Do men like women who flash the flesh?
By: Hugh Wilson
Most people think so, but there’s plenty of evidence to the contrary...
Hot pants, mini skirts, exposed midriffs, side boobs...Mmmm.
Erm, ahem, splutter. Apologies. No, you haven’t interrupted one of our regular afternoon naps.
No, we’ve been pondering this male fantasy list of female fashions for perfectly sound scientific reasons.
Because the latest study says men don’t go for flesh baring females at all.
Can it be true? We spend longer than strictly necessary searching for an answer.
Men like demure
According
to the new research which polled 2,205 single British men, each aged 18
or over, poor old Rihanna wouldn’t have much of a chance with the
average British bloke (we bet she’s gutted). And if Kylie approached us
in the kind of mini skirt that showed her famously pert bottom to best
effect many of us would compliment her on a fine body of work but
suggest she keep her other body more modestly under wraps.
At
least, that’s what you might conclude from a study by
VoucherCodesPro.co.uk, which found that while 31% of British men liked a
revealing dresser, 54% of us preferred a woman in “classy” attire.
And
what do they mean by classy? Well, according to the poll, 45% of us
prefer a woman in the sort of styles popularised by the demure Duchess
of Cambridge (though not in those French magazine photos).
In other words, we like
women to leave, well, pretty much everything to our imaginations. Who on earth would have thought that?!
It’s all about respect
Apparently, and here the study wanders onto slightly dodgy ground, it’s all about respect.
More
than half of those polled said they’d respect a woman more if she
dressed in a reserved way, while just a quarter said it depended on the
woman in question. Just 22% said they’d respect a woman who wore
revealing outfits.
That might be because women who flash acres of
flesh make us a little bit nervous. The poll also revealed that 38% of
men admitted to feeling intimidated by women in overly revealing
clothes.
George Charles of VoucherCodesPro.co.uk said: 'We were
interested in discovering whether or not men were more likely to
approach women who wore a specific style of clothing and whether this
impacted their decisions to give out their number.
“Surprisingly, more men preferred to approach women who were wearing reserved and classy attire rather than a revealing outfit.”
The perfect (out)fit
Perhaps surprisingly, science has something to say about this too, and it backs up the prim and proper approach - well, a bit.
It
was previously thought that men like to be able to see as much of a
woman’s skin as possible, because the more flesh on show, the more
accurately they could (subconsciously) judge her youth and therefore her
fertility.
Long legs, a slim waist and large breasts can also be
biological indicators of fertility, which may explain the mini skirt,
crop top and push up bra.
But attraction is more complex than
that, even among sexually driven young people, as a study by researchers
from Leeds University discovered.
In the study, female
researchers discreetly observed women from a balcony overlooking the
dance floor of one of the city’s biggest nightclubs.
And what they
found was that women baring quite a lot of flesh were approached most
often by men. In fact, women who revealed around 40% of their bodies
attracted twice as many men as those who covered up.
In other words, the study doesn’t back up the idea that
long skirts
and demure tops are what men like best, or at least it suggests they’re
not what the young men who frequent northern nightclubs like best.
But
nor did the study confirm the idea that the more revealing the better
for women trying to find a boyfriend. Because the popularity of women
(in terms of how often they were approached by men) began to fall off
after the 40% mark. The more flesh they showed beyond that, the less
popular they became.
So even among young men in a nightclub, there
is such a thing as a too revealing outfit. It’s probably fair to say
that the rest of the male population would be, if anything, more
conservative.
Too much of a good thing
So why do men, who it’s generally thought can’t get enough naked female flesh, balk at
real women who dress too revealingly?
It
could be that while female flesh is always alluring, too much on public
display sends mixed messages to men who want to be titillated, but not
share that titillation with lots of other men.
Or, as psychologist
Dr Colin Hendrie, who led the study, said at the time: “Any more than
40 per cent and the signal changes from ‘allure’ to one indicating
general availability and future infidelity.
“Show some leg, show some arm, but not any more than that.”
So there may be some truth in the idea that men are turned off, or at least intimidated, by the Rihannas of the
world.
In truth, men are a mass of contradictions on the subject. Though
ostensibly we like to see as much flesh as possible, in potential
partners it seems there really is a point where we can get too much of a
good thing.
As
we find the days of being able to call ourselves recent grads moving
further and further (and further!) behind us, we’re realized there are
quite a few things we wish we had known before starting on this thing we
call our career path. So, for all you recent or soon-to-be grads out
there, listen up: here are 5 things we wish someone had told us and,
well, we hope you’ll appreciate before it’s too late!
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