I agree with the first half of your post. I also hate how it's frowned on to say anything negative about a woman's physical appearance by our society, yet it's perfectly acceptable to run down a guy for his looks or physical appearance.

With that being said, I don't know about the experiment, because I am attracted to bigger ladies usually. They can be beautiful and still be chubby or fat. The same could be true for skinny women, but I think we all (as heterosexual males) have different definitions or ideas on what is "skinny" or "fat". What is fat for you might be just right and delicious for me. LOL

I don't really think that its "OK" to body shame men - or that it is generally thought to be so. Perhaps the issue is not at the forefront of popular discussions though.

Certainly I don't think the line of thinking that "it's OK to be a dick to men so why can we be dicks to women too?" is helpful. Maybe we should strive to just not be dicks to anyone and the problem would go away?

I think you are both right in terms of attractiveness - there is an element of evolutionary biology : large hips, and large breasts are good for rearing young so that tends to be largely hard wired; culture (which is really what Shallow Hal addresses) does shape our preferences, whether it be with body shape, body hair, representations of beauty in media or by the "in" group, elements of personal appearance that speak to wealth and affluence (for example in some cultures wealth historically meant access to food - so being fat became a desirable trait in a partner), and last but not least Subjectivity - there's no accounting for taste as they say.

I definitely was not saying that I believe it's okay to be a dick towards men, so why can't we be a dick towards women when it comes to this subject, or any other. All I was doing was pointing out the hypocrisy in how our society works sometimes. Yeah, I'm all for not being a dick to anyone, but obviously that isn't the way things always work.

I think subconcsiously, "fat" equates to a person's laziness. Both male AND female can be VERY Shallow when it comes to their preferences. Give a woman a chubby, but generous man that will bend over backwards to please his woman OR a Musclebound egotistical jerk who looks phenomenal with his shirt off but treats her like crap & cheats....see which she chooses!

Damn, even I have a little Shallow Jorge in me..currently seeing a PHENOMENAL woman, but she's a litlte "heavier" then I'm used to...which bothers me, she makes it up with a gorgeous face & a personality and yet...my shallow ass eyes still wander. Where's Tony Robbins when you need him?

@A-Dubya said:

I definitely was not saying that I believe it's okay to be a dick towards men, so why can't we be a dick towards women when it comes to this subject, or any other. All I was doing was pointing out the hypocrisy in how our society works sometimes. Yeah, I'm all for not being a dick to anyone, but obviously that isn't the way things always work.

No I apologise for paraphrasing you that way. It's just that all too often your observation leads to that kind of thinking then used as an excuse to teat people like dirt. P

I guess beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Just because someone is beautiful doesn't mean everyone is attracted to them. I see lots of beautiful and gorgeous women, but a 200lb woman would look VERY healthy in this situation.

Instinct influenced by evolution would cause an unindoctrinated man to favour reproducing with a mate that is going to survive through harsh times.