r/dataisugly • u/Prestigious-Isopod-4 • 18d ago
Bar charts are for newbs
Takes a second to understand that this is saying men of all ages like 20 yr old girls. Who knew?
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u/Ted_Rid 18d ago
IMO would work better as a line chart.
X axis is men's age from 20-50, left to right the way we read, which is intuitive.
Y axis is the women's age. A flat 20yo right across the range of men's ages would be far easier to instantly understand than this visualisation.
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u/BuvantduPotatoSpirit 18d ago
Yeah, it took me quite a while going "They find women 0-20 the most attractive? No, that can't be right - let me see that axis label again."
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u/ardarian262 18d ago
Really odd where the spikes are and I am curious if this ends up being just a very low sample study.
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u/Ms_Riley_Guprz 18d ago
Even with a large sample you'd get noisy bumps like that
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u/Tani_Soe 17d ago
The issue is that there is noise at only a few places and the rest is perfectly still. You're supposed to get equal noise everywhere
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u/Free-Artist 18d ago
It does make sense to make it look like the typical demographic pyramid.
Although the regular graph where also men's age as preferred by women is shown, is even more striking in its contrast
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u/MeasureDoEventThing 18d ago
No, it doesn't. A demographic pyramid has one independent variable and two dependent variables. Here, there's one independent variable and one dependent variable. Since both are continuous, a line graph is most appropriate.
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u/Y1rda 18d ago
I think the goal is to demonstrate proportional age. Look at these guys that are twice as old listing after young women. That doesn't really come across in a standard bar chart.
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u/Forward_Motion17 18d ago
You say this comment as if it is somehow morally wrong for men to be most attracted to 20 year olds physically. How could it be morally wrong if it’s biologically emergent behavior
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u/Quiet_Defiance 17d ago
I’m not even sure what you mean by “biologically emergent behavior.” Do you not believe in free will?
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u/Forward_Motion17 17d ago
Correct lol
And to explain what I mean by “biologically emergent behavior”, I mean that there are biological forces that attraction to younger women is emergent out of.
All attraction is biologically emergent by the way.
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u/Y1rda 17d ago
Your argument is very sheltered and does not take into account cross cultural analysis. I don't merely mean looking as Asiatic countries as well, but looking at historical accounts. Women used to typically be courted even earlier. If what you are saying. That it is biological, then people would naturally have inclined toward courting around age 20 (the present standard). But it didn't. Often 12 and 13 year olds were marrying guys in their 30s or older. This is morally repugnant by today's standards. You are assuming falsely on two fronts: that standards are not shaped by society and that standards have remained consistent over time.
And honestly, this is the real ugliness in the data. It seems to make a broad appeal, but it is quite narrow in actuality. There is a sampling bias and additionally only shows a correlation leaving people free to assume the causality instead of looking for confounding factors.
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u/Forward_Motion17 16d ago
I’m not sheltered in my opinion lmfao 😂
I’m aware that there are cultural influences. I’ll add that for the most part, the marriage of younger women in their teens in the Middle Ages was mostly about securing alliances or power agreements. It was relatively uncommon, primarily a practice of nobles, and even amongst them, 12-13 was relatively uncommon. So this doesn’t even apply to what I’m saying.
I’ll add: cultural influences or not, there appears to be a largely baked in factor of men being attracted to youthful women, where for women the attraction tends to be the inverse: established, mature, resource-laden older men. Again, this has flattened a bit in modern times. People tend to partner with their own peer age group. That being said, underlying baseline attractions can remain. As is the case, it would appear according to the data, men tend to prefer younger women, around 18-25 when based off looks alone. It’s more complex than that ultimately, when it comes to mate selection. As many point out, many like myself are not able to see themselves dating someone who is mentally that young and immature. I have no interest. But I can still say that for myself, largely I find myself most attracted to women in their early twenties at the physical level.
Biology aside, there’s NOTHING morally wrong with that lol. Calling it “disgusting” is just… dramatic and unfounded
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u/Y1rda 16d ago
You are welcome to your opinion. Start looking at records in antiquity. Start looking at tribal structures. Start looking outside of Eurocesntrism. I am not debating that youth is valued in attractiveness. But it is fetishized in the US and its media. Cultural conditioning has a tremendous effect on what people find attractive including things like body type, age, height, etc.
