Lumifer comments on Stupid Questions March 2015 - Less Wrong

5 Post author: Gondolinian 03 March 2015 11:37PM

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Comment author: zedzed 05 March 2015 11:44:11AM 2 points [-]

Any data on whether women prefer men with light makeup?

Comment author: Lumifer 05 March 2015 03:53:31PM 2 points [-]

Anecdotally, I don't know a single (hetero) woman who prefers men with any makeup.

Comment author: ITakeBets 06 March 2015 01:49:36AM 1 point [-]

Ask your female hetero friends if Tim Curry was hot in Rocky Horror.

Comment author: Lumifer 06 March 2015 02:02:54AM *  1 point [-]

Campy cult movies don't count :-)

Perhaps I should express myself more precisely and say that no woman I know prefers a man who wears makeup seriously. Wearing full battle makeup for funsies is perfectly fine.

Comment author: philh 07 March 2015 04:00:05AM 0 points [-]

Is that an expressed preference or a revealed one?

I wouldn't be surprised if the median woman would find a guy hotter when he's wearing suitable makeup, but if she discovered that he was wearing makeup, she would dislike that and start to avoid him or whatever. Which might still mean that the median man should not typically wear makeup, but it's less clear-cut than if the median women rates men as less attractive when they're wearing any kind of makeup.

(It seems implausible to me that the makeup industry would have found no product at all that could make men look more attractive to the median woman.)

Comment author: NancyLebovitz 07 March 2015 12:30:18PM 3 points [-]

I'm wondering whether two situations should be distinguished-- a man might be viewed more positively if he's wearing a little foundation to make his skin look smoother, but more negatively if a woman touches his face and notices it.

This is definitely hypothetical. Anyone have actual information?

Comment author: Lumifer 07 March 2015 04:36:12AM *  0 points [-]

Is that an expressed preference or a revealed one?

Hm, revealed preference is hard to disentangle from other factors. Besides, men with makeup are not all that common outside of TV studios, Burning Man (and the like), and certain areas of town. Speaking of, I think the standard interpretation of makeup on a guy is that it's a signal he is gay or, more generally, not hetero male.

I've recently seen expressed preference with respect to a particularly male kind of makeup -- hair "thickener", aka hair fiber spray to cover up a bald spot. That expressed preference was very negative.

Oh, and a "median woman" is not a particularly desirable target X-D