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I think a lot about a minor side point made by Taggart Murphy in his Japan and the Shackles of the Past on variations in the Japanese masculine ideal over the centuries. I think the point is more broadly applicable.
If you hang out in East Asia today you find out quickly that the heart-throbs look something like this:
(this is a picture of the TFBoys, a Chinese boyband)
(this is a picture of the TFBoys, a Chinese boyband)
or this: (the kpop band Shinee, they also had this thing where they dressed up like girls for promotional shoots, see here: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/214976582185988665/)
What the idols don't tend to look like is this:
Taggart makes the point that this more (for lack of a better term) effeminate idol ideal is not new to Japanese history at all. It more or less is the sort of guy you see in the Tale of Genji, for example.
And Taggart has a very interesting theory for when this type is more dominant, and when the type is replaced by a masculine ideal that emphasizes strength, authority, stoicism, and so forth.
Namely: who is in charge of choosing who dates whom? In eras like the early court society of Genji marriages were political, but everyone had a thousand affairs and women were clearly could choose who they would have an affair with. In modern Japan, likewise, women are
quite free to choose to date who they will. But in the Sengoku age, or in the Meiji period, relations between the sexes were more far more regulated. Romance happened mostly in marriage (and to a lesser extent with courtesans...) and marriage partners were not chosen by
the partners themselves really. You did not need to impress the girl to get her, you needed to impress her dad. Dad's job was to choose a good match for his daughter. She had little say in the matter.
Taggart's basic idea then is that in eras in which men made the popular culture and in which romantic success hinged on impressing fathers, uncles, and the like, the Japanese masculine ideal was going to be weighted towards
things like strength, stoical presentation, martial skills, and other things like that. In contrast, when women are in the cultural driving seat (Genji was written by a woman) and romantic success meant impressing them, the ideal would be something different--something tenderer,
more genteel, better dressed, more emotional, and less martially focused. What the men valued in a man was different than what the women valued in the man, though at any one time the culture would present the "ideal man" as appealing to both equally.
Now this is not the thesis of his book or anything; it is like two paragraphs out of a 200 pages. But I think there is something to it.
I see a lot of masculinity commentary that grounds itself as "here is what you need to do be the kind of man that woman are attracted to" that isn't really about the average woman's preferences.
Again, look at strength: men tend to respect other men who possess raw physical strength and a physique that displays this. But it is just really obvious that men care about this so much more than women do.
Which isn't to say that they are looking for someone who is overweight or whatever. That's not their ideal. But once you clear that general fitness bar that factor is--for the majority--just not that important.
If you look around at the guys you personally know who are the best "players" you will instantly realize how true this is. It is never the gym rats.
But if every extra pound of muscle does not bring you additional adoration from the chicks, it *does* bring you more respect from other men.
So much men-centric dating advice strikes me as this weird projection of men's preferences--that is, what they admire and notice first in other men--onto women. In reality those things often diverge.
Yes, this is a subtweet.
One side note: on the other hand, if doing things that make other men respect you --> more self respect --> more self confidence, then yes, it will make you more attractive on the dating market.
