18 | Are gay men too superficial in dating?

is a question I get asked a lot, why are gay men so focused on looks in dating? So I want to unpack what's going on here, why looks do and don't matter in relationships, what this means for how we navigate gay dating culture as a whole. So let's get to it. Hey and welcome back to the Better Gay Dating podcast. The podcast about building deeper connections is gay and by men. My name is Ed and I'm a dating and relationship coach working with men who date men. So yeah, you might have noticed looks, image and status definitely do carry weight in gay culture. They're often factors in how many of us decide who gets our attention time and effort because in short, this obviously isn't just about gay dating, it's partially about human nature. Quote and quote superficial traits like physical attractiveness play a role in dating in general and even who gets hired or chosen or just privileged in all kinds of situations. But there are some subtleties here that apply specifically to dating and partner selection in our community, we really should unpack. And so actually, I don't think our gay men too superficial is the most important question here. Instead, I'm going to focus on unpacking why physical attractiveness can be so important in gay culture in general. What happens when we give it more weight than it arguably deserves? You can think of this as your no bullshit guide to how attractiveness does and doesn't matter in gay dating and what we can do about that. So let's dive in. First, I looked at some of the broader research here to help contextualize this. So let's start there with some of what that research brings up. So yes, multiple studies have shown that people in general just do correlate physical attractiveness with social desirability. For other times we say beauty is skin deep or it's what's inside that counts. Research shows we often judge and treat more conventionally attractive people more positively. In fact, one study showed that physically attractive criminals received substantially more lenient sentences than less good looking ones. And then, despite the common assertion that men care more about looks than women, one 2008 study made a really fascinating conclusion. But while straight men tended to say they valued a potential partner's physical attractiveness more than straight women did, when they looked at who people were actually interested in at a speed dating event, any differences between genders mostly disappeared. So it seems largely not true that men are more superficial than women, though it suggests that often what we say we value in a partner isn't always what actually drives our choices in practice. But what about gay men specifically? What research is relevant there? Well, interestingly, one study that compared how lesbian women, straight women, gay men and straight men evaluated physical attractiveness and potential partners found relatively few differences overall. But one notable exception was that gay men did value having a muscular partner substantially more than straight women, the other group looking for male partners did, which is maybe not surprising. But then another study found, get ready, there might be someone you want to passively aggressively send this one to, but it found that gay men who were taller, more muscular and more gifted down below were more likely to show narcissistic traits and more likely to want partners who have the same physical characteristics. So basically gay men who fit those three characteristics were more likely to reject guys who don't, which combines suggests to me that it's not just that gay men are superficial or gay men are more superficial and narcissistic and straight men, but something a bit more subtle about how attraction often seems to work in our community. It suggests to me something I think a lot of verses have felt or suspected at times that a lot of this isn't strictly about physical attractiveness, and more about specific symbols of worth within our community, whether that's a tall stature, a muscular body, a big dig, that we even often connect with having worth as men in general. Which I'm not saying is 100% universal and sure might be something you can intuit in 10 seconds after opening Grindr, but I do think it's something many of us have felt at times that desirability in our community often isn't even about who is quote and quote good locking, but about who fits these very specific standards of attraction or even masculinity in our community. And again, I'm not saying this is a hard and fast rule, but it certainly ties in with the idea that men, whatever the sexual orientation, often inherit a very specific list of criteria for how to measure ourselves as men, especially based on how we look or what we offer. And a significant factor for gay and by men is that as men who love other men, we're often compared negatively to straight men. So I'm not saying that we all wish we were straight and we all have a strict five point checklist we used to measure physical attraction, but to me this is less about simply asking our gay men superficial, but more why are we choosing who we choose? And is it even truly about attraction or is it often more about something else choosing the safe or pre-approved choice because it might give us status or even belonging we aren't getting elsewhere? And