Lasses Like Mighty Muscles

Every week, the Null dissects the most self-evident studies and pointless papers not to hit the headlines. It's harsh, but funny. This week, Mark Steer on muscle men.

You had better make sure you’re sitting down, because this might just shock you: women tend to prefer men with big muscles over their scrawnier counterparts.

There we were, wondering why it is girls go weak at the knees at the sight of Brad Pitt with his top off but quail at the sight of our scraggy physiques. Fortunately for us, after four years hard graft, psychologists in the US have made their findings public in the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin.

When compared with their less-muscular peers, young men who were beefier than average are twice as likely to have had more than three sexual partners in their lives.

"If you're trying to figure out why men – especially young men – spend so much time at the gym, here's your answer," said David Frederick, the report’s lead author.* He goes on to conclude that butch men are showing off how much testosterone which, in turn, is a measure of how good their genes are.

So there you have it. Girls prefer butch blokes because they have better genes. Didn’t Darwin say something like that?

However, those lads who aren’t brawned up to the eyeballs needn’t worry. Women have cottoned on to the fact that flimsier fellas are often more faithful – so in the long run they could be the safer bet.

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- Listen - The Null podcast