Dispelling Beauty Lies: The Truth About Feminine Beauty

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The facts about feminine beauty are simple and intuitive, even obvious. But public discussion of the topic is dominated by lies that confuse many women. Oddly enough, intelligent women seem to be the most susceptible. This makes it harder for them to attract mates, subjects them to misguided self-doubts, and even damages their health. Their efforts to improve their appearance are in vain because they aim at the wrong target. All too often they simply give up on a game they could win if they understood the rules. But for fear of being impolite, men never correct their illusions.

In this article I’ll dispel the confusion and tell you the straight truth about feminine attractiveness. In the closing section I’ll offer some practical advice. If you're in a hurry and just want a few quick beauty tips, you can start here and come back to Dispelling Beauty Lies when you're ready for it. (Note: if you can't read the font, click the "translate" button above.)

A warning before you continue: I won't pander to boost your self-esteem. Writing the truth instead of repeating familiar lies will offend some readers. Most women will experience discomfort. If you're emotionally fragile or psychologically troubled, you should stop here. However, learning the truth will enable clear-sighted women to improve their appearance and succeed at the game of beauty. This is a prize that's worth the cost.

Dispelling Beauty Lies is the most accurate and comprehensive guide to feminine beauty ever written. If you’re ready for real answers, read on.

I. Everyone lies
II. Learning from love goddesses
III. Imaginary women
IV. The truth about breast size
V. Common and uncommon tastes
VI. Market forces
VII. The most important secret about faces
VIII. A note on masculine beauty
IX. "Beauty" and "hotness"
X. Correcting homework
XI. Drawing the right conclusions
XII. Reality-based beauty tips
1. Finding the best weight for you
2. Clothing and fashion
3. Cosmetics and cosmetic surgery
4. Hair, skin, and eyes
5. Motion and posture
6. The most common misconception about seduction
7. Personality and individuality
8. Beauty and aging.
XIII. Answering objections
XIV. Censorship and suppression
Appendix: survey results
Review: the top twenty-two worst lies
Afterword
Index

I. Everyone lies

a. The many reasons to lie
b. Who's really your enemy?
c. Beauty is an athletic skill

a. The many reasons to lie

Why are lies about beauty abundant? Beauty is so socially important that almost everyone has a reason to lie about it.

The fashion industry uses tall, ultra-thin models to impress and intimidate customers. The tactic increases clothing sales, but these models aren’t the best examples of beauty. Similarly, paid beauty writers and influencers make their money from advertising fashion and beauty products. The conflict of interest discourages them from giving accurate advice.

Body-positive influencers sometimes praise the beauty of unhealthy figures in a way that seems disconnected from reality. They expand their audience through flattery and pandering, not honesty. Journalists lie about beauty to bolster their favorite social and political causes, which they consider far more important than the truth.

Market forces compel even well-meaning people in the beauty industry to endorse conventional lies instead of providing all the help they could. As one cosmetic surgeon informed me with regret, “You can't tell women the truth because they'll crucify you. You'll go out of business.”

Men have incentives to lie about what attracts them as well. To be polite, or to flatter. Or even to show their good taste. Pretending not to notice overt sex appeal is a way of signaling refinement and class. It implies that they’re subtler and more perceptive than other men. But it also projects a false picture of what they really want. It's not that men think through these lies with reason. They tell them compulsively by default, because they know what they're supposed to say and what you want to hear.

Some insecure women deride any concept of beauty that doesn't match what they see in the mirror. Unable to acknowledge their own imperfections, they hope words alone can make them the fairest of all. Others intentionally promote beauty lies with fabrications, malicious gossip, and petty insults directed at their more attractive competitors.

Even the most beautiful and self-assured women will lie, whether to guard their secrets, to sabotage their competitors, or because they don’t really know the answers themselves.

Self-deception compounds the problem. Once you're invested in the lies you've been told by marketers, flatterers, and competitors, it's psychologically difficult to accept the truth. You're tempted to behead the messenger and cling to feeble counterarguments you wouldn't take seriously in any other context. And your friends tell you what you want to hear, because their only alternative is to hurt and offend someone they love.

“What makes a woman attractive?” is a milgram question. In other words, the social penalty for an unflattering answer is much higher than the reward for telling the truth. Because of this we simply can’t trust the answers we receive, even if they’re coming from friends.

In sum, everyone’s lying about beauty. And when you consider the motivations I’ve just listed, it shouldn’t be a surprise. We have very good reasons to lie!

All these lies can carry over into science. Scientific studies of beauty are often based on questionnaires. The scientists just perform a statistical analysis and repackage the results as verified truth. But survey responses on sexual topics are unreliable. Fancy mathematical language might make these studies sound authoritative, but it can't transform a collection of false answers into a true one. And there's a limit to how well a handful of numbers can characterize beauty.

So to reveal the truth I won’t rely on surveys or professed opinions. Instead I’ll present direct evidence of men’s real preferences.

b. Who's really your enemy?

Why should men be the ones to judge what's beautiful? My approach here is simple and practical, not philosophical. The main purpose of personal beauty is to attract and satisfy a member of the opposite sex. There are other reasons to be beautiful, but they make a much smaller contribution to human happiness. That means men are the most important judges of feminine beauty, just as women are the most important judges of masculine beauty.

Your professors may have taught you to loathe the "male gaze." This crazy attitude will do you more harm than good. In fact, it's far worse than a beauty lie. You can't win by condemning the judges. Instead you should embrace your potential for beauty, and use it to cultivate a fulfilling romantic and sexual relationship.

Some claim an uncompromising analysis of feminine beauty is inherently misogynistic. This is quite opposite to the truth. Empowerment is about being able to get what you want. The more beauty you have, the easier it is to get what you want. And the better you understand beauty, the easier it is to obtain it. It's that simple.

Those who justify dishonesty by labelling the truth misogynistic are taking advantage of you. They're disempowering you and implying women are too fragile to handle reality. This article, in contrast, aims to help any woman who's ready to open her eyes. In the final account, its accuracy will be borne out by its efficacy.

c. Beauty is an athletic skill

The hardest lies to conquer are the ones we tell ourselves. So before we continue I'm going to explain the right way to think about your beauty. This explanation will anticipate some conclusions I haven't justified yet, but I'm offering it in advance to ease your mind.

Beauty is confusing because it combines elements that seem personal with elements that are purely physical, and we easily mix these up. Figure skating is a good metaphor. Both a great figure skater and a great beauty seamlessly blend personal expression with physical excellence. Yet these are still two different things. And in beauty as in skating, physical excellence is more important.

It's popular to tell women beauty is just self-expression, and the unique person you are will always be beautiful to the right man. This sounds nice, but it's the verbal equivalent of a frenemy giving you a warm hug as she stabs you in the back. It's no different from telling someone she can be good at figure skating simply by expressing herself, and that physical skill doesn't matter. A skater who follows this sort of advice won't only miss the Olympics, she'll skate badly and never improve.

In fact, this “nice” idea is the single most harmful beauty lie. It reinforces the misperception that a woman's beauty is her personal essence, so if men don't appreciate your appearance, you must be a worthless person with an unlovable soul. That isn't true at all, and believing it is will damage your mental health.

For your own good, please stop thinking of beauty as only or even mainly self-expression. Instead, start thinking of beauty as an athletic skill that allows you to express yourself better. Some women are more naturally talented at this skill than others. But just as everyone can skate better with practice, everyone can contribute more beauty to the world if she makes a well-directed effort.

Once you reorient yourself in this way, you'll realize your imperfections aren't cause for despair. Even the few women who bring home medals still make mistakes.

Your personality is, of course, already golden. But you're about to learn how to score top marks for technical merit too. And instead of just winning medals, you're going to win hearts. Are you ready?

II. Learning from love goddesses

a. Historical exemplars of feminine beauty
b. Limitations of the historical record

a. Historical exemplars of feminine beauty

Let’s begin with the most enduring visual examples of feminine beauty: love goddesses. The representations below were created hundreds or even thousands of years apart by groups that spoke different languages and lived in different climates. Despite differences in their style, function, and degree of realism, they share common features.

The love goddesses typically have an hourglass figure, with a small waist, larger than average breasts, and pronounced hips. They have a moderate, healthy weight: fairly slim, but not skinny.

This Indian statue is two thousand years old.

These two Minoan examples are more than three thousand years old.

This Babylonian love goddess is nearly four thousand years old.

Below are erotic odalisque paintings from 19th-century America, France, and Italy.

A mountain of historical evidence shows no correlation between high status and a taste for thin, curveless women. This is a sculpture of a famous upper-class courtesan from 19th-century Paris.

Nor were obese women widely preferred. Rubens is often cited as a counterexample to conventional beauty standards. But his corpulent figures, such as the last image below, are exceptions in a long history of love-goddess representations that fit the general trend. Outliers like this don't nullify the rule.

Obese prehistoric figurines like the 30,000-year-old “Venus of Willendorf” are also frequently raised as counterexamples. But they don't qualify as love goddesses. The “Venus” appellation is arbitrary and disputed by scholars. These figurines weren't found with a label, and their true meaning and function are unknown.

And there is, in fact, no shortage of ancient figurines which do exhibit the hourglass shape common in verifiable love-goddess representations.

In the next gallery you’ll find a selection of famous cartoons of attractive women that spans several decades: Sleeping Beauty, Jasmine, Jessica Rabbit, and three popular Japanese anime characters.

These images are in some cases exaggerated, but that’s the nature of cartoon art. On the other hand, social conventions set limits on the figures "serious" artists could depict. For instance, critics condemned William Etty's Venus and her Satellites (below) as pornographic in the 1830s.

Most paintings and sculptures are sexually understated, partly because they’re made for public display in places where it would be inappropriate to inspire lust, and partly because unrestrained sex appeal would dominate men's attention and distract them from subtler elements of the artwork.

Despite these limitations, the cartoons, paintings, and sculptures of love goddesses share the same salient characteristics.

Cultural and regional variations do exist, but are smaller than you might assume. For instance, the ideal women preferred by American and Japanese men are more similar than real American and Japanese women!

Finally, here are three of the goddesses juxtaposed with human models.

b. Limitations of the historical record

So love goddesses and archetypes of beauty follow a pattern. However, they're not all identical. For instance, classical Greek statues don't have the small waist and wide hips evident in our other examples. Nor do the later Venuses copied from them. In fact, Van Gogh quit art school when he was assigned to copy the Venus de Milo because he believed its hips were too narrow.

While the persistence of this particular deviation was partly driven by a founder effect, its original motive is open to debate. Even in ancient times many influential artists were homosexual, perhaps including Botticelli himself.

When we look earlier into Greek history, we can find the familiar figure seen in love-goddess representations around the world.

Nevertheless, exceptions are real and can't all be dismissed so easily.

Historical artwork may be compelling, but it's not enough to make a strong case. Furthermore, we can't rule out the possibility that current tastes differ from traditional ones. To reliably determine what men find attractive today, we'll have to examine more evidence.

III. Imaginary women

a. Why imaginary women are the best guide to beauty
b. Doll proportions
c. Anime proportions
d. Height
e. Legs, thighs, and hips
f. Age
g. The neoteny-curves axis
h. Refuting objections to imaginary women

a. Why imaginary women are the best guide to beauty

If men won’t tell the truth when asked what they find attractive, how can we ever know? One way is to look at what they choose in secret when they're free to have exactly what they want.

Humans are imperfect by nature. So in real life men rarely have the option to pick exactly what they want, and compromise is the norm. To avoid hurting feelings they publicly pretend their compromise was their ideal all along. Imaginary substitutes, however, allow men to bypass the limitations of reality and get something that actually does look just like their ideal.

The best guides to men's real beauty preferences, therefore, are imaginary women selected in private. These fall into three main categories: sex dolls, erotic drawings, and computer-generated women like those above. In this section I'll analyze each in turn.

Women are typically loath to give credence to any of these privately imagined ideals. Not only are they incurious, they actively turn away from them to avoid knowing. This is an unfortunate mistake.

Putting your head in the sand may soothe your ego in the short term, but in the long term ignorance will do you harm. So please set aside your squeamishness and skepticism for a moment. There will be plenty of time later to debate the value of the evidence.

b. Doll proportions

I’ve researched sex doll inventories at four online stores. Below I'll tell you what I found, starting with a little math you can skim over if you wish.

In mathematical terms, the most popular sex dolls at the four retailers had a waist-to-bust ratio of 0.61, and a waist-to-hip ratio of 0.61 too. In normal bust-waist-hips clothing measurements, that’s equivalent to 39-24-39. To check this number I averaged the measurements of over two hundred sex dolls from the inventory of one retailer. The resulting proportions were 0.65 and 0.61 respectively, equivalent to 37-24-39. By contrast, the average Victoria’s Secret lingerie model has a waist-to-bust ratio of 0.75, a waist-to-hip ratio of 0.71, and clothing measurements of 32-24-34.

The exact numbers aren't especially important here. In plain language, the majority of men choose dolls with far more pronounced curves than lingerie models.

As you can see, the typical sex doll resembles the example images in the previous section, while the runway model is distinctly different: not only thinner, but also narrower at both the hips and chest. The runway model's greater height also causes her body to seem more elongated.

The differences are evident from the rear as well. In addition to wider hips, the typical sex doll has far thicker buttocks and thighs than a runway model, with no thigh gap. The overall appearance is rounded instead of flat.

Sex dolls might be inherently tawdry, but the example below shows their basic shape is both beautiful and respectable in a woman with the right clothing and presentation, even when judged by very conservative standards. In fact, sex dolls are much closer to the classic female figure of traditional painting than fashion models are.

You can see the same shape in these photos of vintage actress Sophia Loren, who measures 38-24-38. Her figure is classic, beautiful, and elegant, not trashy or cheap. She looks good in many different styles, including formal and business attire.

c. Anime proportions

How can we confirm our observations? Let's consider erotic drawings. This is another case where men can choose exactly what they want, privately and without compromises.

The figures in modern erotic drawings again share basic similarities with those found in traditional paintings, but they're less limited by social restrictions on sexual expression.

The imaginary proportions of fictional women in manga and anime intended to appeal to men are strikingly similar to those of sex dolls. Fourteen female characters selected from the most popular erotic animes have a purported median waist-to-bust ratio of 0.62 and a median waist-to-hip ratio of 0.64, equivalent to clothing measurements of 39-24-37. Of course, the drawings themselves can be far more outlandish than these imaginary numbers. You can see some example figures below.

The rear view of popular erotic anime girls also confirms our observations. Just like sex dolls, their legs have a rounded shape and no thigh gap. They're thicker than many women expect.

d. Height

Height is widely thought to have little effect on feminine beauty. The average sex doll is exactly as tall as the average woman worldwide, and the range of variation is close to that seen in the female population. This supports the conventional view.

Nevertheless, height still causes confusion. Fashion models aren't just tall in absolute terms. They also have a low width-to-height ratio that makes them look reedy.

Fashion marketing encourages women to believe these elongated proportions are the most beautiful. But that's not the case.

A visual examination of AI girls makes this clear. In the examples above and below, I've elongated or shortened a typical AI girl's body to imitate the difference between an average woman and a runway model.

Some women assume the images at right are the most attractive. But the center images are the ones actually created by AI artists.

Erotic drawings show considerable variation, but usually look closer to the center figures above than the left or right ones.

Sex dolls, on the other hand, often do look elongated. Here material costs have intervened. Sex dolls are expensive, and thicker dolls cost more. So poor men buy dolls with a low width-to-height ratio, short torso, and thin legs to save money without compromising other traits they care about more. You can see the result below. At left is an AI girl, and at right is a sex doll with cheap legs. Sex dolls are convenient examples for study because their measurements are provided by the manufacturer, but AI girls are more perfect examples of beauty because they're free of any financial constraints.

This difference between sex dolls and other imaginary women is informative regardless of whether financial limitations are fully responsible. While men may prefer a particular width-to-height ratio, it's of secondary importance, and considerable deviation from the mean is tolerable. So elongated women aren't more beautiful than average women, but they're not particularly ugly either.

e. Legs, thighs, and hips

Even apart from height in general, long legs in particular are sometimes cited in movies as exemplifying sex appeal. But once again, this has no basis in reality. Men consider the sizes and shapes of butts and thighs important, not leg length. That's why AI girls are normally cropped above the knees. You can verify this by scanning through the images provided.

Imaginary women tend to have plump thighs. If you compare arms and thighs you'll see this isn't just a matter of being heavy. Most men prefer thin arms, with fat deposits located specifically in the thighs.

Women struggle to understand the appeal of thick thighs, perhaps because they'd be ugly on men. But if men liked the same things you do, they'd be gay. Whether it makes sense to you or not, thick thighs are an attractive trait.

Imaginary women have wide hips too. Sex dolls' hips are normally only wide in comparison to their waists. But erotic drawings and AI girls often have hips that are wide in absolute terms. Consider the images below.

If your waist isn't as small as a sex doll's, wide hips are necessary to create a good hourglass figure. And if you do have a tiny waist, they're still advantageous. Narrow hips, on the other hand, are unattractive in women.

f. Age

Sex dolls don't really have an age, but it's worth asking what age they appear to be. I circulated a dozen photos of randomly selected dolls on social media and asked readers to guess. The median estimate was twenty-two. This closely matches the stereotypically ideal age of twenty-one. So peak attractiveness appears to occur in the early twenties. You can see these dolls in the gallery below and make your own estimate.

A major retailer categorizes 25% of their dolls as “teen,” 12% as “milf,” and 63% as standard. If most men really preferred teenagers, as some claim, we'd expect most sex dolls to be listed in the teen category. But that isn't the case. In fact, teens are only twice as popular as "milfs."

Even so, some signs of age are unequivocally bad. While a few sex dolls do have gray hair, none have obvious wrinkles. This suggests the variance in men's taste for youthfulness is rather limited. You can see a “milf” doll below.

Anime girls have very young faces and very adult bodies, and they're drawn in an unrealistic style. By consequence it's impossible to determine their age.

The confusing combination of a juvenile face and a sexually mature body isn't an accident, however. It's common in AI-generated erotic imagery as well. When they were shown the following AI-generated image in two pieces, men estimated her face to be around sixteen and her body to be around twenty-four.

Similarly, the thirtysomething model below accrued millions of followers by using a "teen" AI filter to make her face look much younger than her body. Oddly enough, men rarely notice the incongruity before it's pointed out. To see the images they're paying for, click here. The real, unfiltered model is circled in red at the bottom of the page. (N.B. Most links, including this one, are to unclothed images.)

So men typically prefer the combination of a mature body and a neotenous face. Imaginary women can take this to extremes never found in reality.

I call these figments of the imagination inverse vampires. You'll have to wait till the section on masculine beauty to learn why this is the most logical name.

Inverse vampires may not be real, yet some of the most attractive real women do exhibit similar traits. "Early twenties" isn't a magic number that men fetishize. It just happens to be the age where the right combination of youthful and mature elements is most likely to occur.

You might find the generous curves showcased here overwhelming, and wish men were indifferent to the size of your hips, butt, and breasts. Well, be careful what you wish for.

While few in number, curveless imaginary women do exist. They still have childlike faces, but they almost never possess the tall, lanky adult figure of runway models. Instead they just look juvenile. And indeed, underage.

How common is the taste for immature women? 3% of the sexualized images posted under the #aigirl hashtag have neither adult faces nor adult bodies. I evaluated 350 images and included only indisputable cases, so this errs on the side of understatement. Many look as young as eight or nine years old. In a large database of erotic drawings, 2% of images tagged “one girl” are also tagged “loli” (n=5,700,000). This too is likely an underestimate of real preferences, because loli images require a paid subscription that other images don't. (None of the images shown in this article are categorized as “loli.”) Finally, in a popular online fetish survey, 3.9% of men expressed interest in pre-pubescent children.

This kind of data isn't completely reliable, and given the sensitivity of the topic we can't establish exact numbers. But with multiple lines of evidence in agreement, it's reasonable to estimate the fraction of men who prefer pre-pubescent girls at around three percent. That's one in thirty.

g. The neoteny-curves axis

So there are indeed men who don't like curves. And imaginary women, by evading the legal restrictions on photos, reveal a simple rule about them. Men who don't like curves like kids. This rule isn't absolute, but exceptions are remarkably rare.

To some extent the rule applies in degrees as well. Because curves aren't fully developed until adulthood, men with a stronger preference for youth tend to be less interested in curves, while men who prefer larger curves tend to be less concerned about age. Tension between these preferences explains some of the variation in men's tastes.

This same tension allows us to explain some of the apparent inconsistencies in the historical examples we reviewed in the previous section. Many historical cultures favored earlier marriages than are now considered permissible. So they necessarily imputed greater sexual value to immature figures, and sometimes represented them in their art. At present, however, the fraction of men who desire children's bodies is quite low, and the taste for a well-developed adult body is the norm.

