Bearded men are less attractive to women squeamish about bugs

[Fleur-de-Lys]

Bearded men are more attractive to women, study says, unless they're squeamish about hair-borne bugs

By Sandee LaMotte, CNN
Updated 12:08 PM ET, Wed January 15, 2020

https://www.cnn.com/2020/01/14/health/beard-bugs-female-disgust-wellness/index.html

When it comes to love, as the song says, birds, bees, even educated fleas do it.

But that old, catchy Cole Porter tune certainly didn't consider the impact of fleas -- educated or not -- and other creepy hair crawlers on a woman's ability to love a man with a beard.

According to a new study, if a woman runs screaming from hair-dwelling creatures such as lice, ticks, fleas and the like, she's likely to find men with beards much less attractive.

It's on an unconscious level, of course. But from the viewpoint of her inner animal brain, who wants to pucker up to a mouth fringed by a thicket of hair that might contain tiny, squirmy, maggot-like creatures?

Highly masculine features

Nature has programmed us on a deep, visceral level to be attracted to mates who show the most masculine and feminine qualities for reproduction.

For a man, that has to do with anything testosterone related -- taller, with bigger muscles and more facial hair.

A 2013 study explored the amount of hair considered by females to be the most attractive. Women ranked faces with heavy stubble most attractive; light stubble, heavy beards and clean-shaven faces were judged less attractive.

In this new study, published Tuesday in the Royal Society Open Science journal, very masculine faces and those with beards were rated more attractive than feminine-looking male faces or clean-shaven faces. This held true regardless if the woman was looking for a short-term or long-term relationships.

In fact, men with masculine features such as a wide jaw and strong brow who had beards were the most attractive for both types of relationships.

But when our innate disgust toward parasitic creatures was factored into the equation, things changed. The study found women who expressed higher levels of disgust toward parasites and other pathogens were more likely to judge a man's beard as unattractive.

In evolutionary theory, this could make sense. It's thought humans evolved to have less hair on our bodies partly because it lessened the risk of disease-carrying parasites to proliferate.

Today, surveys show hairless chests are preferred among women from the USA, China, New Zealand, Finland, Brazil, Slovakia, Czechoslovakia and Turkey (but not among women from the UK and Cameroon).

Still, research in the area is confusing: Studies have shown that if a woman grew up with a bearded father they are more likely to find beards attractive; women who are in current relationships with men with facial hair also tend to like it more.

While science sorts it out, guys, you might as well play it safe. If you're considering growing a beard and your partner finds ticks, fleas, lice and other hair-dwelling creatures nauseating, your stubble could get you into trouble.

[Gardener]

I used to have a massive beard. I'd have come in the top 5 finishers for the Taliban's yearly beard competition. I shaved it when I decided to pursue my wife. Then I grew facial hair again after we were married, though not huge. She likes the beard. But she doesn't like when guys don't grow good beards. Wispy facial hair need not apply.

[MundaCorMeum]

My husband has a beard, and I like it.  It's handsome.  But, not all beards are created equal.  I agree with Mrs. Gardener on that.  It has to be neat and well kept, regardless of length.   

[Vetus Ordo]

Women ranked faces with heavy stubble most attractive

So, they don't like real beards then.

[Fleur-de-Lys]

Women ranked faces with heavy stubble most attractive

So, they don't like real beards then.

Don't worry, gentlemen. Real women appreciate real beards.

[Vetus Ordo]

Nature has programmed us on a deep, visceral level to be attracted to mates who show the most masculine and feminine qualities for reproduction. For a man, that has to do with anything testosterone related -- taller, with bigger muscles and more facial hair. (...) In fact, men with masculine features such as a wide jaw and strong brow who had beards were the most attractive for both types of relationships.

Despite all social constructs, in the end it all comes down to genetics.

The fittest reproduce, the weakest die off.

[Fleur-de-Lys]

Nature has programmed us on a deep, visceral level to be attracted to mates who show the most masculine and feminine qualities for reproduction. For a man, that has to do with anything testosterone related -- taller, with bigger muscles and more facial hair. (...) In fact, men with masculine features such as a wide jaw and strong brow who had beards were the most attractive for both types of relationships.

Despite all social constructs, in the end it all comes down to genetics.

The fittest reproduce, the weakest die off.

If only that were true...

[Sempronius]

On a general level thats correct what Vetus ordo quoted. But when it comes to the most "beautiful" men then its the ones with feminine traits.

Achilles (you all know, the ancient greek hero) could disguise himself as a beautiful women if he wanted to.

All the heroes from 18th century french novels are "modest as women and fierce as lions".

[Fleur-de-Lys]

On a general level thats correct what Vetus ordo quoted. But when it comes to the most "beautiful" men then its the ones with feminine traits.

But beautiful is not necessarily the same as sexually attractive.

Achilles (you all know, the ancient greek hero) could disguise himself as a beautiful women if he wanted to.

I don't recall that detail from The Iliad. Are you thinking of another source?

All the heroes from 18th century french novels are "modest as women and fierce as lions".

All? Can you cite some examples? I can only think of that description applying perhaps to the hero of Voltaire's L'ingénu.

[abc123]

Unfortunately some of us in our 40s are still waiting for facial hair.

Perhaps given my bass voice and extremely thick head of hair none of the 'man genes' made it to my facial follicles.

