My husband likes to press on what I've learned to call my piece "muffin top" meat "extra" just above the hips. Recently, he planted a hand in it, hurry and made a growl wishing that made me think I could eat me alive. "Baby, do not!" Objection to overcome her hand. "Do not shake my fat." His face softened. "But I love it. I love this little juicy oyster," he said, referring to the offer, the most delicious part of a chicken. "He's the best."
Funny, I thought it was the worst.
This is not just a case of my particular sexual insecurities and peculiarities of my husband. Studies have shown that heterosexual women overestimate the importance of thinness in the perception of female beauty heterosexual men. That is, women think that men prefer women much thinner - and "oyster" less - than they actually do.
He began a study in 1985 which had men and women use a set of drawings of figures to indicate "the current figure, their ideal figure, the figure that they felt would be more attractive to the opposite sex, and figure sex opposite would be more attracted. "They found that" women thought men like thinner women than men reported that they like. "Similarly, men" thought women would like a heavier stature [men ] reported that women who like "In other words, both sexes were wrong about what was attractive to the opposite sex -., but this misperception that hurt women. This is because men, unlike women, chose the "actual, ideal and attractive" figures were "almost identical". The researchers wrote: "Overall, the perceptions of men gathered with their figures, while perceptions of women exerting pressure on them to lose weight."
Three years later, the same research team found that "mothers and daughters believed that men (of his generation) prefer much thinner than men prefer women."
This gap has also attracted the attention of pseudoscientific research. A recent headline in the Daily Mail said: "Men love curves Kim Kardashian while women want to narrow hips Emma Watson Infographic shows the sexes have very different ideas about the body beautiful." Focus is not always in the figure. Last year, the media went crazy in a study commissioned by a retailer of beauty (ahem), who found differences between men and women's perceptions of the face of the ideal woman.
These findings in the headlines because they are surprising: In view of the large industry around self improvement, should not we have a clear idea of what you want the opposite sex? It also seems to go against what evolutionary psychologists like to call "the theory of partner selection", suggesting that women should have an accurate perception of what men find attractive in order to judge their " mate value "in (which is a depressing dehumanizing term, right?).
The psychologist David Buss, author of "The Evolution of Desire", said: "Why women are a little out of what they think men want is a strange modern phenomenon," he said. "My hypothesis is that it is distorted by media images of women repeated ultra thin models that were even photoshopped to make them look thinner than they show."
It is possible to explain in evolutionary terms, however. "An entry" in the psychology of women mating rivals are women in their "social environment," he said. "Ancestrally, of course, women were not exposed to hundreds of images of these ultrathin women living in small groups that women can have a dozen two other women of childbearing potential rival efficient coupling of the same sex." He hypothesizes that the "thinness singularity" began with "the idea that the clothes hang better models" if the models are thin. "He says," Once the models have started to lose weight, this strange novel input provided modern, which diverted the sense that their rivals were women effective contact. "
That is, "If women perceive their support for a multitude of thin models, or psychology tricks her into thinking they are efficient rivals, then that could cause this wrong perception that men find women attractive."
There is another element here, which is the whole "women dress for other women" thing. A study in 1986 indicated that "For some women, early reactions to same-sex couples may be more important activities of their male peers thinness reactions are expected." Interestingly, research has shown that women also overestimate the sharpness of feeling fellow female ideal body. Buss says that "women are competing to attract not only men but also for a position in the hierarchy of the status of women." So you do not have to do with the kids.
While heterosexual women could accurately predict that most straight men find attractive, that would only be true for the common man - and he wants to "average" anyway? Otherwise, who we want to live in a world where we are not more than the value of our complementary set of evolution?
There is no evidence to support the theory of media brainwashing Buss. Earlier this year, a study showed that the perception of feminine beauty of women varies with the images that have been set in advance. Women who were exposed to images of sexy plus size models before being surveyed chose a higher level of those who were exposed to the "light" IMC attractive ideal. Perceptions of men, by contrast, are not affected by what they were exposed to prior to the survey. Simple, such as the publication of plus-size models in ads actions could actually change body ideal women - and therefore spend their perception of male desire right near reality. In this case, everyone wins, right?
Well, everyone except for advertisers who want to maintain an unrealistic ideal that women can search through the purchase of an infinite product.