Concluding qualifications are in order. The fact that men today perceive peak attractiveness to occur in the early twenties on average doesn't imply that everyone peaks at the same age. Nor does it imply that a younger woman is always more beautiful than her seniors, nor least of all that beauty "hits a wall" at age thirty. Peak and slope are not the same thing.

As I'll explain later, there's still hope for older women. So please be patient and keep reading whatever your age.

h. Refuting objections to imaginary women

Some people object to the idea of using sex dolls, erotic drawings, and AI girls to reveal men's preferences. They claim imaginary women in general, and sex dolls in particular, are the refuge of low-value men, and because of this they're not a reliable indicator of broader male tastes. However, you may have noticed that ice cream tastes good to the young and old, the rich and the poor alike. So it is with many types of beauty.

What distinguishes sexually successful men from unsuccessful ones isn't their basic sense of the female form, but rather their ability to obtain it. A broad network of evidence, including love goddesses and erotic oil paintings commissioned by wealthy aristocrats, tells the same story about feminine beauty. And we'll expand this evidence further as we continue. Dismissing all of it is simply wishful thinking, usually motivated by insecurity.

The footage above shows upper-class women walking at a park in 1902. Traditional aristocratic clothing was designed to create a pronounced hourglass surpassing even today's most generously proportioned sex dolls. Those who deride the taste for curves evident in imaginary women as low-class or porn-induced are historically ignorant. If they wish to engage in snobbery, they shouldn't do it by advertising the plebian quality of their education.

It's important to understand that imaginary women actually give us a more accurate picture of male preferences than real glamour models. That’s because if men prefer multiple uncorrelated traits on the tail of the distribution in the female population, even the best real models will necessarily be a compromise with the mean. The same argument applies a fortiori to pornographic actresses, who are drawn from the very small population of willing participants, and thus unlikely to represent the ideal. This is a consequence of statistical laws, not male desire, and it leads us to underestimate the demand for rare traits.

So real glamour models can indicate the direction of male preferences, but not their extent. Imaginary women aren’t subject to the same limitation. This makes them especially useful for answering our next question.

IV. The truth about breast size

a. Men's real breast-size preferences
b. Rich women prefer small penises
c. Size lies and why everyone tells them
d. Women's secret breast obsession

a. Men's real breast-size preferences

Women frequently ask: what breast size do men really prefer? Of all the questions about attractiveness, this is the one where men are most likely to lie when asked directly. In fact, they lie so often that some women begin to doubt the obvious answer.

A professor thoroughly reviewed the scientific research on size preferences for a major periodical. He concluded that men prefer average breasts, and women are fooling themselves into believing size matters.

Some girls might be inclined to believe intellectual authorities like this professor instead of stereotypes and common sense. But they shouldn't. He's wrong.

Once again we can learn the truth if we look at what men actually choose in private. A large online sex-doll retailer categorizes their dolls by breast size. The frequency of these sizes is as follows:

Note that the terminology they use is misleading, since "small" refers to the typical size of a slim woman, and "medium" is already large by everyday standards. That means around 80% of men choose what we normally call big breasts. And they do so even though buxom dolls are more expensive. Here are examples of each size according to the retailer's classification.

A second retailer categorizes dolls by cup size. The distribution of their inventory is visualized in the next graph. The result is essentially the same, but we can add a few additional details to our observations:

• Only 2% of men want an A cup.
• 90% of men want more than a B cup.
• 78% of men want "large" breasts (D cup or more).
• The average man wants an E or F cup.
• 43% of men want a G cup or more.
• Men want I cups and above much more than Bs and As.

I also estimated the cup sizes of AI girls, using these images as a reference. It involved some guesswork, so the data is less reliable than the measurements provided by doll manufacturers. The sample set also included artistic images I wouldn't normally classify as AI girls, and to avoid making any editorial decisions, I counted them too. Nevertheless, the results are quite similar. This time I've presented them in a curve to illustrate the distribution of tastes.

The median is a full E cup, indicated by the gold arrow. But it's not the only relevant information. What the chart also shows is that men's tastes are asymmetrical. The biggest breasts are far more popular than they would be in a normal curve. This means the women who have them enjoy a special advantage that isn't apparent if you only consider the most common taste.

Below you'll find similar data drawn from an anime image site, once again followed by examples of each size. Men's order of preference is exactly the same as above. In fact, among this audience large breasts take an even bigger lead over the other sizes. However, the meaning of “large” has changed. The median now looks closer to a J or K cup than an E or F.

Cartoons are prone to exaggeration, so we can't assume these translate directly to reality. Nor should we assume they don't. Fortunately exactness isn't necessary for our purposes here. From the evidence above we can draw three reliable conclusions that will hold even if our data is imprecise.

First, male preferences for breast size vary a great deal. Not all men prefer big breasts. Some prefer small, others enormous.

Second, the demand for larger sizes is much greater than the supply. The average male already prefers a size rarely found in nature, and the gap between supply and demand increases with size, without any practical limit.

This means that “bigger is better” is true in an economic sense even if it isn’t true in an absolute sense. In simple terms, the most buxom women are highly valued because there aren’t enough of them to go around, not because all men prefer them.

Third, the median preference is broadly similar to the size we’ve seen in earlier examples, and conforms to well-known stereotypes. It’s also close to the size of common glamour models like “page 3” girls or centerfolds. In fact, some vintage centerfolds (NSFW) are larger than most sex dolls, despite the extreme rarity of this size in the general population. So are these storefront mannequins designed to attract passersby.

When we consider both overall clothing measurements and bust size, here’s what the median sex doll looks like.

You might still be tempted to dismiss these conclusions because they're derived from an analysis of imaginary women. So I’ll now draw your attention to the top 50 uncensored image-search results for “best breasts” (NSFW). This search was conducted anonymously using Tor to avoid contaminating the results with any past history.

Large breasts are the most common result by a wide margin, and only a single image shows an A cup. The first model resembles the median sex doll above. An uncensored search for older images yields a very similar outcome.

Of course, search results can fluctuate depending on the precise terms used, the search engine, and the degree of censorship. In Bing, censorship and term variation increases the average bust size from large to huge. Google skews results toward celebrity gossip unless you use an explicit term. Yahoo falls somewhere in between. But no matter how you search, big always comes out ahead.

While you shouldn't put much faith in search results on their own, they do add more evidence to an already voluminous pile. And it turns out that sex dolls and AI girls actually give us a moderate and conservative representation of male taste. Dispelling Beauty Lies may draw on imaginary women, but the conclusions are quite real.

Skeptics are thus faced with an impossible question: if guys don't like large breasts, why do they keep seeking them out when you're not looking?

b. Rich women prefer small penises

Some just can't accept the fact that a substantial majority of men prefer well-endowed women. Feeling their self-esteem is at stake, they resort to flimsy fallback positions. The most popular of these is “But rich men prefer small breasts.” This is no more plausible than the claim that rich women prefer poorly endowed men. If women with wealthy husbands really believed it, they'd hire maids with double-Ds to protect their marriages. But they don't.

It's easy to explain the supposed class difference in breast size preference. Status-conscious men feign indifference to the obvious in order to signal their refinement. Then flat-chested women who fear they can't compete on the basis of sex appeal amplify the claim to stigmatize a trait they don't possess and slander their competitors as peasants.

They're lying for their own gain. And they're guilty of hypocrisy too, because women's analogous attraction to size is just as strong as men's.

c. Size lies and why everyone tells them

Faux refinement and politeness aren't the only reasons men lie about size. Sex is an even more pervasive reason. The average woman has small breasts. And average women like to feel desirable. By pretending average breasts are more desirable than they really are, average men hope to increase their chance at bedding average women. In other words, they have ulterior motives of the most straightforward kind.

Tact is a virtue. Dishonesty is not. Yet men are quite happy to cross the line from one to the other if it means more sex and less hysteria. So they perpetuate denialism by continually reassuring women that the ideal size is only slightly larger than average, or that average is best, or that size doesn't matter, or even that they like small breasts more than large. As we've seen, this is rarely true of men who prefer adult women. It's a claim that should inspire suspicion, not relief.

Common sense, stereotypes, search results, AI images, sex dolls, anime girls, and vintage centerfolds all agree. It doesn't matter if men deny it to be polite, to sleep with you, or to impress you with their refinement. The evidence they want large breasts is overwhelming. In practice, bigger is better.

So what do "perfect" breasts actually look like? I asked men to submit photos of large breasts with a perfect shape and then vote on their favorites. You can see the most popular images here (NSFW). Men's top choices look remarkably similar.

d. Women's secret breast obsession

It isn't surprising that men are fascinated by large breasts. But the public response to the data I've just presented reveals that many women are too.

Women react much more strongly to remarks on breast size than any other beauty topic, including weight and age. This implies they subconsciously believe, or at least fear, that large breasts are the centerpiece of feminine sex appeal. The most impassioned denials come from the most breast obsessed. After all, if they didn't think breast size was extremely important, they wouldn't be so upset.

In the world of breast-size denialism, the view count of the video below is completely inexplicable and mystifying. Back here in reality, the cause is dead obvious.

The almost universal refusal to publicly acknowledge just how big a contribution big breasts make to feminine beauty is one of the most bizarre social phenomena of our time. Future generations will surely wonder what the fuss was about, why so many people failed at basic pattern recognition, and whether this section really had to be so thorough. Unfortunately, it did.

If you're poorly endowed, don't despair. There are many elements of beauty, and however important it might be, breast size is still only one of them. So please resist the temptation to obsess. Later in this article I'll offer some words of encouragement, and also discuss whether cosmetic surgery might be a viable option.

V. Common and uncommon tastes

a. The common male taste
b. Media understatement perpetuates confusion
c. Who dominates the fashion industry?
d. Our insistent instinct for beauty
e. Beauty lies create a negative-sum game
f. Uncommon tastes

a. The common male taste

The diverse examples we’ve examined so far point toward a common male taste. This common taste is remarkably consistent between times and places. To summarize, most men are attracted to women with a small waist, large breasts, a rounded rear, and prominent hips. They prefer women who have pronounced curves but aren’t overweight or obese. There's no evidence they favor the extreme thinness and tall, elongated figure of fashion models. In fact, the shape preferred by men is strikingly different from the shape of fashion models.

The average woman is also strikingly different from fashion models, and resembles a sex doll more than a runway model, as the following table of measurements shows.

The average woman from 1951 is four or five inches wider than runway models in every measurement. Yet her bust and hips are almost the same as those of sex dolls or anime girls. Waist size and cup size are the most significant factors that set an attractive figure apart from an average one.

b. Media understatement perpetuates confusion

Women assume they can see through fashion marketing and other beauty lies, and will claim to know that men like curves. But they're often confused about what "men like curves" really means. They may envision lingerie models in push-up bras, or actresses whose curves fall well short of the proportions men prefer. These media representations of sex appeal aren't accurate.

The drawings above have much larger breasts, wider hips, thicker legs, and higher bodyfat than the models and actresses. You can see the same pattern in the images below, which compare typical models for a famous "sexy" lingerie brand to similarly dressed women whom most men would find more appealing.

And the pattern isn't limited to the most popular images. The next chart shows the relative frequency of over four million tags in a huge database of erotic drawings. Curves are overwhelmingly important, while "thinness" barely even registers.

Breasts might top the list, but they're not the only thing that matters. Women today also underestimate the value of curvaceous thighs, hips, buttocks, and even cheeks, as well as the ideal bodyfat level more generally. So when you read the word “curves” in this article, don't succumb to breast obsession and interpret it as just a euphemism for “boobs.”

The gap between women's intuitions about what's attractive and men's actual preferences is most pronounced at the extremes. The unusually curvaceous woman below was rated "hot" by 91% of men, but only 60% of women.

To guess what men want, you should use reason, not just intuition. When in doubt, assume that more is more.

One major sex-doll retailer sells over a hundred detachable heads, and only a single headless body. This limitation gives them a strong incentive to offer a body with proportions that will please the largest possible number of men and offend the fewest, and gives us a perfect opportunity to visualize the common male taste. You can see it here (NSFW). Now you have an accurate picture.

(Long after the previous paragraph was written, the retailer added two more torsos made by a different brand, shown in the gallery above. As you can see, the range of variation is quite limited.)

The voluptuous hourglass figure preferred by so many men is a well-known stereotype, but oddly excluded from magazines and media that address the topic of fashion and beauty for women. The narrow and skinny ideal that replaces it is both less attainable and less attractive.

Some women feel compelled to make excuses for the errors of the beauty industry. It's Stockholm syndrome. They claim a boyish figure is what women really want, and that rail-thin models are necessary to put clothes on display effectively. These defenses are absurd.

c. Who dominates the fashion industry?

It's a verifiable fact that most influential fashion designers aren't attracted to women. It would be unreasonable to assume this has no impact on their tastes, and also unreasonable to assume their tastes have no influence on their work.

The claim that designers choose models who resemble boys because "they're like walking coat hangers and better for showing off women's clothing" is already implausible at first blush. There's simply no reason women's clothes would look better on hangers than on women's bodies unless they're not properly designed for women's bodies. And there's no non-laughable excuse for standardizing female models' measurements to match those of male teenagers.

The deeper you look, the more farfetched the stock defenses sound. Indeed, they're exactly the kind of lies you'd tell if you wanted to remove the female form from the runway. When you trust male gays over the male gaze, you should expect to be misled in particular ways. It's not that they want to turn women into men in order to sleep with them, but that their instincts draw them away from truly feminine proportions rather than toward them.

The images below reveal a double standard. While male models have pronounced masculine sexual traits, female models have diminished feminine sexual traits. In other words, designers promote men who look like men, and women who look like (or are) boys. What's most astonishing is that they've convinced the public to swallow this.

This isn't just a transitory accident. It's gone on systematically, and for generations. So long, in fact, that few can remember a time when fashion favored the female form.

It's unlikely this elaborate fraud increases profits. At left below you can see the website of a top Chinese retail exporter. At right you can see top Western retailers. If the kind of attractive models who are systematically excluded from Western fashion really reduced sales, the Chinese wouldn't be using them to sell clothes to women in the West. But they are.

The problem isn't limited to the choice of models. Below you can see styles from nine different designers at Paris Fashion Week. In each case the clothing itself imposes a masculine V shape (broad shoulders, narrow hips) on the model's body. It erases the female form and overwrites it with a male one. Properly designed clothes would do the opposite, bringing out the hourglass shape to enhance femininity.

The fashion world's de facto campaign against the female form has been so effective that today most women think the model on the right below is a weird and abnormal example of feminine beauty, whereas the model on the left is a good and admirable one. They've quite literally been trained to believe that men make more beautiful women than women. When they double down and denounce those who prefer the female model as “misogynistic,” one doesn't know whether to laugh or cry.

Some will admit runway models are prone to excess, yet believe they can find the correct answer by averaging these two figures. That's lazy thinking. Averaging a wrong answer and a right one just gives you another wrong answer.

d. Our insistent instinct for beauty

In sharp contrast to fashion designers' vision of beauty, consider the vintage romance covers below. These novels were written by women and cater to women's fantasies. Many of the covers were painted by women as well. The protagonists resemble sex dolls and AI girls more than fashion models or actresses. And this doesn't prevent their dresses from being very appealing to men and women alike.

Women sometimes trick themselves into believing their innate sense of beauty matches the fashionable one, while the kind of “genuine feminine beauty” presented in this article is just something men try to impose on them against their will. The romance covers above reveal that this self-analysis is backward. The fashionable ideal is the one men have imposed on them. Gay men, that is. And generations of relentless marketing have pressured women to mistake this indoctrination for intuition.

The fashion world has created a negative-sum game with arbitrary rules. They grant women status points for achieving a boyish look that's both taxing to maintain and unattractive to the majority of the population. But when free to dream their own private dreams, women would rather have a curvaceous, feminine figure that satisfies the common male taste. They want to be loved and lusted after, not just held up as trophies for public display.

You might assume that because men have an innate instinct for feminine beauty, they're completely unaffected by the flood of aesthetic propaganda from the media and beauty industry. But that's not quite how instinct works. Instinct only reveals itself in the course of experience. It asserts itself separately from and often later than the social learning that teaches young people what they're “supposed” to like.

Despite its vulgarity, the humorous post below illustrates this well. Its author has been bombarded by media valorization of thinness for his entire life. He seems to be unaware that the near totality of art history portrayed thick women as the most beautiful. So when instinct finally informs him in no uncertain terms that he prefers thick to thin, it strikes him as both undeniable, and incomprehensible. Incomprehensible because he's bewildered by the conflict between what he was taught is good and what he actually discovered to be good.

e. Beauty lies create a negative-sum game

There's no denying that the particular type of ugliness promoted by the fashion industry can increase a woman's status in some subcultures today. And if society were less interconnected, it would be amusing to let so-called "elites" continue mimicking gay beauty ideals to impress each other for another hundred years. But this same influence is pushing all women to make poorer choices, look worse, and enjoy life less than they could.

And in fact, the fashion industry's errors extend well beyond the level that could be reasonably explained by homosexual designers alone. Gay men, after all, aren't known for liking ugly things, even if their taste differs from the norm in other respects. Yet some of today's most prominent fashions resemble elements in a satanic ritual aimed at intentionally making women as unattractive as possible. A bizarre worship of ugliness seems to have taken over the top of our society, putting "elites'" definition of status into direct opposition with the good and the beautiful.

A negative-sum signaling regime impoverishes everyone it touches. Because today's fashionable ideals are doing real harm to public welfare, they need to be harshly criticized until their influence is ended. Realigning socially approved aesthetic goals with genuine beauty, as revealed in men's true, private preferences, will have enormous benefits whose full extent will only be appreciated in retrospect.

The impression that you need to reduce your body's sex appeal to find a quality mate is nothing more than an illusion generated by beauty lies. It's simply not the case. Later on I'll explain how good clothing choices, speech, and behavior allow you to display class and character. You don't need to sacrifice your beauty to the twisted norms of the fashion world.

f. Uncommon tastes

Of course, not all men are looking for an hourglass. Uncommon tastes are quite real. Everyone knows there are some who prefer the petite, girlish look, or the tomboy look, or the extravagantly well-endowed look, even though these tastes aren’t pervasive enough to be reflected in the statues of love goddesses. And a few men really do prefer runway models or Rubenesque figures.

Below you can see a random selection of AI-generated images posted on social media under the "#AIgirl" hashtag. While most of them match the common male taste, the remainder cater instead to the minority tastes I've just mentioned.

Unfortunately, some writers become too enamored of relativism. They use these real minority tastes to justify the pretense that the norm doesn’t exist and doesn’t matter. Then they go on to claim that everything is beautiful. This lazy attitude is intended to flatter your self-esteem, not help you succeed. You shouldn’t trust it.

VI. Market forces

a. Supply and demand
b. Why weird can win
c. The truth about butt size
d. The indifference effect
e. Let's increase the supply of beauty

a. Supply and demand

Beauty might be relative. Does that mean anything goes? Practically speaking, no. Consider supply and demand.

To catch and please a mate, it’s advantageous to have traits whose demand exceeds the supply. It’s disadvantageous to have traits whose supply exceeds the demand. (Where taste is concerned, the reverse is true. That is, you'll have an easier time getting what you want if there's an oversupply of potential mates who match your taste.)

For example, there are more men who prefer a small waist than there are women who have one. So women with a small waist have a relatively easy time finding a mate. In contrast, only a few men prefer obese women. There are far more obese women than there are men who prefer them, so they have a hard time finding a mate. And even if they succeed, they may be treated carelessly, because they're easily replaced. Don't behead the messenger. This is the cruelty of Mother Nature.

The logic of supply and demand seems too cold and disturbing for some women to accept. But consider the alternatives. If we pretend beauty is objective and universal, we can't explain the variation in tastes. And if we pretend everyone is equally beautiful, we can't explain why some looks are valued more than others. Only an economic analysis respects differences and still accurately captures what we all observe. It's by far the most broad-minded way to make sense of human beauty.

While polls aren’t particularly reliable, the poll below gives a reasonable estimate of overall demand. The added black lines indicate approximate supply. The most advantageous traits are the ones with the biggest gap between these two.

According to the poll, the most advantageous set of traits is: hourglass figure, thin, oversized breasts, bubble butt. Once again, this matches the beauty examples we’ve given above. But the variety evident in the poll also shows that there’s more than one way to be attractive. It’s not necessary to conform to the majority taste to succeed.

b. Why weird can win

The data we gathered earlier allowed us to establish a simple mathematical formula for the woman preferred by the median male: 37-24-39, F cup, 21 years old. But supply and demand shifts the advantage away from this median toward rarer extremes, like the example below.