[Vetus Ordo]

Unfortunately some of us in our 40s are still waiting for facial hair.

Perhaps given my bass voice and extremely thick head of hair none of the 'man genes' made it to my facial follicles.

Of all the external masculine traits that attract women, the beard is the only one that is optional.

So you should be alright.

[abc123]

Unfortunately some of us in our 40s are still waiting for facial hair.

Perhaps given my bass voice and extremely thick head of hair none of the 'man genes' made it to my facial follicles.

Of all the external masculine traits that attract women, the beard is the only one that is optional.

So you should be alright.

Indeed. My wife has never seemed to mind.

[Sempronius]

On a general level thats correct what Vetus ordo quoted. But when it comes to the most "beautiful" men then its the ones with feminine traits.

But beautiful is not necessarily the same as sexually attractive.

Achilles (you all know, the ancient greek hero) could disguise himself as a beautiful women if he wanted to.

I don't recall that detail from The Iliad. Are you thinking of another source?

All the heroes from 18th century french novels are "modest as women and fierce as lions".

All? Can you cite some examples? I can only think of that description applying perhaps to the hero of Voltaire's L'ingénu.

Achilles: I think it comes from Madame Dacier's commentary on the Illiad, or Alexander Pope's.

The french: We have Lucien Chardon in Illusions perdues, Henri de Marsay in La Fille aux yeux d'or, and Lovelace in Clarissa (not french though but still in the same genre), The history of Tom Jones by Henry Fielding, many of Walter Scotts main characters are "beautiful and modest". There is also Stendahls character in The red and the black.

[Fleur-de-Lys]

Achilles: I think it comes from Madame Dacier's commentary on the Illiad, or Alexander Pope's.

The french: We have Lucien Chardon in Illusions perdues, Henri de Marsay in La Fille aux yeux d'or, and Lovelace in Clarissa (not french though but still in the same genre), The history of Tom Jones by Henry Fielding, many of Walter Scotts main characters are "beautiful and modest". There is also Stendahls character in The red and the black.

Ah, yes. Please allow me to nitpick for a moment, Sempronius. Most of these are nineteenth-century novels, and half of them are English. 

But I will agree that such a type exists among Romantic heroes.

So is it your contention that women in general find effeminate men to be the most attractive?

[Sempronius]

I dont want to dogmatically affirm this, I say it more with tongue in cheek.

A small part from La fille aux yeux d'or:

"Well, then, since we are by ourselves, and can say what we like, explain to me why a man as superior as yourself—for you are superior—should affect to exaggerate a foppery which cannot be natural. Why spend two hours and a half in adorning yourself, when it is sufficient to spend a quarter of an hour in your bath, to do your hair in two minutes, and to dress! There, tell me your system."
"I must be very fond of you, my good dunce, to confide such high thoughts to you," said the young man, who was at that moment having his feet rubbed with a soft brush lathered with English soap.
"Have I not the most devoted attachment to you," replied Paul de Manerville, "and do I not like you because I know your superiority?..."
"You must have noticed, if you are in the least capable of observing any moral fact, that women love fops," went on De Marsay, without replying in any way to Paul's declaration except by a look. "Do you know why women love fops? My friend, fops are the only men who take care of themselves. Now, to take excessive care of oneself, does it not imply that one takes care in oneself of what belongs to another? The man who does not belong to himself is precisely the man on whom women are keen. Love is essentially a thief. I say nothing about that excess of niceness to which they are so devoted. Do you know of any woman who has had a passion for a sloven, even if he were a remarkable man? If such a fact has occurred, we must put it to the account of those morbid affections of the breeding woman, mad fancies which float through the minds of everybody. On the other hand, I have seen most remarkable people left in the lurch because of their carelessness. A fop, who is concerned about his person, is concerned with folly, with petty things. And what is a woman? A petty thing, a bundle of follies. With two words said to the winds, can you not make her busy for four hours? She is sure that the fop will be occupied with her, seeing that he has no mind for great things. She will never be neglected for glory, ambition, politics, art—those prostitutes who for her are rivals. Then fops have the courage to cover themselves with ridicule in order to please a woman, and her heart is full of gratitude towards the man who is ridiculous for love. In fine, a fop can be no fop unless he is right in being one. It is women who bestow that rank. The fop is love's colonel; he has his victories, his regiment of women at his command. My dear fellow, in Paris everything is known, and a man cannot be a fop there gratis. You, who have only one woman, and who, perhaps, are right to have but one, try to act the fop!... You will not even become ridiculous, you will be dead. You will become a foregone conclusion, one of those men condemned inevitably to do one and the same thing. You will come to signify folly as inseparably as M. de La Fayette signifies America; M. de Talleyrand, diplomacy; Desaugiers, song; M. de Segur, romance. If they once forsake their own line people no longer attach any value to what they do. So, foppery, my friend Paul, is the sign of an incontestable power over the female folk. A man who is loved by many women passes for having superior qualities, and then, poor fellow, it is a question who shall have him! But do you think it is nothing to have the right of going into a drawing-room, of looking down at people from over your cravat, or through your eye-glass, and of despising the most superior of men should he wear an old-fashioned waistcoat?... Laurent, you are hurting me! After breakfast, Paul, we will go to the Tuileries and see the adorable girl with the golden eyes."