>While self-selection is unlikely to explain the GAP, another potential artifact of data collection could be systematic differences in grooming practices between genders. Women typically invest more time and resources in grooming than men (Das & Stephen, 2011). However, most studies follow standardized photo-shooting protocols requiring participants to remove makeup and other enhancing accessories (e.g. Ebner et al., 2018; Kleisner et al., 2024; Torrance et al., 2014; Zhang et al., 2019). While some grooming practices, such as eyebrow shaping or long-term skincare routines, may not be entirely controlled by these protocols, their impact is likely minimal.

I disagree with their premise that this impact is "likely minimal". I also would want to know what percentage "most studies" refers to.

My take is that, biologically, creating an attractive female is easier than creating an attractive male, specifically regarding facial attractiveness. A symmetrical female child is almost guaranteed to grow up to be attractive, whereas the same isn't true for a boy. The "right" hormonal profile needed to develop attractive male features is rarer than what women require. A symmetrical girl who doesn't develop pronounced secondary sexual traits (such as full lips or prominent cheeks) is still generally considered attractive to both men and women. In contrast, masculine faces that lack strong jawlines or brow width usually aren't. Additionally, high testosterone can backfire in men, leading to overdeveloped brows or nose bridges, which may reduce attractiveness.

I read a claim that most male to female transitions are about wanting to become an object of desire, and most female to male transitions are to avoid being an object of desire.

I've never knowingly even met a trans person and have no basis to judge. Does this ring true or false?

I have two friends who are FTM. One is busy putting together the outfit of his dreams for an awards ceremony. The other is strikingly handsome, and dresses so masculine-dandy-perfect he looks like a male model waiting for a fashion shoot.

Just two data points, but I have zero reason to believe what sounds like transphobic rationalization.

I personally can't comprehend why anyone would want to change their gender, but my dogs can't comprehend why I like salads. Nonetheless, they let me enjoy my dinner. I try to be like them.

Asked trans friends, doesn’t seem to be the case. More about often being very uncomfortable with the bodies and/or role in society they had, dysphoria and all that.

I guess also most cis folks would enjoy being attractive, whereas when it becomes more external (attention from others) then it’s more of a mixed bag, since some of it can be very much unwanted.

I doubt many people want to be the object of desire of some random creeps on the street or have some relationships be ruined because that’s all the other people consider.

> object of desire

I feel like that frames the transgender identity as something performative, rather than something felt. I think transitions are experienced much more personally than just as a statement to society, or an attempt to gain privileges within it.

Could be a continuum. I don't think all trans people fully understand why they want to undergo the change, it would be a rare exception compared to how most humans think and act.

I think that is likely complicated by the fact that, at least in modern Western society, wanting to be attractive/desired is itself considered a feminine trait.

So for example, someone assigned male at birth wanting to be attractive/desired is not necessarily different than them wanting to live the female role in our society.

> someone assigned male at birth wanting to be attractive/desired is not necessarily different than them wanting to live the female role in our society.

What even is this idea? If we take the target audience of men who are loudest about wanting to be 'real men', the Andrew Tate (and the like) followers. These people spend hours at the gym to be desired. They wear tight shirts to show off their muscles to be desired. They wear designer shoes and shirts to be desired. They have weekly barber visits to be desired.

Does that mean all these men want to live the female role in society? I don't think so, since that's the exact thing they claim to oppose.

> These people spend hours at the gym to be desired.

They spend hours at the gym to impress other men and compete with them. It has squat zero with what women desire.

That's just because they're idiots, not because it's not the goal.

A transgender friend of mine for college was certain she was a girl when she was a child, she hadn’t had time to be exposed to all the men-vs-women BS, at least not directly.

Anecdotally, no.

You may be misremembering the claim a bit. I suspect you read about how the kind of received attention changes, and attributed that to the reason for the change.