In fact, the appearance desired by the largest number of men isn't always the best. It's counterintuitive, but some women can have more success with rare looks the majority of men dislike! In these cases it's actually good to be weird.

Skeptical? The next illustration shows one way this can happen. If you can't follow this graph, don't worry. Just remember that you don't need to please everyone to be beautiful.

Nevertheless, rarity isn't sufficient to make everything valuable. When demand is too low, uncommon traits are still a real disadvantage. For instance, tattoos are a dubious choice even in subcultures where they've been normalized.

c. The truth about butt size

Butt size is an element of beauty where supply and demand is especially relevant. That's why I'm going to discuss it at greater length here rather than in a separate section.

Men broadly agree about the best butt shape, but disagree about the best size. This is the case for leg volume in general as well. Data from sex dolls and anime girls suggests that around a third of men prefer large butts over medium. That's less than a majority. But because there are more men who desire them than women who have them, bigger is better anyway.

Traits that are this divisive are usually rather unimportant. But many of the men who prefer large butts consider them the single most erotic trait. This is confirmed by the clear popularity of models whose main selling point is a large rear. Here's one example with both a particularly good shape and a substantial following.

So women who have a large rear should play it up, and those who can develop one should do so. This will turn some men off even as it turns others on. But as I've already pointed out, it's better to be highly attractive to some men than only moderately attractive to all men.

I asked men to send me unclothed reference photos of the best large butt shape and then vote on their submissions. Here you can see the most popular photos. And here are larger submissions which are less popular, but rarer and therefore highly valued. Take note of the extra rear projection evident in some of these images, and especially the left photo below. This is an attractive characteristic distinct from size.

d. The indifference effect

Supply and demand aren't the only factors that shift the most desirable appearance away from the median. Surprisingly, indifference does as well.

Suppose you're planning dinner with a friend. You don't care what you eat, but your friend insists on seafood. Naturally, you won't bother to argue. Seafood wins, because your friend cares and you don't. A similar effect applies to feminine beauty.

Whenever some men care about a trait others are indifferent to, the most valuable trait isn't the one that matches the median taste. It's the one that satisfies those who care. This applies in degrees as well, and impacts many salient traits, including age, nose shape, butt and breast size, hair length, hair color, and even eyebrows.

Although the consequences vary, the indifference effect tends to benefit women who satisfy tastes for uncommon traits. Indifferent men create the illusion of an optimum closer to the average woman, because they're likely to choose common traits by default rather than genuine preference.

Before we move on, let's pause to summarize this section in a few sentences. Median male tastes aren't a perfect guide to attractiveness. Women with rare traits that satisfy minority tastes are valued even if they're unpopular. And often they're more popular than women who match median tastes exactly. Because people neglect to consider market forces, they mistakenly believe the most advantageous appearance falls closer to the average than it really does.

e. Let's increase the supply of beauty

I'll address a short post-script regarding market forces to any men who might be reading.

Men typically try to improve the quality of the mates they can catch by raising the “price” they can afford to pay. That is, by improving themselves, their social position, or their skill at seduction. This is rational on an individual level. But it's actually a zero-sum game for men as a group.

Collectively, men can only catch better mates by improving the supply. In other words, by helping women to be the best they can be. Please keep this in mind before you engage in the battle of the sexes. The best world is a world where everyone wins.

VII. The most important secret about faces

a. Facial preferences are individual
b. Some faces are still more popular than others
c. Facial details are complicated

a. Facial preferences are individual

Beauty lies aren't a serious problem when it comes to faces, so I'm not going to include a detailed analysis of facial beauty in this article. Instead I'll tell you the most important secret about faces.

It's no secret that men broadly agree on which faces are pretty and which are ugly. This implies that some underlying elements of facial beauty are universal. However, men aren't just searching for generically pretty faces. In fact, each man prefers a different and sometimes shockingly specific type of face.

I asked people to submit images of four faces they consider particularly attractive. Most chose faces that are unique, but also extremely similar to each other. Often so similar they could be mistaken for sisters, and occasionally so similar they could be mistaken for twins. You might not believe me yet, but you will after you see the example sets that follow.

Our first respondent chose four girls who look like sisters. The first two could almost be twins, and both of them are wearing glitter. Not just any glitter, but the same colors of glitter.

In the second example set we again have the impression of sisters. The first two are especially alike. When asked about this, the man who selected them replied:

Respondents consistently reported that they'd been unaware the faces they chose were similar. Some had trouble seeing obvious similarities even after they'd been explained. When it comes to our favorite faces, the sense of beauty seems to hamper our objectivity.

The girls in this third set couldn't be mistaken for sisters. In fact, they appear to have different ancestry. But while they're less obviously alike than the previous submissions, they still share common features.

The first two models have the same brow, eyes, cheeks, mouth, jawline, and chin. The fourth model is more similar to the first than she initially appears. When we superimpose photos taken at the same angle, their features match up so exactly that they create the impression of a single face.

And when we put two sets side by side, the differences are stark. It's incredibly easy to tell which faces belong together.

In the next set the first three faces are again similar in shape. They're all facing the camera directly and tilting their heads at the same angle. The image below superimposes two of them. Although one face is more elongated than the other, their features match.

They're also wearing the same expression. If you examine the previous examples again, you'll notice the faces there are wearing the same expressions too.

We see a slight smile in the first set, a tough glare in the second set, a sad pout in the third set, and a questioning gaze with parted lips in the fourth set.

One respondent included these three photos of women smiling in an identical fashion. The first two also have similar features, similar hairstyles, and similar poses.

Another submission included the two photos above, featuring a unique lopsided grin. The expression doesn't occur in any of the other examples, but this respondent chose it twice.

What's interesting about the next set is that the respondent selected four women from different parts of the world, but still managed to find two with both the same expression and the same face. The second is simply a wider version of the first.

Where facial preferences are concerned, matching features are more consistently important than matching ancestry. You can see another example of this below. Despite different origins, these four faces share very wide cheekbones, the same jaw and chin, the same hair, and noses of the same length.

Some respondents were sensitive to the mood of the images they chose. They submitted high-quality photographs with an artistic color scheme. Yet the first three faces in the tasteful black, white, and sepia photographs below are no less similar than the blurry selfies we examined earlier. In fact, this attention to aesthetic detail increases the impression of sameness.

You might assume the examples I've selected above are exceptional, but that isn't the case. Similar faces are the norm, and sister faces are common. Only a minority of submissions included four faces that were markedly different.

The faces in eclectic sets are frequently celebrities, so it's not unreasonable to imagine that external factors like laziness, the easy availability of photos, or the aura of fame sometimes motivated the choices. Still, we shouldn't rule out the possibility that they reveal genuine preferences. Some men may not have a "type."

One reader contacted me to say he didn't agree with my theory about faces. He argued the evidence was weak. So I asked him to submit his own set. Here's what he chose.

When I pointed out the similarities between his first two faces, he still disagreed. He told me the hands were a coincidence and the remaining two faces were actually very different, and submitted a new photo of the third face. To his mind, this new photo showed the resemblance was an illusion. Was he correct? I'll let you be the judge.

The preceding sections of this article demonstrated that most men share a common taste for the same female body shape. Bodily attractiveness is often as simple as having a smaller waist and larger breasts than other women. This is a very unromantic conclusion that suggests individuality has no relevance to feminine beauty.

Below the neck, that conclusion isn't entirely false. Minority tastes do exist, but they're not very specific either. And because of unequal supply and demand, stereotypically desirable traits still end up being the most advantageous in practice.

Where faces are concerned, a much different picture emerges. As we've acknowledged, men usually agree on which faces are ugly and which are pretty. But they aren't just seeking any pretty face. They each have an individual taste for a specific ideal face that very few women match. And the face that's perfect to one man may be quite uninteresting to another. So much so that the man who compiled set three wouldn't bother pursuing any of the women in sets one and two. That's a very significant effect!

At this point you might be thinking, "Fine. I'm convinced men really do have weirdly specific visual tastes. But women aren't like that. Women mainly care about status and narrative." Not true. Female submissions show the same pattern.

This female respondent submitted three faces that could belong to brothers, as well as a fourth half-brother. The first two are especially close, including the style of facial hair and squinting eyes.

This second female respondent drew on radically different sources but still came up with a complete set of brothers. The second and third faces could almost be twins and are posing at the same angle with the same expression and the same hair. When submitting these faces she wrote, "It's partially the physical attractiveness, but much more so everything else surrounding them (character, story, status etc.) that makes them stand out."

No objective observer could draw that conclusion. Certainly such factors influenced her selection. But even taking into account their shared ancestry, these are extraordinarily similar faces on a purely visual level. Her self-analysis implies that our unique facial preferences influence us subconsciously.

If we're each seeking specific and uncommon faces, good matches are rare and special, and effectively determined in advance. So the romantic idea that relationships are both individualized and predestined isn't far from the truth.

Strangely enough, we go through life completely unaware of this, and invent other justifications for our choices. The right faces seem so meaningful to us that we can't believe we loved them because of an arbitrary visual preference.

In sum, to catch a mate it's not enough to be beautiful. You need to match his taste. If someone is indifferent to you, it doesn't necessarily mean that you're plain or have an unlikeable personality. You may just not have the right face for him. In such cases it's best to accept fate and move on.

These facts about faces are important and clear up many mysteries about beauty and romance. They should be made common knowledge. As far as I'm aware, this is the first time they've been systematically explained.

b. Some faces are still more popular than others

Nevertheless, to maintain a balanced mind romantic notions are best tempered by colder truths.

I also asked men to choose their favorites from the set of facial composites below. These superimpose many faces to filter out details and blemishes and depict general types. To rank them I gave each man's first choice three points, his second choice two points, and his third choice one point. The totals are recorded above the faces. A second poll of the top three faces given on a separate occasion confirmed the same order of popularity.

I've already said that surveys aren't trustworthy. And for reasons I'll explain in a moment, faces are particularly intractable. So I'm not presenting these scores to create a classification system or determine the “best” facial type. Instead they're valuable because they reveal a larger pattern in facial preferences.

In the first half of this section we observed that each man has a unique ideal he loves the most. But the lopsided scores in the chart show these preferences aren't evenly distributed. Some facial types attract many more suitors than others. And that remains the case after blemishes, disfigurements, and asymmetries are corrected.

So making small improvements to create the “best version” of a given face isn't enough to make that face popular. Its maximum popularity is largely predetermined by its basic architecture, which is something most women would be reluctant to change even if they could.

Why does popularity matter? The least popular face in the survey only had one suitor among the three hundred men who participated. In contrast, the most popular had well over a hundred. That's a big difference. Because even if there is one man out there who loves every face, there's no guarantee he'll be the man you want.

Women with both popular and unpopular faces do have a chance to catch the man of their dreams. And both may be considered equally pretty by someone. However, women with popular faces enjoy a more favorable supply-demand ratio and a wider selection of mates. These advantages make them more likely to succeed. They're playing the same game, but fate has loaded the dice in their favor.

Of course, it's obvious to everyone that some women have more options than others. But there's a counterintuitive conclusion to draw here as well. Men are likely to end up with the least popular facial type they select as one of their favorites. That's because they value this type more than other men, so they're willing to “pay” more for it than other men are. When they do, they'll still feel like they're getting a deal. And their unpopular lover will too. Everybody wins.

So it is advantageous to be one of the popular girls. But the real-world outcome isn't as unequal as you'd assume looking at the numbers in the chart. While your search for love will be more challenging, you can be unpopular with the crowd and still a dream come true to someone.

c. Facial details are complicated

I'm not going to analyze individual facial traits in any further detail here. While that kind of approach might be helpful for a few basics, it's just not an effective way to go about solving the mystery of facial beauty.

It's often easy to see what distinguishes a bad face from a good face. But determining which factors differentiate an average face from an excellent face is another matter.

The best faces aren't just better in two or three simple traits. They're slightly better in many small, interrelated dimensions. Nose shape, frequently targeted by surgeons, is only the most obvious. These many dimensions of facial beauty are hard to identify and measure, and eyeballing it based on rough rules of thumb simply isn’t enough.

In the past women who wanted to improve their faces had to trust a cosmetic surgeon's professional opinion and hope for the best. But today we can also make use of AI.

Because AI can easily calculate a huge number of dimensions, it’s very useful for the analysis of faces. With this technology at our disposal, writing up a meticulous analysis of every facial feature would be a waste of effort.

I'll elaborate further when I discuss cosmetic surgery in the second half of Dispelling Beauty Lies, where I'll also address noses in particular. But that's a ways off yet. So for now, please be patient and keep reading.

VIII. A note on masculine beauty

a. RC men
b. Women's dream age gaps
c. The goldilocks age gap
d. Hair
e. Penis size
f. Good and bad advice for men
g. The dominance problem

The truth about masculine beauty isn't obscure, and the lies are few in number. There's therefore no special need for an in-depth article on the topic. However, this section will provide useful context for our observations on feminine beauty, as well as an opportunity to discuss age gaps in detail. You can skip it if you'd like.

a. RC men

Generic romance-novel covers repeat an almost identical male physique over and over. And although the artistic quality of cover art has declined sharply, the physiques depicted in modern romance novels and vintage ones from fifty years ago are almost identical. International editions of these novels sometimes have their own cover art, but their representations of the heroes are little different. So it's reasonable to assume romance-novel covers are a good starting point for understanding masculine beauty.

Romance-cover heroes are closely analogous to AI girls. I'm going to call them “RC men” in the remainder of this section to make sure you remember the analogy.

Most academic research suggests that height, upper-body strength, and penis size are the main factors in masculine bodily attractiveness. This time more reliable sources like cover art, novels, stereotypes, and sex dolls corroborate the professors' claims, in direction if not in degree. Naturally a healthy weight is assumed to precede these three factors. Women also tend to prefer men who are older than them.

Height is so simple that there's very little to say about it. But men do sometimes overlook the value of relative height. Short men will obviously have more success with short women. Tall men should keep in mind that their natural advantage is multiplied where tall women are concerned, because these are reluctant to date men of average height. Since they're competing with a smaller pool of suitors, tall men can expect a higher success rate if they make it a priority to approach tall women.

Some women claim they prefer a physique that wasn't built in the weight room. But both sexes enjoy the sound of “natural” far more than the look. Unless your job involves moving heavy things all day, it's impossible to achieve the body of even the weakest RC man without weightlifting.

However, a common beauty mistake men make is to imagine that raw muscle size is a cure-all. RC men don't display the extreme bulk nor the extreme leanness of the biggest bodybuilding competitors. Precisely determining the optimum build is a difficult problem I don't intend to tackle here. If you're weaker than the men shown in this section, adding muscle should improve your attractiveness to the average woman. Even so, it's only one factor among many.

Excessive pursuit of leanness is generally thought of as a female beauty error. Oddly enough, it's become a male beauty error as well. Because most people are fat today, those who care about their appearance overcorrect, unintentionally reducing their beauty. Due to beauty-industry lies women do this much more than men, but men still make the same mistake.

In the next gallery I've collected male and female replies to the above poll. As you can see, men use just as many bizarre excuses to deny the tastes of the opposite sex as women do.

When you point out that minimum bodyfat isn't maximally attractive, each sex will accuse you of lying, and then insist on making the same mistakes over and over.

Men are especially ridiculous about it due to a number fixation. They yammer about single-digit changes in bodyfat percentage while losing sight of the overall look, which is what really counts.

Sex dolls marketed as “for women” typically have physiques that resemble those of the actors above, and are slimmer than RC men. Despite the marketing, some male sex dolls are clearly being purchased by men, so their value as evidence is uncertain. And as I explained earlier, manufacturers make sex dolls as narrow as they can get away with in order to save money. Because of this RC men, like AI girls, should be more accurate exemplars of ideally attractive proportions.

When does masculine beauty peak? The fictional magic in vampire romances allows us to separate physical appearance from other factors that make older heroes appealing. Despite chronological age gaps that extend to hundreds of years, they normally look mid twenties to early forties, with occasional outliers. Male sex dolls, as we've just seen, tend to look thirtysomething. We can therefore locate peak masculine beauty somewhere in the thirties. Thirty-four is a reasonable estimate. The exact number will of course vary from person to person.

b. Women's dream age gaps

It's not controversial to say that women prefer men who are older than them, and that masculine beauty peaks later than feminine beauty. And thirty-four and twenty-two are widely accepted as approximate ages of peak beauty. But the fact that there's a twelve-year gap between these two ages is another matter. Because age gaps are the subject of beauty lies inspired by wishful thinking and misguided moralizing, I'm going to discuss them in detail.

In vintage romance novels a fifteen- or twenty-year age gap is common. Substantial age gaps occur frequently in recent romances too. Some protest that only old men find large age gaps desirable, and only old women read novels that feature them. But as I demonstrate in the gallery below, neither claim is true.

Romance novels also contradict the popular idea that the maximum desirable gap increases with absolute age, sometimes known as the "half-your-age-plus-seven rule." The heroines are often in their early twenties, or even late teens, clearly violating the so-called rule. (It has no empirical basis, and isn't a rule. It just sounds clever because it includes the number seven.)

Nevertheless, there are several reasons to be wary of this evidence. First, it's important to acknowledge that while there are many women who enjoy romantic stories with age gaps, there are also some who aren't so keen.

Second, the large age gaps women imagine in fiction are contradicted not only by their self-reports, but everyday reality as well. In dating apps, the average woman requests a maximum age gap of eight years. In surveys women say they prefer an even smaller age gap. Most marriages involve a gap of less than five years, and the modal relationship has hardly any age gap at all.

Why might the age gaps women choose in reality be so much smaller than those common in fantasies? The ideal man accrues more experience, confidence, ability, gravitas, status, power, and wealth over time, and these give signs of age a positive meaning, so younger men look callow in comparison. Of course, he ages well on a raw physical level too. In contrast, the average man today accrues less or none of these things, and ages poorly on a raw physical level.

It goes without saying that men don't wait till they're thirty to start looking for women. So most desirable older men are already taken. People interact more with their same-age cohort, which makes same-age relationships more probable whether or not they're ideal. And social pressures play a role as well, perhaps against the best interests of individuals. All these factors work together to ensure large age gaps are the exception rather than the rule.

c. The goldilocks age gap

Let's set romance novels aside now and consider fundamentals. The chart below illustrates how age gaps affect relationships as time passes. “Peak gap” refers to the amount of time between peak feminine and peak masculine beauty, while “age gap” refers to the difference between two lovers' ages. Reality is more complicated than this simple model, but it still shows the general pattern.

As you can see from the first row, although relationships with small age gaps satisfy both men and women equally in their late twenties, men become less satisfied than women as those relationships continue. This isn't because women age faster than men, as conventional wisdom would have it. It's simply because they peak earlier. The illusion that women age faster comes about because most relationships begin before the second peak. This sets up a decline in the woman's beauty relative to the man's, since she'll move away from her peak as he moves closer to his.

When young women are in relationships with very big gaps, as shown on the second row of the chart, the reverse happens. Women become less satisfied than men as these relationships continue. So a twenty-two-year gap can be just as problematic as a two-year gap.

However, when the age gap matches the peak gap, both lovers remain equally satisfied as they get older. And that holds no matter when their relationship begins or how long it lasts. You can see this on the third row of the chart.

I've estimated the peak gap at twelve years here, but that's only a rough number. We could just as plausibly locate the male peak at thirty-five and the female peak at the traditional twenty-one, producing a fourteen-year gap. To avoid the impression we're making precision measurements, I'm going to call the peak gap half a generation. Since a generation is roughly twenty to thirty years, a half-generation is in the neighborhood of ten to fifteen. As I've already pointed out, most men and women today age poorly, and for any given real couple the peak gap may be greater or lesser. But the same logic still holds. The closer the age gap is to the peak gap, the better it is for the relationship.

At present small age gaps are widely touted as more egalitarian, and therefore more morally correct. It should now be clear that the opposite is true. They're less egalitarian. And if you insist on moralizing about equality, they're therefore less morally correct too. The inequalities just arise gradually after a delay, so they're hard to distinguish from general dissatisfaction. They may even lead to affairs and divorces that will be blamed on other causes. In truth, they're scheduled from the start, regardless of what the couple wants or expects. Matching the age gap to the peak gap avoids baking in this kind of trouble.

Some will be offended by the unconventional conclusion that a half-generation age gap is ideal. But the math is what it is. 34-22=12. If you know how to subtract 22 from 34 and come up with a number more acceptable than 12, be my guest. As we've already seen, this is the kind of age gap many women fantasize about anyway. That makes objecting seem rather absurd, even if you do find a new way to do math.

Later on I'll discuss what aging women in relationships with small gaps can do to keep their lovers satisfied to the extent possible. But for now I'll just repeat that this article is about beauty. People have many other reasons for choosing relationships. In real life, practicality and convenience often trump theoretical ideals, and rightly so. The age gap that best equalizes beauty over time isn't necessarily the best age gap when the bigger picture is taken into account.

