Women’s Standards of Attractiveness Are As Unrealistic As Men’s审美不靠谱，男女都一样

郭晓阳郭晓阳

Womens expectations of the opposite sex are at least as unrealistic as mens.女性對异性的期望不比男性实际。

Men have long wondered what exactly it is that women want. Some pore over mens magazines， with their promises of “washboard abs”， for guidance. The more scientifically minded look for experimental data. The latest evidence comes from a group of researchers led by Brian Mautz， then of Australian National University. They gathered 105 heterosexual Australian women and showed them a series of digitally generated pictures of men in which three bodily characteristics were varied—height， shoulder-to-waist ratio and flaccid penis size. The women were asked to rate the men as sexual partners.

In an article published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences， Dr Mautz and his team describe their results. Happily for the insecure， although the women did indeed find a larger penis alluring， it was not the most important factor. That honour went to the combination of broad shoulders and a narrow waist， which accounted for around three-quarters of the variation in attractiveness all by itself. Height was also only a weak predictor of appeal. That is odd， says Dr Mautz， because other studies have linked height with all sorts of benefits， from higher salaries to longer lives. The bigger-is-better effect was also subject to diminishing returns： each extra centimetre， whether of height， shoulder width or penis size， was less significant than the previous one.

Nonetheless， even the tallest， broadest-shouldered and best-endowed digital hunks that the researchers generated fell short of perfection. “The optimum values appear to lie outside the tested range，” they note， adding that the “maxima are more than two standard deviations from the population mean for each trait.” That means that， for each trait， fewer than 2.5% of the men whom women encounter in the real world will be as generously proportioned as they might hope. Men with perfect scores in all three traits will be rarer than hens teeth1.

The study is not perfect. There was no danger of the women mistaking the digital men for the real thing. Other factors—such as social status， for instance—may， in the real world， override the physical preferences that the researchers were measuring. And it is hard， when all the subjects come from a single country， to disentangle the effects of nurture from those of nature. It is commonly pointed out， for instance， that mens apparent preference for slim women seems to be a relatively modern （and Western） construction. Erotica from the turn of the 19th century tend to feature much curvier women than their modern equivalent. Womens preferences may be just as influenced by the culture in which they grow up.

On the other hand， it is a rule of thumb in biology that females （of any species） are much pickier than males. There are good evolutionary reasons why that is so. Even in humans， who share the burden of child-rearing more equally than many animals， having children requires far more of an investment of resources from a female than it does from a male—after all， it is the woman who must endure nine months of pregnancy and then breast-feed the baby. Women therefore face stronger incentives to spend their relatively limited reproductive resources on only the most attractive men， whose children will be most likely to breed in turn. Back to the sit-ups， boys.

长久以来男人一直好奇女人究竟看重什么。一些人埋首男性杂志找寻指引，汲汲于杂志宣扬的“六块腹肌”。而那些更具科学头脑的，则从实验数据中寻求答案。由澳大利亚国立大学的布莱恩·莫茨领衔的一群研究者为我们提供了最新实证。他们召集了105名澳大利亚异性恋女性，向她们展示了一组用数字技术生成的男性图片，图中男性的身高、腰肩比、疲软状态下的生殖器尺寸这三种身体特征各不相同。研究人员要求参与调查的女性以挑选性伙伴为标准，给图片中的男子打分。

在《美國科学院院报》刊登的一篇文章中，莫茨博士和他的团队公布了调查结果。令自卑人群感到欣慰的是，虽然女性确实认为生殖器较大的男性很有吸引力，但这不是最重要的因素。最具吸引力的身体特征是肩宽腰细，在决定男性吸引力的各项指标中，仅这一项就占据了约3/4的权重。身高的影响力也没那么强。这在莫茨博士看来有些出乎意料，因为根据其他研究，身高与各种好处相关，比如更高的薪水、更长的寿命等。“愈大愈好”效应也存在收益递减现象：无论身高、肩宽，还是生殖器大小，尺寸每增加一点儿，影响力就会减弱一分。

不过，在研究人员制作的男性形象中，即使身高最高、肩膀最宽、最得天独厚的男性也未达到完美的地步。“最优指标似乎超出了测试范围”，研究人员表示，并补充道，“每项特征的总体均值比最大值低了两个标准差”。也就是说，女性在现实世界遇到的男子，每项特征都符合她们期待的只有不到2.5%。所有三项特征都拿到满分的男子可谓凤毛麟角。

这项研究并不完善。无须担心女性会将这些虚拟男士与现实真人混为一谈。在现实世界里，其他因素（如社会地位等）要比研究人员用来衡量的身体特征更加重要。此外，如果所有调查对象都来自同一个国家，就很难从那些先天因素中摒除后天环境造成的影响。譬如，人们普遍认为，男性对苗条女性的偏爱似乎是相对现代且源自西方的产物。19世纪初的情色作品中，女性形象远比现在丰满。女性的偏好可能同样会受到所处文化的影响。

另一方面，任何物种的雌性远比雄性挑剔是生物学里的一条经验法则。之所以如此，其背后有着充分的进化原因。在分担育子责任这件事上，即使人类比许多动物平等，生育时需要女性投入的资源仍比男性大得多——毕竟，是女性必须承担十月怀胎的辛苦，继而用母乳哺育婴儿。因此，女性就有更强的动机把相对有限的生育资源投入到最具吸引力的男性身上，他们的孩子也最有可能反哺父母。所以，小伙子们，继续健身吧。                  □

（译者为“《英语世界》杯”翻译大赛获奖者）