Men, You Could Be Hotter. So What Exactly Is Your Excuse?

Sophia Leon S.

25 minutes ago

9 min read

Women have spent decades being interrogated about their bodies. Men, comparatively, have been given an extraordinary amount of grace. So why, when the barriers are often different, perhaps even, do I dare say, ‘lower’? Why are so many men perfectly comfortable opting out of taking care of themselves?

There is something I've never quite understood about men. We live in a world where women are expected to negotiate with their bodies almost constantly.

We menstruate. We get pregnant. We give birth. We breastfeed. We experience hormonal changes. We age. Our metabolism changes. Our bodies redistribute fat. Our breasts stop behaving like they did at twenty. We develop cellulite. We wake up bloated and somehow have to continue with our day as though our abdomen hasn't declared independence.

And still, somehow, we are expected to look good, not merely healthy: Good. Great. HOT!

Toned, but not too muscular. Slim, but not flat. Curvy, but only in the approved places. Effortless, but clearly maintained. We have somehow managed to turn the female body into a full-time administrative position. It is simply the price of being considered desirable. Meanwhile, men seem to have been handed a rather generous contract.

Get slightly soft around the middle and society calls it a dad bod. Stop exercising and you're busy. Develop a stomach at thirty-two and perhaps you've simply become successful. Lose your jawline and you've become distinguished. Gain twenty kilos and, depending on the lighting, you're apparently just a man who enjoys his food.

So I have a question: Men, what exactly is your excuse?

Not for being imperfect. Not for ageing. Not for having a body that doesn't look like it belongs on a Greek statue. I'm talking about something a bit simpler...

If you have a body that is capable of becoming stronger, fitter, healthier and, yes, more attractive, why have so many men become completely comfortable with doing the bare minimum to maintain it? And before someone starts typing furiously about how women are not entitled to attractive men, I agree.

Neither sex owes the other a six-pack.. Attraction isn't a moral obligation. But we're allowed to admit that attraction exists, no? We're also allowed to ask why women have historically been expected to work so hard at maintaining physical attractiveness while men have been given considerably more room to simply... opt out.

Let’s talk about the dad-bod industrial complex for a sec…

Somewhere along the way, male physical decline became funny. The beer belly. The love handles. The man who "let himself go." The shirt that has mysteriously become tighter around the stomach. We took and turned all of this into a whole personality trait. And then we gave it a name. Dad bod.

There is something truly impressive about the cultural generosity of those two words, if you ask me. A man gains weight and suddenly his body has a backstory. He's not out of shape. He's a dad. He's not sedentary. He's relaxed. He's not neglecting himself. He's comfortable in his own skin.

There is actually a fascinating body of cultural research around the dad bod, which argues that the term has become a contradictory symbol: celebrated as relatable and attractive, while simultaneously representing a refusal to participate in the increasingly demanding culture of male fitness and bodily discipline.

And honestly, I think that's exactly why the term became so successful. It made ‘not trying’ sound like a lifestyle.

The dad bod doesn't necessarily mean being unhealthy. A genuine dad bod can be strong, active and simply a little soft around the edges. The problem is what happened to the idea. We've taken the phrase and stretched it until it can cover almost anything.

There is a difference between a man who lifts weights, plays football on Sundays, walks everywhere and has a little softness around his stomach, and a man whose primary form of exercise is walking from his desk to the refrigerator. Yet somehow both can end up under the same adorable umbrella.

And women have participated in this mythology too. There are countless conversations about how women supposedly love dad bods. And perhaps many do, hey, that's perfectly fine!

But I sometimes look at the men being presented as examples of the beloved dad bod and think: that's not a dad bod. That's a man with shoulders. That's a man who clearly works out but also eats pasta. That's a man who has been allowed to retain the physical evidence of having a life. And maybe that's the real secret. Women don't necessarily need men to be shredded. Perhaps we just want evidence that you occasionally lift something heavier than your laptop? I don’t know…

Effort Is Attractive: This is where we're supposed to become polite. We're supposed to say looks don't matter. Offuckingcourse they matter?! I mean, they don't matter more than everything else. But pretending physical attraction is irrelevant is one of those lies people tell because honesty makes them a tad bit uncomfortable.

You can be attracted to someone's mind and still want to climb into bed with their body. You can love someone's personality and not want to sleep with them. You can adore someone's kindness and still not find them physically attractive. Human beings are kinda inconvenient like that.

And men understand this perfectly well. Men know what they find attractive. They know what bodies they look at twice. They know what women they fantasise about. Nobody tells them they're shallow for having physical preferences.

So why do we suddenly become philosophically opposed to physical attraction when we're discussing men's bodies?

You don't need to look like Henry Cavill or Theo James. But if you're expecting to date a woman who trains five times a week, eats reasonably well, takes care of herself and genuinely enjoys being fit, it isn't outrageous for her to want a partner whose lifestyle isn't the exact opposite.

That's not necessarily superficial, is it? That's compatibility. And this is where I think we've misunderstood the point entirely.

So yes, effort is attractive. Not cuz’ effort makes you morally superior. But because it tells us something about you. Actually, a whole lot. That you care about yourself, that you have some discipline, you are capable of delaying gratification. You understand that the things you want require maintenance. And that last one might matter more than the abs.

Because the woman who spends years taking care of her body may not be looking for a male version of herself. But she may reasonably wonder why the man sitting opposite her has decided that personal maintenance is beneath him.

There is even a rather revealing Reddit discussion among married men asking what keeps them motivated to exercise once attracting women is no longer part of the equation. One commenter admitted that sexual attraction had been an extraordinarily effective motivator in his younger years, and then had to confront what would replace it once he was married.