Thus far I've highlighted women's desire for age-gap relationships. But what about men's? It goes without saying that men find younger women attractive. However, when it comes to serious relationships, they're wary of large age gaps for other reasons. Older men almost always have more wealth, status, ability, social connections, and wisdom. They worry you're only pretending to like them until you can take advantage of these, without having ever shared in the years of struggle they endured to gain them. Their success becomes their greatest vulnerability. So catching an older man isn't just about convincing him you're attractive. It's about building trust that your affection for him is real and durable.

Let's pull everything together before we move on. Age gaps of up to twenty years do fall within the normal range of female tastes, whether or not they're to everyone's liking. In theory, a half-generation age gap makes the most sense, and should be widely popular. In reality, however, it isn't, partly because few men live up to the ideal, and partly for practical reasons. Making a half-generation age gap the norm across society is obviously unfeasible, even if it is ideal for individual relationships.

Small age gaps are the commonest, and they're what the average man should plan on. Commonness doesn't fix the fundamental inequalities I've explained above, but you'll just have to find a way to deal with them. It's also imprudent to assume you'll "age like wine." Some do, most don't.

This may be demoralizing. Yet until we develop a cure, the truth about age will continue to irritate both men and women alike. Let's dream bigger and develop that cure faster. The highest goal of technology isn't flying cars or terraforming Mars. It's making sure we all stay twenty-one (and thirty-four) forever.

Where particular relationships are concerned, I advise you not to take theories about age gaps too seriously (including mine). Just judge each relationship on its own merits. You may not realize you don't really care about age gaps until you meet the right person.

d. Hair

Let's resume our analysis of masculine beauty with some less fraught observations.

Short hair doesn't have the strongly negative effect on men that it has on women. However, very short hair is still detrimental. RC men rarely have hair less than a few inches long, and none are balding. Medium-length hair is common, and long hair occurs more often than you might expect, although usually in a historical context. Today men tend to wear their hair a little shorter than they should. Consult the images in this section for a rough guide to attractive hair length.

Most RC men show a hint of stubble, and this should be your default choice of facial hair. While beards are very uncommon on older romance covers, both modern RC men and male sex dolls do wear them occasionally, so don't rule them out if they suit your face. Beards need to be kept neat and closely trimmed. Regardless of the vintage, imaginary men never have bushy, long, or scraggly beards.

e. Penis size

Penis size is a particularly sensitive subject for many men. So in public women will often lie about the size they prefer, dodge the question, or at least understate their tastes. As usual, those with the most extreme tastes are the most likely to lie. Men should forgive them, because they tell the same lies for the same reasons when discussing breast size.

Below you can read a private discussion among women. I'm not presenting this as a typical conversation. It's an anecdotal example intended to shake the preconceptions of men who believe women are less demanding or judgmental than men in their physical preferences. In fact they can be quite brutal.

What penis size do women really prefer? I've gathered data using the same methodology I employed when researching breast size. You can see the results below.

The taste isn't universal, but "large" is clearly the most popular size. For a more precise answer, I manually counted up all the realistic dildos at a single retailer. Previous studies of dildo size have arrived at lower numbers by including vibrators and unrealistic dildos in their sample, but that's a poor method for obvious reasons.

The average realistic dildo also measures 5.6" in circumference, 1.9 standard deviations above the global mean of 4.7" (Western mean 4.8"). From this data we can make the following observations:

• Only 1% of women want less than five inches.
• 80% of women want seven inches or more.
• The average woman wants eight inches.
• 33% of women want nine inches or more.
• The average realistic dildo is 2.4" longer and double the volume of the average real penis.

We can't assume these dildo statistics transfer exactly to reality, of course. But we don't need to. The gap is so substantial that larger members will have an economic advantage even if dildo sizes overstate real preferences by a considerable margin. In practice, penis size is another case of bigger is better.

Some will argue that evidence derived from the sex toy business doesn't represent what women really want. Below you can see the results of an anonymous internet poll. Polls are unreliable, but this one gives remarkably similar answers to the research presented above. Romance novels, stereotypes, and even science tell the same basic story. And let's face it: the idea that women are buying toys they don't enjoy is pretty implausible.

With cosmetic surgery and good weight management, women can increase their breast size by four cups or more. Men, on the other hand, have essentially no ability to control their size. So why bother publishing this data? To put an end to hypocrisy, finger-pointing, and denialism about beauty, and show that men and women are more alike in their preferences than is commonly acknowledged. The battle of the sexes is a negative-sum game we shouldn't be playing. Put down your rhetorical weapons and try to build mutually fulfilling relationships instead.

Below I've made a composite of these two charts. We can easily see that there's a close analogy between women's penis-size preferences and men's breast-size preferences. For instance, an A cup is equivalent to a four-inch penis, a B cup is equivalent to a five-inch penis, and an H cup is equivalent to a nine-inch penis. This "translation" may help you to understand and accept the tastes of the opposite sex.

The comparison reveals that both sexes prefer partners who are very far above the mean. That shouldn't be surprising at all. Why wouldn't they? But since humans are flawed and insecure, they rely on lies, complaints, and accusations to cover over uncomfortable truths, no matter how natural and obvious they might be. Women who feel hurt or offended by men's beauty preferences ought to stop and look in the mirror.

A more remarkable conclusion we can draw from this data is that around a third of the people you'll meet today are attracted to extravagant sizes hardly ever found in reality. This applies to both genders. A number of women even want a penis size that's expected to occur in fewer than one out of a hundred billion men.

Some people have trouble accepting that preferences for scarce or impossible traits not only exist, but are normal. It seems to irk their moral sense even more than their pride. What they want is to live in a world where the real is already the ideal, or close to it. But not only is that not the case, it fundamentally can't be the case. I'll explain the reason for this later on.

Poorly endowed men shouldn't obsess over their size. There are many factors that influence attractiveness. A disadvantage in one trait won't prevent you from building a successful relationship. To put this in perspective, consider that a small penis and a flat chest are about equally popular with the opposite sex. But no one believes flat girls can't find love. You can find it too.

In practice, penis size is less important than breast size, because it doesn't affect your clothed appearance. Since advertising is the first and most important step for finding a mate, the practical utility of a trait you can't advertise is limited. Never let on that your size bothers you. Instead, project confidence and win her over with other traits. The ability to maintain an aura of strength despite your weaknesses is a key masculine virtue.

f. Good and bad advice for men

Male readers are hoping I'll conclude this section with tricks that will help them to catch women. I'd very much like to. However, the facts compel me to advise fatalism.

Of the three main factors in male bodily attractiveness, only muscular strength is under your control, and even that to a limited degree. Fashions are bland, and makeup is out of the question. There are some effective options for facial cosmetic surgery that I haven't time to discuss here. But overall, men's ability to improve the appearance they inherited is considerably less than women's.

Men looking for a magic solution to this limitation sometimes turn to pick-up artist “game” (a collection of psychological tricks for seducing women). I won't claim that game is entirely false.

However, the effect size is limited, and those who peddle it are often guilty of overpromising. The next time you walk down a busy street, observe the couples. They have a similar level of purely physical attractiveness. If psychological tricks could really cancel out a poor appearance, this wouldn't be the case. The exceptions are so rare and noticeable that they prove the rule, and they typically involve large sums of money.

I'll leave men with a short list of advice.

The third point in the list deserves special emphasis, because today many otherwise decent young men neglect it and suffer the consequences. When you approach women in your league, rejections will be more common than matches, and there's no way to avoid this with premeditation and calculation. To optimize your outcome you must have the courage to repeatedly put your self-esteem at risk, and persist despite the inevitable demoralizing rejections. If you do not do this and instead aim to minimize rejections, you'll underperform your potential.

Rejection isn't always genuine, but sometimes a test to see if you'll insist. By insisting, you demonstrate that your interest isn't fickle, and also make her feel more desirable. Whether a rejection is definitive or leaves the door open to further courtship is something you'll need to decide with good judgment. It's also smart to know when to stop.

g. The dominance problem

As a side note, fantasies of dominance and violence are much more common among women than men. In fact, they don't even make the top fifteen list of men's fantasies. Women aren't aware of this gap, and those who project a lust for sexual violence onto men in order to enhance their own jouissance don't really want to be aware. Some women may expect you to engage in a theater of dominance that doesn't come naturally, and even detracts from your enjoyment. Whether you choose to indulge them is up to you. In my article “The Illusion of Dominance” I discuss this issue in detail, and also identify a fundamental error of “game” and “redpill” seduction techniques.

IX. "Beauty" and "hotness"

a. Beauty and hotness are complementary
b. There are no tradeoffs between beauty and hotness
c. The modern Madonna-whore complex
d. All the good things

a. Beauty and hotness are complementary

Some women make a fuss over a purported conflict between platonic “beauty” and visceral “hotness.” They're afraid too much sex appeal will make them less beautiful. They may even fear an overtly attractive body will harm their reputation, whether or not their behavior is virtuous. This is a mistake. It's best to have all the good things together.

For your inspiration, I asked men to send me images they consider both hot and beautiful. I've presented their submissions unfiltered and unedited in the galleries featured in this section.

Platonic beauty and hotness might be distinct. But they don't detract from each other. They complement and enhance each other. “Feminine beauty,” as I discuss it in the rest of this article, comprises both.

Public discussion tends to emphasize platonic beauty over sex appeal because it sounds more respectable. Consequently, an honest account like the one you're now reading will appear to do the reverse.

There are serious disadvantages to having a type of beauty that lacks sex appeal. You'll be put on a pedestal like an antique art object. Praised and even sought after, but not truly desired. You may even become a victim of infidelity. That's not a fulfilling state of affairs. It's in your own self-interest to pursue the full complement of feminine attractiveness.

Other women may try to deter you from being as hot as you are beautiful. But you should be aware they're engaging in intrasexual competition. By convincing you to handicap yourself, they reduce the chance you could poach their mates or potential mates. By denigrating attractive traits, they confuse and demoralize the naturally gifted. Even your friends might do this unconsciously.

b. There are no tradeoffs between beauty and hotness

The illusion that beauty and hotness are in conflict is partly a result of social norms restricting the acknowledgement of genuine feminine sex appeal—even at a time when sexualization seems ubiquitous. And it's partly a consequence of the statistical probabilities that govern the selection of models. A model chosen for erotically charged traits will likely be average in other traits, and therefore plainer than models selected purely for their facial beauty. The converse is also true. This might appear to imply a tradeoff or contradiction, but it doesn't. It's just chance.

This same principle applies to less tangible elements of aesthetics as well, such as a model's fashion sense, or the technical and artistic quality of her photographs.

The notion that there are always tradeoffs between good things is a lie we tell ourselves to support the flattering illusion that our faults are, in some larger sense, not faults at all. But aesthetics isn't a roleplaying game where each player gets a set number of points and distributes them, so that one point here means fewer points elsewhere. Nicer hair doesn't come at the cost of uglier toenails.

This vintage centerfold is a striking example of beautiful eroticism. The model's extravagant chest does no harm to her prettiness, which is photographed in a style reminiscent of pre-Raphaelite painting. And this modern centerfold shows sex appeal and beauty complement each other as well today as they did decades ago. There's simply no meaningful aesthetic tradeoff for being hot.

There is, however, a meaningful social tradeoff for dressing in clothes that portray you as easily available. While they attract more men, they also deter the best long-term partners. Some women observe this and conclude that hotness itself deters the best partners, and it's better to be average than stunning, or even shun sex appeal altogether. But that's the wrong conclusion. Slutty fashions deter the best partners because they suggest you won't be faithful, not because hotness and beauty are fundamentally in conflict.

When you're searching for a mate it's important to select styles that signal your fidelity and your broader value. The photos men submitted for this section indeed show fashions that are hot and beautiful, but not all of them are appropriate for every context. This doesn't mean you need to dress conservatively, let alone intentionally make yourself plain. It's possible to look sexy without looking promiscuous, easy, or cheap. I'll provide detailed examples in the beauty tips at the end of this article.

c. The modern Madonna-whore complex

The misconceptions I've just identified are part of a broader error known as the Madonna-whore complex. The Madonna-whore complex is an irrational assumption that good character and high sex appeal can't coexist. In other words, that women can't be hot and virtuous at the same time. This supposed contradiction has no logical or factual basis.

In past times the Madonna-whore complex was a product of religious guilt about sexuality. But while religious guilt has declined, the Madonna-whore complex hasn't. That's because the fashion industry and the modern media gave it a new form by associating high status with women who have limited or low sex appeal, and low status with women who have very high sex appeal.

Contemporary culture claims to be sex positive, so women don't notice they've internalized an irrational complex. They just dismiss high sex appeal as objectionable or low class without thinking about it. The “rich women prefer small penises” argument I refuted earlier is only one example among many. Misleading media messages have trained them to classify some of the most attractive behaviors, movements, styles, and body types as inherently trashy even when they aren't.

The Madonna-whore complex is a damaging attitude you ought to shrug off. It forces you into an unnecessary conflict with the different sides of your nature that will prevent you from enjoying life as much as you could. It keeps you on a leash, so you're only allowed to be “sort of hot” but never “really hot.” Can you think of a single good reason to stay on that leash?

d. All the good things

Take some time to look closely at these galleries of images submitted by men. The makeup, clothes, lighting, and even scenery are aesthetically appealing. Each model has an individual character. Feminine sexual traits are indispensable, of course. But men have a finer and more holistic sensibility than you would assume if you judged their tastes on the basis of today's typically ugly pornography.

Don't let yourself be trapped in an aesthetic Madonna-whore complex. The distinction between platonic beauty and hotness is rarely useful, and best forgotten. Instead, embrace an undivided feminine beauty and enjoy together all the good things life has to offer.

X. Correcting homework

a. Why women have a psychological block about beauty
b. Women giving wrong answers
c. Answer key
d. You can learn the truth if you want to

a. Why women have a psychological block about beauty

I gave my female readers a simple homework assignment. I asked them to submit images they believed would receive the most positive votes when men were polled on how attractive they are. As we discussed earlier, popularity is different from value. However, it's still important to understand what most men like well enough that you can provide accurate examples.

All the women who participated were familiar with this article. But a surprising thing happened. Almost none of them submitted images that match the ideals described in it. Naturally, their submissions received mediocre ratings from male voters. And we don't need to rely on survey results to know they fall short of the mark. Anyone who compares them to the beauty examples elsewhere in the article will see they don't match.

There's only one possible explanation for such a strange outcome. Most women have a psychological block about acknowledging what men find attractive. It centers around body type in particular. They can read thousands of words and yet still choose the wrong answer.

The main source of this block is fragile vanity. Because women's self-esteem and erotic satisfaction depend on feeling desirable, they try to see themselves as desirable even when they're not confident it's true. This impairs their ability to reflect objectively on attractiveness so much that ideally attractive women disappear into a mental blind spot. It also fills them with an unstable mix of self-doubt and self-aggrandizement.

So they bounce back and forth between excesses of pride and feelings of worthlessness, always searching for confirmation that's never lastingly convincing. Fragile vanity is an emotional rollercoaster from which only the truth can set you free, but it also makes the truth the hardest thing to see.

The cause of the psychological block, however, can't be reduced to vanity alone. Women tend to conflate status and beauty into a single goal we might call “beautus.” When the media and fashion marketers bombard them with deceptive messages portraying unattractive traits as high status and attractive traits as low status, the contradiction blinds them to genuine beauty in its fullest flower.

Some compound the problem with a Madonna-whore complex, wrongly viewing sexual traits as shameful, dirty, and low class. This programming is hard to reverse, because it starts at a young age.

Our purpose here, obviously, is to enable rewarding romantic relationships, not to encourage prostitution. To help you see clearly without selling your body, I'll go over submissions in detail and explain why they weren't successful. I'll need to be harshly critical, but keep in mind that the intention is to instruct, not to be cruel for the sake of it.

Before you continue, find an image yourself. For this particular assignment, your task isn't to pick something to your own taste or your boyfriend's taste, but to correctly guess what the largest number of men will find attractive. After you've done your homework, continue reading to see if your answer was right. If not, you can try again as many times as you like.

b. Women giving wrong answers

Despite a pretty face and blonde hair, the submission above scored poorly. The faults here are many. First, the model's hair is short. Men prefer long hair, and indeed very long hair will perform best. Second, her chest is nearly flat. Men strongly dislike a flat chest. Her legs and butt are also quite thin. Some women feel irate that men don't appreciate this look as much as they believe they should. But the facts are the facts. It's simply not what men want.

The next image also scored poorly. The model's clothing is obscuring the most important signals of attractiveness, namely her waist, breasts, and hips. This already ensures she won't register as attractive. Her hair is again too short. Her legs are again on the thin side, and looking at the photo one mainly has an impression of calf muscles. These have little effect on men, who are more attracted to thighs than calves, and typically not excited by muscles.

This model is older than men consider optimal. That doesn't mean she's ugly, but it does mean she won't get a top score. Her breasts aren't especially small, but they're not big enough to be popular. Furthermore, her waist and hips aren't visible. Concealing them reduces attractiveness.

The image above had a mediocre score for two main reasons. First, the model looks heavier in the belly than the average man today wants. Second, her very large rear is her most salient feature. Because men disagree about the best butt size, women with big butts underperform in polls. As explained previously, this doesn't mean big butts aren't attractive. They are. But due to the diversity of opinions, they don't win popularity contests. A medium-sized butt with a full, round shape is the most broadly popular, because everyone likes it reasonably well.

This image had a good but not fantastic score. The model lost points because her hair is too short, her chest is too small, her waist isn't clearly visible, and her legs are unremarkable. But her expression is a little more charming than the previous models, and blonde hair seems to add a few extra points, as some men strongly prefer it.

The model above received a good but not fantastic rating. Her appeal is limited primarily because she doesn't have a true hourglass figure. Her waist should be smaller relative to her ribcage, and her breasts should be larger. Extra-large breasts receive both higher positive and lower negative ratings than medium-sized breasts like these. That's because a significant fraction of the men who appear to prefer small breasts are actually just indifferent to size. Faces are subjective, but hers is perhaps not in the first rank. Last but by no means least, tattoos reduce attractiveness.

This is the most popular model initially submitted by female readers. She has a better figure than any of the previous models and predictably performed well. Her thicker thighs contribute to her appeal. So do her youthfulness and playfully seductive expression and posture. With a prettier face and more pronounced hourglass, she would have performed even better.

c. Answer key

The next images weren't submitted by women. Instead they're examples of the kind of images that receive high ratings from men.

To get past a psychological block and understand feminine beauty, you need to accept that the typical man's preferences really are exactly as Dispelling Beauty Lies has described them. The top-scoring images look extremely similar. This is not an accident. There's a generic look that consistently wins popularity contests, and this is it.

Before you continue reading, compare the next two images. Try to guess the rating of the left image, and explain why men might not like it as much as the right image. Then check your answer below.

Many women consider the figure at left ideal. In public everyone will tell her she's perfect and shouldn't change anything. And men will agree, because if they tell the truth in mixed company they'll seem vulgar and impolite, and make women angry. But while the model at left is pretty, she's just not very exciting. She's too thin and her chest is barely a B cup. Her butt has a good shape, but less volume than the median male prefers, and one can't see her hips. Her thighs lack volume too. Left is what people say is perfect, but right is what most men actually want.

To reiterate, men want a young woman with a small waist, wide hips, large breasts (much larger than you think), a rounded rear with good projection (for maximum popularity, neither too small nor too large), a pretty face, makeup (not overdone), long hair (about waist length), and properly fitted clothing. Any woman who covers all these points will receive a warm response from eighty to ninety percent of men even if other details aren't perfect. The models female readers initially submitted failed to do so.

d. You can learn the truth if you want to

However, when women were coached and allowed to repeatedly submit new images for ratings, some of them quickly learned how to select models just as popular as those chosen by men.

After this coaching I arranged a contest where a girls' team competed with a boys' team to choose the most highly rated images. Remarkably, the girls' team won. The image above was one of their winning choices. This proves it's entirely possible to overcome a psychological block and understand men's tastes if you're willing to make the effort.

To confirm your understanding, do another little homework assignment. Ignore your intuitions entirely. Instead, force yourself to search for one image that fits exactly the description of a generically attractive woman given a few paragraphs above. You may have to overcome an innate aversion, but you can succeed if you try.

Naturally this is only an exercise. Popularity isn't the same as value. So after you've learned how to satisfy the crowd, broaden your view by finding images that fulfill the minority tastes discussed elsewhere in this article. Don't assume you understand what you've read here until you've finished all your homework.

