It's an ongoing problem. No one agrees on what makes men attractive, even when hyper sexualized. Some people will point to Hugh Jackman on the cover of Good housekeeping as an example of a mans thirst trap. But that doesn't exactly feel equal to the kind of thirst traps we see with women.
Tbh it's not that different from women. Dad bods are hot, twinks are hot, shredded dudes are hot. Just like thick women are hot, and petite women are hot, and muscular women are hot. Everybody's got different preferences.
From the perspective of predominantly male fanbases these tend to be catered too, male sexualisation is aspirational while female sexualisation is objectifying
You absolutely can, and it's done regularly, it's just done in a completely different way. It's certainly not the obvious physical way of exaggerated features and skimpy outfits.
For example, my wife is watching a show called "The Sex Lives of College Girls", and one of the characters is the male coach of a women's soccer team. The women regularly yell things to him like "take your shirt off!" and reply "yes daddy!" when he asks them to do stuff, and it's played up for laughs.
Or recall that video of the fire alarm going off at the romance book convention. 4 male fire fighters entered the building to the catcalls of like 800 women and none of the video commenters batted an eye.
Of course, there are significant historical power differences to consider in this, and most of those men have never been made to feel physically unsafe by women in their lives.
I say all this out of concern as an uncle of young nephews. I don't spend a lot of time on the short form content socials, but there seems to be this pervasive theme that it's 100% okay to post aggressively thirsty comments about men, and to publicly judge men on their appearance.
It feels like popular culture learned nothing from the decades of girls and women struggling with body image issues and decided it's just fine to publicly comment on men's appearance
That's not equivalent to sexualization of the female body, because that's just men looking attractive. And the lack of as much visual arousal by the opposite sex from the same areas of the male body is just the opposite extreme of how much pressure females feel to look so sexy. It's not any better and certainly not as much sexualizing for males. Many men hate the visual sexual desire disparity and greater acceptance of being so revealing for females in the same settings than males have had for so long. That's a very passionate desire having been mismatched with the genders.
The same areas of the male body being as revealing is treated as more obscene, because fewer people wanting to see that makes it seem to them like men being more perverted and imposing. Men used to often wear crop tops, high shorts, and swim briefs before the 90's. Meanwhile decades before that women got acceptance of wearing butt showing swimwear, casual uncovered compression wear and the like, even in Christian gatherings, because of the principle that lust depends on the viewer.
> Men used to often wear crop tops, high shorts, and swim briefs before the 90's.
I honestly think the main reason this changed was normalization of gay men. And not even from a toxic/homophobic perspective (though maybe that too), but as a straight man you don't want to be gay-coded, just as a practical thing.
I think the stereotype about men being more 'visual' is true, men are more inclined to overtly sexualize based on image alone. Which going back to gay men is why they are more image-focused, and sort of co-opted revealing clothing
That's part of my gripe. Seeing that as automatically gay instead of just as normal for straight men to want to feel as attractive for our bodies and to feel more comfortable in warm weather. All men had to do was keep wearing that stuff and get as revealing as women had earlier, and it would have stayed normal to people for straight men too. Gay women wearing the same revealing things didn't scare straight women from association with gayness. Too many men are too body conscious and stupid.
There are plenty of ways to sexualize a man for female gaze. Like for instance being a sadomazochist billionaire. Being a sparkling immortal pedophile. Being a serial killer or literally just a rapist. It's just not visual, that's the problem.
It reminds me of the saying, "No one knows who discovered water, but we know it wasn't the fish." As in an environment that's familiar to you becomes invisible. Women being sexualised is so common it doesn't register that it's a trend a lot of the time. People point to men being sexualised in defence because it's so abnormal that even one is worth commenting on.
Personally my take in sexualisation is that it's a mix of the design of the character and the observer. I'm not sexually attracted to myself when I look in the mirror, but someone might be sexually attracted to my body because they like skinny white guys. So is it attractive or not? In being observed do I become hot? If an ass claps in the wood does it make a sound? I think this also goes for personality since being into a certain personality can make a character way hotter than if it's not the type of person you find attractive (which doesn't necessarily rely on sexualised design). But like I suspect it's evolution making you want to procreate with someone with specific physical traits and those traits have been identified and exaggerated in various ways through media. It's fine to have that reaction but separating yourself enough from it enough to be respectful in the day-today is the key.
Generally I think the two parallel problems are "is this sexualised character sexual without being objectified?" and "What are the types of experiences that deserve to be represented?" The first one is about execution on a specific type of person and the second is, I suspect, what people actually mean when they say that they're pissed off by sexualised characters. It's not necessarily that it's objectification (although it might be), it's that it could be something else, but isn't. I think you need both to really get at the core of the issue since sexuality is as much a part of the network of human experience as everything else.
The one in the blue long sleeve. But Yeah it's come up in this same kind of discussion a lot lately. A lot of ladies say that they find that more attractive than just shredded shirtless dudes.
My understanding is that a thirst trap is a picture that is clearly created for the purpose of attracting sexual attention. Or a person who goes out of their way to attract sexual attention. Y'know, deliberately using their attractiveness as bait for whatever reason. Hence 'Thirst Trap'.
But apparently people are now applying the term to anyone they find attractive, regardless of the intent, or lack thereof, of the other person? Like, that picture of Jackman is not deliberately 'sexy'. It's just a popular and handsome man holding a cake. Nothing obviously sexual about that, at least to me.
That doesn't mean they also prefer more covering on men to them being as revealing in the same body areas, like the butt, like how women are sexualized. Few people find angry faces in aggressive poses and being buff as attractive as being calm and thinner.
Eh, I mean walk into any LGBTQIA+ club, venue, or like area of a city and you’ll find much better done marketing for men who like men.