I'm nonbinary, not mtf/ftm. that claim is wrong though. trans people, similar to most, have their gender as part of their identity. however, their body displays a different gender. they then seek to make their body match their identity.

the idea is similar to viewing one-self's identity as having clear skin but having tons of pimples which people constantly comment on (via pronouns). transitions clear the skin

Interesting analogy.

That sounds like Blanchard's autogynephilia, which is widely disputed and rejected by most trans people and other sexologists alike.

I wonder instead if what is being described here comes from a conflation of drag and maybe something from the BDSM world with trans? I think it does describe the experience of people who live a life in which they feel if not undesirable, then at least ordinary, who have an costumed highly sexualised alter-ego which they inhabit a kind of performance which put makes them a focus of attention, sometimes of desire, and sometimes in a position of power (not these are not exclusive) that is very different from their ordinary lives.

It sounds nothing like autogynephilia to me, although it still sounds like bullshit.

The reverse for trans men isn't, but "trans women transition to male gaze themselves" gets pretty close.

Wanting to be beautiful to others isn't the same as being sexually attracted to yourself, or to the idea of yourself plus some modifications, at all.

I trim my beard in the morning because I want to look good to other people, as do most men. Would you agree that the male population doesn't do this because they all have have a paraphilia for a specific style of facial hair? And that women don't shave their legs because of a similar paraphilia?

I think that's over simplifying it a lot, obviously dysphoria and other needs come first, but you could read some Andrea Long Chu for a perspective on trans theory like that? Better than Blanchards take.

No idea on the men, though. There's certainly trans men writing gender theory but I don't think I've seen a take on male attractiveness come up in it much.

Oh god, don’t get me started on Andrea Long Chu. She is smart enough to be dangerous but says a lot of stuff just to be edgy and controversial which… let’s just say I don’t think that’s particularly helpful for trans people in the year 2025.

I met a few trans men who weren't conventional attractive before transitioning, so they were mostly ignored by men.

Afaik, this is not something trans people themselves would ever be saying, but what people who do not think being trans is a thing say about them.

absolutely false. while that may be a side effect of transition, it's not what transition is about. it's just about being ourselves in our bodies in ways that make us happy, just like anyone else.

i really wish cis people would stop pretending they know what being trans is like.

false

I think it may be because humans have a higher intelligence than other animals. This makes it possible for men to display genetic fitness in other ways than looks.

For women, in constrast, the most important thing to signal is their capability of carrying a baby to term, and the primary way they do that is through physical traits. Though with plastic surgery and cosmetics subverting the signal on the one hand, and with better medical science capable of saving mother and child from many issues on the other, it is becoming less relevant.

Edit: Though keep in mind that this is my speculation, and furthermore a broad strokes picture and there is huge individual variation.

My theoretical explanation for the gap is that women are sensitive to much more than physical appearances when selecting a mate. When men select a mate, they over-index on physical characteristics, relative to women.

So, women will take into account a man's physical appearance, but also his social standing is also very important, plus perceived intelligence and dependability and so on.

When men look at women, physical beauty is paramount. Intelligence and so on is a plus, but not nearly to the extent that it is for women looking at men.

The other part of the explanation is menopause. Humans live long past the age of sexual fertility, which is somewhat unusual in the animal kingdom. Presumably, ancient human social structures made it beneficial to have grandparents around, in a way that does not exist for most other animals. Relative to other species, this puts more evolutionary pressure on human males to seek out females that are of reproductive age, and ignore older women.

The combination of these factors means that female physical appearance comes out as a prime selector in humans, in a way that it doesn't for other animal species. Male physical appearance is also significant, but relatively less important because of other factors, especially a male's status in the social hierarchy.

Anyway, that's my explanation, but I wouldn't hold any of this as a firm belief. Coming up with evolutionary psychological explanations for sex differences is easy. Actually testing them is much harder.

> Humans live long past the age of sexual fertility, which is somewhat unusual in the animal kingdom

Interesting take. Do you reckon this happened for long enough in human history that it's had an impact on the evolution on the male psyche?