XI. Drawing the right conclusions

a. It's okay to be imperfect
b. Remembering grace
c. Deadly sins
d. Why care about the truth
e. A visual summary
f. How to share Dispelling Beauty Lies
g. Contact and support

a. It's okay to be imperfect

It's unfortunately common for women who read this article to draw the wrong conclusions from it. Realizing they'll never attain the ideal form desired by men, they react by rejecting the ideal, rejecting men, or even rejecting themselves. Women are sensitive to any criticism of their appearance, so this emotional reaction is understandable. But it's also quite foolish.

Imperfection is part of being human, not a reason to hate yourself. If you always get a perfect score, this only means you're being given tests that are too easy.

A beauty ideal actually needs to be unattainable. If it were attainable, it wouldn't be useful for discriminating between the best potential mates, since all of them would have attained it. That's why a gap between the ideal and the real is fundamental to our sense of sexual aesthetics, and not something that can be argued away. At times this manifests itself as a taste for unreachable extremes, the simplest of which we've examined above.

So not only is there no shame in falling short of the ideal, it's actually expected that everyone will fall short in one way or another. This isn't your fault nor men's.

b. Remembering grace

In the present day there's a strong push to deal with human shortcomings by lowering or eliminating ideals and standards. All sorts of sophistical arguments are put forth to accomplish the destruction. This race to the bottom isn't motivated only by the resentment of the least successful. It's also happening because our society has, by and large, forgotten grace. High ideals are more psychologically sustainable when they're accompanied by forgiveness for humans who fail to meet them.

A gap between the ideal and the real is a condition of possibility for our aspirations to make the world a better place. So if the truth about beauty is difficult for you to accept, don't join the mob set on erasing ideals. Don't listen to dishonest flattery you'll never really believe. Instead of lies, seek grace. And remember that love neither requires nor expects perfection.

c. Deadly sins

Forgetfulness of grace isn't the only obstacle. Ironically, vanity is the main issue that prevents women from accepting and applying the truth about feminine beauty.

The most obvious form of vanity is being over-proud of your appearance in an egotistical way. This doesn't go unnoticed by perceptive men. But vanity isn't just bad because it makes you look unpleasantly smug. If anyone were to point out her faults, a vain woman might react angrily and dismiss the criticism, even if those faults were real and easily corrected. Her desire to see herself as already perfect stops her from truly becoming more perfect.

There's a second form of vanity that goes unrecognized because it seems opposite to the first. Some women suffer from an irrationally negative self-image. They find their flaws too painful to think about, and may even hate themselves. How can a negative self-image be a form of vanity? Because it's based on the assumption that your powers are greater than they really are, that it's therefore fair to judge yourself on a divine scale, and that you've no need for grace. These assumptions are vain and wrong. And they're guaranteed to make you miserable.

Overcoming excesses of vanity and accepting grace are two steps best taken in a single leap. If you can take that leap, much of the misery you feel will dissipate and the path toward beauty will clear. Strive to be an angel. But accept that you're human.

d. Why care about the truth

What's the right way to use the information you've learned in Dispelling Beauty Lies? By understanding the truth about feminine beauty, you can target your efforts to improve your appearance more accurately and stop wasting energy running in the wrong direction. The truth won't ensure you reach the ideal, but it will help you get the most out of your innate potential. Realizing that potential is the topic of the second half of this article.

And in truth, there's no such thing as “ideal” feminine beauty. Men's preferences vary. Unusual women who don't suit the average taste can be highly valued. The most popular look isn't necessarily the best. All this makes it both easy to misrepresent a seemingly straightforward analysis, and impossible to explain it accurately in a few words.

e. A visual summary

Nevertheless, it's best to conclude neatly. The cartoon below is a fair representation of the most widely loved appearance. For lack of better, it can serve as a concise, oversimplified summary of our findings.

And if you want to encapsulate the perfect figure in a single phrase, “two hearts” makes a nicer souvenir than “hourglass.”

f. How to share Dispelling Beauty Lies

Before we move on to the beauty tips section of this article I'm going to address a difficult problem. How to break it to her? You can skip the next few paragraphs if this question isn't relevant to you.

A man who wants to share Dispelling Beauty Lies with a female acquaintance in a non-confrontational way should try telling her, “This gives a pretty accurate description of what most men like.” You don't need to say anything about whether it does or doesn't represent your own tastes. However, if you’re thinking about sharing it with your wife or girlfriend, you're on more dangerous ground.

If she has a strong mind and you have excellent communication, you might be able to send her a direct link or even read Dispelling Beauty Lies together. Sadly, that's a very rare combination. Most women today simply cannot accept the truth about feminine beauty, and will react with unreasonable dismissals regardless of how you present it. This is a consequence of the psychological block described in the previous section, reinforced by damaging media messages.

To introduce sensitive women to the ideas in Dispelling Beauty Lies, I suggest you first direct them to one of the several companion articles instead, depending on their interests. “The Illusion of Dominance” introduces Dispelling Beauty Lies backward, starting with the section on seduction. “101 Ways to Be Prettier, Sexier, and More Seductive” presents the advice in list form, starting with the least offensive. And “Ultrahumanism” offers a near-future vision of a world where we improve human beauty and health instead of allowing AI to dominate. If none of these suit, you can always link her to the section on masculine beauty and ask if she agrees.

Any method is better than nothing. Due to extensive censorship and blacklisting, she'll never find this site by chance. Eventually, of course, she'll read these words herself. But by the time she does, she'll understand it was all for a good cause, and respect that you considered her strong enough to handle the truth. Well, hopefully. But no guts, no glory.

Some readers are keen to share Dispelling Beauty Lies with their daughters, but unsure about the right age. When I discussed this question with parents I found two schools of thought. One is that it's best to wait until her late teens, because so much of the article is “adult content.” Furthermore, young girls may not yet have the intellectual ability to understand all the writing, which could lead to damaging misinterpretations.

However, other parents make reasonable arguments against this delay, and believe the early teens are best. They point out that kids are already exposed to extreme pornography through their smartphones (typically around age twelve), and exposed to false media messages about beauty and sexuality even earlier. Pretending this isn't happening and “protecting” them from true information can't be helpful.

Learning the truth at a young age may also be less challenging to their self-esteem, because the fullness of their womanhood is something off in the misty future. And by the age of seventeen, kids often ignore even the best parental advice, bizarrely trusting media that strangers have designed to manipulate them over wisdom their parents have gleaned from long experience.

I do think it's safest to share the facts with her in the controlled home environment before she leaves for college, but beyond that I won't take one side or the other. It's your responsibility as a parent to make the best choice you can. A compromise position is to show her only particular excerpts you've selected. This makes sense if she's still quite young but already being harmed by beauty lies promoting excessive thinness.

Women will find it interesting to know I've had significantly more men write me that they've shared Dispelling Beauty Lies with their daughters than with their wives or girlfriends. This is the best endorsement anyone could give, though also a little sad, because life is short, and we need opportunities to enjoy beauty now and not just in future generations. Fathers want their daughters to have the tools they need to understand the real world and succeed at the game of love. But they don't know how to broach the truth to their wives without causing offense. In the end, they decide it's not worth it. And who's really to blame?

Although you can't rule out the possibility of an angry reaction, when you do want someone to understand the truth, your only hope is to lead her here. Dispelling Beauty Lies has solved feminine beauty. Everyone else is just goofing off.

g. Contact and support

If you have a beauty question or concern, you can reach the author here. And if you feel you've learned something from this free article, please consider making a donation here. Dispelling Beauty Lies is the most comprehensive and accurate analysis of feminine beauty ever produced. Researching, writing, and promoting it took years. And—you're only halfway done.

XII. Reality-based beauty tips

The second half of this article consists of no-nonsense, reality-based beauty tips. Some of them will be familiar. But since you now know the truth about feminine beauty, you can reconsider them with a fresh perspective. The basics of beautification aren’t magic. This advice will work for anyone, including you. (What follows is written for girls only. Male readers are advised to skip past the secrets in this section and hold on to their illusions.)

Don’t be discouraged because the ideal body of a love goddess is out of reach. Modest improvements still help. Giving up on the game of beauty because you can’t win first place is a mistake. In fact, average-looking girls benefit more from improving their appearance than naturally gifted women do.

It’s also a mistake to rely entirely on your personality and intelligence to sell you as a mate. This is like trying to win a triathlon without learning how to swim. Instead, use your intelligence to improve your appearance. If you follow all the advice below, you might gain three points on the beauty scale. That's the difference between a six and a nine.

More and more women are trapped in a game mass marketing has created for them, and men only have a token role in it. They value the tastes of celebrity spokesmodels above those of their lovers. So they spend time and money on fashion with little to show for it, competing with each other to chase arbitrary targets for no discernable reward. This trend is encouraged by businesses, who exploit rhetoric about "independence" to replace love with dependence on consumerism.

Women aren't just wrong about beauty by accident. They've actually been trained to get it wrong. Most are too prideful to admit they've been fooled and change direction. But their loss can be your gain. There's plenty of room to increase your romantic success and strengthen your relationships if you ignore the chorus of lies and make an effort to apply your new understanding.

The stakes are higher now than ever. Today men are increasingly seduced by egirls who hook them with a combination of personal charm, virtual stripteases, and powerful AI effects. While real women have been wasting their time reading Vogue, shopping for handbags, and copying Hollywood actresses, these online strippers have weaponized the truth about feminine beauty. One group is sacrificing the physical basis of love on the altar of consumerism. The other, on the altar of commodification.

That's not all. Egirls, escorts, and startups designing AI girlfriends have studied this very article to optimize their techniques. They're building an erotic terminator, and they've sent me thanks for information that was written for you.

They'll use every trick in the book to hack men's brains and trap them in a world of virtual sex and imaginary relationships. And it's only a matter of time until improvements in AI take these tricks to the next level. As I explain in my essay on ultrahumanism, even desirable men are vulnerable. Yet real women remain completely unprepared for what's about to happen. To defend ourselves, it's time to be completely frank, and write down facts about attraction that have never been shared openly before.

Only you, dear reader, can save humanity. There's a billion-dollar vice industry geared toward figuring out exactly what men find attractive. I've condensed all that information into a single article, and now I'm handing that article to you. Take the keys to the castle and move in before supercharged modern whores steal everything inside. Don't hold back. Apply the advice below, and beat them at their own game. You'll do us all good.

1. Finding the best weight for you
2. Clothing and fashion
3. Cosmetics and cosmetic surgery
4. Hair, skin, and eyes
5. Motion and posture
6. The most common misconception about seduction
7. Personality and individuality
8. Beauty and aging
9. The top seven ways to look more attractive
10. Common application mistakes

1. Finding the best weight for you.

a. Weight basics
b. Ideal weights for women with a poor fat distribution
c. Ideal weights for women with an average fat distribution
d. Ideal weights for women with a good fat distribution
e. Body types only possible with augmentation
f. Ideal weights review
g. Unhealthy illusions
h. Diet
i. Exercise
j. Ideal leg and thigh shape
k. Limits of exercise

a. Weight basics

Excess weight harms your appearance and your health. In fact, weight is the single most important element of beauty under your control. But that doesn’t mean anorexia or obsessive dieting are advantageous.

The examples in this article show that a healthy, slim weight is best, but not less. Minimizing bodyfat by undereating won't maximize attractiveness. In fact, it will actually make you less attractive.

Trolls tell attractive women they're overweight just for the joy of causing pain. You need to learn to ignore them and focus on the facts. When men can choose any bodyfat level they want, as in an erotic drawing, they don't choose a skeletal figure. The image below was the most popular drawing of the day on an anime image site.

In erotic drawings and AI-generated images, girls without curves are always depicted as juvenile, never tall and narrow in the manner of fashion models.

When it comes to waist size, smaller is better. But when it comes to feminine curves, bigger is better. Because these goals conflict, you need to aim for a weight that compromises between the two. Simply dieting to chase the smallest waist size is counterproductive, because it fails badly at the second goal.

Losing too much weight shrinks your bust, hips, thighs, and rear more than your waist and arms, and the overall effect becomes negative. The tradeoff isn't worth it.

You should avoid losing too much weight even if you have breast implants, because extremely low bodyfat will typically make them look more artificial.

And a perfectly flat stomach isn't perfectly ideal in the first place. Take a look at the AI girl below.

b. Ideal weights for women with a poor fat distribution

The optimal weight for attractiveness depends on your personal bodyfat distribution, not an arbitrary number we can predetermine. The better your bodyfat distribution, the more you benefit from a few extra pounds. The worse your bodyfat distribution, the more important it is to stay slim. To clarify I'll go over a series of examples, starting with the thinnest.

The top fashion model below looks both too thin and too masculine, with no feminine softness at all. A visibly muscular abdomen is unattractive to most men. This is certainly not the best weight for her body. Even if you don't carry weight well, you shouldn't copy her physique.

If you have a poor bodyfat distribution (i.e. fat goes to your belly more than your hips, chest, rear, or thighs), adding weight will do more harm than good, and staying rather thin is indeed the best choice. For instance, the model below isn't fat, but because the fat deposits she does have are concentrating in the belly area, she needs to maintain a low weight. While you don't need a flat belly, it's still important to avoid a bulbous, protruding one, and especially so if you lack curves elsewhere.

Don't judge your ideal weight by your arm circumference. “Thin arms, thick thighs” is indeed the best combination. However, arms are relatively unimportant. If only your arms are too thick, ignore them and aim for an attractive weight elsewhere.

No matter how poor your bodyfat distribution, you shouldn't overdo weight loss. Men who prefer thin women still dislike skeletons. The model below has a thin but healthy and attractive figure. You should never aim to be thinner than this.

c. Ideal weights for women with an average fat distribution

Here's a model with a mediocre bodyfat distribution not far from the average woman's. In this case gaining weight would do harm. But losing weight would eliminate the minimal curves she has and do harm as well. For instance, the difference between a flat chest and a small B cup is very important to men. If you can make that difference with good weight management, you should.

You might feel intimidated by the curvaceous figures praised in Dispelling Beauty Lies because you don't have the genetics or surgical budget to imitate them effectively. However, as the example above shows, most women have some attractive curves when they optimize their weight. That said, a few unlucky women will still end up with an A cup. If you can't grow breasts without also growing a fatter middle than the right photo above, you should stay slim. Later on I'll discuss in detail how you can build curves through artificial means.

At this link you can see a relatable fine arts model, presented unclothed, with no cosmetic surgery and poor lighting. Her physique is a good target for average women who are a little bottom-heavy. Most women assume she should lose a few pounds, but that would clearly reduce her resemblance to the reference anime girl, and her overall attractiveness as well. The gallery below shows another good weight goal for average women with an average bodyfat distribution.

d. Ideal weights for women with a good fat distribution

Now let's consider some body types that benefit from higher weights. Here's one of the most beautiful vintage actresses. Her natural bodyfat distribution is a little better than average, but not unusual by any means. Similar women today might feel nervous about this weight. However, it was considered suitable for a bikini photo shoot in the middle twentieth century, and it still looks good generations later.

The false idea that thinner is better harms naturally gifted women the most. The AI girl below is an excellent example of a weight women fear is too much, but men find extremely attractive on the right person. This fortunate bodyfat distribution isn't particularly common. But for women who do have it, a lower weight would reduce both sex appeal and beauty.

The photo below is also instructive. This model has more belly fat than men typically want today. Yet because her chest is much larger than her waist, the net result is attractive even if it's not perfect. The average woman would look rather plain with the same amount of bodyfat, and should aim to be leaner.

This unclothed video shows women who are also well endowed, but smaller and slimmer than the model above. Watch their midriffs. Despite significant bodyfat, their overall proportions are excellent, and they look more natural and smoothly blended than augmented women who are very lean. None of them need to lose weight.

That said, be aware that it's easy to confuse yourself if you fixate on your abdomen in isolation. I've cropped the next example to demonstrate this. Without the larger context, it's hard to tell whether the anime girl it depicts is attractive or not. However, when you do examine the full image, you'll see that she has an ideal weight for her body shape.

A naturally attractive butt is a common casualty of excessive weight loss. If you tend to hold weight in your rear, remember that bigger is better, and don't squander your lucky genetics by dieting your butt away. This AI girl would be less attractive at a lower weight.

The bottom-heavy glamour model shown below has an excellent weight for her body type. There's no doubt that losing weight would make her less attractive.

How much is too much? The models in the next gallery, and others like them, were sent to me by men as examples of perfect butts. If your butt is expanding much faster than your waist, the extra weight is likely increasing your attractiveness even though your rear is already large.

However, because men evaluate your proportions relative to your waist, an excessive waistline will eventually cancel out the value of a large rear or chest. To check whether your fat distribution is attractive, compare your own photo to the two previous galleries.

The next AI girl illustrates the theoretical upper range of male taste. This weight only works with an unusually good bodyfat distribution that hardly ever occurs in reality. Provided that criterion is met, the majority of men will find it attractive, although most won't consider it ideal, and a minority will reject it outright. In any case you should never exceed this weight.

Below you can see a glamour model demonstrating a more realistic maximum weight. It's common for traditional painted odalisques and Venuses to have a bodyfat level very similar to that shown here. However, you shouldn't expect to look good at this weight without exceptional genetics.

Finally, the AI girl below has a classical figure that's neither too thick nor too thin, and exemplifies beauty, class, and sex appeal at the same time. It's an excellent goal for women who have the body type to pull it off, but not everyone can. Know your limits and find the best weight for you.

e. Body types only possible with augmentation

Some body types you see in the media are only possible with cosmetic surgery. The “skinny-hot” type, shown below, is one of these. It requires not only a rare natural body type, but an exceptionally well-executed large breast augmentation as well. Skinny-hot is less popular with men than thicker types, and women tend to be more impressed by it than they should be.

Some women believe they can emulate this body type simply by losing weight. That won't work, even setting aside the issue of implants. The skinny-hot type isn't really about low bodyfat levels. It's about having an unusually narrow frame. Examine the abdominal area in the images above and below. No muscle or bone are visible, but only soft flesh, including a little fat. This is essential to get it right, and few can. Women who try to chase a skinny-hot body when it doesn't suit them will end up looking like a pile of sticks and stones with hollow cheeks. That's not the look at all. So if you have any doubts, don't try.

It's now common for glamour models to use fat transfer from the waist to the hips, butt, and thighs, creating a voluptuous hourglass that's hard or impossible to obtain naturally. The example below goes too far, and I don't recommend you imitate it. I'm including it here because it demonstrates the effects very clearly. Women who use the same procedure with more moderation have good results. I'll discuss cosmetic surgery in detail later on.

The example below has likely used a similar technique, but with a rear emphasis.

f. Ideal weights review

To review, let's look once more at the range of attractive bodyfat levels we've covered in this section. The reliable average level is closer to the minimum than the maximum because most women have a mediocre fat distribution.

g. Unhealthy illusions

Beauty lies aren't a victimless crime. Some women damage their health and happiness by obsessively seeking thinness. They congregate on social media and reinforce their delusions, making their mental illness harder to escape.

If you're “pro-anorexia,” it's time to reconsider your views. This article is the most honest and accurate analysis of feminine beauty you're going to find. You should take the data it presents seriously. Slimming down at the expense of beauty and health doesn't make sense, even if it impresses other girls who are making the same mistake. Stop hurting yourself and change direction.

In case it wasn't already evident, I'll point out explicitly that thigh gaps are not a useful target for determining your ideal weight. Whether you have a thigh gap at a given weight actually depends on the shape of your pelvis and femurs, making it meaningless even as an indicator. Nor is it a genuine element of beauty in itself. Recall that thick thighs are usually an attractive feature, not an unattractive one.

h. Diet

The body of scientific knowledge about diet that currently exists is low quality, inconclusive, and corrupted by the influence of vested interests and academic politics. Of course, that doesn't mean unscientific theories are reliable. For the time being there's just no way to know the healthiest diet with certainty. But what is certain is that a diet that's not working for you can't get any better if you don't change anything.

An ancestral diet is a reasonable starting point, and already enough for most women to maintain a healthy weight. Further specifics are unclear, and vary from person to person. Some seem to benefit from eating more protein and less fat (more lean meats), but others do well eating more fat and less protein and carbs (more fatty meats and oils). Some people have a high tolerance for carbs, others low. Some even thrive on a purely carnivorous diet.

To find the best diet for you you'll need to experiment over a long period of time. The first thing you might try is lowering both carbs and fat while increasing protein. This diet is popular with bodybuilders who need to stay lean. If you tend to get addicted to carbs, it's worth lowering them to zero for at least a few months. Then you can gradually add them back in until you find a good balance. If neither of these approaches work, there are others to try. Keep experimenting till you succeed.

