Looksmaxxing: A Gen Z boy’s reply to anti-male bias

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Debra Soh is a sex neuroscientist and the author of the forthcoming book, Sextinction: The Decline of Sex and the Future of Intimacy.

If you are over the age of 35 and work a 9-to-5 job, you could be forgiven for not knowing what looksmaxxing is.

The looksmaxxing trend describes young men’s desire to obtain hypermasculine facial features so they can improve their romantic prospects and ascend in life. Looksmaxxing encourages a range of self-betterment techniques, from milder strategies like facial exercises and thickening one’s eyebrows, to invasive regimens like plastic surgery, off-label use of human-growth hormone and testosterone, and illicit substances like methamphetamine to hollow out one’s cheeks.

These male beauty ideals are derived from scientific studies based in evolutionary psychology and biology. A strong brow ridge, prominent jawline and chin, chiselled cheekbones, and unflinching symmetry are signs of high testosterone and good health in men – hence why women find them attractive.

But in an era filled with influencers, these standards have been cranked up to an unforgiving extreme. Successful male looksmaxxers, with their predictable array of jaw implants, bushy eyebrows, and buccal fat removal, look like frightening, AI-generated carbon copies of one another. Their purpose in life revolves around monitoring where they and everyone else sit in the attractiveness hierarchy. A generation of teenage boys and young men will stop at nothing to achieve this look.

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Although much of the concern about the toxic effects of social media has pertained to girls’ consumption, boys have been negatively affected, too. Adolescent boys today present with mental-health conditions like body dysmorphic disorder (distorted body image), muscle dysmorphia and anxiety – attributable to appearance-focused content on social-media platforms.

On looksmaxxing forums, boys solicit advice about the steps they can take to optimize their developmental trajectory before it is set in stone. Many pubertal (and prepubertal) boys seek medical interventions to delay the end of puberty, so that they can tweak the associated physical changes, like longer and stronger bone growth, for as long as possible.

If this sounds insane to you, you aren’t alone.

First of all, the average teenage boy’s face doesn’t stop growing until he reaches his twenties. So the tinkering these boys are undertaking might have been entirely unnecessary had they waited a few years.

Regarding romantic success, personality factors like emotional stability and agreeableness are more important. Studies show husbands – not wives – put a greater emphasis on a spouse’s physical attractiveness when evaluating marital satisfaction. Since men tend to be more looks-focused when selecting a partner, looksmaxxing males may be erroneously projecting their preferences onto women, not realizing that women prioritize different things.

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Scientific research on mate preferences, including those based in evolutionary psychology, show that women care more about a man’s ability to protect and provide. Contrary to what social media professes, most women don’t want to date a man with a rectangular prism for a head.

Regardless of a woman’s political affiliation, hypermasculinity is, in fact, off-putting, because higher-than-average levels of testosterone, which are expressed through facial masculinity, are often also accompanied by aggressiveness, high-risk behaviour, antisociality and infidelity. Women who seek out high-testosterone men despite these downsides are usually seeking a short-term encounter.

This may seem like an ideal situation for young men who are looking only to sleep around. But even prolific womanizers eventually feel lonely. And beneath this intense obsession with one’s looks is a deeper disconnection that isn’t being discussed.

In my research, I have found that the teen boys and young men subscribing to this way of life are, typically, politically right-leaning. They possess a nihilistic outlook characteristic of younger Gen Z boys, paired with a seething disdain for left-wing policies and feminism.

As recently described in the Wall Street Journal, the “accelerationist” mindset, popular among Zoomer boys, including those of the looksmaxxing variety, contends that a leftist destruction of society is inevitable, so it should be hastened to allow these disillusioned young men to take over.

In my view, these boys believe looksmaxxing is the antidote to progressives’ feminization of men. Embracing masculinity in its most obvious, unapologetic form is a rejection of this emasculation and subjugation.

Looksmaxxing is a coping mechanism, a way for boys to compensate for a lack of control in a world that has pushed them aside. As young men fall behind their female peers in educational and occupational attainment, and thereby struggle in the dating pool, perhaps the quicker, easier path to success, as identified by some, is to strive for status and attention through their physical appearance. This hyperfixation on vanity and succeeding in the area of sexual conquests also becomes a way to avoid the effort and financial investment that dating and relationships require.

Instead of acknowledging boys’ anxieties and implementing solutions to help them succeed, our institutions have ignored them. Some vulnerable boys have, in turn, found a way to solve their problems, but one that will cause them – and society – greater dissatisfaction in the long run.