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.
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I can think of a few women who look better in masks. Or black sacks. Anything really…
Naomi Oreskes and Susan Michie for instance.
DickTurpin was decent enough to wear a mask
I read the original study a week or two ago and had a good laugh. Many more laughs came from reading the comments here and there were many put downs that I intend to borrow.
More disturbing was Dr. Sinéad Murphy’s analysis of where this sort of dressing up lies to sound like the truth will lead to. So the “Ministry of Truth” is busy redefining what personalised means. As always, an excellent thought provoking article from Dr Murphy.
Antonio Banderas looks good whether he’s wearing a mask or not. So would Brad Pitt and Johnny Depp.
They do nothing for the average “bloke.” All depends on what’s beneath the mask.
Q: “What are We to Make of the Research Finding that Women Think Men Wearing Facemasks are More Attractive?”A: Absolute b0ll0cks.
You gotta larf.
Our world is falling apart but this thread reaps 150 plus comments.
I suppose we have it coming.
Die Lage ist hoffnungslos, aber nicht ernst!
[slogan of a historic German comedy troupe, We’re beyond all hope, but the situation is not serious!]
But the study is the funniest thing I’ve read in ages and one must retain one’s sense of humour. It’s like when the local hippies tell me that growing my own food and making my own cleaning stuff will save the planet. Sometimes, you just have to laugh.
What a load of buzzcocks!!!!!
Research shows women go weak at the knees if you wear a full deep sea diver’s suit. It’s the lead boots that really get them.
My reseach leads me to believe that I am more attractive to women when I have a paper bag over my head.
I’d certainly find the likes of Trudeau, Fauci, et al more attractive with a noose around their necks.
A program I frequently have to use at work prints
You are in ‘detached HEAD’ state.
In certain situations. Could be a nice alternative 🙂
All sorts of connotations there, RW 😉
Don’t forget, it’s against the roolz ro incite the killing of killers.
I’m surprised this made it past basic quality control (no reflection on Dr Murphy).
Before even clicking onto the study, I already knew from the initial press release that only 43 participants had taken part. Had the group of 43 included women from all walks of life and parts of society, perhaps the small number would have stood up to scrutiny more robustly. So, it was genuinely bemusing to then read that every single participant was a psychology student from the same course being run by the report authors.
https://lauradodsworth.substack.com/p/do-face-masks-make-you-more-attractive?r=nlomh
Yeah, either all of that blabbering philosophical bs or most people are just plain ugly and the mask lets you fantasize about a hotter looking individual instead. The same way how skimpy clothes let you speculate about what’s hidden under them while nudity is actually not that much of a turn on.
It’s the reasoning behind why these males are muzzled up though. Such a turn-off.
I would not say it’s a turn-off – it can pique curiosity. I can only judge from the other direction, but a masked hot-looking woman may have some bonus – because I don’t know if she’s actually hot or not, so I am prompted to speculate and err on the attractive side. A consideration of the merits of wearing a stupid mask does not come at any point into this equation, it merely concerns physical attractiveness.
Another way to put it is that artificial scarcity increases demand.
Rayc, my curiosity is never piqued by a male wearing a face nappy. All I can think is, there goes another bedwetting, dickhead. I get the ‘what lies beneath?’ curiosity under normal circumstances. Anyone wearing a mask is not normal.
Hi Nymeria.
Hi, Jo 🙂
So let’s clear this up ! Men in covid masks I find immensely unattractive and so do my daughters and my mum.
However the mask of Zorro is not over his … mouth but has a mysterious look….so that is whole new ballgame .. as they say.
Unfortunately my husband was not a movie hero and had to wear one for work or did not earn. But…
To be honest, I would wear a Zorro mask or absolutely anything if I thought it would make Catherine Zeta Jones fancy me. Many times we have watched that film. Many times…as a family, obvs.
Link to the study…
Face masks ‘make wearers look more attractive’, study suggests – News – Cardiff University
43 female participants.
This one will scare the living daylights out of them!!
Is this another bloody wind up?
I find men in covid dictat masks about as alluring as fresh dog turds and as sad as muzzled dogs – mixed emotions – mainly disgust and pity and a desire to step away quickly.
Unhealthy rape fantasy?
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.
The maskateers are really scraping the bottom of the barrel now.
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?
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.
Says it all….
Projection by the mask wearing men who designed the survey?
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.
“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.
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.
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.
What a crock
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.
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.
Do women prefer men with blood clots?
No.
I suppose it might depend on where the clot was lodged?
Depends where the clot is?😀