If you struggle with anorexia or body dysmorphia, it's important that you consume regular meals with a good balance of nutrients. Fasting or skipping meals can exacerbate psychological issues and even suppress your appetite, creating a vicious cycle of anxiety and undereating. Eat regularly even if you aren't hungry, and when you find yourself stuck in a mental loop, focus your mind on a distracting activity until it passes. Save the beauty examples from this article and remind yourself that you'll be unattractive if you're too thin.

i. Exercise

Exercise is less important to maintain a healthy weight than diet, but still worth some effort.

As far as beauty is concerned, it's best to skip upper-body exercise entirely. Only a small fraction of men find defined abs attractive, and broad shoulders and muscular arms are more negative than positive. A little shoulder and arm development is okay. But any more can have a markedly bad, masculinizing effect on your whole figure. This is even more true if you have naturally broad shoulders. Idealized imaginary women usually have thin and undeveloped arms and shoulders regardless of how thick their bodies are. A muscular back is less problematic, though still not advisable.

Some women overdo their upper body accidentally by participating in the wrong sports. If you want to be involved in athletics, the best sports for beauty are short-distance track-and-field events, such as sprinting. Long-distance running, sometimes recommended for weight loss, is not fantastic for overall beauty, and gymnastics develops the upper body too much.

Be aware that the most attractive female body type can't win first place at sports, where wide hips and large breasts are a competitive disadvantage. Medal-winning female athletes are usually too muscular as well. It's best to think of beauty as its own sport. When you play other sports, play for fun, and don't worry about winning.

While upper-body exercises aren't recommended, lower-body exercises can be quite beneficial. However, they're best targeted to specific parts of the lower body. Overdeveloping your glutes relative to the rest of your legs is advantageous. In fact, a glutes-only strength-training regimen may actually work very well. Personal trainers and athletes will be appalled. But if you're training for beauty, real, “functional” strength isn't the goal. You want to look hotter, not win at sportsball.

For a minimal exercise routine, try doing three sets of glutes-targeted resistance training three times a week, and no other weightlifting. For health and fitness you can supplement this with some form of light exercise. If you're more ambitious, you can increase your glutes training volume or mix in sprints.

j. Ideal leg and thigh shape

Most women have poor intuition for what attractive thighs look like. So if you want to train your thighs, pay careful attention to the following examples. Thighs should taper as they approach the knees, thicken as they approach the hips, and bulge a little below the groin. Each one should make the shape of a meiping vase. The ensemble of hips and thighs forms a heart shape.

A parallel thigh shape, shown in red in the next gallery, is unattractive. It's caused either by too little volume or too much muscle. The actress at left has too little volume, and should try to add some by gaining weight and building muscle. The athlete at right, on the other hand, has overbuilt her thighs. The problem isn't thickness, but shape. The bulge of muscle just above her knees widens the bottom of the vase and creates an unpleasant masculine effect. If you're one of the few women who puts on muscle easily, monitor your progress and know when to stop.

Calf muscles aren't important, but if you do build any muscle there, you want it to project backward, not widen them to the sides.

Adding volume to your rear thighs does more harm than good, because it diminishes the appearance of butt projection. The illustration below summarizes where extra muscle is good and bad.

k. Limits of exercise

While the right strength training is beneficial, there are limits to what it can accomplish, and the typically achievable gains are sometimes exaggerated by the fitness community. The most attractive legs derive their shape primarily from fat, not muscle. The purpose of muscle is only to create the illusion of a more attractive fat distribution. You're effectively making an implant out of muscle instead of silicone. Ideally, it should be hidden under a layer of fat.

Models with a large rear and attractively thick thighs may credit them to exercise, but genetics, good weight management, and surgery are the main causes. Many of them haven't done any exercise at all. Don't assume training harder will give you a similar outcome. Exercise can meaningfully improve the average woman's lower-body shape, but in most cases it only has a modest impact, not a massive one. Surgery is a topic I'll discuss in detail later on, so keep reading.

2. Clothing and fashion.

Men don't have X-ray vision, so beautiful women in ill-fitted clothes can pass unnoticed for years, which is a very sad thing. The best men should be able to think past your clothes, but the truth is most are dumb and only notice what's on display. In this section I'm going to go over a series of clothing basics that most women and most fashion experts today either neglect or get wrong. These include fit, color, and particular fashions that increase sex appeal.

a. Fit comes first
b. Modesty, immodesty, and class signaling
c. Styles that boost sex appeal
d. Lingerie types
e. Variety matters, trends don't
f. Color choice
g. Lingerie color
h. Never wear nudes
i. Overrated accessories

a. Fit comes first

Because a small waist is such a critical element of feminine beauty, you should always wear clothes that are fitted at the waist, not loose. This is the single most important principle pertaining to clothing, and in past times all women knew to follow it. However, at present most of the population is overweight, so typical clothes on the rack are made to suit an unpleasantly bulbous waist. Even for healthy women with exactly average curves, they often won't fit properly. And the problem is much greater for women with the coveted "monarchiste" body type shown below.

Stretch fabrics or elastic bands are an easy shortcut solution, but sometimes a tailor is necessary. Don't skimp. It's well worth the money to have everything altered to match your personal measurements. In fact, wearing clothes off the rack without having them tailored is the most common reason curvaceous women fail to benefit from their gifts.

There are a few exceptions to the rule. Very straight and thin women can do well with flowing clothes, and top-heavy women with a relatively thick middle may look best in an empire waist. Women with any body type can of course wear baggy clothes as a sheer outer layer, provided an underlayer that hugs their figure is clearly visible.

If you’re socially anxious and wear baggy or poorly fitted clothes to hide your body even though you have a healthy weight, please stop. There are better ways to be modest. Wear snug but high-necked shirts, and long skirts that are tightly fitted at the waist. These look modest but still allow people to notice that you have an attractive figure.

b. Modesty, immodesty, and class signaling

Of course, all things being equal, it’s best to dress to an average degree of modesty in the area where you live, with modifications based on the occasion. You’ll normally have the most success with good men if your clothing is neither particularly modest nor particularly immodest. That said, all things aren't necessarily equal. The sexier you are, the more careful your clothing choices should be.

It's obvious that sex appeal alone isn't enough to catch a high-quality man. It's also important to display trustworthiness and class. And attracting high-quality men isn't the only goal. You also want to seem reasonably respectable, and avoid attention from low-quality men. Good fashion choices can help you do this, but it's important to approach them in the right way.

Today women often try solve these perennial problems in ways that unnecessarily reduce their overall attractiveness. For instance, by maintaining an excessively low bodyweight, and wearing fashionable but unappealing clothing.

These are a poor solutions, and they're not the ones women chose historically. They may signal class and deter undesirable men seeking quick sex. But in the same blow they reduce your attractiveness to the men you really do want, and reduce the amount of beauty in the world too.

In past times women signaled class with refined manners and elegant clothing that enhanced rather than reduced their feminine beauty. This clothing was designed to emphasize a curvaceous figure without inviting the wrong kind of attention. So while women's default solution today requires a costly tradeoff, their historical solution did not.

Naturally you don't have the power to bring old dresses into style. But that doesn't mean you can't use the historical solution today. By selecting the right clothing instead of dieting away your curves and wearing unpleasant fashions, you can deter undesirable men while looking elegantly pretty and retaining all of your sex appeal when you undress. You don't need to make yourself plain to filter your suitors.

It's not possible to give instructions for finding the "right" style that are both precise and universally valid, because standards vary too much from place to place. Below I'll offer a few more general suggestions. But in the end you'll have to rely on your own judgment.

Some traditional, aristocratic dresses are quite low cut. Decolletage isn't fundamentally trashy. And there's no doubt it increases male attention. I'd roughly estimate a low neckline alone as causing a 30% boost in “very attractive” ratings compared to a high neckline. However, with today's less ornate styles a good starting guideline is to assume that the more cleavage you can show, the less you should show. That means well-endowed women need to take greater care with their necklines. Compensate with a proper fit that displays your silhouette, and avoid resorting to baggy clothes.

Similarly, if your rear is your most attractive trait, a good fit is a necessity. However, a short skirt isn't. Leggings are fairly common today for this very reason, yet they're hardly the only option. Well-fitted pants, pencil skirts, and dresses also work. And they're prettier too.

While women with below-average curves don't benefit as much from figure-hugging clothing, they have other options that are unique to them. The braless look with discernible nipple imprints causes a large increase in sex appeal. Social acceptability varies by location, and for a well-endowed woman today it will almost always come across as too lewd. But the smaller your chest, the more likely you can get away with it. That makes it a secret weapon for flat girls.

The braless look is about topography, not transparency, so choose an opaque top. Sheer with nothing under it is quite boring once the shock wears off. If you can make out the areola, the top is too sheer. Layering with a jacket or cardigan will give you a little more control over how much you reveal and when.

To be clear, these are only suggestions. The appropriate level of modesty always depends on the social context, and I can't know yours. If women around you have skin-tight pants, plunging necklines, or see-through tops, it may be best to compete in kind. Or it may not. Attracting the wrong type of men is always more hindrance than help. Consider your personal goals, and use your intelligence and sensitivity to position yourself effectively.

Wearing provocative clothes in private while dressing conservatively in public is a great way to reduce tradeoffs and have it all. You shouldn't choose your clothes with a binary switch that can only flip between prude and nude. Even in private, showing everything all the time is less exciting than concealing something that demands to be revealed. That's why it's rare for men to present idealized imaginary women without any clothes or ornamentation.

c. Styles that boost sex appeal

So far we've covered fit, figure, and class signaling. Next I'm going to go over particular fashions that increase your sex appeal. Some of these are appropriate anywhere, while others are best reserved for private circumstances.

Wrapping bands around the locations shown in green above reliably boosts attractiveness. The effect is substantial. Yet most women drape jewelry around the locations shown in red instead. This can look nice, but the impact is much smaller.

For the neck area, chokers are the best option. Chokers aren't just a fashion that should come and go like other fashions. They have a fundamental appeal that's almost architectural in nature. It has nothing to do with looking "collared" like a dog. In fact, dog-collar chokers are the least appealing kind.

Chokers come in many styles, and can be classically beautiful. A few of these are best reserved for private circumstances, but many can be worn in public as well.

A simple ribbon tied in a bow at the front is one of the best choker styles, and the easiest starting point too.

The most common choker seen on imaginary women is a plain black band with no ornament. This basic style is criminally underused in the real world.

A choker can be ornamented with ruffles or lace as well.

When you're not in the mood for a choker, you can use scarves and turtlenecks to encircle the neck area instead. These aren't as effective as chokers, but they do get part of the benefit.

Tops that cover the neck while leaving a window below it work even better in theory, and some traditional Chinese dresses do this well.

But at present it's hard to find nice tops in this style, and both turtlenecks and chokers make a good impact more consistently.

AI girls often wear chokers that form matched sets with their tops or their lingerie. Unfortunately these don't exist in reality yet. More evidence that fashion designers aren't trying very hard to make women attractive.

In a sample of two hundred AI girls, I counted both more chokers and more tops that substitute for chokers than regular necklaces. That should underscore just how criminally underused they are today.

Chokers and choker alternatives are styles women ought to wear more often. Nevertheless, I don't mean to exaggerate their importance or imply you need to wear them. Bands in the thigh area, on the other hand, have a bigger impact that all women should exploit.

The standard and best solution to emphasize the thigh area is a pair of thigh-high stockings. Thigh bracelets are an interesting alternative favored by male artists. However, some styles may not stay up easily, and most real thigh bracelets available today suspend chains or other ornaments, which is a distracting mistake.

Stockings, garters, thigh bracelets, and the like should come up to the midpoint of the thigh, as shown in the earlier diagram. Although deviating from this might sometimes be justified by the ensemble, when all else is equal the benefits are reduced if they're lower or higher. Most stockings for sale are too short.

Ideally these items should also pinch a little so they display your thigh fat. This attractive pinching is apparent in all images of AI girls. For boots, compromise on length and fit may be necessary.

The Japanese have invented a term for the gap between stocking and skirt, and even proposed ideal precision measurements. This degree of mathiness strikes me as overkill. But I'll cite it anyway to remind you not to lazily buy over-knee socks that barely come over your knees. The right length does make a real beauty difference.

You shouldn't normally take off chokers and thigh-highs along with your other clothes. Their erotic impact persists even when you're otherwise undressed. Let your lover remove them if he wants to. He may not. Once in a while you can also leave on high boots, or even shoes, for an interesting variety effect.

Juvenile clothing and props appeal to men's taste for youth. Very few men are attracted to prepubescent girls, but the large majority are turned on by these signals regardless. Don't be afraid to take advantage of them from time to time.

Pleated miniskirts increase sex appeal. In this case it's not clear if the effect is due to something fundamental about the style of skirt or just an association with youth, but it works regardless. Plaid gets the “schoolgirl” effect best, though solid colors are fine too. And pleated skirts are a particularly good choice for anyone with weak hips, because they add volume and create the illusion of a better hourglass.

Cat- and rabbit-ear headbands have a strong erotic impact on most men. This isn't because they evoke bestiality (animal print clothing isn't popular with men), but because they add a unique cute factor. It's not hard to see why. Everyone knows cats and bunnies are cute. Just imagine you were aroused, as men are, by women who evoke cuteness. The value of animal ears isn't only in their cuteness though. Much of it is due to a variety effect. I'll explain how this works later.

d. Lingerie types

The bras worn by imaginary women almost always include lace. Sometimes they're entirely made of lace, but often they just incorporate lace accents. When they do omit the lace, they usually have exotic ornamentation instead, like ruffles, gems, or precious metals.

It's quite rare for imaginary women to appear in simple, solid bras with no ornamentation or other interesting features. Because erotic imagery shows lace so consistently, we can be confident it makes lingerie look significantly better.

I recommend you always choose bras that include lace. I'll address an exception to this rule a little later. If you're worried about the lace showing through your shirt, choose a bra with subtle lace accents instead of giving up and wearing something boring. Look through the images in this article for ideas.

Going braless might be questionable in public, but it's a fine idea at home whatever your breast size. A private dinner is a great opportunity to try it with formal clothes.

Once again, the most impactful thing here isn't the absence of a bra itself, though of course that does benefit some dresses. It's visible nipple imprints. That said, showing them too consistently will dull the impact on your lover, so I recommend against giving up on bras entirely.

While elaborate lingerie can occasionally look nice, women overestimate its value because it's so heavily marketed. Complicated lingerie concoctions with straps and buckles all over the place are rarely seen on imaginary women, or glamour models, for that matter. And limiting yourself to lingerie when you're trying to look sexy at home is a mistake. There are plenty of other creative ways to show yourself off when you don't need to worry about public decorum. These extra-short skirts are just one example among many.

e. Variety matters, trends don't

Because men like variety, periodically changing your style will make it easier to retain or reawaken your mate's attention. That includes both short-term variation between conservative and provocative clothing and occasional long-term shifts in your wardrobe. I'll discuss this in detail in the section on seduction. Note, however, that it has little to do with following current fashion trends.

Contrary to what most beauty magazines, sites, and influencers claim or imply, up-to-the-minute clothing styles aren’t important. The fashion industry makes money by persuading you that you’ll be more beautiful if you buy the newest clothes, but this simply isn’t true.

While it would be odd to go out in your grandmother’s dress, it doesn’t really matter whether you wear this year’s fashions or last year’s. So there's no need to waste time chasing fads. Most are just hyped up to increase clothing sales and have little to do with beauty.

Men are typically less enthusiastic about formal dresses and unusual fashions than women are. What matters most to them are the fundamentals. If you have a poor fashion sense or little interest, don't worry. Provided you follow the basic guidelines explained in this section, it's okay to wear "normal" clothes and leave it at that. Fit is more important than fashion.

f. Color choice

Men's relative indifference to clothing choices that are interesting, rare, or novel is particularly evident in their color preferences. I've tabulated these below.

This chart overstates the value of black and blue due to their specific popularity in lingerie and jeans respectively. So it's more informative to break it down further.

It's tempting to guess after the cause of men's narrow tastes, but for our purposes here we'll just stick to the facts. Men find women more attractive when they're dressed in a standard palette consisting of white, black, red, and pink, as well as denim blue.

Blue is good for jeans, but not great elsewhere.

Gray and floral patterns are reasonably popular, and plaid is attractive in skirts. But men have less interest in the remaining colors. They find colors in the range of human flesh tones particularly unattractive. The more a color resembles your skin, the worse it is. Also notable is the complete absence of animal prints from my sample of over four hundred AI girls.

You might assume AI artists are just lazy about choosing clothes. But the distribution of colors is very far from random, and can't be an accident. A few men do prefer unusual colors, like the AI artist whose work is shown below. But it's a minority taste, not a common one.

To compare men's tastes to women's typical clothing choices, I counted the colors of over two hundred women in casual dress on a street corner in Gangnam and a boardwalk in Florida. Women in both places tend to wear too much beige, tan, gray, and blue, and not enough red and white. I also observed women passing through an airport terminal in Texas and saw even more egregious color failures there, with both olive green and gray markedly more common than pink, and blue tops worn far too often as well.

The few women who do wear red usually wear the wrong red, not the rich, ruby red men like most.

Today other beauty writers promote an elaborate system of color "seasons." Unfortunately their system isn't evidence based, and the advice it produces is often poor. For instance, the seasons system tells women with a "true autumn" complexion to wear browns, oranges, and related neutrals, but these are among the least attractive colors.

It's true that complexion, hair color, and eye color can influence which shades flatter you. But the inherent appeal of the most-loved clothing colors is independent from this influence. Ignoring that fact is a mistake.

Our observations point us toward a few simple guidelines with universal value. First and foremost, avoid flesh tones, or colors that are close to flesh tones. That includes beige, peach, tan, taupe, and brown. You should also avoid army greens, which are greens mixed with tan or brown. Olive is the most common example of a bad green. I call this collection of flesh and camo tones the unlucky palette.

Second, prioritize the standard palette of white, black, denim, pink, and red in your wardrobe.

Red is too loud to wear all the time, but you should still consider wearing it more often than you probably do. You don't need to wear a red dress. Accents can help too.

Third, wear a color from the “variety” palette occasionally. This palette consists of dark blue, green, purple, gold, orange, turquoise, teal, and variations on these colors. Once every week or two is probably good.

The variety palette is less attractive than the standard palette. However, if you use it sparingly, it has the advantage of novelty. For example, if you usually wear black and white, when you show up in violet it will draw interest and seem exciting. Redheads benefit more from unusual colors, and should use them a little more often.

g. Lingerie color

Fourth, black lingerie is the most popular with men. Pink and white are good too. Pale pinks and mauves are distinctly better than hot pink here. Red is next on the list, but not quite as good as black, pink, and white when it comes to lingerie.

Black and red create a different character impression than pink and white. This applies to clothing in general of course, but the difference is stronger when it comes to lingerie, so you should consider it when you choose colors. Black and red are adult and directly sexual. They're also good colors if you want to emphasize sophisticated elegance.

Whites, pale pinks, and mauves are cute, innocent, and neotenous. And that innocent impression persists even for elaborately lacy lingerie young girls would never wear.

Lace is indispensable for white lingerie. Plain white bras with no lace tend to look boring or matronly, so you should avoid them.

Panties with a juvenile printed design have a neotenous effect with high sex appeal. This is a powerful trick for women who can pull it off. It works best in white and pink, but baby blue, turquoise, and lavender are also possible.

These prints are an acceptable alternative to lace, and much more attractive than plain basics. Recall also that as you have smaller curves, it becomes more important to emphasize neoteny. Printed designs aren't forbidden to curvaceous women. But they're especially impactful for girls who are average or rather flat, and not too tall.

h. Never wear nudes

The lingerie-color issue is worthy of special attention because so many are getting it wrong. Most women wear flesh-colored bras most of the time. They're considered “normal,” and no one thinks twice about it. But it's a serious beauty error. In fact, not only do you not need them, you should actually never wear them. Don't believe me? Keep reading.

There are several reasons you shouldn't wear nude lingerie. First, it's the least attractive of all lingerie colors. Second, there are other, better colors that don't show through. And third, it's not always necessary to wear colors that don't show through. I'll explain in more detail in the following paragraphs.

Why is flesh-colored lingerie so ugly? Not just because beiges are boring, although, obviously, they are. The bigger problem is that it's too similar to your skin. By consequence, it makes you look like a burn victim. It's very unattractive. So unattractive that in the hundreds of AI girls whose clothing I counted, the incidence of flesh-colored bras was actually zero.

Prior to reading Dispelling Beauty Lies you've gone through life assuming you need to wear flesh-colored lingerie because “it's invisible.” That's wrong in multiple ways. Everyone pretends flesh-colored bras are invisible, but they're just pretending. In reality, there's no such thing as an invisible bra under a well-fitted white t-shirt. Although some colors mostly disappear from the front, the straps are always still apparent in the back. They're sometimes visible on your shoulders as well. And with a tank top or cami, they're extremely obvious.

