Just because males don't externalize that they compare themselves to other men doesn't mean they don't internalize these things. However, men do not verbally pick themselves apart in the manner women do, I've found. Women look at themselves in parts and, finding a single flaw on their body, they're suddenly utterly unattractive where as men look at themselves as a whole body.

Women may also just be verbalizing that they feel uncomfortable with the naked male body when really they enjoy it - in private.

I think it's important to remain objective with studies that tell you how people reacted to images based on how they said they felt about them. While it often reveals a valid point of people trying to live up to social standards, it's not always the most accurate portrayal of how they actually feel about something, and more about how they feel they should feel about something.

Interesting post. I would have guessed that most men and women would have answered like that (it really annoys me when heterosexual men claim they are completely blind to what makes a man attractive/if he fits male beauty standards or not. You don't have to be attracted to men to tell).

Personally I didn't feel very interested in either of the nudes, or have a strong reaction. Cindy Crawford meets the beauty standard and all that, but I have limited concern about whether I do, due to gender identity differences.

Sylvester Stallone isn't my type, so I wasn't interested in gawping at him either. His pose isn't dominant (given that he's turned away from the camera and imitating a famous sculpture) so I wasn't repulsed by him, and I grew up consuming lots of images of men as sexual objects, so I didn't feel ashamed or guilty to look at him either.

I found myself concentrating on details such as the weird pink shroud in the Crawford pic and the shiny orange-ness of Stallone's skin.

It fits very well into the "Sexual Strategies Theory" (SST) of evolutionary psychology.

Men like to look at naked women, because they have low costs of Sex and just need good genes and a good Body. Women are reminded of competion (beautiful women) or their one shortcomings (heavy women) because beauty is one of the main attraction switches for men.

Women like men with a high status and more commitment than men because sex carried a high price (costs of beeing pregnant).Clothes can show status easier then naked skin. So they do not care so much about the naked men or having easy sex with him because it is just Sex, something they can easily have but do not want as much as men. The Men just respond to the sexuality pointed at the viewer of the photo. The competion is low, because they know of the importance of status over nakedness for women

I've had pretty similar experiences with non-artists' reactions to nude photography in the US. A few variables worth exploring:

1. I haven't seen any indication of the cultural diversity of the group of interview subjects, but the project appears to have been conducted entirely in the US. I'd submit that this makes a huge difference. Audiences in northern Europe, for example, would be accustomed to a similar gender binary when it comes to the mass media, but to a very different cultural attitude toward nudity itself. Germans, for example, read similar fashion magazines but also socialize in mixed-gender nude environments such as saunas, where the exposed body is not associated with sex. And while the most famous male celebrities of the UK and France have frequently appeared nude in pop culture, this is absolutely not true of the US. It would be interesting to see how broader attitudes toward (and prior exposure to) nudity affect the way we process commercial images of it.

2. How were the images in the study selected for symmetry? In available photos of nude males, Stallone is certainly an outlier; he's instantly familiar, and yet we're not trained to view him as an object or cipher. On the other hand, plenty of male models occupy a role more similar to that of Crawford, in that the casual viewer need not trip over the baggage of popular movie characters to gaze upon them as objects. This particular dichotomy SEVERELY stacks the deck, with the photos comically exaggerating the male's strength and the female's vulnerability.

3. I wonder how much of the way we view these "cheesecake" nudes is impacted by the blatant effort to conceal features such as genitalia, body hair, and female nipples. The composition announces that the subject has something to hide, which is presumably too "dirty" to be shown in polite society. The concealment sexualizes the images more than what is actually revealed; the darkened shadow between Stallone's thighs and the crossing of Crawford's arms acquire a heavy symbolism that no exposed penis can match. For anyone who is able to read the (paywalled) article, are any differences addressed between types of nude images, and how they effect the viewer's reaction?

None of this is to dispute the general thrust of the argument. But ironically, I think the sociology is the component this study is missing.

It has bothered me for the longest time that men just being attractive is so often "Homoerotic" where as women making out with each other is just "hot".

I bet it would be interesting to compare with reactions to (clothed) male celebrities associated with the female gaze, like Mathew Macon... away..., Johny Depp, Robert Pattison, There are at least particular male bodies that are marketed for female consumption, if not male /nudity/

Why is it that in Hollywood films, when guys are naked, it's usually done in a mocking way -- haha! look at that ugly skinny (or fat) naked guy dancing around in a thong! but we rarely see a humane, erotic, or romantic portrayal of a naked or partially naked man in Hollywood films.

A lot of heterosexual females, it seems, have been brainwashed by partiarchy to think that women are better looking than guys, but!! would rather date or marry guys. It doesn't make sense to me.

I love looking at both genders, I think both genders are beautiful and have interesting body forms.

