A British popstar’s jaw-dropping before and after photos have divided men and women everywhere – exposing a drastic difference between the sexes.
Olly Murs, who shot to fame on the UK X-Factor in 2009, recently underwent an impressive 12-week transformation ahead of a “grueling” 33-date UK and Ireland tour.
But the 40-year-old’s new “shredded and pumped” physique has divided social media, with men and women unable to agree on whether Murs looks better “before” his body transformation, or after.
And it’s highlighting a huge difference between what heterosexual men and women find attractive.
A side-by-side photo showing Murs, who is currently expecting his second child with wife Amelia, at the start and end of his fitness challenge has been flooded with comments from women congratulating the star on his achievement, but politely noting their personal preferences.
“Amazing hard work well done but I prefer the left pic,” one said.
“Think dad bod looks better,” another woman remarked.
As one declared: “I prefer you as the before picture if truly honest.”
Comments from men however paint a very different story.
“OMG that’s fantastic,” wrote one.
“Sick transformation, brotha!” mused another.
While one bloke raved: “Well done mate doing God’s work.”
The difference in response between men and women was then discussed on X, where one user went as far as to run a poll, which only reinforced the findings.
According to the almost 5000 votes, 42.6 percent of them were men who preferred the after photo, whereas only 7 percent of the voters were women who agreed.
In contrast, 26.8 percent of those who took part were women who preferred Murs before he lost weight and developed more muscle.
A similar number of male poll participants, 23.6 percent, agreed the singer looked better before.
The results of the poll, hosted by doctoral psychology researcher William Costello, threw the internet into even more of a spin.
One man shared the results with the caption: “Why are women lying about this? Like what’s the actual cause?”
Meanwhile a feminist account reshared his post, along with the message, “I’m begging men to understand that we aren’t lying”.
Many have said the difference in opinion highlights the stark contrast between what men and women find attractive.
“It blows my mind than men cannot understand why we prefer the first photo,” one wrote on X.
“Genuinely he looks so much better before. The male and female gaze are completely different,” another agreed.
The theory of the male gaze was developed by British film scholar Laura Mulvey in the 1975 essay “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema”, according to the New Yorker.
The term was first used by art critic John Berger to demonstrate how representational conventions in art and media encourage particular understandings of reality.
The male gaze is very objectifying.
“The ‘male gaze’ invokes the sexual politics of the gaze and suggests a sexualised way of looking that empowers men and objectifies women,” one academic wrote for The Conversation previously.
“In the male gaze, woman is visually positioned as an ‘object’ of heterosexual male desire. “Her feelings, thoughts and her own sexual drives are less important than her being ‘framed’ by male desire.”
In contrast, the “female gaze” is pretty a new idea and is often seen as a response to male gaze.
In feminist theory, the female gaze is not about simply reversing the objectification of men, but rather about challenging the dominant patriarchal perspective that often portrays women as objects of male desire.
It did little to help the men understand, with many pleading, “Help it make sense”.
[Notigroup Newsroom in collaboration with other media outlets, with information from the following sources]