So even when you're wearing a nude bra, people do see it. And the unattractive color makes glimpses of the straps very underwhelming. Flesh-colored straps aren't just bad on a fashion level. They're bad because they promise boredom. Mystery and subtle hints that promise excitement are an important part of feminine appeal. Promising boredom instead is a serious mistake.

Nevertheless, for some circumstances and some outfits you still want your bra to disappear to the extent possible. The thing is, you don't need flesh colors to achieve this. Pinks, mauves, and even reds are much less visible under a white top than you assume. Usually at least one of these colors will disappear just as well or nearly as well as nudes do. They all look better than flesh colors when you take your top off, and also prettier and less boring when someone glimpses a strap under your shirt. To find which works best with your skin tone, you'll need to test them all.

Since you already own flesh-colored bras, you might think the easiest solution is to just keep wearing them and change into nicer colors when it matters. But let's be honest. In practice convenience will win, and most of the time you won't bother changing. It's best to avoid this problem by ruling out nude lingerie from the start. Unless your skin tone really doesn't work with any of the alternatives, it's not an exaggeration to say that your life will be better if you throw out all your flesh-colored lingerie right now.

Women have been worrying too much about whether their bra is invisible and not enough about whether it actually looks good. The second is more important. And unless the circumstances require a high level of modesty, making your bra as invisible as possible is the wrong goal. If pink or mauve do show through your shirt a little, it's not really a problem. In fact, much more evident colors can work in a casual setting.

Fashion guides are wrong to list white under white as a faux pas. It does show through more, but sometimes looks good anyway. A black bra showing through your top is a great look even if it isn't appropriate for every occasion. Women should consider it more often. You can also let jewel tones like purple or turquoise show through occasionally for an interesting effect.

While modesty recommends against the braless look unless your top is especially thick or layered, it should be clear from what I wrote earlier that it too is much more attractive than nude lingerie.

A few more cautionary words about color before we move on. Bikini colors come in a wider palette than everyday clothes, so you might be tempted to wear neon. Neon does grab attention, but it can easily look trashy, and there's no evidence it's especially attractive.

Gray is a color men like well enough, but you should select the shade with care and avoid wearing it too often. Light gray in particular can make you look washed out and dull. Gray is also a poor choice for lingerie, though metallic silver is fine. While you can wear black and white more often than gray, if you wear them exclusively without breaks or contrasting accents in more exciting colors, they eventually become boring too.

Let's sum up. Regardless of your complexion, it's best to focus your wardrobe on the standard palette of conventionally attractive colors. Especially so when you're in the mood to seduce. But neither the best artists nor the best glamour models strictly limit themselves to black, white, pink, and red, and you shouldn't either. Wear variety colors occasionally to create interest. Just make sure to avoid overdoing gray, blue, and the unlucky palette of flesh and camo tones, which is especially bad for lingerie.

i. Overrated accessories

The two items women overrate the most are handbags and shoes. Handbags have nearly zero impact on attractiveness. While you should of course choose your shoes well and own pairs in different styles, variety isn't so important that you need to collect them in large numbers. Obsession with buying shoes and handbags is addiction to consumerism, not beauty.

What type of shoes are best? Some men like bare feet, and particularly toes. So if you have nice feet it's sensible to choose footwear that makes them visible. Oddly enough, tall boots can also be attractive, probably because they direct the eye upward. They're especially worth wearing if you have nice legs. Heels are valuable not because the shoes themselves are appealing, but because they improve your posture and gait. This is a topic I'll return to later on.

Today few women follow any of the clothing recommendations in this section, let alone all of them. Eventually this will change and the recommendations will seem dated, not because they'll stop working, but because they'll be used so universally. Nevertheless, these paragraphs will still be valuable to keep fashion grounded in the reality of attractiveness. If the main points I've listed appear to go “out” of fashion, the new trends are likely missing the mark.

3. Cosmetics and cosmetic surgery.

a. Breast augmentation works
b. Men are ignorant and dishonest about cosmetic surgery
c. Examples of ideal breasts
d. How implant size affects realism
e. 500-800cc implants have the best overall effect
f. Why small implants are a bad idea
g. Personalizing your implant selection
h. The surgeon matters
i. Other considerations
j. Avoid breast reductions
k. Butt surgeries
l. Ideal butt examples
m. Fat transfer
n. Lip fillers
o. Nose jobs
p. Dealing with facial complexity
q. Jealousy speaking
r. Extreme makeovers and experimental techniques
s. Well-chosen surgeries lastingly improve body image
t. The most common makeup errors
u. Cheeks
v. Nails

a. Breast augmentation works

Cosmetic surgery is more common than you might assume. Once again, everyone lies. Women who’ve had work done normally deny it. Men are ignorant on the topic. They criticize artificiality, then ogle surgically-enhanced models. Men claim to care about “naturalness,” but in practice they’d rather see good results. Watch what people do, not what they say.

Most men prefer a breast size that’s rarely found in nature. In fact, it’s almost impossible to resemble some of the beauty examples in this article through natural means. One in twenty-five women now have implants, a number that’s increased steadily over time, and they’re especially common among glamour models who appeal to men. Today it's likely that the majority of slim women with large breasts have had surgical help.

Why are so many people convinced that cosmetic surgery doesn't work? The worst results are obvious, while the best don't appear surgical at all. Because they stand out the most, people mistakenly assume the worst results are typical. I call this the "gaudy graveyard" fallacy.

I won’t advise you for or against surgery. Weighing the risks is a personal matter. You should ask your surgeon to thoroughly explain the chance of complications so you can make an informed decision. If you want to study the risks yourself, read proper scientific papers in PubMed rather than misleading anecdotes on gossip sites or Youtube. Your health and happiness should come first, and it's up to you to decide how much effort this type of beautification is worth. But the truth is, it usually works.

Just how well does it work? The academic psychology study below might lead you to believe that breast augmentation is less effective at increasing your attractiveness than waxing, tooth whitening, ear piercing, nail painting, and even building your muscles. This is comically wrong. Simple ignorance is largely to blame for the confusion, but denialism plays a role as well. Our society's bizarre refusal to admit that breast size matters is accompanied by a matching refusal to admit just how much implants boost attractiveness.

While you'll rarely hear anyone say so in public, a good boob job is the single most powerful way for a slim woman to increase her sex appeal. The effect is so strong that we can be confident breast augmentation will eventually become the norm rather than the secret advantage for a small fraction of women it is today. The reason is simple. Men want big boobs, and a breast augmentation buys them. Painted nails aren't remotely comparable in importance, and weight loss becomes counterproductive when taken too far.

Well-executed breast augmentations are difficult to distinguish from the real thing. Many of the top search results for “best breasts” are augmented, and some have an openly artificial appearance. For comparison, these vintage centerfolds are excellent reference examples of the best natural breasts.

b. Men are ignorant and dishonest about cosmetic surgery

Men instinctively lie about beauty in general, and about cosmetic surgery in particular. They'll literally promise you they hate implants and get off to videos of women with implants on the very same day. So to show how they really feel I had to resort to deception. I reversed the before and after photos of a breast augmentation and told them it was a reduction. Then I asked which they preferred.

Men chose the augmented breasts over the natural ones by a shocking ratio of more than thirty to one. Many described the big fakes as "perfect" and made demeaning comments about the flat photo. It's true that you can't trust polls to be accurate. But this result is stark and thought-provoking. It also fits our earlier finding that only 2-3% of men prefer a flat chest, which is coincidentally the same fraction of men that prefer prepubescent girls.

c. Examples of ideal breasts

Before we address augmentation in more detail, let's go over some examples of ideal breasts to ensure we have the right target in mind.

For a guide to shape, refer to this image. The top row shows photos selected by men as examples of perfect shape. Note that some (or all) of these are augmented. The bottom row shows the shape of breasts on sex dolls. The third sex doll has a combination of size and shape that's impossible in reality.

This survey compares the popularity of various shapes and sizes. An experienced surgeon has estimated the winner at the upper left to be approximately 1000ccs. The fraction of men who didn't find it attractive was almost insignificant.

You'll notice the breasts men ranked highest in these polls are a little larger than the median size found in sex dolls and AI girls. This is probably due to the indifference effect. Men who seek out larger breasts strongly prefer them them, whereas men who don't seek them out often just care less about size, so they're happy either way. Because of this, sizes that modestly overshoot the median taste win the most enthusiastic approval.

As you can see from these examples, men prefer a little sag. A high and spherical look isn't a sign of perfection, it's the hallmark of a poor boob job. Upward-pointing nipples are thought to be advantageous, and can be found on some, but not all, of men's favorite breasts.

d. How implant size affects realism

Just because the ideal breasts are a certain size and shape doesn't mean surgeons can achieve that size and shape. Let's look at some real augmentation outcomes and see what's possible.

The effect of each implant size depends on your starting point as well as your overall body shape, but here you can see common surgical outcomes compared to examples from this article. Contrary to what most people assume, small implants aren’t more convincing than large ones. However, extreme, oversized implants have a distorted shape and should be avoided.

Since rarity increases with size, it would be advantageous to exceed the median preference to meet the unsatisfied demand. But the rule that "bigger is better" only holds as long as you can maintain a good shape. 800cc is around the upper limit for reliably beautiful breast implants at present, and even for professional glamour models it's hardly ever worth it to push that limit.

In some parts of the world obvious plastic surgery has become a status symbol. But whenever status signaling interferes with feminine beauty, the result is less feminine beauty. It doesn't matter if it's excessively low bodyfat or flagrantly fake implants.

This article promotes a naturalistic or too-good-to-be-true look, not an overdone look. Cosmetic surgery shouldn't announce itself as such. While a few men do fetishize the appearance of excessive surgery and blatantly fake breasts, a much larger number find it distasteful. The difference lies not in the size itself, as women tend to assume, but in the quality of the shape.

e. 500-800cc implants have the best overall effect

If your goal is to be as attractive as possible without undue risk, I recommend you request the largest size that can be achieved safely in a single surgery. For the average woman this is around 600cc, but it varies from 500cc to 800cc depending on the width of your chest. It's a size that looks impressive without sacrificing shape. Most surgeons today will still begin by proposing 350ccs, so you'll need to speak up and request the larger size yourself.

f. Why small implants are a bad idea

You might be tempted to select smaller implants because you're afraid of excessive attention from men or retaliation from jealous friends. When choosing a size you should consider your personal comfort level, just as you do when choosing clothes. But keep in mind that 300cc implants entail nearly the same costs and risks as 600cc implants, while providing only half the benefits.

This difference isn't just about raw size. Large implants will give you access to the full range of attractive motions, while small implants will not. The significance of this will become clear in a later section.

As far as beauty is concerned, augmentations below 500cc are a missed opportunity unless you're unusually petite. Conservative tops will allow you to tone your chest down as needed, but an underwhelming boob job will always be underwhelming when it matters most.

Narrow hips and a flat butt aren't a good reason to limit yourself to small implants, because the effects of breasts, hips, and butts are mainly independent and additive. In other words, 1+1 > 1+0 > 0+0. "Balance" might sound respectable in conversation, but it has little effect on your attractiveness in itself. So don't downsize your implant goals because you're worried about balance.

g. Personalizing your implant selection

You shouldn't rely on cup letters when selecting your size. Cup letters can be misleading, and the bra sizes cited by surgeons are often smaller than those buxom women report to fit comfortably.

It's also important not to fixate on numbers in isolation. 800cc implants usually create a slightly but noticeably unnatural shape on a woman with an average frame, because they're a little more than she can comfortably fit. But on a tall woman with a wide chest, they may not even look big at all. For instance, the model on the left below actually has larger implants than the model on the right.

The table below is a rough guide to how a woman's height changes the aesthetic effect of different implant sizes. So a 5'9” woman needs around 800ccs to achieve the same effect a 5'0” woman gets with 525ccs.

Because height isn't the only relevant variable, the chart won't apply to every case. Consider this informative before-and-after comparison. The taller woman still looks much flatter than the shorter woman despite nearly double the implant volume. Always choose implants by how they'll look on your individual body. Not by how big or small the numbers and letters sound.

Rice sizers help to visualize how larger breasts will look on you. You can find instructions for making them online. Just keep adding rice until you resemble different images in this article, and see how you feel. Unfortunately, their name is a little misleading. Rice sizers aren't a very accurate guide to sizing. Because they sit differently than implants, they can misrepresent sizes by 150ccs. Usually they look bigger than implants, but this isn't a hard rule. So make sure to discuss your desired look with your surgeon and show him photo examples of what you want before you make your final decision.

The next two examples illustrate the full range of well-shaped breast-augmentation results. The model at left has small implants, probably around 300cc. The model at right is a good representation of the maximum effect, which most women shouldn't expect to match.

h. The surgeon matters

Breast augmentations have gotten better and more consistent over time, but even today there's a chance of botched or mediocre work. Not all surgeons are good at what they do, so it's important to research thoroughly before you commit. Needless to say, there's a massive difference between a good boob job and a botched one.

First study all the linked images in this section so you know what ideal breasts should look like. The videos in the later section on motion are also good reference points. Then ask for clear photos of each surgeon's previous patients and compare their results to the examples I've provided. Bad augmentations tend to look unnaturally spherical, with the outlines of the implant too apparent. Avoid surgeons whose results have these flaws. Talk to patients about their experience if you can. Don't choose a surgeon at random and hope for luck, or you might be sorely disappointed.

i. Other considerations

A common question is whether you can augment your breasts with fat transfer instead of implants. Fat transfer can only move small amounts of tissue at once, which means it would require many surgeries over a long period of time to achieve a significant increase in volume. So fat transfer isn't a practical alternative to implants. It can, however, be used in addition to implants for a small boost that may increase naturalness.

It's a good idea to reevaluate your wardrobe after your augmentation. When you have large breasts, it's important to wear properly fitted tops, not shapeless ones. You may also want to consider higher necklines.

j. Avoid breast reductions

To be clear, the sizes I've recommended above only apply to implant selection. Implants lose their shape above 800ccs, but natural breasts do not. So if you're naturally bigger, that isn't a weakness in need of surgical correction.

In the gallery below you'll find photos of a breast reduction. Even starting from an exceptional size well above the median preference, men did not consider it an improvement.

While several confounding factors may have biased this poll, none are as important as the supply-demand advantage that greatly favors her pre-op appearance. It was so rare that a 1% share of men's vote would already have been enough to make it valuable, let alone 58%. All things considered, we can be confident that reducing her breasts also reduced her attractiveness by a considerable margin.

k. Butt surgeries

Because large breasts are more popular than large rears in most of the world, butt augmentation will provide a lower return on investment than breast augmentation for the majority of readers. And as shape is more important than size, women with small rears can often make meaningful improvements with glutes training alone. So if you're not a professional model, financially well-off, or seeking to please men who prioritize butts, the benefits of a butt augmentation might not justify the expense.

l. Ideal butt examples

If you do decide to get a butt lift, the gallery of AI girls in different sizes shown below is a useful reference for shape. The lower row exhibits the same salient traits men selected when I asked them to identify the best large butt shape in glamour models.

While men prefer breasts with some natural sag over spherical breasts, unusually round and prominent buttocks with minimal sag have high erotic value at all sizes. You can see an especially clear illustration of this below.

The most-prized buttocks are large and have the curve of an egg laid on its side, with a pronounced backward projection. Imaginary women sometimes display these characteristics to an extravagant degree, and glamour models use cosmetic surgery to cultivate a similar look.

I cite these last examples to illustrate the range of male tastes without advising you to imitate them. Butt surgery is more dangerous than other types of plastic surgery. Although the results are usually good, you should take care to inform yourself about the risks before you proceed.

m. Fat transfer

Fat transfer can move fat from your waist to your hips, butt, and thighs. It's particularly effective for improving your waist-hip ratio, because it shrinks your waist and expands your hips at the same time. This technique is now widely used by glamour models. But because it's relatively new, it's hard to be sure about the long-term impact. Above all you shouldn't use it as a permanent substitute for healthy weight management. That kind of overreliance seems to be the cause of some unfortunate outcomes, rather than any issue with the procedure itself.

Hip augmentation with implants can also meaningfully improve your hourglass. But it's not one of the first surgeries I'd recommend, and it's usually not worth the cost to women with a modest budget.

n. Lip fillers

Excessive lip fillers are sometimes intentionally used by glamour models because they pop well on phone screens. The same can be said for false eyelashes, which often look good in photos when they're implausibly large. In real life these excesses rarely work.

That said, both lip fillers and false eyelashes are now unfairly maligned because a few women have overdone them so egregiously. In moderation, they look good on the right person. You can see an example of lips that are very plump but not excessive here.

o. Nose jobs

Not everyone should get a nose job, but in some cases it makes an enormous difference. The actress shown a moment ago had a nose job as well as a breast augmentation. Fixating on your nose can make it seem larger than it is, so don't obsess and have it reduced excessively.

Poor selfie technique can create the illusion that you need a nose job when you don't. It distorts other features as well. It's important to stand back from the camera. And further back than you might think. Ten feet is a good distance. If you stand closer than that, or hold your phone out at arm's length, your selfies won't give you an accurate representation of your face. This makes a huge difference for angular faces with significant depth variation, like the one shown below. The model's nose looks too big and too long in the near photo, but in reality it's perfectly fine.

p. Dealing with facial complexity

As we discussed earlier, the best faces aren't just distinguished by a few obvious traits like noses, but by a large number of small, interacting advantages that collectively add up to a more attractive whole. The sheer number of relevant dimensions is overwhelming. And the kind of rough estimates that work perfectly well for breast augmentation simply can't deal with this level of complexity and subtlety.

One approach is to rely on an experienced cosmetic surgeon's professional opinion. Unfortunately it's not always easy to know which surgeon you can trust to tweak the finer details of your face. Some surgeons are talented artists, and some are not. Variation in salesmanship may make it difficult to distinguish one from the other in advance. Today, however, women who wish to optimize their faces can also begin by consulting AI.

Although novel at the time of writing, the method I propose is simple. Use a beautifying face filter to visually transform your face into a more attractive version of itself. Then do what's necessary to make your face look like that better version of you. A face filter may provide useful ideas for cosmetic contouring or fillers that require minimal risk and expense, and useful ideas for surgical intervention as well.

Some changes you see in the filter may be impossible to achieve in reality, but others will be doable or even easy. Ask your surgeon to create a representation of the expected end result to make sure you're satisfied before you move ahead. Don't take any risks you're not comfortable with, and when in doubt, be satisfied with stopping at the most certain improvements.

It's important to highlight potential issues. Beautification filters aren't perfected at the time of writing, so this recommendation is a little premature. Don't assume they provide correct information about every face. The face below was generated by an AI with the prompt "pretty woman," but it's not a good face. You should never blindly trust AI. Always use your own judgment, taking the examples in this article as a reference point.

While quality and accuracy should improve over time, all existing filters have a more fundamental flaw. They’re not designed to account for supply and demand.

By consequence, filters promote generic faces that are pleasing to the majority rather than unique faces that are especially exciting to a minority. This won’t change until professionals design better software. To do that right is harder than it sounds, as it first requires a very large and sophisticated study that maps the diverse preferences of many men and compares them to the supply of faces in the female population. Such a study won't be done anytime soon, so don't hold your breath. In the meantime, you'll have to decide for yourself whether the face filter is guiding you in a direction that will make a positive impact on your life.

q. Jealousy speaking

This article may be dedicated to refuting beauty lies. However, there's still a social stigma surrounding cosmetic procedures in some parts of the world. So if you live in one of these regions and opt for surgery, it might be prudent to lie about it. You can shift the blame for this little crime to the author. I don't mind.

Today some petty women will announce that anyone with nice curves "looks plastic," even when the claim is false, and even when no surgery was involved (here are three "obvious and very fake-looking BBLs"). In other words, they group natural curves and well-done surgery together with an ugly, overdone look to be demeaning.

In the majority of cases this is just jealousy speaking. They can't measure up, so they try to pull their competition down. Instead of taking it to heart, remind yourself that they're insulting you because they feel sexually inferior and have low moral standards. It's an ugly thing to say, but it's true, and their behavior doesn't merit minced words.

r. Extreme makeovers and experimental techniques

In the future improved medical techniques will surely replace the current ones. For instance, breast implants should eventually be replaced by noninvasive hormonal or gene therapy derived from studies of macromastia. However, where your body is concerned, innovations need to be treated with caution. Their long-term effects may be unknown. If you choose to use new or recently developed cosmetic technologies, please do your research first.