What about how queer people react to nude photos? Are queer women less likely to judge their own bodies than straight women? Clearly, most out gay guys wouldn't say "I"M NOT GAY" as a response to the Stallone photos, but do they respond similarly to the way the study says women do?

does anyone else find it mildly discrediting that for the reactions to the female there are several actual quotes, but for the man there are no quotes, just broad sweeping generalizations of reactions?

Are we sure that the results had nothing to do with the fact that the male picture looks completely unattractive? I suppose every one has their own taste, but I found the male to be vey unappealing.

Another predictably unremarkable post from sociological images. Predictably bland "research" and conclusions. What a joke, the only people who might find this garbage fascinating or thought provoking are likely sheltered middle-aged nobodies who minored in sociology at some nameless state college.

I make a conscious effort to reject messages that use sexualized images of women. Like anyone else who lives in this culture, I'm used to it, so I do have to be conscious of it, but I am training myself to respond by saying, "I am not sexually attracted to women, so this message is obviously not for me," and then walking away from it. I do the same thing with the presumption of maleness, and have just recently started boycotting a business I used to make a lot of purchases from based on a Valentine's Day promotion all about buying presents for 'your wife or girlfriend.' Obviously, they don't value me as a customer, so I'll be going somewhere that doesn't make a point of excluding me.

And to get to my real point, I was trying to explain this to a lesbian friend recently, and she LITERALLY did not understand that some people are not sexually attracted to women. I thought she was joking or something at first, but apparently not. She honestly believed that, based on the saturation of sexualized images of women and how frequently they're used to target general audiences, everyone was sexually attracted to them, just some more than others. She did not think the same with men, though, so it's not just an overarching idea of the plasticity of sexual attraction or anything.

It was like she literally believed that women being the sex class was a Hard, Cold, Natural Fact or something! I am still a little boggled, but cross my heart that's what she told me!

Really unfortunate post. If you're going to offer a study on sex, you should explain the make-up of the people surveyed. Here we get results for "men" and "women." How do these humans sexually identify, and what is the correlation, if any, to their responses to these images? And were they really only shown these two images? What a vanilla world we live in, if so.

I had this thought while watching "Paycheck" (a good movie, but featuring a lot of idyllic, idealized female nudity): I wondered if to recreate the experience of women in this context you had to hit men closer to their internalized masculinity: it's not enough to have hunky guys walking around with their shirts off, but what if every nude scene in a movie involved catching glimpse of a ten inch penis?

When I saw the picture of Sylvester Stallone, the only thing going through my mind was "Oooooh YEAH!" Dear magazine people: if you had more sexy naked men on your magazine covers, I would start buying them again.

Oscar Wilde said, "Men love with their eyes; women love with their ears."

Could that be part of why men often find pictures more arousing, while women tend to gravitate more to words? I've known women who would rather read erotic fiction than look at pictures.

I know it's a generalization, and that the human experience is far too large to neatly pigeonhole like this, but I think Wilde had a point. A man who isn't very good-looking can be very attractive to women if he has a way with words.

The sample was overwhelmingly white. The sample was 45 people. 29 of the 45 identified as politically conservative or moderate.

The interviews that the researcher conducted were fascinating anecdotally, but I'm really not sure what general implications one can take away from this study that aren't heavily filtered through the lens of Stuff You Already Believe.

I also wasn't a fan of her analysis. I would've rather read more of the interviews and drawn my own conclusions rather than being told what to think.

In the book Sex at Dawn, the author's point out that studies like these are often done using college students, because that is who is around at universities with free time on their hands to participate in studies. Their point was to take them with a grain of salt, and not necessarily as reflective of mature adult sexuality. I would reacted very differently to these photos, and would have been much more likely to say what I thought society expected of me when I was 18 years old!

^^^"authors"! I do understand correct use of the apostrophe, I swear!

As a queer woman, I find this helps me articulate why, despite being attracted to women, I'm not drawn towards very conventionally straight-appearing women at all. Aesthetically speaking, sure, I think they're pretty or whatever, but it is also very obvious that, as the post says, 'it [their effort to make themselves attractive]'s not for me', and that seems to completely short-circuit any actual attraction on my part.

Stallone looks pretty gross, but I do believe in the possibility of a female gaze in general.

Personally I feel I borrow a male gaze in order to look at men sexually/look at erotic images of men. I have never been attracted to erotic images of men with women, but I do enjoy pictures of nude men on their own or with other men. I also like looking at clothed pictures of good looking guys.

I felt a little annoyed (as a reflex) at reading this article because I really dislike the idea that women don't appreciate men as sex objects, or shouldn't. Maybe I am just very bizarre? Although my experience with women in general hasn't reflected many feelings of guilt or shame in this respect, I've watched gay porn with friends etc.

