What are We to Make of the Research Finding that Women Think Men Wearing Facemasks are More Attractive?
We’re publishing an original piece today – Valentine’s Day – by regular contributor Dr. Sinéad Murphy, an Associate Researcher in Philosophy at Newcastle University, about some research published by Cardiff University showing that women find men in facemasks more attractive. According to Dr. Murphy, this is not a cause for celebration.
Now that recommendations/mandates/rules/guidance regarding mask wearing have been more or less lifted, it is dispiritingly clear by the numbers continuing to cleave to them that there are many among us who rather like their masks. But not the wildest speculation on why this might be was likely to have settled on the explanation that masking your face makes you more desirable.
How can such a contradiction be, that we are enhanced as we are effaced? Shouldn’t we wish to see more of an attractive person rather than find them attractive because we see less of them?
There is nothing to whet the philosophical appetite like such a paradox – resolution of apparent contradictions is its bread and butter. So here goes:
Paradox: we like to see less of what we like to see.
Resolution: there are two things to see in this case, not one, and we can see more of the thing that we like to see (abstract personality) by seeing less of the thing that we don’t like to see (actual person).
When men wear a medical mask, women do see more of what they like to see because what they like to see is not real men but generic characteristics – Kind, Safe, Caring, Healthy – characteristics that real men can expect only to channel and only at the expense of their realness.
Sadly, this effacement of what is real by polished abstractions is not confined to the realm of romance. It is the overarching trajectory of our times, increasingly promoted as the promise of ‘personalised’ living.
Worth reading in full.
To join in with the discussion please make a donation to The Daily Sceptic.
Profanity and abuse will be removed and may lead to a permanent ban.
The link in the short text doesn’t work. The one in the sidebar does.
For ease of access: https://staging.dailysceptic.org/what-are-we-to-make-of-the-research-finding-that-women-find-men-wearing-facemasks-more-attractive/
Thank you!
Were these Welsh men she’s talking about?
Probably.
I can assure you that all principled ewes respect men in masks.
Unable to read in full; broken link. I will just have to use my imagination (like the women presumably interviewed for this study).
Without reading the details I can only say that I’m happy to disappoint such women with my exposed chin. Surgical masks used to connote doctors or medical professionals, now they denote virtue signalling morons in Tescos following government diktats without thinking.
The masks which framed the eyes but revealed the lips (think Venice) were considered attractive on certain occasions. Anyone who genuinely finds the ones currently on display alluring probably needs some gentle counselling about philemaphobia.
Or is this just more virtue signalling?
Or is this just more virtue signalling
No it will be an ugly woman, who was very grateful for the mask mandates and is now beginning to panic. More seriously, surely Cardiff University has better things to do with its money than producing utter BS.
I have hazy repressed memories of the long past distant days when I would be the helpless victim of attacks by unscrupulous pornographers wherein I would find scantily dressed young ( not That young) persons to be more alluring than images of that same person totally naked.
However, current images of lady wearing masks are merely of a hag on a bag
I’m so glad you were able to edit that comment. Didn’t know how to respond.
Tried to edit it further but your reply prevented it !
Oh no I’m really sorry. Been there.
(. . . are merely those of a hag in a bag).
My mask of choice (thanks, CCF), for when I pretend that I’m Roger Livesey in “The League of Gentlemen”.
A link to the actual study would be good.
My guess is that it about as “scientific” as all the other studies that purport to show that viruses exist, that they make people ill, that lock downs work, that masks protect you and that vaccines save lives.
My suggestion for a scientific enquiry would be for large numbers of DS readers to post randomly on Social Media portraits of themselves Masked and (on a different medium) Unmsked
Perhaps someone would trouble themselves to log the total number of ‘likes’ and ‘dislikes’ generated. A Nobel Prize surely awaits.
If it’s the ‘study’ I’m thinking of, the respondents were a dozen woke women students all in thrall to the professor who completed the survey. Frankly, you could have come to the same conclusion without bothering to ask them…
In the absence of (nominal) legal mask enforcement, we have entered an interesting phase of the coup. This period enables the orchestrators to see how successful their campaign of fear and division has been. I think the goal was to create a two tier society and a culture war in order to distract us from whatever financial malfeasance is currently underway. Judging by local Tesco, it’s been pretty successful. Lots of ‘attractive men’
And boy there is a lot of financial malfeasance going on.