The guidelines provided in this section are intended for average women with a middle-class budget. I've highlighted the procedures that provide the biggest boost to attractiveness with the least effort and risk. But today’s professional glamour models take advantage of a wider array of procedures that are impractical for the average woman. Typically they won’t admit this in public. You shouldn’t assume you can afford to duplicate their results. And trying to do too much increases the risk something will go wrong. When in doubt, it's wise to use moderation.

s. Well-chosen surgeries lastingly improve body image

Some women are strangely offended by the assertion that plastic surgery works. They shouldn't be. It means you have the power to change your body if and when you want to. Whatever you decide, the option is liberating.

You might be surprised, but studies actually show that cosmetic surgery provides lasting increases to happiness. The biggest gains come from breast surgery.

However, studies can be wrong, so if you’re considering a procedure, talk first to trustworthy women who have gone through with it. Ask them if they’re glad they did, and ask your doctor to explain the risks. Men tend to give dishonest or uninformed answers, so in most cases you’re better off not listening to them.

t. The most common makeup errors

Men’s ignorance about makeup is similar to their ignorance about surgery. Don’t be misled. Those who claim to prefer women without makeup actually prefer “natural-looking” makeup, but don’t realize it. The reality is that all women look better in makeup. Men's beauty advice is sometimes hard to distinguish from sabotage.

Fortunately you can get most of the benefits with a simple and efficient routine that doesn’t require hours every day. Makeup techniques are best learned from instructional videos, so I won't go into detail here. With experience and effort, most women do their makeup reasonably well. Below I'll just highlight a few common errors.

Heavy Instagram-style makeup is meant to be effective when viewed on a small phone screen. To avoid looking clownish, make sure to tone it down for real life. The example below is wearing a little too much eyeshadow.

Just because a style is trending doesn't mean it's smart. To avoid fashionable makeup mistakes, study AI-girl faces.

It's surprisingly common for women to do their eyebrows wrong. It's not necessary for everyone to cultivate an arch or a sharp point, and trying to force your eyebrows into a shape that doesn't suit your face leads to poor results. The important thing is to make sure they look dense and well defined. Don't make them into a thin line on purpose. The eyebrows shown at the left below are almost never seen in AI-girl faces.

u. Cheeks

A beauty mistake often seen in fashion advertising is using cosmetic contouring and even buccal fat removal to create or enhance the appearance of hollow cheeks. Don't do it. Like much of high fashion, this has a masculinizing effect. The large majority of men prefer full cheeks.

You can confirm this by reexamining the images in the faces section. And women with full cheeks aren't just more beautiful when young. They also tend to age better and look younger longer. In fact, a procedure to increase cheek fullness should make some older faces seem more youthful. The fact that women today are doing the reverse instead is yet another sad reminder of just how disconnected fashions are from genuine beauty.

v. Nails

Nails aren't very important, and certainly much less important than women believe. Popular images of imaginary women hardly ever feature nails prominently, and long nails are especially rare. Painted nails do occur often enough, but natural nails and pastels are more common than intense colors. There aren't necessarily any rules where nails are concerned. But the safest default is to choose medium to short nails in a subtle color or clear polish. The evidence doesn't support the widespread view that long nails are the most attractive, nor even that painting is a must.

4. Hair, skin, and eyes.

a. Hair
b. Body hair
c. Tanning
d. Eye color

a. Hair

The chart below shows the distribution of different hair colors at a major sex doll retailer.

Blonde and red hair are both overrepresented compared to their frequency in the general population, and blondes who would naturally have black hair are especially overrepresented among imaginary women of all kinds. So if you intend to dye your hair, you should consider these colors first.

Strange colors like purple, blue, and green are common in artistic representations of women, and sometimes shown in this article for that reason. Pink is the most popular of these, and in AI girls it occurs more often than red hair.

Outside an artistic context, however, men today report a strong preference for naturally occurring colors. This may be merely a matter of fashion that could change in the future. Nevertheless, for the time being I recommend you avoid risking unusual shades.

While blonde and red hair do tend to have an advantage in general terms, the best hair color for you will ultimately depend on your face and complexion. The famous faces most frequently submitted to my faces survey are actually framed by dark hair.

Hair length is far more important to men than hair color. Not a single beauty example above has short hair! This isn’t an accident. Almost all men dislike short hair. It was nearly absent from their submissions to my favorite faces study.

Below you can see the thirty standard hairstyle options one sex doll manufacturer offers with their full-body dolls. Styles descending below the breasts occur the most frequently. Most women can increase their attractiveness by wearing their hair longer. You may even want to consider growing it out to waist length.

Of course, there's some individual variability. A bob can look good on the right person. But it’s a mistake to cut your hair shorter. There are hardly any exceptions to this rule. If you've been considering a short hairstyle, please stop.

The hairstyles of imaginary women are highly variable, with only a few consistent features. The most important of these is good volume. Flat, thin hair is unattractive. Waves are popular, and straight hair is fine too. But curls are quite rare, so perming your hair to be too curly is a bad idea.

Pigtails boost sex appeal to around half of men, probably because they're associated with youth. You don't need to wear them all the time, but they're worth it once in a while.

While the impact is reduced somewhat, men still register your hair as “long” when you tie it into a bun. If convenience is an issue, this is a much better solution than cutting it short.

b. Body hair

Today at least some removal of body hair is widely considered a basic, unquestionable necessity for feminine beauty. Imaginary women support this view. They never have hairy legs, and very rarely have underarm hair. Shaving recreates a smooth, prepubescent appearance men seem to find attractive.

Readers have asked me to research pubic hair in detail. It's counterintuitive, but the genital area is not an important element of feminine beauty. Only a few percent of AI-girl images show it clearly. Going through several thousand to find those few percent and categorize the pubic hair of a statistically significant number isn't my idea of a good time.

Nevertheless, my rough impression is that a hairless genital area is the most common, and untrimmed pubic hair is almost nonexistent. So your safest bet is to shave it entirely. Trimming it to be unobtrusive is a more convenient alternative. I especially recommend you avoid stubble, the “bacon strip” pattern, and any other shaving pattern that draws attention to itself.

The case for removing underarm and pubic hair is not as absolute as some believe. Not only has there been considerable historical and regional variation in shaving expectations, but there's also clear evidence that some men still prefer unshaven underarms. Consider, for instance, the AI artist whose work is shown below. You should always avoid stubble and hairy legs, which aren't attractive to anyone. And removing underarm and pubic hair is the advisable default. But leaving it unshaven isn't out of the question, especially in places where that's customary.

c. Tanning

Classic paintings almost never depict beautiful women with a tan. Women once wore broad-brimmed hats and carried parasols to avoid them. Reader selections for best breast and butt shape are either untanned or lightly tanned, and AI girls and popular anime girls normally have no tan at all.

Below you'll find a composite image of skin patches from over a hundred randomly selected AI girls that were posted to the #aigirl hashtag on social media. All patches were clipped from the center of the chest, the typical focal point of AI-girl images, which provides the clearest and most consistent representation of coloration. The many patches with a grayish tint are dimly lit, not tanned.

You can see at a glance that untanned skin is far more common than tanned skin. In fact, fewer than ten percent of the images are distinctly tanned. Furthermore, around half are notably paler and brighter than human women in normal everyday lighting, suggesting that unnaturally luminous skin is particularly beautiful.

The generic sex-doll torsos discussed earlier also have untanned or lightly tanned skin. However, tanned and untanned skin occur with more equal frequency among the broader range of sex dolls, and uncensored search results display a range of skin tones nearly as diverse as those shown in this article.

The data is thus mixed, though the evidence against tanning is stronger than the evidence in its favor. Tanned skin appears to serve as a fashionable signal whose intrinsic effect on feminine beauty is neutral at best, and likely negative. At the very least, its value is overestimated by women today.

You can decide whether and how much to tan based on local conditions and fashions, as well as your personal style. But despite its popularity, there's no basis to recommend sunbathing for aesthetic purposes.

Since excessive sun exposure accelerates aging and tanning is unlikely to have a significant positive effect on your appearance, the default choice should be to avoid exposing your skin to more sun than is necessary for good health.

Heavy tan lines from sunbathing in bikinis have an especially unfortunate effect, and are best avoided.

If you're very pale and have no tan at all, don't let anyone tell you it makes your skin looks plain and sickly. This view is not supported by contemporary evidence, and it's strongly contradicted by historical representations of beauty.

d. Eye color

Because people generally perceive brighter colors as prettier than brown, it's natural to assume blue and green eyes are more attractive than brown eyes. However, the data doesn't clearly support this view.

Individual men do sometimes prefer a particular eye color. Yet the frequency of eye colors in sex dolls matches the frequency of eye colors in the population, implying it's a neutral trait on the group level. Academic studies also indicate that colorful eyes provide no advantage. Well-publicized research claiming otherwise is sponsored by companies that sell colored contact lenses, and of dubious quality.

It still seems logical that brighter colors would be more attractive. But the advantage is likely small, and overwhelmed by other factors. There's thus no particular need to change your eye color with contact lenses. Nor is there any harm in doing so if it suits your mood.

Nevertheless, certain eye colors combine well with certain cosmetic, clothing, and hair colors to create a pleasant overall effect, and this does tend to work better with light eyes. For instance, a green scarf will bring out green eyes. So if you have light-colored eyes, take advantage of them.

5. Motion and posture.

a. Introducing attractive motions
b. Gait
c. Bounces, shakes, and sways
d. How to get started
e. Don't be afraid of butt motions
f. How to perform breast motions
g. A real-life striptease is easier than it sounds
h. Facial expressions
i. Examples rated
j. Posture

a. Introducing attractive motions

An attractive woman is more attractive when moving. Some otherwise beautiful women remain very stiff and still. This is a mistake that makes them less appealing. The effect of movement is so strong that many readers will consider the images in this section pornographic, even though they're clothed and no more revealing than those seen earlier in the article. It's impossible to cover the topic properly without such images, which is why no one else does. To provide you with the most useful and accurate information on feminine beauty, I'll go where others fear to tread. If you think they might bother you, please skip to the next section now.

A small number of women have an excellent intuition for attractive motions. They'll find it ridiculous to hear them spelled out in instructions. But the reality is that almost all women need to learn. Prudish conventional beauty advice fails to explain thoroughly. Men typically aren't aware either, because a good performance creates the illusion of natural spontaneity. They don't spend time to consider that the girls they see on the internet have been coached and rehearsed. And there's nothing wrong with rehearsing. With a little practice, you can create the same illusion.

I'm going to go over the most attractive motions in detail and explain exactly how you can perform them. For examples I'll be using vintage gifs as well as modern videos. While these gifs do look dated, they ranked near the top of internet search results for many years, or even decades, and men still rate them highly today. That's strong evidence they're worthy examples with broad and enduring appeal.

b. Gait

A small sway as you walk can have a powerful effect on men, especially if your posture is good. A bounce can show off your chest or rear. You don't need extravagant curves for this. Modest curves are enough. The examples above and below demonstrate how you can incorporate these into your gait. And this example shows that you can apply the same basic bounce and sway technique with subtlety and casualness.

To create an attractive sway, walk by placing each foot toward the opposite side of your body. You can strengthen or weaken the effect by increasing or decreasing the lateral displacement of your steps. The viral video below is one of the best examples, and you should learn to imitate it exactly. Afterwards you can tone it down as needed.

I recommend you always walk with a feminine gait. This will support the illusion that it's natural and unstudied. If anyone remarks on it, you should steadfastly maintain that it's "just the way I walk."

However, you need to match the amount of sway and bounce to the occasion. The gaits shown immediately before and after this paragraph can stop traffic, especially when you're dressed to show them off. So much bounce is overkill in most public places, and best reserved for short bursts only. It's important to use moderation in daily life to ensure you attract the right kind of attention.

Going braless, especially with visible nipple imprints, will cause a powerful increase in the impact of a bouncing gait even for women with a small chest. But as we've already discussed, whether this is actually a good idea is another question entirely.

What counts as moderation depends in large part on the customs where you live. The minimum dose is the safest, and there's nothing wrong with conservative poise and elegance. In a dance club or behind closed doors, on the other hand, you can be more liberal.

c. Bounces, shakes, and sways

Whether you're walking, standing, or kneeling, the most basic type of attractive motion is a shake or bounce that shows off your curves by causing them to change direction on a slight lag to the rest of your body. This can be done subtly, as in the left image below, or overtly, as in the right image. It goes without saying that the latter is best reserved for private use, but the concept is exactly the same.

The twerking movement being rehearsed in slow motion at the center below is sometimes practiced by large groups in gyms or dance studios. The example shown here is fine. But caution is in order. Despite its popularity, this mass of asses moving with an athletic and almost masculine forcefulness seems grotesque to some men. The left and right images demonstrate that violent movements aren't necessary to be seductive.

Men's critical remarks about strippers and the like may discourage you from trying to copy these examples. But don't take this disdain the wrong way. Context is often what makes the difference between trashy and sexy.

You shouldn't be afraid to use the movements shown here in private. The fraction of men who will react badly is quite small, while the fraction of men who want to see them but feel awkward about asking is much larger. If you cede them to AIs and paid entertainers you'll only give these more power over men than they deserve. That's not morally pure. In fact, it hurts all of us.

So don't be trapped by a misguided sense of shame. In the proper context it's morally righteous to be as sexy as possible.

The main thing good examples have in common is an impression of ease and fluidity. However, even timid motions can be more attractive than stillness, and they sometimes have a charming naivete, as in the right and left images above. A lighthearted mood and sense of fun will help to excuse any initial clumsiness.

What you should avoid above all is giving the impression that your movements are an unpleasant obligation that doesn't flow from self-expression. Every woman pictured here visibly enjoys putting on a show, including the awkward one wearing lavender shorts and a peach bra in the previous gallery and the demure girl seen earlier biting her sweater. This is quite important, for reasons I'll explain in the section on seduction.

If you're flat and thin with narrow hips, displays of elegance or youthful agility may prove more effective than the type of movement shown above. These are harder to execute and difficult to characterize in writing. Note that runway models aren't reliable exemplars for imitation, because their gaits are sometimes rather aggressive. This is intended to impress you with their confidence so you buy their clothes, not to look good to men.

d. How to get started

To get started, pick out the videos where the model most resembles your body type. Pay special attention to those with a style and mood you like. You don't have to rely on the video examples I've provided here. However, if you look elsewhere, use caution. There are heaps of mediocre videos out there.

Don't try to put together a dance routine. Simple is best, and many videos may be too involved. You'll have to do some experimentation to learn what works in real life. Your personality can influence the best choice of motions, so please read the later section on personality before you try to use motions you're uncomfortable with.

You'll make the fastest progress by first practicing in a mirror or on video. Start by imitating your favorite from the images here, and repeat until your own video matches the model. When it does, you'll be confident you're looking good. You can learn each motion in just minutes, or a few hours at most. One day's study will benefit you for an entire lifetime. That's a better return for your time than any other beauty technique.

If you have a lover you feel comfortable with, you can present the search for his favorite motion as a humorous game where you playfully demonstrate various alternatives. For instance, start with one of the simplest motions and ask him if he likes it. Then perform it a little differently and ask if it's better or worse. Then repeat the process with a new motion. This kind of game will greatly speed up improvements to your technique. Naturally it should also be a fun experience on its own.

Don't expect every motion to be a hit. Over time you'll find the limited collection of motions that best matches your body type and his taste, and learn how to perform them perfectly.

If you're too shy to use any of these motions yet, try gradually introducing sway into your gait as described earlier. Increase it a little each week from an almost imperceptible starting point so no one notices the change. This should help to break the ice. Then you can move on to using subtle movements like this one.

e. Don't be afraid of butt motions

As explained previously, men are much more divided about butt size than breast size. Men's taste in rear motions similarly varies more than their taste in breast motions. A clear majority of men do find swaying hips attractive, and an attractive gait is always a good idea. But bouncing or jiggling big butts are polarizing.

While the video above has several very attractive elements, the overall effect is rather too aggressive, and not really ideal. Here are three better videos of large rear motions. Some men will find all of these videos unpleasant, but others will find them extremely arousing.

Butts might be divisive, but whether yours is big or small, you shouldn't be afraid to use it. For the right man it can be your greatest asset. A good rule of thumb is that if you had a big butt when you and your lover met, he likes the motions that show them off. If you developed one later, it's still better to test bouncing motions or ask his opinion about example videos than to avoid them out of fear. If you have a modestly sized butt, or even a small one with good projection, you can still get an appealing bounce out of it if you move in the right way, though jiggling may be hard or impossible.

f. How to perform breast motions

The list below covers all the main breast motions. Practice in front of a mirror until you can duplicate them effortlessly. They're not complicated, so learning should be quick and easy.

g. A real life striptease is easier than it sounds

Polling suggests most women aren't keen on the idea of giving a striptease for their lover. This aversion derives from the assumption that a tease needs to be long and theatrical, like a stage performance at a men's club, which sounds awkward and not fun.

However, the assumption is wrong. A real-life tease should actually seem spontaneous and natural, as if you're acting on a compulsion. Not theatrical. And it doesn't take much time to make a big impact. This video is a good example.

That said, you shouldn't be too quick. This tease doesn't build up enough anticipation before the reveal. Her hand motions after the reveal are rather fast as well, and lack subtlety. It will still please men, but it's less exciting than it could be. Even good example videos typically make the buildup too short, because they're competing for attention online. For instance, the excellent previous video should have repeated the opening thirteen seconds twice.

For the maximum impact in real life, spend thirty seconds or so building anticipation. Afterward, spend another thirty seconds using attractive motions before you start to move closer and encourage him to intervene. Always go slow before you go fast. The full tease will usually take a minute or two, though you can extend it further if that suits the mood.

h. Facial expressions

Facial expressions, and especially expressive eye motions, can also make a valuable contribution. So do remember to pay attention to the eyes when you watch example videos. When possible you should usually look your partner in the eye while you perform these movements, without, of course, expecting him to maintain eye contact in return.

The "killshot" expression, discussed in the section on faces, has special power. It combines three seemingly contradictory elements: fear, pleasure, and painful longing. Practice in a mirror until you can make the composite expression without any sign of artificiality. Obviously you shouldn't use it at random. You'll need to wait for, or create, an appropriate circumstance.

Expressions that feature a slightly open mouth are usually more attractive than those where the mouth remains closed. Lip biting can also have an erotic effect. Both expressions and sounds of pleasure are attractive in themselves, so it's better to exaggerate them a little than to hide them. Chastely concealing pleasure and lust from your lover is counterproductive.

Stern, confidently assertive expressions are more attractive on men than on women. For instance, the expression below doesn't project confidence, but rather hopefulness with an underlying uncertainty that makes it feminine and extremely attractive.

In fact, unconfident, fearful, and even outright embarrassed expressions can be attractive on women, especially when they're spiked with an undercurrent of anticipatory desire. Surprisingly, the expression doesn't need to look genuine. It will still have an erotic impact if it looks put-on and playful.

Below an artist explains how he prompted AI to sex up a popular cartoon character. The left image is before he finished the edits he describes, the right is after. The fact that displaying emotions associated with weakness can increase your feminine power, whereas displaying emotions associated with strength can reduce your feminine power, is an interesting paradox of human nature.

This is common practice, not just one artist's preference. When a different AI artist wanted to sex up a comic-book superheroine, he similarly replaced the confident expression she wears in Hollywood with a version of the killshot expression that emphasizes fearful longing, as you can see above.

Expressions and eye contact can sometimes enhance fellatio, especially if your face is your strong suit, because they naturally pull attention toward it.

One approach is to make your face the stage for a drama where lust is held back by the other emotions I've just mentioned (bashfulness, hopeful uncertainty, fear, embarrassment, and so on), but eventually overcomes them. This particular sequence of expressions is another one that can succeed even when it's obviously an act. I'll explain why it works on men in the next section.

If you have a particularly youthful face you can win hearts by making a show of cute and girlish mannerisms. This will fall flat unless you're the appropriate type, so evaluate yourself honestly before you try it. Neoteny is one of the most important aspects of beauty, but it's also the least durable. In contrast, the bodily motions shown in this section are still effective for fit middle-aged women.

It's true that sophisticated traditional dances are more beautiful and more impressive than any of the movements shown in this article. But while they require more skill, they don't achieve better results in today's environment. People may be impressed by ballroom dancing, but being impressed and actually caring are not the same thing.

i. Examples rated

Because there's so little hard data on motion preferences, I asked men to rate all the images in this section. You can see the results in the galleries below, presented in order of popularity. Men aren't good at separating motions from models, so one should always assume they're rating both. Recall that I intentionally chose dated gifs for these examples because they provide evidence of enduring appeal. Newer videos would receive higher scores.

These results require an important caveat beyond the usual warning about surveys. The votes show which images are popular, not which are best. Some popular motions may not work for your body type. Moreover, your lover may be most aroused by unpopular motions. That's why experimentation is indispensable. You should also vary the motions you use to avoid inducing boredom. Don't stop at learning just one or two easy motions. Novelty is an aphrodisiac for men.