if so, what impact does that have? Because yeah, all of that covered, I want to talk more now about the impact of some of this when it comes to building strong relationships within this community. In last week's episode, I really focused in on relationship capacity or relationship skill and how it's the underappreciated and often under acknowledged factor that actually builds strong relationships because that's ultimately the key with more superficial traits in dating, like someone's appearance, body type, social status, salary or whatever. They might help create initial attraction, but they're actually not that good at predicting relationship satisfaction in the long term. Even if those things help create that initial attraction, research shows it really is how someone shows up in the relationship, how they communicate and handle conflict, how they offer a sense of commitment to the relationship, how they show appreciation to the partner that contribute most to long term happiness here. Or to break it down in one of my favorite ways, I think in gay culture there are really two relevant variables here. One that I call sexual marketplace value or SMV and the other partnership readiness value or PRV. Because yeah, sexual marketplace value is often a driving force behind a lot of our decisions. And as we've seen, it's not always even about who is handsome or good looking, it's often about who is fuckable, who has the established markers of being sexually desirable and even kind of consumable as a sex partner. And to be clear, it's not about saying anyone's SMV or fuckability even is irrelevant or that it's a moral or wrong to care about it. If you want to have great sex, SMV might be a relevant factor for you. But that's kind of the key here. Partnership readiness value is what someone actually offers you as a mutual partner. It's how well they listen to you, how they respect you, how they build for the long term with you, how they balance their needs with yours. It's how skilled already they are offering you actual partnership, not just good sex. Or in other words, big muscles or a chisel jawline might be fun to look at, but they don't look after you when you're sick or encourage you to go for that promotion, or handle conflict maturely without a ton of yelling or emotional manipulation. But what gets tricky is that you can feel like gay culture encourages us that we should prioritize SMV when choosing partners and not to pay much attention to PRV at all. We live in a culture where we hear he's so hot a lot more than he'd be a great partner or just he's really kind. And that's the thing, there's no reason why someone can't be high in SMV and PRV, but they're completely independent variables. Someone can be high in one, but not the other, or high in both. But again, if fulfilling long term love is your biggest priority, it's PRV how ready someone is to be a great partner that really matters. So what can you actually do with this? Well, if you're someone looking for longer term connections, the first thing is to get curious about what factors are truly driving your partner choice here. Specifically, how much is driven by SMV and how much by PRV? How much does each influence who you pursue or show interest in, or even just who you give your attention to? And then for lots of us, that does mean paying more attention to someone's PRV as you're getting to know him. Does he treat you with respect? Is he mostly reliable and communicative and reasonable with you? And as you get to know him, does he behave in ways that make you think you could actually build something stable and fulfilling together? And again, that doesn't mean ignoring SMV or physical attraction altogether. It doesn't mean choosing someone you have zero physical chemistry with at all. Physical attraction is important to most people to some extent, but in short, it does mean saying that physical attraction obviously isn't nearly enough to sustain a long term relationship. And it does mean saying that if you don't give partnership readiness value the way it deserves, that's likely to lead to less satisfying relationships. But even if that's what you can do, what about navigating dating in a community that often does send to SMV over PRV? What can we do about that? Because yeah, you can control what you look for, but the obvious truth is that a lot of the time, we are being evaluated and dating for what we look like. And in a culture where physical attractiveness can feel like a kind of currency in gay dating, how well we happen to fit the markers of conventional attractiveness can have a disproportionate impact on our overall experience of dating. So there are a few things I'd say here. The first is that even if SMV often is an important factor in how gay men choose partners, as we've seen, it's not the universal defining force in gay dating. That is some gay men care about it a lot, some less, some not much at all. And like with everything in gay dating, you don't need the entire community to be a certain way to find a great partner. You just need to find one person you're compatible with who's ready to build something great with you. So yeah, there are obviously gay spaces and apps where SMV and sexual desirability are the main factors. It feels like everyone's been weighed up on, but there are also spaces or groups or apps which are