As for comparing myself to female models, I think I do, and of course I come up lacking, but I'm no more likely to look like Cindy Crawford than become an astronaut or something. That's her job, she is the Hot Girl, just like Leo DiCaprio or Johnny Depp are the Hot Guy. I don't think sexualised portrayals of traditionally good looking people are necessarily bad, although they can easily make us feel bad about ourselves. I like looking at hot guys, so why shouldn't I give my boyfriend the reverse opportunity?

Quite a few comments indicate that people think that only 2 pictures were shown to the participants. If you read the linked article, you will see that the following things are true for this small study:

1) What is this? Extension of earlier study focused in part on the perception of nudes as art, pornography, or information based on context. Part of a larger study on public funding of art and which images we contextualize as art.

2) Sample: 45 participants (23 men and 22 women), heterosexual only, snowball sample, ethnically/racially: 2 African American, 1 Mexican American, 1 Korean American, 41 non-Hispanic white, education: ½ with high school diploma only, ½ with at least a BA (age, education, religion, and political affiliation are also listed in the article)

3) Methods: Interviews, mostly with individual participants, but also 5 couples to see gendered interaction, interviews averaged 1.5 hours each

4) Images: 23 images of nudes from medical texts, adult entertainment magazines, mainstream magazines, and art books. There is a list of images and their subjects in the article.

5) Article: If you read the article, you will also find the quotes from both men and women on both sets of images.

[I have no connection to this study in any way. It just seems really odd to me that some commenters are asking questions that are answered in the first few pages of the article itself.]

I thought the first commenter had a really interesting point:

"Women look at themselves in parts and, finding a single flaw on their body, they’re suddenly utterly unattractive where as men look at themselves as a whole body."

I wonder if this is because women are used as parts in advertising. SO many ads cut off the model's head (or hands/feet/etc) and zoooom in on one little body part. It seems to me that it would be natural to feel like a collection of parts rather than an integrated whole if you were continually bombarded with those kinds of fragmented images.

it's amazing this chick actually believes men are 'conditioned' to become sexually aroused. idiot feminists are comical. here's proof: http://vimeo.com/19843219

Hey! I just wanted to note one thing:

"But whose sex is sold? And to who?"

THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THIS.

I work in the video game industry and I hear "sex sells" all the damn time as an excuse for why the women in the game need to have exposed midriffs and cleavage while battling minotaurs with huge double-sided axes.

I have been able to use "But whose sex is sold? And to who?" as a response to this, and it's so _dead on_ that I've actually gotten people to think about this for the first time, and a few wonderful times, managed to help them understand why this is so ridiculous.

Thank you!

Well, I'm a woman. I' wouldn't mind looking like that lady up there, but I would also like to fuck her. A lot. I'm also not uncomfortable at all looking at rocky there, though he makes me feel sort of out of shape. Damn his glistening muscles.
The only time I feel uneasy when looking at nude males, is when in the company of men. I worry that they won't take me seriously if they realise that I am attracted to penises. I'm completely serious here, I've lost friends over shit like that.

I look at nude women in the media like this and just think they are being used to sell magazines to men. It cheapens women. Females are beautiful naturally naked and men are too but not really in seductive poses. I think men are used in similar ways in sport eg football but not as much as in the 70s when shorts were tighter and shorter. Male nudity in film and magazines should be more acceptable by now but I don't think it is yet. People should visit a nude beach or similar to overcome this strange fear or prudishness the western countries have so ingrained. We are all the same and if we stopped judging each other we might all be fitter on the whole.

 HYPOCRITIC ARTICLE AND HYPOCRITIC COMMENTARIES
 Why are women "sold"? The only reason: women are not such obsessed of
sex,as men. But when women are a little bit interest of sex, they are interes-
ted of male body, too. For my generation (and our mothers) Stallone,Schwar-
zenegger, van Damme  were sex-symbols, modern girls have comic taste
Ridiculous commentaries: "women mean, men in SUIT are sexy"(??) Were suits
already in stone age? "women love with ears, not with eyes" (GAY O.Wilde)
Ist telephonesex for women?

I like to look at the pretty ladies. :) But that's cuz the patriarchy made me queer. Srsly, the only way I could make use of the western aesthetic/technique of identification AND identify w the subject instead of the object was to assume some version of the male gaze as my own subject position... that's why I'm queer, they left me no choice, who's gonna identify with a passive object?

The study would have been more interesting if it had included same-sex preferences, since then it could have gotten more complexity and added depth into gender mindsets and stereotypes. I have seen a lesbian person posting her opinion. On my part, I could say that Cindy Crawford's image does not produce any titillation (code word for erection); however, I am very happy to admire her flawless beauty. But, since I admire masculinity, inwardly and outwardly,with the occasional titillation, I very much like the image of Silvester, despite the hideous Boehner-orange shade. Moreover, from the aesthetic point of view, since I like to depict the human body, I prefer to explore the play of lights and shades on the muscled body of a male. Since women's bodies are in general smoother, it is much easier to depict them. Regarding the selling power, I am quite neutral and I don't think sex sells for me.