My latest thought is that Biden (or his minders) left all that kit in Afghan because he had agreed to deliver it to the Russian military (who otherwise preside over piles of rust). Russia sold 600 tonnes – yes, SIX HUNDRED TONNES – of gold to London in 2020, and it seems London sent it onwards somewhere.
Mostly “ugly” men where I am, thankfully. But those damned “attractive” men, masked to the eye balls, trailing behind the unmasked missus (what a lucky woman!) like obedient cucks are still very much in evidence!
Well I suppose women like us to be cowering, hand wringing virtue signallers- it proves how much we care. Not like those horrid unmasked types who obviously don’t care how many grannies or children they kill.
…
Indeed.
I visited an Apple store at the height of the plandemic to get my MacBook fixed. When I told them I wouldn’t wear a mask, they gave me a comedy sized face shield which was roughly equivalent to the size of an African ceremonial mask (but not as useful). My daughter and I laughed at it so hard that they wouldn’t let us come in. I still work alongside colleagues who wear them in busy corridors to protect them from.. erm… something? The plastic face shield is, as far as I’m concerned, Peak Plandemic.
It’s even better when combined with a blue face nappy. Bonus points for plastic gloves.
I think the best I’ve seen though was a young bloke (20s) in Marks & Spencer wearing the usual blue face nappy, plus gloves – and swimming goggles…
Oh yes, there was that short lived meme amongst the faithful that you could get it through your eyes, I remember that. Aah, those were the days.
You can get infected from a virus through the eyes! The eyes are actually one of the weakest points of entry for pathogens. Think of chopping onions, hayfever etc. If you are going to protect yourself from any coronavirus it is pointless if you don’t cover your eyes. Of course it’s pointless to use a cloth or paper covering to protect yourself from something nasty as Ill equipped soldiers in WW1 knew all too well
Great. It’ll be swimming goggle mandates next
“Look him in the eyes and tell him you ‘just forgot’ your scuba equipment on the train to work today”.
DON’T LOOK HIM IN THE EYES!
Nah, you probably can’t export Covid through your eyes so not protecting others.
I stand corrected. Goggles it is.
Dark glasses is better.Blindfold is best.
Still seeing people with a blue face mask pulled right up to the eyeballs, glasses on, and a cap pulled right down hiding what’s left of their face.. outdoors!
Actually nothing less than a full face mask with an independent air supply will do. I like to point out to people pictures of lab scientists with that equipment on 🙂
So, leopard print cotton? No?
That works because the virus is afraid of leopards. Zebra print doesn’t work. If you see the virus approach sit down, have a substantial meal but do NOT get up to go to the toilet without protection. Follow any arrows on the floor for added safety.
Does a Scotch Egg give a clear message to the virus that it has to keep its distance, or does it have to be pie and chips?
I’m afraid that anything Scotch is wholly innefectve. See wee Nikki Sturgeon for full details.
Rofl
Of course. Shit I’ve been mercilessly taking the piss out of leopard print masks for nigh on two years. I feel very silly now.
It has got to be a positive pressure air supply remember!
They got it all wrong. Everybody knows that a witch can spoil the milk inside of a cow by throwing an evil glance at the poor animal. So you have to blindfold them as source protection. After all that’s also the principle of operation for DIY masks. Logic!
No earplugs?
Saw a jacked young guy, looked like he’d walked out of the gym, with a full blown biohazard special ops mask. Wasn’t sure if he was taking the piss
Yes in his face nappy.
I wonder if that type will ever father a child.
Are you sure they’re not wannabe welders?
Far too flimsy for welding, and not tinted. Might be OK to stop you getting bits in your eyes when using a grinder or cutting disc, but that’s about it!
This was sent home from my Son’s school, apparently to be taken seriously since no one at school has a sense of humour.
Not strictly true, as I would think it would also prevent someone sitting on your face.