I'm under the impression that it's only in the last 1000 years or so where life beyond 30-40 years started to become the norm.

HN is not a good place to ask questions on Anthropology, so I'd encourage you to read primary source materials.

You have a common misconception about human longevity. The "average" lifespan of humans was only 30 -40 years because very young humans would frequently die from disease or accidents. Humans have been capable of living to 70+ years for many millenia, it was just rare. 50 yearold humans were not rare though. The average is low because of infant and childhood mortality.

Thanks, I failed to realise that I'm looking at average age, not upper limit. Things like infant mortality drove that number right down.

Counter example https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demography_of_the_Roman_Empire

What's important is the life expectancy at a given age. There used to be a huge infant mortality but the half of newborn that made it to 10 would live on average 50 years. That means that some of them would live 70 or more.

There is a table with life expectancy given the age. At 70 was 6.5 more years.

That is from a mix of the sparse available data and models.

> Outside academia, our findings highlight how culturally embedded norms and gender-based expectations shape aesthetic judgments and influence societal perceptions.

> We propose that these biases stem from cultural norms linking femininity with beauty

This is probably it. The "beauty" industry, which almost entirely targets women and girls with its predatory messaging, is a multi-billion dollar market and they do everything they can to promote this as an ideology. To the point where it's become embedded in culture.

Unconvincing.

Why did the authors select the face as the determinant of attractiveness? AFAIK the human female focuses on the upper body in general, with nothing in particular. Cultural variations exist, obviously.

This (upper body strength, generally) would make sense for evolutionary reasons. It makes more sense than the (male) peacock's tail, for example.

It's a meta study. Meta studies generally choose a scope for which there are many studies. I assume that there exist more studies of facial attractiveness than of upper body attractiveness. 30 seconds of googling agrees, but is, of course, 30 seconds.

Never met a single human female that would actively select upper body strength over a face they like the look of, but I guess YMMV.

Just look at the cover of “mom porn” books at the dollar store. They are mostly body builders with muscular bodies.

On forums where women talk about attractive male actors, there's a heavy emphasis on shoulders and arms. It's definitely a thing.

That's not to say they don't care about the face or other features, but those don't get nearly as much attention.

I don't think a cross-cultural meta-analysis properly controls for the cultural effect of gender attractiveness given we live in a (progressively more) globalized, interconnected, world.

They are not discounting the possibility that sociocultural factors play a role:

> What explains the GAP? While evolutionary frameworks have traditionally been the dominant lens through which the GAP has been viewed— assuming its existence without direct empirical evidence—these theories focus exclusively on opposite-sex attraction, mate selection, and reproductive success. Within these theoretical boundaries, explaining the variation in same-sex ratings and the cultural differences in the GAP becomes challenging, suggesting that factors beyond biological predispositions also play a role. Given these limitations, sociocultural factors and norms merit further consideration. As noted earlier, female beauty is idealized in many cultures and reinforced by media, advertising, and societal expectations. Internalized beauty standards may foster unconscious biases, leading to, or amplifying, the observed difference.

But the study is mainly concerned with verifying the existence of the gap.

Btw, a lot of animal hierarchies are also male-dominated.

Not sure I understand the downvotes. We demonstrably have culture, including higher function language. The "other species" they mention as being the comparator don't.

Right from the abstract:

> Our findings confirm the existence of a robust “Gender Attractiveness Gap” (GAP), with female faces rated significantly more attractive than male faces across rater genders, cultural backgrounds, and portrayed ethnicities.

That's a different thing. They are asserting this pattern exists in all human cultures, not that it's a feature of human cultures (vs other species, also as per the abstract)

> Did the authors take into account

You could read the study to determine answers to questions like this. Instead you want somebody else to read the study and explain it to you. You should expect questions like this to be downvoted.

I mean, it was a rhetorical question, but ok.

Downvotes because HN is essentially a knowitall collective and these types are very resistant to anything being "cultural" and not universal.