Kate's Quest: Why So Few Gorgeous Male Avatars?

Kate Amdhal went looking for attractive male avatars, but other than an occasional specimen like this dude (spotted in Robbie Dingo's latest machinima), she's come up short.  In a world abundant with beautiful woman, why so few avatar Adonises? 

Kate suggests some fascinating reasons:

- Scant male fashions on sale.
- Shorter hairstyles (as guys more typically wear) generally less attractive.
- Unlike with women, male attractiveness is more tied up in poise, confidence, and other non-physical attributes that can't be avatarized.
- Second Life better at simulating avatars in their 20s, whereas women usually find men who are older than that more attractive.
- This is my favorite hypothesis:  "[M]y sense is that a lot of the males who are interested in shopping and self-beautification in Second Life find it more fun to do that as Second Life women."

All very plausible-- read Kate's incisive observations here.  I put it to my readers: what do you think?  I disqualify myself from answering here, if only because several women whose taste I trust have insisted that my avatar is in desperate need of a makeover.

Comments

[Elusyve Jewell]

I think it's because its damn hard to make an attractive male avie. I can process an attractive female alt in under an hour. I've tried, on the few occaisions to create my ideal personal "Adonis", only to give up in frustration. I empathize with the men out there who have AMAS - "appearance mode anxiety syndrome"

[Tymmerie Thorne]

I am not sure where Kate's been hanging out..but I regularly run into amazingly attractive male avatars. It isn't difficult to make an av look a bit older or more distinguished - slider bars, people, slider bars. And short hair is not "unattractive" by nature...that is a ridiculous statement. I will also tell you that poise confidence and personality make females more attractive, too. Think an attractive female av will get far if you can't infuse that avatar with personality? Please. And I have several straight male friends in SL who take pleasure in making their avs look stylish and well groomed. This is a non-topic. Yawn.

[CyFishy Traveler]

I shift genders back and forth in SL, so I know from experience how hard it is to find decent men's stuff. I may not be the best judge, though, since even my boyshape leans towards androgyny--the hair I've been wearing lately is actually a women's hairstyle that works in that girlyboy rockstar kind of way.

I must say, I find myself pretty damn hot as a guy, but I'm kind of a weirdo in my sexual tastes anyway . . .

[Cyn Vandeverre]

Idealized women have soft transitions around the face; men tend to have more abrupt transitions. It's harder to adjust the sliders for that without looking like a face full of mountains.

I haven't noticed a particular lack of attractive men, though.

[Nicholaz Beresford]

Hair is one of major obstacles. It's not that short hair is unattractive per se, quite the opposite, but most short hair in SL simply sucks for a variety of technical reasons (mainly having to do with the fact that you have to adjust short hair to the skull form).

If you don't want to go for the rockstar/fantasy/tarzan look, your choices are fairly limited (which is the reason why you see so many bald guys in SL).

I myself ended up with making a custom skin where the hair is painted onto the skin, which is one of the very few ways how you can simulate a hair length of less than an inch.

[Garth Goode]

I have to agree with Tymmerie Thorne. I see plenty of good looking male avs, and with short hair too. I don't know where Kate was looking.

As for myself, I go bald and bearded, but women still comment on my look as being very attractive.

http://nwn.blogs.com/photos/uncategorized/2007/08/09/garth_goode_uncanny.jpg

I *will* say that proportionally there are fewer men who pay attention to their looks than do women. But as my bulding inventory suggests, there are PLENTY of places for men to find great clothes... enough to satisfy the metro man in all of us.

[Val Suisei]

This is merely one resident's humble opinion, but male avatars are ugly in SL. In over a year of cruising the grid, I've come across perhaps 5 or 6 genuinely attractive male avvies. I take it as a fact of Second Life that men are just unable to look as good as women.

This of course is not to say there are no "decent" male looks out there. I've seen many 'okay' male faces in the crowd. Whether this is attributed to the sheer imbalance of affordable quality fashion in women's favor, or a general lack of concern over appearance on the man's part I can't say. I just know from experience that creating a handsome male avatar is much more difficult than a pretty female one. You either have to be willing to spend several arms and legs, search all over the metaverse, or just create your own look.