Hang on a minute. Have you just become the first person on earth to think of a good use for a plastic face shield?
.
No kissy-kissy, no rumpy-pumpy?
Steamy. Certainly.
Just no. I absolutely do not find men wearing a muzzle attractive. They look like (and are) dickheads. Full stop.
Similar to what my lovely wife said just now. That and “I want to punch them”.
That’s a winner. I hope you’ve got her a nice box of chocolates?
Wot I got her is none of your business, wot
I’m with your wife on that one too.
I’m so getting that way too! Seriously what IS it that keeps them wanting to look like submissive slaves? It’s got to be something else now….
Still think it’s genuine fear amongst older people, sadly.
That’s slightly understandable given what they’ve been subjected too I suppose, but plenty of kids still wear them. A group in Costa last week kept dutifully putting them on to go to the toilet, collect drinks, then sat together talking and giggling without masks. At my nieces 18th last year half of her snowflake friends turned up to the pub in masks and asked an incredulous landlord where the sanitizer was. It was a riot. Luckily, there were enough of us ‘responsible’ middle aged types to make it worth his while opening the function room and employing extra staff…
Not even an N95? With asymmetric side vent feature? Come on!
Masks with breathing holes are the ones I decidedly like best. 🙂
Ooer missus
Particularly not those.
A mask exhibits cowardice, not traditionally an attractive feature in males
Absolutely. And as an ‘alpha male’ kind of girl, a complete turn-off for moi.
I was going to say aren’t all girls “Alpha Male” types of girls? But that’s coming from my blinkered Gammon perspective and life experience and I realise that that is no longer an acceptable position.
I wonder what Jordan B. Peterson would say on the matter?
actually I KNOW what he’d say. It’s just in clown world the woketards no longer believe in objective reality.
Some women like those woke, ‘metro men’ types. Never been the case for me and never will be.
There aren’t so many women like that around any more! As a muscular, white, heterosexual, successful professional male I find myself hated by almost every sector of modern society
Well, rest assured I am not one of those haters.
That’s just institutional hateism of mostly academic institutions. Not much to worry about.
Well, you do seem to be going out of your way to annoy people. I bet you drive one of those awful gas guzzling things too. Honestly, what do you expect? You may as well just admit to being scum, and being white you’re obviously a racist.
Owen Jones for you then?
Bit too young.
I’ve figured it out. You’re one of those “traditional women”, Nymeria. No place for you in the new world.
You’re absolutely correct on both counts.
But it means we care sooooooooo much!!!
I’d prefer a caveman.
I wonder if one of the women in the survey, did the graphic design for this poster? Whoever it was doesn’t seem to be keen on humans with mouths. That and some very dodgy hand placement, would make me question, what were they thinking?
Staffordshire and Stoke NHS Trust’s Marketing Department must be a barrel o laughs and office romances must be off the chart, not.
Whatever she’s doing, we’ll never know how much he’s into it.
I guess he could raise his eyebrows
Yes, or glasses could steam up. Everyone seems to be into that too.
Seeing things like that (and it’s genuine – just looked at their twitter feed) does make you wonder whether someone has seen an opportunity to really take the piss, and everybody higher up has taken it seriously…
This is my hope too.
Bit like a lot of 70s and 80s BBC comedy.
Think Kenny Everett’s “Cupid Stunt” as an example.
Presumably, A shot of LOVE for Valentine’s Day – but no oral?
I see they are STILL pushing the myth that the vax ‘protects your loved ones’!
Why could they not have a white woman and a white man? Why could they not have a black woman and a black man? Why one of each? Why does the woman look butch and have such small boobies? Does someone have an agenda?
The “Woman” is actually Geddy Lee in drag.
You beat me to it. I was going to suggest the “she” was a pre-op trans woman.
Ruddy hell, where do you even start with this?
