Male beauty standards need addressing...
Lets start with a definition - Looksmaxxing.
This is a term that originated on male incel messageboards in the 2010s, and has since become super popular on Tiktok. It basically means maxing out your looks - in other words, becoming the most attractive person possible. Now, I'm not a gamer but as far as I understand the term comes from role-playing games where 'maxing' means fully developing a character trait.
And looksmaxxing is in a way almost gamified too, the community of young men who follow it attach scores to aspects of their appearance, mainly those relating to masculinity such as jawline, muscularity and skin.
Theres a lot to unpack here. Buckle in.
What is Looksmaxxing?
In short it's about teaching eachother ways to improve your appearance, kind of like 'beauty hacks', but 'manly'.
Here's a beginners glossary:
Softmaxxing - improving looks through things like exercise, diet or skincare.
Hardmaxxing - using more agresive techniques like steroids, hair transpants or cosmetic surgery.
And expanding upon the basics (genuinely prepar yourself because these are cringy gen-z slang and also have super misogynistic/patriarchal/icky vibes)
Mogging: A term used to describe the act of asserting dominance over someone based on their appearance. e.g. 'we're mogging on them'
Y-pilled: A term used to describe someone who views themselves as more masculine than another person. e.g. "I Y-pilled them" (like red pilled for those who think the 'woke agend'a is mind washing them)
Starvemaxxing: A practice that involves intentionally starving oneself. (interesting take that adding a bunch of X's makes eating disorders more manly? are they inherently feminine then? thats a whole other wormhole...)
Whitemaxxing: A practice that involves using moisturizers to appear more white. (eesh)
Edging: A practice that involves trying to avoid sexual climax to increase testosterone. (again, eesh)
Bonesmashing: A practice that involves hitting one's own face against objects to achieve a "chiselled look" (see tiktok for 'bonesmashing' results... honestly don't understand the concept here tbh)
Mewing: this is a practice where you press your tounge up against the roof of your mouth & it makes your chin/neck/jaw area look super snatched. Its actually a great hack for photos if this is something you worry about!
So when I first came across this 'trend' on tiktok i didn't know the depth of it. I thought ok, funny that men gave 'self care' and 'beauty routines' a maxed out, masculine title to allow themselves to take part in it, but I also thought, I know so many men who recoil at the idea of sun lotion - a new generation of boys getting into a some skincare and pampering themselves, generally treating themselves with love and care is amazing. They deserve it.
However I quickly doom-scrolled my way into the dark side. And yes, I will get into some of the comparisons, between looksmaxxing and the female beauty-industrial-complex (which is not all sunshine & rainbows) but theres still a lot to unpack here.
We know the exercises (they involve lots of mewing and chewing on stuff to make your jaw bigger), we know the language, lets get into the rating system.
The Looksmaxxing Pyramid
So there are levels to looksmaxxing, for some reason they are sometimes presented in a pyramid - I guess this genre of man just love the vibe of pyramid schemes even when theres no money invovled? Although I may be being a misadrist, and maybe who ever created the looksmaxxing pyramid knew all about Maslow's heriarchy of needs... somehow I doubt it.
The levels are undefined, some sources claim different orders and different categorisation. but they basically cover: getting life basics under control, grooming and hygene, fashion, facial changes, confidence and self esteem.
Santiy check in: is it just me or do those categories sound great. If young boys on the internet were just turning to older men for guidance on these topics, and it stopped there withsome sound advice, I would be aplauding. The basic nature of these levels speaks volumens to the neglect that boys are getting. Yes it's the patriachies fault that boys aren't taught to value grooming, experiemnt with fashion, or be open about confidence struggles, but at the same time the patriarchy is making boys and men its victims. Which sucks.
And I think this is where some of the incel-like behaviour creeps in. These men and boys know they're the victims of something, they don't really grasp that they are victims of the same patriarchy that us feminists bang on about, and confuse our systemic complaits with trageted attacks, so in their heads we (women and the 'woke') become the opressors.
Here I am going to this effort to excuse the damage of looksmaxxing away from men, and thenin the same breath.. here is the rating system they have developed to use on eachother...
I'm going to copy and paste directly from a site called 'mewing.coach' now (home to a mewing and looksmaxxing app) as i actually couldn't have explained it any better myself:
" In looksmaxing, PSL refers to a rating system that assesses facial attractiveness, derived from the forums PUAHate, SlutHate, and Lookism. Ranging from 1 to 8, with 4 as the midpoint, this rating system judges features based on harmony, symmetry, and sexual dimorphism. However, while the intention may be to provide objective evaluations, the culture surrounding PSL can be toxic for perpetuating negative beauty standards among men and women.
It often prioritizes Eurocentric beauty standards, pressuring individuals to alter their natural features to fit a narrow ideal. This can deeply impact self-esteem and mental well-being, promoting the harmful notion that certain ethnic features are inferior.
