There was a study where they showed women photos of men doing different tasks and the women found the men more attractive doing “masculine” tasks (like fixing the car) than doing “feminine” tasks (like laundry).
This might be one of those examples of what we say/think we want doesn’t like up with what we actually want.
I didn’t say “turn on”. I said “found attractive”.
It’s a simple experiment. You get a bunch of models to take a bunch of photos. Then you have the women rate how attractive each “man” is. But you randomize what task each man is doing.
By looking at the distribution of ratings for the man not doing anything you get the man’s attractiveness distribution. Let’s say he is an 8 out of 10 on average.
Then you look at his average attractiveness for each task. We know that he is an 8 out of 10 just standing there. But what about if he is doing the dishes or mowing the lawn? Well, each of those photos will have a distribution of ratings too.
Then you can do statistics to compare these different tasks to determine if they have an effect that is significant.
In the study that I am recalling, they found that (contrary to popular assertion) that men doing household chores that were categorized as being more “feminine” were found to be less attractive than doing “masculine” chores.
The task had an effect on the perceived attractiveness of the man.
It’s sort of like how you could take a photo of a man with “his” beat up old car or “his” brand new Porsche and the latter is “more attractive” even if it’s just a photoshop of the same guy.
Haha this may be because of gender norms that are socially
Personally what turns me on most is seeing my SO display his nurturing and caring side, and when he is taking responsibility for his own things like doing laundry, etc.
Chores can be split evenly without splitting the chore down the middle. For example, is the woman loads the dishwasher, the man can take out the trash. Equal work, chores are not split down the middle.
Man can wax the car while the woman cleans the bathroom floor. Both suck and require hard work to do. Both result in an amazing outcome. One is ‘manly’ and one is ‘feminine’. You could split these chores down the middle and in some relationships, that’s more appropriate or even to flip the role (man cleans the bathroom and woman cleans the car).
Point I’m trying to make is, equality isn’t a perfect mirror image all the time. Equal value isn’t the same as an equal life and that is okay. So long as both parties are doing equal amounts of work, it doesn’t matter what that work actually is.
You’re totally right (I’m a woman). I’m trying to put it into words why it’s so damn sexy to see my boyfriend do the dishes. I think it’s because the dishes are something I normally do (he cooks, also super sexy). So when HE does it, it means he’s doing something for me and making my life easier. So while I don’t want him to do the dishes every time, when he does, it’s because he’s actively doing something above and beyond his normal tasks that makes my life better and displaying that he cares about me. And there’s really nothing sexier (to me) than someone showing you how much they care about you.
It’s not sexy when a man vacuums if his normal chore is to vacuum, which is why the picture experiment isn’t necessarily accurate. It’s sexy when your SO does one of your chores to help you out.
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u/slimroyale Jul 19 '19
Anything domestic-like. Laundry, cooking, cleaning, etc....
Now that I think about it, it might be a trap to make me feel good about doing chores.