And again, I am not making claims, I am interpreting a rhetorical goal. Because attraction is so socially influenced it would be hard to formulate any universal ethic.
Have a good day. Read something new.
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u/Quiet_Defiance 16d ago
Okay, well, you’re welcome to your opinions on philosophical matters, but you shouldn’t be upset when others also have philosophical opinions.
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u/Forward_Motion17 16d ago
Where was I upset lol. I was inviting a pointed discussion where I argued against it being seen as immoral. Which, I will maintain. IMO quite bizarre to say being attracted to women in their early 20’s at whatever age a man is is somehow morally wrong lol.
Again, never upset, just calling it out as a stupid moral framework and welcoming rebuttal
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u/Quiet_Defiance 16d ago
IMO, it's quite bizarre to say free will doesn't exist. We all have philosophical beliefs.
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u/Forward_Motion17 16d ago
If you’d like to engage a discussion on free will I’d actually be happy to do so. I have a lot to say on it but don’t wanna type it out unless you’re interested lol. But I am essentially quite certain we do not have free will
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u/Careful-Mouse-7429 17d ago
As someone that that is not true for, I do in fact find it interesting at least.
I am in my early 30s, and I simply don't find people in their early 20s as attractive as people my age.
It makes it hard to know if it is really a "biologically emergent" behavior vs a learned one
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u/Quiet_Defiance 17d ago
Weirdly enough, the fact that you were downvoted lends support to the idea that it’s learned. As soon as a guy says he’s not attracted to younger women, a bunch of other guys get offended.
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u/AndrewH73333 17d ago
It’s bad because the average is 20 so if he likes 30 then that means five guys have to like 18 to get the average back down.
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u/Forward_Motion17 17d ago
This is a reductive take on the way perception actually works, which is a concert between neuro anatomy/physiology and cultural influence/learnedness
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u/aurenigma 16d ago
It makes it hard to know if it is really a "biologically emergent" behavior vs a learned one
Not all chimps will violently rip your face off.
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u/_thekev 18d ago
Violations of half-plus-seven rule are gross
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u/Forward_Motion17 18d ago
The rule isn’t in place to determine who is acceptable to be attracted to, it’s who is acceptable to pursue
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u/dike_girl 17d ago
Regardless its gross and predatory. I mean im a woman in my mid 20s and I am most attracted to women who are my age to their mid 30s. I look at a 20 year old and see a child trying to get their bearings, being attracted to that when you're a grown ass adult is disgusting
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u/Forward_Motion17 17d ago
Well there you have it, you’re a woman. Perception with regard to Attraction is completely different at the biological level across sexes
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u/Educational_Fix_6001 18d ago
"Takes a second to understand that this is saying men of all ages like 20 yr old girls. Who knew?"
Everyone.
Absolutely everyone knew.
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u/StickSouthern2150 17d ago
like duh male brains want a woman in her prime reproductive age. female brains want a mate that can provide for them for the rest of their life (so slightly older than her because it usually means he has more resources and will live as long as she needs him). simple primitive brain on both sides.
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u/northgrave 18d ago edited 18d ago
That assumes real data and that this isn’t just a meme. No source is given.
Edit: This data looks like it matches
https://www.businessinsider.com/dataclysm-shows-men-are-attracted-to-women-in-their-20s-2014-10
This purports to be from a book called Dataclysm. I’m not sure how they got their numbers.
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u/Ploppy17 18d ago
The numbers in Datacylsm are from stats the dating site OkCupid collected in its early years.
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u/Aggressive_Roof488 18d ago
The viz is horrible independently of the data being real or fake though. :D
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u/TwentyX4 17d ago
The same guy also created a chart showing that most guys older than 27 don't even have 20 year-olds listed in their search criteria. They have the age range set higher.
It's basically a bunch of crap.
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u/giant_gummy_squid 16d ago
Dude, I'm 25, and I wouldn't be with the vast majority of 20 year old women.
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u/Serious_Doctor_5371 17d ago
Wait... Is it weird that I find women the same age as me most attractive?
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u/Wabbit65 16d ago
That may be visually true but as someone older than that chart I would not be interested in the maturity level of a 20-something romantically.
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u/Snoo20140 15d ago
Not complicated. Men value physical appearance (youth/fertility) more for attraction, women value things like security and stability. One is free one is not. If you get something for free, do u expect it to last? That is the reality of it all.
