The Beefcaking of America

Everyone knows women who have body image issues. The secret: men have them too.

By Jill Neimark, published on November 01, 1994 - last reviewed on October 01, 2009

Gilmore agrees. His studies of gender and sexuality in tribal and modern cultures have found that for women, "the male image conveys much more than sexual virility. Male power, wealth, dominance, control over other men--all those inspire a response in women. The pure visual image of the handsome man, the languid beautiful male is attractive. But it does not necessarily connect with inner virility, which also turns women on. What's so interesting about this subject is that men today get a double message: The culture tells them, 'Be successful, be the boss of bosses, and women will fall at your feet.' The media tell them, 'Look like a model, and women will fall at your feet.'"

Some women, of course, value male looks very highly. One of the most fascinating survey results was that women who rated themselves as more attractive tended to rank men's facial appearance and sexual performance higher. These women were a little older on average (mean age 38), thinner (only 6 percent met criteria for overweight) and better off financially (almost half earned over $30,000 annually).

This is particularly intriguing given the anthropological literature about female mate selection: In most cultures, women seem to choose sexual partners on the basis of a male's ability to protect and provide for a mate and offspring--whether that is a big salary, hunting game, or achievement as a warrior. Throughout the Mediterranean, notes Gilmore, men are compared to brave bulls, fierce bears, virile rams--"all admired for their courage, force, and, especially, their potential for violence when threatened. And when women have gained political power, they have responded powerfully to male looks. Freed from economic worries, Queen Elizabeth I flirted shamelessly with the handsome Raleigh; Catherine the Great took a long list of comely, but otherwise ordinary, lovers."

That may be happening in record numbers today. Attractive, self-sufficient women may place higher value on physical features because they have been reinforced for these attributes. Traditionally, beautiful women have been able to leverage their looks to snare a wealthy and powerful man. Now that some women have greater financial independence, they may use that power to seek a stunning mate.

TWIN PEAKS--HAIR AND HEIGHT

"In America," writes Gilmore an essay called, "The Beauty of the Beast" (in The Good Body, Yale University Press, 1994), "male concern focuses on two main issues: height and hair." What do height and hair symbolize? Raw maleness. Philosophers like Edmund Burke and art historians like Johann Wincklemann conflate the sublime and the masculine--and associate both with greatness, strength, and majesty. "What are height and musculature, after all," Gilmore asks, "but male equivalents of voluptuousness in females? How is height in a male different from bust size in a female? Short men can have terrible problems." And in a culture that eroticizes differences between the sexes, the potent masculinity of a tall male can be appealing.

Though many studies indicate that women love a tall man--Hatfield and Sprecher found that women prefer a man at least six inches taller than themselves--male concern with height seems linked to competition with other males as well. "Men are worried about how they appear to other men," notes Gilmore. "I remember boys being mercilessly ridiculed and beaten up for looking effeminate. Size and power were of absolute importance. I knew a fat boy who had a kind of bosom, who was persecuted so relentlessly that he had a nervous breakdown at age 13."

No wonder, then, that both men and women in the survey rated a trimmer, taller male as more attractive. However, a striking finding emerged from the data: There was a discrepancy between what women desired and what they would accept in a mate. Women adapt to their own partner's height--in fact, their preferences seem strongly linked to their mate's actual height. As Michael Pertschuk points out, this ability to adapt, to adjust abstract ideals in favor of the real man, showed up again and again among the women in the survey. It seemed to cut across all variables--from height to weight to penis size. It seems that "negative" appearance factors become lost within the greater gestalt of the partner. The woman sees past or through a less-than-ideal feature.

Hair, in turn, is another highly valued masculine signpost. Hair is a traditional signal of youth and power, an index of male virility. Hair signals man in his natural, wild state--uncivilized, and somehow more primal and sexual. Not only is hair a potent symbol, it is one that can be easily manipulated--and has been throughout history. As Pertschuk says, "In the early to mid 1800s, men went to jail for wearing beards. By the Civil War era you would be hard-pressed to find a general who was not sporting a beard. This fashion lasted until the turn of the century, when it was replaced by militant 'clean shavenism.' In some Protestant sects, long hair and beards are suspect. Other sects, such as the Jewish Hasidim, are expressly forbidden to cut their beards. In England the antimonarchists wore their hair short, in protest to the long, flowing locks that were approved of by the monarchy."