more focused on connection or community and focusing your time on those does shift who you'll meet and how you feel seen and valued in those spaces. And more broadly on that, one thing that often happens in our SMV focus culture is it's really easy to internalize at this hierarchy of whose heart and popular and visible or whatever, is the only one that matters, which obviously it's not. But when that happens, we often start second guessing who would or wouldn't be interested in us based on how we think we measure our, in terms of physical attractiveness. Or just that rejection must absolutely mean we simply weren't hot enough for someone else. It's like we're sometimes running a version of, well, he wouldn't be interested because I'm a six and he's an eight and if I dressed a bit better I could bump up to a seven and then maybe it'd be worth a shot, which is kind of as exhausting as it sounds. But in real life attraction and compatibility just are more complicated than that. So if we're telling ourselves who definitely would or wouldn't be interested in us for X or Y reason, we can miss out on connections that might have gone somewhere great or even just sparked a nice conversation. And sure, this isn't me saying that every terrifyingly attractive person you see has a secret crush on you and is hoping you'll say hi, but it is about questioning whether you're cutting yourself off from potentially great connections because part of you believes there's this definitive attractiveness hierarchy in gay spaces. So therefore there's no point even trying because yeah, I've definitely been on both sides of this. I've shot my shot at times, it felt a bit risky and the interest did turn out to be mutual, even if in other times it wasn't. I've also said hi or smile to people in in person spaces who later basically said, I'm glad you did that because I wanted to say hi, but thought you wouldn't be interested. So you just don't know, physical attraction is not universal, even when it feels like it. And despite what it can feel like, gay men often do respond positively to warmth and confidence or just strong social skills and not just looks. So yeah, I'm partially saying you have to risk a little to make great connections, but I'm also saying it's definitely not true that we all have a spot on this one big attractiveness hierarchy in which you'd all shut up and act accordingly. Because again, there are spaces that feel more hierarchical than others, but this is absolutely more nuance than that. And again, a big reminder that despite what it can feel like, being conventionally attractive or sexually desirable in this community doesn't necessarily translate into a better experience in dating or a happier life in the ways we often assume. Obviously without naming anyone specific circumstances, I have worked with gay guys who on the outside had all the markers of success or desirability, but on the inside still felt a bit lonely and disconnected or just fed up with dating in general. And yeah, there is research on this too, but it's often just that common gay feeling that if only I got hotter, all my problems will be solved. Because sure, being desirable in this community does bring certain advantages. And so there are benefits to boosting our sexual marketplace value in this community, whether it's by working out more, eating better, building confidence or whatever that is. But even if becoming more desirable does bring certain benefits, more status, more attention, more sexual opportunities, that doesn't necessarily correlate with more happiness. That's the trap of if only I get hotter, all my problems will be solved. Because being visible is not the same as being seen and being desired is not the same as being valued, being wanted is not the same as being known. So yeah, the conclusion here isn't that looks irrelevant in dating or that looks maxim will get you literally everything you want in dating. It's more that what we look like often does impact who's willing to give us a shot, but it's emotional maturity, maxing that really helps us build something great with someone. And it's relationship skill, maxing that lets us sustain it. And in general, what we look like often does affect which doors open for us in dating. We've all experienced that in some form. But whoever we are, we don't need every door to open to be able to build something great with someone. We just need the right one to open at the right time and to be ready to walk through it. So there we are, that's a wrap on this episode. If you watch it on YouTube, I'm curious to know your thoughts on all this, did anything here speak to you, especially or feel especially relevant to you. And in case you missed it in last week's episode, I've just launched my first two self-study courses on gay dating and relationships, which are really about helping you develop your relationship skills, including how to identify PRV, your relationship capacity and a potential partner. One is called start connecting and it's a free three-day course that'll give you a lot of insight into where you are and where you could be with all of this. And the other connect online is a deep dive into making more meaningful connections online as gay and by men. You can find out more about both at bettagadating.com. Thanks for listening as always and I'll catch you in the next episode.