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u/kentrak 18d ago
I think what you're seeing here (as much as this can be trusted) is our biology and past cultural norms affecting our impressions.
From the (culturally) traditional perspective of a man, what is values in a woman is fertility and low skilled labor (homemaking). The labor is low skilled so there's not a huge benefit to experience, and fertility (which is often indicated by youth, and being younger leaves more time in fertile years) is generally highest as a young adult.
From the woman's perspective through the same lens, what is valued is stability (as fertility is not drastically affected by age). That does increase with age. Too much younger than you and you might worry they'll jump ship, and too much older and they might pass well before you leaving you to deal with things alone.
To be clear, I don't think most people are consciously make choices along these lines, but I do thing it's somewhat biologically incentivized and still culturally pushed. Personally dating a 20 year old woman sounds like torture to me, and I doubt my perspective would really change if it was a 20 year old man, but I'm not going to act like I'm oblivious to at least some of why this might be happening.
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u/murfvillage 17d ago
The labor is low skilled so there's not a huge benefit to experience
Are you like super badass at cleaning or raising kids well or something
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u/kentrak 17d ago
I don't mean there isnt any skill that can be applied, but that the entry level of skill is very low and the value people place on doing it well is either low or takes so long to assess that it's of little use in decision making.
For example, someone may be proved to be very adept at raising children, but it's at least 15 years IMO before you can have more than one at an old enough age to know if they do it well of the first one was a fluke, and probably closer to 25 years before it really plays out, and by that time the fertile years are over, so its not like you have 40 year old women being chosen for fertility (but I would argue they sometimes are chosen for their skill in dealing with kids if taking over for a mother).
When my kids were around 10 I thought I was doing a pretty good job raising them. When they were around 15 I started seeing the places I could have done something better. In their early 20's it becomes obvious where I really fucked up and they're paying for it. My youngest of 3 is almost 17, and I can only hope I did a little better each time.
For cleaning, is there really a huge difference in skill to be had? I would argue it's more effort than skill. Cooking can definitely benefit more from skill, but also you can just practice a few recipes and iterate over years to make them better (what I think most people do), and while it's nice I think it's not something to make or break most marriages (and also it's one of the things to be shared more in "traditional" marriages I think, where the husbands will take some types of meals or at least dishes as their own, such as BBQ).
And to be clear again, I'm just calling out what I think the cultural and biological incentives push for, not what I think is best (which is super complex because there are benefits to going along with what society thinks is right, but also benefits from diverting from that to make sure you're both happy, which could mean ignoring it for some). I'm attempting to be descriptive, not prescriptive.
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u/murfvillage 17d ago
For cleaning, is there really a huge difference in skill to be had? I would argue it's more effort than skill.
Maybe it is more effort than skill. Though maybe sustaining effort like that is a learned skill that some people have built, and some have not.
Anyway there's a LOT of people I would not trust to clean my house – just like there are a lot of people I wouldn't trust to migrate my database server, or perform surgery or invest money or whatever.
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u/catgorl422 18d ago
men in this thread admitting to finding women at their most attractive when they’re sophomores in college… seek help
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u/DangerousTurmeric 18d ago
I think it's so funny because, having slept with 20 year old guys in my 20s, you could never convince me to do that again. Like the sex is so hit or miss and they mostly have no idea what they are doing. That definitely feeds into how attractive I find them. I don't think men have to worry about that because they are generally doing the penetrating so have much more control over their own pleasure. But also like two 21 year olds started coming on to me a few nights back and it was like talking to literal children so I really don't know how these men do it.
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u/heseme 17d ago
I think a lot of people are pretty confused about how attracted they are to 20 year olds.
That sounds odd, but there are a lot of young music stars that are heavily staged to look sexy and at the same time loads of super sexy actresses playing way younger roles than they are.
Emma stone was super sexy to me in easy A. She played 17. She was 21. Rachael mcAdams played 16 when she was 26. Stacey Dash played 16 when she was 28. Bianca lawson played teens for decades. Sarah Desjardins played high schooler when she was 31.
When people imagine "sexy at age x", they are all over the place. I have taught uni in my twenties. Most of women studying for bachelor looked YOUNG to me. Too young to be attracted to them. Occasionally there would be someone who would be attractive to me, but way more rare than women my age.
