get money to create a data set. If I can persuade men to come in and be photographed in white CKs...!

Oh and faces are obscured for the obvious reason of controlling what's driving perceptions. Faces are very influential in attraction. (And we know a lot more about women's preferences for men's faces!).

-" Not sure why they're using the BMI of the women when this has been pretty conclusively challenged. "

In terms of adult health, sure percentage body fat is more important. But those measures don't exist for these women and there's lots of data showing that BMI is an important predictor of attraction.

• "Why not - why do white men like skinny women? "

That kind of is what this is about. Once anthropologists pointed out that western body preferences weren't the same as non-Western preferences, especially on weight for certain groups, the question became what's driving the differences and why would we in the West come to culture revere an apparently unhealthy ideal.

I don't know how well Newcastle involve their academics when creating press releases, but I've had the folks at my institution say "No, you can't add in that explanation, it'll get ignored." And then you can't control what the journos write either.

This is really interesting, leggy - I'm really excited at the thought of your work, if you get the grant, please come back and tell us how it went! I would actually be almost more interested in how your colleagues think of it as in the results.

Thanks for the info on BMI - I guess I was just surprised they wouldn't include a caveat, but perhaps it's simply to do with knowing their audience would understand why they chose it.

I do understand you can't control what journos write. I don't want to blame the academics unduly - I know sometimes people don't even get to write their own abstracts, is that right? So the big slip there might not have been their fault.

But, it is all someone's set of decisions, on how to present that study, and whether to fund it in the first place, and I think it matters to discuss that. I hope that doesn't sound presumptuous - I know it probably does because I'm not in this area and obviously this is a general forum ... but, I think it's important for us non-specialists to at least try to unpick what's going on, and not just take it as gospel.

Dr Martin Tovee says:
"My research explores human mate selection and the perception of physical attractiveness in an evolutionary psychology context." read as I've had a lot of access to pictures of naked women and I like putting them in order of preference.

"One of the most fundamental problems for any organism is mate selection." Says who?

"It is vitally important that we are sensitive to the physical cues that honestly signal that one individual is more desirable (i.e. fitter and with a better reproductive potential, and use them to choose the partner who is most likely to enhance our chances of successful reproduction.) than another" Erm, yes, with the hugely complex socialisation of human beings requiring multi-faceted parenting skills, resourcefulness and intelligence to raise an infant to successful adulthood, its all down to 'reproductive potential' that can be gleaned by looking at someone? Since when is what men find attractive key to reproduction? Since when can you tell by looking at someone how easily they'll conceive or whether they have inferior sperm? :/ What a dimwit.

"My research has focussed on the visual cues on which these judgements are based, and how environment and context may alter these judgements." He hasn't considered there is a conditioned response to visual cues.

"This research also focuses on the problem of body image dysfunction in Eating Disordered subjects. This is a key diagnostic feature in both Anorexic and Bulimic subjects, and plays an important role in the aetiology and maintenance of these conditions." Because of course celebrity culture and imagery, patriarchal oppression have nothing to do with it.

What a white male-entitled tosser. Why has he got a job?

"That kind of is what this is about. Once anthropologists pointed out that western body preferences weren't the same as non-Western preferences, especially on weight for certain groups, the question became what's driving the differences and why would we in the West come to culture revere an apparently unhealthy ideal."

But this is based on the assumption that reproduction is central to attraction, rather than social status. Perhaps 'stress' makes people less able to judge or less interested in judging the body type they would get most approval for sexually partnering with?

"That kind of is what this is about[.......]why would we in the West come to culture revere an apparently unhealthy ideal"

I don't understand how this study would answer this question. This study is coming from the perspectives that westerners have hunky-dory stress free lives, and othered 'foreigners' have stress. It is not putting westerners, western culture, or western values under the spotlight at all.

Haven't read the thread but I hate these fucking 'studies.' All they do is manage to put pressure on women who DON'T conform to the study!

I'm skinny, these make me feel like shit and like I need to change who I am for someone else. The studies that show men prefer smaller women make bigger women feel like shit and like they need to change themselves for someone else.

Also, why do they never do a gender reversal of these 'studies?' The closest I've seen is the one that says women prefer different types of men during her cycle. And even that is pandered to men in a reassuring 'she's just hormonal, she won't be so shallow soon' way.

Sorry but these just really push my buttons.

Haven't read thread, but this here is a good article about this:

apps.facebook.com/theguardian/commentisfree/2012/aug/10/stressed-men-prefer-big-women

Yes LurkingAndLearningLovesCats, it pushes my buttons too. I just don't see what good these studies do, or what they are hoping to achieve. I remember reading that it is overwhelmingly men who go into the 'science of attraction'.... mmm I wonder why that is? I wonder why the data is all about what men find attractive, not what women find attractive?... (Not really - its obviously male-entitlement)

And as for feeling crap about ourselves, such as anorexics and other body-dismorphics (such as women who have multiple breast enlargements), studies like these add to the problem, not the solution. There is something completely fcked about this obsession with the photograph - a flattened image stimulating one* sense - that of the eyes, the visual appraisal of a human being - as the main factor in attraction. ... I understand it is important when choosing what image to wank over or pin on your wall for perving reasons, but when it comes to mate selection - you know, an actual human being with a smell, a voice, a vibe, a personality, there are compatability factors that come into play.

Nearly as stupid as that "Doctor" the other day who postulated that women with morning sickness can cure it by ingesting copious amounts of semen
Yes, because what a woman retching or vomiting multiple times a day really wants, is to suck huge amounts of cock and what the man who sees her in this state really wants to do is ejaculate into her mouth at every opportunity.
Tosser.

Thanks Promethea glad to see it!

That was really disgusting, wasn't it, mal.

The next study will be:

The scientific reasons behind why men prefer not to be vomited on during oral sex.

"The scientific reasons behind why men prefer not to be vomited on during oral sex."

Or put this way "a study into the reproductive advantages of partnering with a women who does not vomit while performing oral sex. Conducted by asking white male college graduates to look at pictures of naked women with obscurred faces to say which ones looked most likely to vomit while performing oral sex and if this correlates to where they place them in order of attractiveness"

FoodUnit, thanks for depressing me. Your version actually sounds real!

I dream for the day when the people who conduct these fruitless studies are called into question. Or rather, asked why they are wasting so much of their intelligence and uni degree on something so fucking pointless, when they could actually be helping people.

"I dream for the day when the people who conduct these fruitless studies are called into question. Or rather, asked why they are wasting so much of their intelligence and uni degree on something so fucking pointless, when they could actually be helping people."

I'm pretty sure it is 'cart-before-horse' - they do it to justify the position they find themselves in - having access to an extraordinary number of images of naked women in positions of sexual invitation and a fondness for looking at, appraising, judging, categorising and postulating about them. From there they just need to find a way to get paid for doing it... in comes the 'evolutionary psychology' excuse. Winner!.... The idea that they want to help people .... nah... isn't that women's job?

If you keep going Food, I'll lose all faith in scientists!

That's why we need more female scientists. Too bad I'm useless at it.

There are lots of brilliant female scientists out there - just not specialising in the 'science' of looking at pictures of naked women and rating their attractiveness.. for obvious reasons