Where did all the shirts go?

In young guys, however, it is rampant.

When did this happen? Last time I looked up from my laptop or removing weet bix from my hair or whatever it is I’ve been doing for the last few years, the whole strutting around, look-at-me thing was female behaviour.

But everywhere I go lately, the girls have become invisible. Instead, there are packs of blokes roaming around shirtless, flexing their pecs. And so for the purpose of this column, we shall name them Pectosexuals.
I don’t just mean they’re at the beach. Oh no. Pectosexuals are marauding in the street, far from any large body of water. They are in cafes and supermarkets. Sometimes, you even see them AT NIGHT.

Ground zero for Pectosexuals is the summer music festival but they can be spotted anywhere the temperature is above 20 degrees.

Sometimes their shirts are tucked into the back of their pants like a limp tea towel. Other times, there’s no sign of a shirt, suggesting they made a conscious decision to leave the house that way.

Oh yes. Women may dress for other women but now men are undressing for other men. And that messes with my head a little bit because when I was younger, the only guys whose bodies were hard enough to hang out in shirtless groups were gay. Nobody else could match their dedication to bench pressing and body hair removal.

But the new Pectosexuals are straight. Sometimes aggressively so. They don’t want to have sex with other men, they just want them to admire their bodies. So is it an alpha male competitive thing? Vanity? Peacocking? And when did a hard naked torso become the new embodiment of masculinity?

Hell, even Batman had love handles when he was on TV (decades later, when the franchise was revived for new films, the suit came with it’s own moulded pecs and six-pack).

According to website The Art Of Manliness, in the 1950s, only 3% of print advertisements showed men undressed. Today it has risen to more than 35%.

Merrick Watts had a radio rant about this a while back, wondering why so many young blokes now get shirtless for their Facebook profile photo. “Do they say, ‘Hey mate, will you take a shot of me – hang on, let me just WHIP OFF MY SHIRT.”

Why yes, it appears that’s exactly what they do. Their mates don’t laugh at their vanity because it’s not funny. It’s called normal. And also, their mates aren’t wearing shirts either. All the better to impress….each other.

In case there was any confusion about the target audience for these new Pectosexuals, The Art Of Manliness bloggers Kate and Brett McKay insist that big muscles do not attract women.

They site a study by psychiatrists who gave a computerised test to university students in France, America and Austria. ”The men could choose from 10 different layers of fat and 10 different layers of muscle to create what they believed was the most attractive body type to women. The study found that men consistently layered on more muscle than women actually preferred.”

A follow-up study discovered that Western men overestimate how much muscle women want to see by about 9-15kg. That’s a lot of time on the weights bench.

After my own Twitter-based scientific study, I confirmed the following: most women are turned off by topless men except at home, around water or in a Hugh Jackman movie and people of both genders are in agreement that topless men should be banned from supermarkets and DVD stores.

One person thoughtfully explained there are four enclave of Pectosexual. The first is the gay enclave who does it best. The second is the under 20s who don’t have body fat yet. The third is the over 20s who spend far too much time in the gym. The fourth is the over 30s who should know better.

And with the possible exception of Hugh Jackman, I’m inclined to agree….

What do you think? Have you noticed a rising trend in Pectosexuals? Do you know any personally?

And why do you think they do it?

[main Photo by Tanworkboots via Art Of Manliness, jeans image from Men’s Health magazine]