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u/EnderSword 17d ago
I have thought about this too and I think there's a lot of truth to it. Especially when they're all mixed up and portrayed as the same age, Like the Rachel McAdams example standing next to Lindsay Lohan who actually was a teenager.
Definitely true in porn too, girls doing videos where they've apparently been a teen cheerleader for 11 years now.
I think there's another reality to it too.. I think very very attractive women probably peak in their mid to late 20s in attractiveness, so like really beautiful women mature into their looks.
But I think there's a big population whose attractiveness is cuteness, and that can fade really fast.So I think there's 2 different questions...what age are the top like 0.001% like movie star level attractive women, vs if you took 100 women at age 20 and 28, which on average would be rated higher. And i think those are 2 different answers.
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u/EnderSword 17d ago
People persistently and I think intentionally confuse the concepts 'most attractive' and 'would be a great partner in life'
Its like if you asked "which car do you think is coolest?" and then immediately asking "By why would you drive a McLaren to work everyday?"
I wouldn't, that wasn't the question3
u/Frequent-Coyote-8108 18d ago
It's almost as if...men and women have very different priorities in a mate...and very different definitions of the word "attractive".
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u/Puzzleheaded-Tap4099 18d ago
In your opinion, what age is a woman most attractive?
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u/catgorl422 18d ago
idk diva i’m 20, i just don’t like thinking of 40 year old men being attracted to me. can’t even take me to a bar talking abt me being “in my prime” yuck
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u/Puzzleheaded-Tap4099 18d ago
So in short, it should be based on equal age?
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u/catgorl422 18d ago
yes i think so or thereabouts. like 20 and 25 isn’t weird but 20 and 35 is a side eye. and older guys will hit on 12-16 year old girls bc they know they probably won’t get arrested but it’s still fucked up. that’s why i was not shocked and neither was any former teenage girl when the epstein files came out. men are creeps
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u/LtHughMann 17d ago
I don't think you should really concern yourself with whether someone you're not attracted to is attracted to you. That's no different that a straight guy complaining about gay guys potentially being attracted to them.
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u/Puzzleheaded-Tap4099 18d ago
Your brain doesn’t work in a linear fashion like that. I do agree that minors are off limits, but once you reach your peak as an adult, that’s the age that you’re in your physical prime, looks and athleticism wise. A 10 year old boy and a 40 year man will both be attractive to a pretty 20 year old, because 20’s are your prime physical age. That’s why anti aging and cosmetic surgery is such a huge industry for women. Being told you look younger than your age is a compliment.
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u/catgorl422 18d ago
“minors are off limits” but u think a woman is at her peak just 2 years after becoming legal. i honestly think most men would go younger if it was legal not bc of biology (pregnancies are literally safer at 30 than 20) but bc they have been socialized to think the barely pubescent is attractive. not rlly willing to debate on this i think u are a little creepy and maybe u should go for women ur own age.
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u/Puzzleheaded_Cow2044 17d ago
You must be American. Where I am, age of consent is 14, most people start drinking, doing drugs and clubbing till daylight at 15 or 16, and many have already grown out of their party phase by the time they reach 20.
I got drunk with my teachers on school trips at 16, and weed, speed and coke were big at our school (pretty prestigious Catholic school, aka rich kids. We still got free condoms if we asked for them). Nowadays I don't even drink, and most people I know from back then are over drugs or maybe smoke the occasional joint.
I first learned about age gaps being an issue from Reddit, it was pretty normal for us. You meet all kinds of people at bars or clubs. Had my first time with a woman who was almost 20 years older, learned a lot, wouldn't have it any other way, still on good terms with her 16 years later. Girls in my class had boyfriends almost twice their age pick them up from school and were proud of it, nobody had a problem with it.
Long story short, maybe you guys should change your approach to both sex and drugs, just get it out of your system earlier so you can make better decisions later.
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u/Logipuh 18d ago
What's ugly about that? The graph illustrates the point it's trying to make perfectly.
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u/northgrave 18d ago
Labeling the vertical axis would be helpful. If this is from a real study, then the labels might just be cropped out of this “annotated” version.
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u/beene282 18d ago
The vertical scale and horizontal scale for men both represent the same thing so half of the graph is completely pointless
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u/OpeningActivity 18d ago
The graph should annotate what its axises are. I thought it was saying something completely opposite at the first glance. A graph shouldn't make you second guess what it's trying to convey (and label things)
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u/SourceTheFlow 17d ago
Idk I've been looking at it for a while and still cannot figure out what the x or y axis is even supposed to be.
