Women’s Standards of Attractiveness Are As Unrealistic As Men’s審美不靠譜，男女都一樣

郭曉陽郭曉陽

Womens expectations of the opposite sex are at least as unrealistic as mens.女性對異性的期望不比男性實際。

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

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

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

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

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

長久以來男人一直好奇女人究竟看重什么。一些人埋首男性雜志找尋指引，汲汲于雜志宣揚的“六塊腹肌”。而那些更具科學頭腦的，則從實驗數(shù)據(jù)中尋求答案。由澳大利亞國立大學的布萊恩·莫茨領銜的一群研究者為我們提供了最新實證。他們召集了105名澳大利亞異性戀女性，向她們展示了一組用數(shù)字技術生成的男性圖片，圖中男性的身高、腰肩比、疲軟狀態(tài)下的生殖器尺寸這三種身體特征各不相同。研究人員要求參與調查的女性以挑選性伙伴為標準，給圖片中的男子打分。

在《美國科學院院報》刊登的一篇文章中，莫茨博士和他的團隊公布了調查結果。令自卑人群感到欣慰的是，雖然女性確實認為生殖器較大的男性很有吸引力，但這不是最重要的因素。最具吸引力的身體特征是肩寬腰細，在決定男性吸引力的各項指標中，僅這一項就占據(jù)了約3/4的權重。身高的影響力也沒那么強。這在莫茨博士看來有些出乎意料，因為根據(jù)其他研究，身高與各種好處相關，比如更高的薪水、更長的壽命等。“愈大愈好”效應也存在收益遞減現(xiàn)象：無論身高、肩寬，還是生殖器大小，尺寸每增加一點兒，影響力就會減弱一分。

不過，在研究人員制作的男性形象中，即使身高最高、肩膀最寬、最得天獨厚的男性也未達到完美的地步?！白顑?yōu)指標似乎超出了測試范圍”，研究人員表示，并補充道，“每項特征的總體均值比最大值低了兩個標準差”。也就是說，女性在現(xiàn)實世界遇到的男子，每項特征都符合她們期待的只有不到2.5%。所有三項特征都拿到滿分的男子可謂鳳毛麟角。

這項研究并不完善。無須擔心女性會將這些虛擬男士與現(xiàn)實真人混為一談。在現(xiàn)實世界里，其他因素（如社會地位等）要比研究人員用來衡量的身體特征更加重要。此外，如果所有調查對象都來自同一個國家，就很難從那些先天因素中摒除后天環(huán)境造成的影響。譬如，人們普遍認為，男性對苗條女性的偏愛似乎是相對現(xiàn)代且源自西方的產(chǎn)物。19世紀初的情色作品中，女性形象遠比現(xiàn)在豐滿。女性的偏好可能同樣會受到所處文化的影響。

另一方面，任何物種的雌性遠比雄性挑剔是生物學里的一條經(jīng)驗法則。之所以如此，其背后有著充分的進化原因。在分擔育子責任這件事上，即使人類比許多動物平等，生育時需要女性投入的資源仍比男性大得多——畢竟，是女性必須承擔十月懷胎的辛苦，繼而用母乳哺育嬰兒。因此，女性就有更強的動機把相對有限的生育資源投入到最具吸引力的男性身上，他們的孩子也最有可能反哺父母。所以，小伙子們，繼續(xù)健身吧。? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? □

（譯者為“《英語世界》杯”翻譯大賽獲獎者）