What do women see when they look at a man's body? Viral poll on social media creates controversial debate

In the current era of fitness being considered equal to six-pack abs and defined muscles, people are being motivated to join the gym or get professional training not to improve their health but to improve their looks. Fitness is now just another addition to your social lookbook rather than a self-satisfying method of health regulation.

In this case, a man named William Costello who is a doctoral researcher with an MSc in Psychology, Evolution & Culture from recently posted a poll on X where he shared two before and after pictures of a man who had undergone a 12 week gym transformation. He asked males and females to vote on when he looked better, before or after.

The results which seemed quite sensible to the women, came as a shock to the men. In the poll, 43% of males voted that the man looked better after, whereas 27% of women voted that he looked better before. What this has resulted in is a quintessential debate on the classic topic, ' Dad bod vs Ripped bod '

Women in the comments section have been explaining how they think the man looked better before. "We aren't lying. He's more attractive to most women in the first picture. Maybe it's because it looks like he'd protect us, pick us up and hug us, take us camping and other fun shenanigans, and just generally be enjoyable to be around. Or maybe it's because in the second one he looks like a preening gay man in ranger panties who trends toward neurotic," wrote a woman when asked by a man why women were lying in the poll.


The men, however, are of the complete opposite view and think that normally a woman would find a ripped body attractive. "Yeah, women totally prefer dad bods... that’s why they scream at concerts for guys who look like Greek statues" wrote one user, "Women prefer fit men over less fit men, but they don’t like “flexing” at all. So be ripped but don’t flex. Got it.😂" added another.

Many stated how men struggle in understanding the female gaze which is why the debate is going on at all. "This dad pod vs ripped debate is a good reveal that Men dont understand the Female gaze" wrote a user on X. "It also shows that women can be SCREAMING and men refuse to hear us - the say we are hard to understand 🤣"

While men might think women prefer ripped bodies, for women a healthy, strong man fits the bill no matter if he is ripped or not.