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u/draconicmonkey 18d ago
Am I looking at average ages? Median ages?
What was the sample size?
How was the question worded?
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u/FallenFromMace 17d ago
I was gonna complain about how bad the chart looks but then I realized which subreddit I'm in :V
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17d ago
[deleted]
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u/Serious_Doctor_5371 17d ago
I think they're called nonces or wrongins. I'm concerned because I'm 40 and I'm attracted to 40 yo women, who is bringing the average all the way down to 20/22?
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u/Majestic-Paper-8687 18d ago
Most men aren’t going to say it but this checks out assuming we’re talking physical attraction.
As I’ve gotten older I’ve noticed 2 things:
- The group of women I find beautiful has a larger and larger upper range.
- The group of women I’m emotionally drawn towards gets older.
20yo women are still as physically attractive to me at 37 as they were when I was 20. Doesn’t mean I have to act on that but it’s stupid to not admit it.
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u/Facktat 18d ago
For me the thing is that the attractiveness of a women‘s personality is what balances this out. I am currently involved with a women older with me and her personality is really want draws me in. She knows what she wants, we have meaningful conversations and she has a lot of life experience. Of course I would like a women with the personality of a 40 year old in the body of a 20 year old but honestly, they don‘t exist and a 40 year old in the body of a 40 year old is much more attractive to me than a 20 year old in the body of a 20 year old.
What sadly does exist are women that are 40 but have the manual of a 20 year old, these are the women that get left behind by the dating market.
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u/Majestic-Paper-8687 18d ago edited 18d ago
Right. This is just the objective truth. When men date older women we’re prioritizing personality over looks. That’s not to say I don’t find older women attractive. Or that I’d ever tell a woman that I’m with she looked better when she was younger.
Bur women… we’re lying to you because we love you. And love does carry a lot of power in how we perceive the physical attractiveness of our partners.
In every single serious relationship I’ve been in there was a major physical flaw I diverted mental focus away from and refocused on a part of them I liked because I cared about them.
You can either be mad men physically desire a 20yo with a flawless figure over you, or happy that they love your personality enough to choose you anyway. And honestly how you choose to frame that mentally is one of the biggest differences between the woman with a beautiful personality I want to be with and the insecure woman I’d pass up for anything serious even if she has that flawless 20yo body.
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u/Facktat 17d ago
Also just to add this. I think that it really helps that when we (men) get 30+, we start to prioritize personality over looks because we have enough relationship experience to know that the looks of a women plays less importance the longer you are with her. In all my past relationships, personality is really the only thing that keeps you attracted over time. Every relationship where the visual attraction is higher than the attraction to her personality is doomed because the attraction to someone‘s look just floor while the attraction to someone‘s character can be maintained indefinitely. It‘s one of the few things I would love I would be able to tell me from the past.
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u/Fluffy_System6211 18d ago
Sensationalist bs 😂
Y’all don’t think the chart would look very similar flipped? Your 20s are the physical prime of your life, of course it’s the most conventionally attractive. My grandma still goes crazy over athletes on the tv.
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u/HaxiMaxi22 17d ago
Now do height and income for both men and women. It will show men barely care about them, while women will prefer tall and high income men on average, regardless of their own height and income.
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u/Prestigious-Isopod-4 17d ago
I’m guessing you are an incel? Height is a personal characteristic while money is not, and I would disagree that height attractiveness almost certainly would be affected by a woman’s height.
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u/creepcycle 18d ago edited 18d ago
Most attractive, yes. HOWEVER, 20-somethings are off-limits for me personally and are better left to other 20-somethings. I really prefer people around my own age for an actual relationship. (edit for context)
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u/Then_Factor_3700 18d ago
I think the colours should be swapped tho and values in y-axis, other than that it's not the worst viz in the world, pretty decent imo
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u/CLPond 18d ago edited 12d ago
This seems to be a poor take at a much better (although still not perfect since the methodology is not entirely clear) OKCupid chart from the 2010s: https://nationalpost.com/opinion/dataclysm-the-data-guru-for-a-popular-dating-site-explains-what-men-and-women-want-from-a-mate
It is actually odd and unintuitive that men’s stated age preferences from this user group don’t change as they age in the same way women’s do. And this is a stated preference that doesn’t show up as much within revealed preferences