Am I supposed to believe that for millions of years men have been struggling for competitive advantage in terms of pairing with attractive women, and yet for some reason they had still not discovered masks as 2020 began? The picture shows Zorro. In a society where nobody was masked, his mask was an accompaniment to his adventure, bravery and daring-do. In a society where government mandates the wearing of masks for ‘public health reasons’, a mask signifies none of those things, merely fear and conformity. It marks its wearer as an obeyer of rules, advertising his powerlessness. From a Darwinian perspective not a good prospect for women. A man increases his attractiveness to women by standing out from other men in a positive way. In a society where masks are worn by a majority, if not everybody, not only does he thereby signify his fear and compliance, but he reduces his chance of standing out from them in any way whatsover, since all masks look alike. He blends into the masses like an Egyptian slave. The face and its expressions mirror the soul and character. In masking his face, the man hides his soul and character from women. Looking at… Read more »
Precisely. Exactly. Wink (asymmetric facial expression). Nibble one side of lower lip (another asymmetric one). Head on one side, raised eyebrow, lips slightly parted.
Oh much fun 😉
All those things you mention – winks, nibbles – advertise basic facial symmetry.
Winks and nibbles good.
Bell’s Palsy and squints – bad.
… those were the days… Sigh…
Perhaps, for some women, the masks replace those wonderful Victorian/Edwardian face whiskers that gentlement used to affect. There wasn’t much in the way of facial expression on show back then.
‘I like my men bewhiskered and inscrutable,’ breathed Daphne to her duenna.
Daphne would have loved modern day Shoreditch
Having watched men pull wrinkled, filthy, blue surgical masks out of their pocket – looking uncannily like a soiled hanky, and then apply it to their face, but with the nose sticking out, I can say that it is definitely not sexy. In fact you would want to disinfect their face before you went in for a kiss having had god knows what germs next to their skin.
What about if they have one of the overly protruding ones that makes them look like a duck? No?
There was a short period when my better half and I would QUACK rather loudly whenever we passed one of those in our local shops. Felt like provocative teenagers again, it was great.
Have to admit to doing the same when out with my daughter. Yorkshire maturity on display ✊
Me too. Very childish I am sure.
Good for you.
I just used to say loudly “You’re fucking weird you are!” Much to my wife and children’s chagrin, but my amusement
To me they look more like retarded monkeys than ducks.
For proboscisally-challenged men (Cyrano springs to mind) it would be difficult to cover the nose with a mask and still be able to effect any sort of a seal around the lower face.
If those so gifted had also been jubblified by all the covid-terror announcements of the last two years, one could appreciate why they would be reluctant to step out for their daily constitutionals.
Probably as worthy of attention as the computer generated gibberish mentioned in an earlier article today.
But I expect men in face masks are attractive to women who find compliant, subservient men attractive. I assume there must be women out there who go for that sort of person.
Niche market.
Over the course of human history. women who preferred compliant, subservient men, have probably left fewer surviving descendants than women who didn’t.
Sexy is as sexy does. Don’t all rush the stage ladies…..
Phwooarrrruuurghhh
Wafting hand in front of face, swish of the fan. Imagine Sheridan’s School For Scandal.
Nah, you’re alright….!
He’s like a bargain basement Daffy Duck impersonator. Or having a right laugh.
Is this a question that can be extended to ‘why do women like men in uniform?’..? Another device that lowers people to a common denominator.
The fact that the men are all wearing the same clothes accentuates the importance of visible inherent characteristics – the face.
Hello time-traveller, welcome to 2022 A.D. What year have you come here from?
A heads-up: Here in 2022 men are more likely to be out and about in multi-coloured dresses and blouses than jacket and trousers. And may well have appendages swinging under the dresses and large breasts under the blouses.
Do women prefer men with blood clots?
No.
I suppose it might depend on where the clot was lodged?
Depends where the clot is?😀
I’m just not buying this – we’re hardwired to prefer faces. If you’ve ever seen The Strange Situation Experiment (where the mother just suddenly makes her face expressionless) and witnessed the effect on the baby in her care you wouldn’t even bother to do the clearly daft research.
A friend told me that her grandson would chirrup away happily in the car (presumably only able to see her face in the rear view mirror or not at all) but as soon as she put a face mask on to enter the garden centre, he would slump in the pushchair and not bother to interact with her.
I know 2020 was a life changing year but you don’t re-wire people that quickly. The only way I can see that this is even a thing is that some people might imagine an attractive face, sort of fill in the blank space with something unconsciously. But mainly though I don’t find face masks remotely attractive.