I must clarify that I'm speaking mainly about human avatars, as I assume this article addresses. My avatar is human almost all the time, but I find many many more attractive male furs than humans. That's just my weird self talkin' though. ^.^

[Ayla Stringer]

I agree with Garth Goode and his comment "... fewer men pay attention to their looks than do women..." - I know it took me quite some time to modify my shape, find a skin, clothes and hair that make my avatar unique and attractive. How many men spend that much time in SL doing that? I HAVE seen very attractive male avs and helped a few friends put themselves together - it must be lack of effort that prevents there being more attractive male avs in SL.

[Maggie Dailey]

I have to disagree with Katie. I know many attractive male avatars, and with the right knowledge of sliders, not everyone needs to be a 20 year old.

Personal preference shouldn't be made into a blanket statement. There are very many, very nice short hair styles available in second life, for men and women.

I agree with this comment "...My avatar is human almost all the time, but I find many many more attractive male furs than humans." I find that in the human world, women are definitely more commonly more attractive then men. In the furry world, I find that most men care more about their look and put more effort into being a sexy, attractive furry. That goes for men being female furs as well as men being male furs. My furry avatar (a wildcat) isn't as visually appealing as my husbands. (and of course I am biased.) He also has a very attractive, although young, human avatar, choosing to be more realistic in size and shape. I know that when he was creating his shape, he spent a lot of time on it, and still tweaks it every now and then.

[Roslin Petion]

I think the key here lies in what Kate considers attractive. If her idea of good looking happens to fall out of what is possible to create in sl, then she is plum out of luck. I think it's the nature of the shape itself that makes it difficult to create *unique* and attractive males avies. In addition to shape challenges, there really isn't much room to create a unique look with skins. Women have makeup and eyebrow shapes to help set their skins apart from one another, men just have facial hair. Things are way better for men in sl than they were when I first joined. Take a look at http://www.slmen.com/ or http://www.second-man.com/ for proof. In addition to those bloggers, I can think of half a dozen attractive male avatars that I know personally, CJ Carnot, Catero Revolution, Menno Ophelia, Sylar Boyd, just to name a few.

[Aoife]

I personally find the baseline body shape of most male avatars to be unattractive, it's extremely boxy and angular and not nearly as realistic as the females.

[Kate Amdahl]

Hamlet, thanks for bringing the subject into much wider public view. :)

Tymmerie, I think short hair often looks great in First Life, but as Nicholaz says, "most short hair in SL simply sucks for a variety of technical reasons". And I absolutely agree that there are attractive male avatars in Second Life, but it seems to me they're much harder to find than attractive females.

About using sliders to make avatars look older, my best skins don't give me the ability to change those settings, and I'm not sure they'd come through properly, anyway. Don't they mainly work with default skins? And I have to say that I don't consider default skins very attractive compared to some of the beautiful skin work that's out there (http://kateamdahl.livejournal.com/8032.html is an entry I wrote when I was much less experienced with Second Life skins, but I still feel about the same way).

But I really haven't looked into that very much. Does anyone have a picture of a Second Life man who has aged himself attractively using sliders?

And everyone who's mentioned that personal taste comes into the matter a lot is absolutely right. I don't think there's any way to talk about beauty without relying on our own preferences. Anyway, I'm certainly finding reading these responses interesting. Come post pictures on my blog and spread the wealth!

^^^\ Kate /^^^

[Luce Irigary]

As an SL male, I find the whole "tweaking my appearance" thing boring. What do I care if someone else doesn't find my avatar "attractive"?

I feel similarly about other's avatars. You can be dumpy, or supermodel hot, but how does that impact me in the slightest? It's still just pixels.

[Joe Avatar]

I read the latest issue of some SL fashion mag, filled with pictures of "model" males. They were very very unattractive. No character. Ken-like. Shiny. Plastic. Odd.

On the other hand, I also find the weird boobiness of many SL female avatars -- not to mention their ubiquitous skin-tight suits -- pretty unattractive, too.