Additionally, the competitive and sometimes prejudiced nature of the system fosters negativity and criticism within the community. Despite any positive intentions, it’s crucial to acknowledge and address the damaging effects of such rigid beauty standards on individuals’ sense of self-worth." https://mewing.coach/blog/looksmaxing#:~:text=In%20looksmaxing%2C%20PSL%20refers%20to,%2C%20symmetry%2C%20and%20sexual%20dimorphism.
Rating is logical for, like, feedback on a service it is not a productive thing to do to yourself or other people. And as the author of the above article quite rightly said centering everyone's ideal look on one perfect standard is so problematic. We do the exact same thing as women, but damn we don't put a number on ourselves!
Women are from Venus, Men are from... Tiktok
This seems like a pretty good point to take a step back and look at the differences between the beauty communities within 'women' and 'men's media - for us queer people or those who don't conform to either of those gender identities the beauty standard is no less harsh, but it is a little more complicated, so forgive me for excluding you from this comparison.
First I have to just touch on the language difference.
Because this trend has tried so hard to pretend it's 'manly' when it's actually just 'the beauty industry', I mean.. 'bonesmashing'?
Women have - 'face yoga', 'skin flooding', 'baby botox' and 'face taping', which upon reflection are also pretty silly and are also harmful techniques with no real evidence for working. Techniques which illuminate the harmful beauty standards and financial/physical lengths women are willing to stretch to in order to feel beautiful.
There is so much one could say when exploring the beauty standards impact across genders. A lot of the problems are the same. Both men and women are constantly confronted with celebrities that have secretly had cosmetic procedures or photoshopped themselves, both men and women are confronted with unrealistic body images to contend with on a daily basis. And both are flooded, via social media, with new tips, tricks, hacks and fake communities promising support and improvement that are usually just based around an influencer trying to flog a product or service.
The difference of course lies within gender politics. Whilst men are the opressors, and take quite a violent external approach to beauty and self worth - lashing out at their self-constructed cage and the women inside it, women take much more of an internal approach turning their insecurities and pressures in on themselves. (patriarchy wouldn't last long if we turned our self-hatred out onto men now would it) In a way everyone is oppressed here. But at the same time only one group are the oppressors.
Patriarchal standards have sculpted a narrow category of feminine beauty that dienfranchises women and makes them feel bad. Patriarchal standards have also created a) women who use their appearance for their benefit b) beauty standards for men and women who hold them to these standards and c) men who have become so vexxed by comparisons of masculinity that they create these standards for themselves and each other.
I kind of don't feel bad for the opressors. Where women frequently uplift eachother out of these harmful discourses, and find courage to come as their true selves, men are not bold enough to have those honest conversations with eachother, and will troll a woman with 1 wrinkle in her comments before complaining that women are judgemental over men. We want to support you guys, when we call out these beauty standards we're doing it for everyone - but you have to be in a mindset where you're ready to accept the help.
The really dark side
We knew it was coming. Unfortunately looksmaxxing isn't just a slightly confused masculine version of self care. It does have roots in incel culture.
I don't want to really devle into that depressing landscape, and the empathetic part of me does still see men at that extreme end of the spectrum as trapped, indoctrinated victims. But it's a harmful world and I don't want to really partake in it, and honeslty it takes a level of willful ignorance and self victimisation to get to the extreme some of them get to, and I have no pity for that.
I will however put you onto an amazing academic article titled
incels://cheeks/jaws: On fragile masculinity, fatal body ideals, homophobic homoeroticism and National Socialist aesthetics revisited by Sarah Held
Let me paste the abstract in for you, it's juicy:
"This article is concerned with fragile masculinity and its tendency towards authoritarianism and violence by focusing on the characteristics of a specific social group/online community of men called incels ( involuntary celibates). Incels are men who have no sexual encounters, blame women for their exclusion from sexual contact and create toxic online communities to share their violent and deadly misogyny. This article will detail their typical characteristics, including a discussion of their idealized body appearances. These toxic body politics are sampled by National Socialist aesthetics and charged with homoerotic looks and body styles. Like other right-wing groups, incels are driven by homophobia and racism. In their world-view, they also understand their own non-beauty-compliant appearance according to the mainstream normative of beauty as a reason for their sexlessness. The article focuses on the strategy of the misogynistic online community to achieve ‘looksmaxxing’ through cosmetic surgery. Their idealized body images sampled from various set pieces, from pop culture to Nazi chic, display consistent body ideals which feed on ancient mythologies."
I've reached my maxx
If this article has somehow wound its way into a looksmaxxer's screen, or you know someone who partakes in this world. Please be kind to yourself! Beauty standards are trash and they hurt us all, tell your mates they're great and show them you love them either way, don't rate them, mog them and feed into the insecurity.
And women, you're probably wise to the beauty lies you get fed each day already. Keep any eye out for any men you love, and tell them they're perfect just the way they are.
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