Which is interesting, veeerrryyy interesting… Because perhaps the real question isn't whether women want men to be fit. It's whether men want to be fit when nobody is watching.

You know what I think the problem is, that getting fit is boring. This is the part nobody wants to hear. Getting fit is booorrriiiing. Not always, not for everyone. Sometimes it's exhilarating. Sometimes you leave the gym feeling like you've briefly become the kind of person who has their life together. But mostly? It's Tuesday. You don't feel like going. You go. Thursday. You're tired. You go. Saturday. You'd rather stay in bed. You go. Then you do it again next week. And the week after. And the week after. There is no dramatic montage really. No magical morning where you wake up and suddenly become the person who loves running. No perfect moment when motivation descends from the heavens and gently places a pair of Nike Metcons beside your bed. You just keep showing the fuck up.

And this is where I think we've become obsessed with the wrong thing. Motivation. People talk about motivation as though it's the missing ingredient. Believe me it isn't. Motivation is unreliable. It comes and goes depending on your sleep, your mood, your job, your relationship, the weather and whether somebody said something annoying to you at 11:14 that morning.

There are endless conversations among men about this exact problem. One of the more honest ones essentially came down to the fact that the person knew all the reasons he should work out. He knew it was healthy. He knew it would improve his life. He simply didn't want to do it consistently. Another commenter summed up the answer with brutal simplicity: do it anyway.

There it is. Not motivation. Continuity. Because your body doesn't care what you intended to do. It responds to what you repeatedly do. And perhaps the least sexy word in the entire English language is the one that matters most: Maintenance.

Nobody wants to hear that becoming attractive is mostly maintenance. We'd rather believe in transformation. A new diet. A new gym. A new trainer. A new supplement. A new pair of running shoes. A new version of ourselves. But eventually the novelty disappears and you're left with the same unglamorous question: Are you going again tomorrow? That's where the results actually come from. Not from wanting it. From continuing after you stop wanting it.

Look I am not saying you have to be hot, chillax. Let me be fair before the internet once again decides I have declared war on men. You don't have to be hot. Nobody does. You don't need a six-pack. You don't need to be lean. You don't need to spend six days a week in the gym. You don't even have to care about having visible abs. And there is nothing wrong with being soft. The problem isn't imperfection. The problem is indifference.

There is a difference between: "This is my body and I'm happy with it."

And: "I've completely stopped taking care of myself and would prefer everyone else to pretend this is a philosophical position."

Those are not the same thing. And men absolutely do experience body-image pressure too. Research on male body image has found that media, peers and family pressures can contribute to internalising lean and muscular ideals, body surveillance and poorer body-image outcomes. So no, I'm not pretending men have never been made to feel insecure about their bodies. They have. The difference is that we've historically constructed a much more forgiving cultural vocabulary around men's bodies. And perhaps that's where we should start questioning the bargain.

Maybe it’s not about women at all… Because the older I get, the less convincing the argument becomes that taking care of your body is primarily about looking good for somebody else. Maybe attraction is simply the most entertaining reason. The deeper reason is that you have to live in the thing. For decades. Your body is carrying you through every relationship, every career, every holiday, every heartbreak, every early-morning flight.

It is the thing that lets you pick up your child. Carry your suitcase. Swim in the sea. Run after someone. Climb a mountain. Dance badly at a wedding. Travel when you're seventy. Get out of bed without your knees filing a formal complaint.

Exercise isn't only about looking good naked. Although, admittedly, looking good naked is a rather enjoyable side effect. It's about maintaining your capacity to live. And the older you get, the more obvious that becomes. You don't suddenly wake up at sixty and decide you'd like to have a strong body. You build it years earlier.

A walk. A run. A few sets of weights. A decent meal. A little less alcohol. A little more sleep. Then you do it again. And again. And again. The body you have at fifty is, to some extent, a record of what you repeatedly chose at thirty. Which is both inspiring and mildly terrifying if you ask me...

So, Men. What Exactly Is Your Excuse?

Maybe the answer is that there isn't one. Maybe you don't need more motivation. Maybe you don't need the perfect program. Maybe you don't need the perfect trainer. Maybe you don't need a new gym membership that will quietly become a monthly donation to a company you haven't visited since February. Maybe you just need to stop waiting to feel like doing it.

Because the most worthwhile things in life require maintenance. Relationships. Friendships. Careers. Money. Your skin. Your teeth. Your mental health. Your body.

The fantasy is that once we find the right thing, it will become effortless. It won't. You simply become better at doing it. And maybe that is what women have understood, sometimes to our own detriment, for a very long time. Women have been taught to maintain themselves so relentlessly that we've sometimes forgotten we are allowed to simply exist. Maybe men have been given the opposite lesson: that they can simply exist and never learned that maintenance is part of caring for themselves.

We know what it means to maintain something. We know what it means to keep showing up when the novelty has disappeared. We know that the body changes and you have to change with it. Maybe men could learn something from that. Not because women are better. Not because men owe us hotter bodies. But because there is something super tragic about having a body capable of so much and deciding, year after year, not to find out what it can do.

Let me crystal clear once again; Your body is not a moral achievement. Being fit doesn't make you a better person. Being fat doesn't make you a worse one. Nobody owes anyone beauty. But your body is still yours. It is the only one you're getting. And there is something so beautiful about taking care of the thing that has been carrying you through your entire life.

So no, men. This isn't really about us. It's not even really about being hot. It's about what happens when you stop treating your own body as something you can endlessly put off taking care of. Because eventually, the excuses become a lifestyle. The lifestyle becomes your body. And your body becomes the place you have to live. You're the one who has to carry that body home.