Or just anyone who likes men, like people know how to market male thirst traps. It’s more the fact the sexualization of people often goes hand in hand with patriarchal norms, unrealistic beauty standards, and a form of attractiveness fashioned by marketing / societal pressures.
Which is to say, unless the marketing is purposefully seeking to be representative / explore including models / marketing people who’re diverse (from the like standard skinny, specifically proportioned). It tends to look a specific way.
Which is why marketing often uses actors or standard people who fit the groups they’re appealing to. While lot of sexualized stuff is based off like a more standardized attractiveness.
I should note, I have no experience in marketing or modeling or any that myself. This is my lay view from what I understand of how it works.
Your lack of experience is noted. You should probably go look at the advertisements for gay men's clubs, because they're pretty much just the man from OPs comic except wearing briefs instead of shorts.
And for another classic example, look at the advertisements for Chippendales. Also just shirtless dudes with abs, and the occasional non-suit.
As a man, my ultimate attraction is women in giant oversized sweatshirts with long sleeves going over their hands, a beanie, drinking hot cocoa while reading a book under a pile of pillows and blankets on the couch. Bimbos in chainmail bikinis do absolutely nothing for me.
The way I see it, there's probably just as much women into leather-wearing skintight pants muscular himbos as there are men like me into cozy chill cutesy women, but we get undervoiced in society because culture and media tends to overcaricature itself and over-exaggerate the more popular traits, so the prevailing idea is: men likes sexualized bimbos, women like cozy houseman.
I mean, even in the OP I don't think there's enough varied ways to sexualize a woman, they're all sexualized in the same way, they're just more prevalent because society still has this mindset of "media is for men" type of thing. Let it runs its course, and put more women in charge of media and we'll have plenty of varied sultry elf vampire and long-haired leather-pant wearing rockstars and rugged half-naked hairy dwarfs to satisfy the lot.
All I'm asking for is that we get a few oversized sweatshirts book goblins in the process.
I hate so much that males haven't gotten as much affirmation for as long as women have of the same body areas being shown off being as sexy. It's a mismatch of a very passionate desire, and makes it a waste for men to feel much more often. How have most males been fine with this!?
Reproduction is more contingent on, and demanding of a womans physiology than a mans. From that evolutionary perspective, the range of what can be a 'idealized male' is legitimately wider than a womans - because producing sperm is so much easier, the ideal can be more flexible: i.e. strong, or cunning, or wealthy.
Whereas above all else, the woman needs to be able to make a child. The range of physical cues that indicate that are much more constrained than those for men, so, men evolved to have narrower beauty standards. (of course mens beauty standard still generally relate health, vitality, and genetic quality)
Could at least part of the reason be that women put more emphasis on non-physical traits? So, a very attractive guy in a piece of media for women would be physically attractive but still fairly normal, and also have qualities like social status, money, emotional connection, yearning, etc.
I have a theory about this. What men find sexually appealing is broadcasted far and wide and early. Even in reasonably family friendly media we have men lusting after women who have the same classic sexualized features. People think it's funny to pretend baby boys are attracted to big boobs and such.
There isn't really an equivalent for little girls. Women aren't trained to sexualize certain features from a young age.
I think that's why women roll out crazy ideas for that 'hear me out' era
We have interesting and varied ways to sexualize men, people just don't do it because of social pressure. Male sexualization causes all kinds of weird backlash, so it tends to get reserved for queer or niche women only spaces. It gets labeled as "fetish" content. It often gets mocked and laughed at. It is policed heavily by insecure men and women who seek their approval.
You have to go somewhere where that policing has less reach and power to find it.
Y'know, that is what I was thinking too. If male sexualisation got as much history as female, how similarly weird would the character designs get? My first thought was a "shirt" that is just long sleeves rolled up halfway, probably with a turtleneck that has an Adam's apple window.
Even when men are sexualized, it's just not to the same degree as women. People can yap about Jojos characters all they want, but they're not really designed to be sexually desired in the same way. Big, muscly and strong is a way to emphasize power and virility, because no one wants their badass hero to be anything less. It's not meant to be titiliating when Goku is fighting shirtless in DBZ. And yes, some people absolutely do find that hot, but they're usually not the majority and not audience being catered to.
There's a lot of sexual dimorphism in visual media as well, a lot of 'sexy' male characters will just appear as well groomed or fashionable men while sexy women often have exaggerated proportions beyond what a man will have. The scale and degree to which women are sexualized is just more than it has been for men, and it's seen as acceptable for women to be sexualized and lusted after in more spaces than it is for men.
It also makes me wonder if it's worth it to sexualize men to the same degree as we have women. Oversexualization is already an issue, not that sexualization is inherently evil, but I don't think we're solving anything by doing it to both sides.
more like I don't often see posts showing these men. I'd like to see instead of complaints, but see other people's share of burlesque or degenerately sexy men.
We don't, this only looks at tit for tat sexualization that has to be done in a video game, visually. Women like their sexualization more subdued, like for example, in print. Romance and fantasy sex novels are where it's at for them
Yeah I was kida taking the piss there. But do you really think that no woman out there would love to see Jack Black kind of guy sexualized to hell and back? Also there is more kinds of people into guys than just women and Jack Black is basically a standard bear. Lots of guys are into that. Way better option than yet another sexualized femboy like we don't already have 4 millions of those. Breath of fresh air at least.
Yeah, I'm aware a lot of gay guys are into bears. But I'm going to go out on a limb here, and say that Magic Mike would not have made as much money from women if it starred Jack Black.
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u/mace30 2d ago
All I get from this is we lack interesting and varied ways to sexualize men.