Women’s expectations of the opposite sex are at least as unrealistic as men’s
The study is not perfect. There was no danger of the women mistaking the digital men for the real thing. Other factors—such as social status, for instance—may, in the real world, override the physical preferences that the researchers were measuring. And it is hard, when all the subjects come from a single country, to disentangle the effects of nurture from those of nature. It is commonly pointed out, for instance, that men’s apparent preference for slim women seems to be a relatively modern (and Western) construction. Erotica from the turn of the 19th century tend to feature much curvier women than their modern equivalent. Women’s preferences may be just as influenced by the culture in which they grow up.
