The Laws of Attraction: What’s Considered Attractive to Men and Women

Posted on September 26, 2025 by Roy Shapira, One of Thousands of Relationship Coaches on Noomii.

The Marina
Understanding the dating market is like yacht club marina. Captains stand on their piers beside beautiful yachts, calling out to potential passengers. Passengers roam the docks, eyeing their options and deciding which boat to board. Dating is the test drive: a short spin in shallow water to see if the fit is real before they both commit and sail into the sunset.

The Metaphor—Decoded

• The Captain: Usually the man. He earned his yacht with blood, sweat, and years—skills, discipline, and a plan.
• The Yacht: Lifestyle. The wood and metal are resources (apartment/house, car, savings). The fact it floats means he avoids the reefs of debt, addiction, and bad decisions. The ability to steer is navigating life. The destination is the goal.
• The Sea: Life itself—sometimes glassy, often treacherous. Staying afloat demands skill and effort; sinking means penalties, poverty, or chaos.
• The Passenger: Usually the woman. Attractive in features and personality, she makes the voyage richer. Baggage is real—more of it means fewer captains will take the risk and fewer yachts will fit.

Why Passengers Crowds Around Only a Few Boats
A small slice of men have their craft dialed in—stable, competent, goal-driven. Call it the “captain class.” A lot of women seek those boats at once. On dating apps, women’s attractiveness ratings of men skew hard left; a famous (OKCupid) analysis found women rated roughly 80% of men as below average, which helps explain why a minority of men get most of the swipes and messages.(TechCrunch)

Meanwhile, a growing share of young men report no sex in the past year: 28% of men under 30 (The 2018 General Social Survey), with recent reporting still showing about one-quarter of young adults sexless in a given year. That’s not “conspiracy”; it’s the reality of a market where many men haven’t yet become captains. (The Washington Post)

When the Woman Is a Captain
High-achieving women exist—and many are exceptional captains. The friction starts when two captains insist on one helm. “Power-couple” fantasies often look tidy on social media and then tear at the hull in private. Reality check: even at the very top, “dual-helm” marriages are hard. Jeff Bezos divorced and later married Lauren Sánchez; Bill Gates divorced and now dates Paula Hurd—partners who aren’t co-running Amazon or Microsoft. The public evidence is simply that only one captain steers each of those ships. (Business Insider, Wikipedia)

A further market wrinkle: many elite men in their late 30s–50s—right when their value peaks in status and resources—prefer younger, more traditionally feminine partners. That leaves some high-earning women negotiating either younger “boy-toy” dynamics or choosing men who lean more accommodating. That’s a market tension, not a moral judgment—and it’s visible far beyond tabloids.

SMV 101 (Sexual Market Value)
The SMV chart is a popular model used in online discussions of “SMV.” It suggests women’s value peaks in the early 20s while men peak later, in their late 30s. At age 35 women hit a wall where the 10/10 becomes avarage. (The image originates from The Rational Male blog.)

What is on firmer ground: cross-cultural research finds men prioritize youth and physical attractiveness more than women do, while women prioritize resources, ambition, and status more than men do. That pattern showed up in 37 cultures with 10,047 participants and has been replicated for decades. (Cambridge University Press & Assessment Evolutionary Psychology study)

What Men Tend to Find Attractive

• Signals of fertility and health: Clear skin, symmetrical features, waist-to-hip ratio, bright eyes, good energy—these cues track with the “youth/health” preference found cross-culturally. (Cambridge University Press & Assessment)
• Age: Men’s stated preferences lean younger across age groups, a pattern echoed in dating-app data and some newer lab/field work (though behavior is more nuanced than fantasy). (The Guardian, Business Insider, TIME)
• Sexual history: Many men weigh “pair-bonding” cues. Research shows more premarital partners correlates with higher divorce risk, with the sharpest jump at 9+ partners in U.S. longitudinal data. That’s correlation, not destiny—but it’s a real, robust signal in the literature. (PMC, PubMed)

| Bottom line – for men: attractiveness is mostly youth + health + warmth + low chaos. None of this guarantees love; it just gets passengers invited on board the yacht.

What Women Tend to Select
Height and formidability: Height is a simple, visible proxy for protection/status. In the U.S., only about 14–15% of men are 6’0″+; 6’2″+ is ~4%. Preferences don’t require 6’0″, but many women filter there. (MedicineNet)

• Provisioning & trajectory: Women, on average, prioritize earning capacity, ambition, and reliability more than men. That’s the Buss finding—again, across dozens of cultures. (Cambridge University Press & Assessment)

The “0.6% problem” illustrated. If ~14.5% of men are 6’0″+, and ~15–18% of individuals earn $100k+, the independent overlap is ~2%. Add constraints like age window, city proximity, shared values, never married, owner of a home (homeownership under 35 is ~37%), fit/attractive, compatible politics/religion, and the practical intersection falls well under 1% in most markets. That’s why so many women chase the same few yachts. (This is a back-of-envelope illustration using U.S. population stats—not a precise census merge.) (MedicineNet, Zippia)

| Bottom line – for women: attraction stacks status + drive + stability + height (often). Stack too many filters, and the pool collapses.

What the SMV Curve Means (and Doesn’t)
The SMV picture is descriptive (how people behave), not prescriptive (what they should do). It says nothing about any one person’s worth. Your individual ship—your health, character, skills, and kindness—can beat the averages. But it also explains these realities:

• Apps magnify inequality: A minority of men get a majority of attention. (TechCrunch)
• Sexlessness among young men is up: which tracks with delayed partnering and weaker labor-force ties. (The Washington Post)
• Men peak later in the traits women select (status/resources):, so male “optionality” grows with age. (Cambridge University Press & Assessment)

Practical Playbooks
For Men (become the captain)

• Stack competence: Money isn’t everything, but earning capacity and direction matter. (Women notice.) (Cambridge University Press & Assessment)
• Health & presence: Strong body, steady mind, clean style.
• Leadership without bluster: Calm decisiveness beats noise every time.
• Abundance mindset: Build your yacht; the passengers will appear.

For Women (choose your boat wisely)

• Health & warmth: Fitness, femininity, cooperative energy—these are universal green lights. (Cambridge University Press & Assessment)
• Guard your gates: Sexual choices signal long-term strategy; remember the partners-to-divorce correlation. (PMC)

Reality checks beat filters. If your search demands 6’+, $100k+, your age range, your city, your politics, your schedule—you’re fishing in sub-1% waters. Expand the criteria and your options multiply. (MedicineNet, Zippia)

Closing Navigation Notes
Yes, exceptions exist. Micro-hierarchies (campus star, startup prodigy, lead guitarist) create local captains; women in that environment will cluster around them.

• Social media distorts: It showcases outliers, not norms—and it tempts people to shop forever.
• Know your value; improve your value. Always ask, “What do I bring to the table?” then bring more.

Sail clear-eyed: Men—focus on mission. Women—focus on health and wise selection. Understand the marina, pick the right boat, and earn your place on deck. The sea is rough, the standards are real, and the voyage is worth it.