Birds do it. Bees do it. Even educated fleas do it. Let’s do it. Let’s put bacteria ridden crisis props on our chins.
My builder told me “I’ve worn the same disposable black mask throughout the entire pandemic”. God knows what might be living on that.
Hey, that’s same as me. Aaand – nothing ever happened. I do put a piece of toilet paper between my face and my 2 years old mask just in case. Sometimes (rarely) I put said mask on the heater to dry up and spread all those lovely coronaviruses across my bedroom. I think it is the best mask that the society which forces me to mask deserves. It illustrates the power of mask mandates.
I also practice a thousand-yard stare and weird movement patterns to go along with the mask. If we want to have fun, why not go all the way.
What a crock
This article makes me wonder if the masks bank robbers wear make a difference? Would a female bank teller hand over the money more readily to a shotgun wielding robber if he was wearing a trendy rainbow coloured mask, rather than a dowdy snot-stained raggedy one? You can expect serious research to be undertaken into questions like this in the near future. Because in our mad world, progressives in the US are now promoting the proposal to NOT attempt to convince anti-social types and criminals to change their behaviour. I kid you not. US progressives believe that anti-social types and criminals only do what they do because they suffered victimisation. And if anyone tries to change their behaviour, this amounts to further victimisation. And, of course, victimisation is wrong. The only conclusion to reach is that US progressives intend to force law abiding citizens to endure criminal acts being perpetrated upon them by ne’er do wells, until such time that the ne’er do wells get the victimisations out of their systems. And then the US will become a utopia. We all know that when a mugger has a couple of successful muggings under his belt, he’ll… Read more »
Yep- it’s all our fault for having stuff and showing it off to the poor wretches. Honestly, we have it coming.
The Cardiff ‘study’ purporting to show that women like nappied men was rubbish. Tiny sample of women, all bedwetting, tame students. And what they liked about the nappies was that they showed the zombies underneath were saaaaaafe.
Garbage.
To be fair to them. If they’re constantly getting hit on by blokes that look like Pantsdown, then I can see where they might be coming from.
“What are we to make of it”… It’s bollox init!
Opinion polls…ffs, give me a break 🤨
It’s total bollocks. Mind you, when masks were still such a massive thing, at least it did give a heads up to the sane women among us, which males to avoid. It’s getting more difficult now.
See the masks medieval doctors wore! It had to be a psychopath that designed this morbid facial covering. I suspect Ilse Koch would be the only lady that would find a man wearing this mask attractive.
Imagine laying in your bed delirious with plague and then to open your eyes and, through a fog of pain, see this creature standing at the end of your bed.
I’d say the shock finished many a poor soul off. And how convenient for the doctor. All he then had to do was pronounce the patient dead, collect his fee, and move on and kill the next plague sufferer.
Modern immoral doctors that knowingly promoted the poisonous gene therapies might have historical form.
Certainly wouldn’t be lying in bed delirious with pleasure with one of those things in the room, or indeed a male wearing a mask of any description.
Projection by the mask wearing men who designed the survey?
Says it all….
It’s not clear how they measured this. I suspect they simply asked people, meaning they had time to think about giving the answer they thought they ought to give. I think if you observed behaviour in the wild you’d get a different result.
To paraphrase Groucho Marx, I am glad I am not attractive to women who admire mask wearing men.
There could be a fetish element here.
Have the boffins analysed the dark web for changes in such trends, to see how popular masks are and created meaningful histograms for our enlightenment?
The maskateers are really scraping the bottom of the barrel now.
What are we to make of the “research” showing an alleged preference for masked faces?
I’ll tell you what I make of it: There are a lot of people at universities both great and small that waste an awful lot of time. I would hazard a guess that a full 95% of most university studies, both published and otherwise, are complete and utter bollocks.
Of course, there is a small – but significant – minority of such published studies that are of great scientific value. Of incalculable value not just to academia, but to medicine, the sciences, to industry, and to society at large.
The trick is recognising the latter and ignoring the former.
Unhealthy rape fantasy?