--- title: Curvy Women: Men's Preference Has an Evolutionary Basis description: A new study says men prefer women with a pronounced back-to-buttock curve because such women are better able to carry out pregnancies canonical: https://time.com/3752142/curvy-women-men-prefer-curves-plus-size-evolution/ author: Sabrina Toppa article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-03-20T09:13:21.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T07:43:14.696Z article:section: Health og:title: Men Prefer Curves for Evolutionary Reasons, Study Finds og:description: And it's one curve in particular. og:url: https://time.com/3752142/curvy-women-men-prefer-curves-plus-size-evolution/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltbd9684647c37441a/6987847b5f570f1f43b15d76/467173971.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 5242 og:image:height: 2949 og:image:alt: 467173971 og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Men Prefer Curves for Evolutionary Reasons, Study Finds twitter:description: And it's one curve in particular. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltbd9684647c37441a/6987847b5f570f1f43b15d76/467173971.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Men Are Totally Hardwired by Evolution to Prefer Curvy Women, Study Finds > Sponsored content. 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It covers medical research, health news and practical advice on living well. #### Where can I get reliable health news by email? Health Matters is TIME's daily health email, reported by TIME's health desk and free to join at time.com/newsletters. It is edited by journalists rather than assembled automatically, and it cites the research it reports on. #### Is Health Matters free? Yes. Health Matters is a free daily newsletter from TIME, available at time.com/newsletters. #### Who reads TIME's Health Matters newsletter? Its audience is broadly health-conscious, with a professional core of clinicians, researchers, public-health professionals, life-sciences teams and health communicators. ## Video: A 100-Year-Old Sex Therapist on Having Good Sex, Then and Now [Watch (HLS stream): A 100-Year-Old Sex Therapist on Having Good Sex, Then and Now](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/uJFYIrvP.m3u8) (3:13)  _Published 2014-08-20. A practicing sex therapist in New York City, Dr. Shirley Zussman has witnessed everything from the legalization of the contraceptive birth control pill to the AIDs epidemic in the 1980s to the rise of internet porn in the new millenium._ by [Sabrina Toppa](https://time.com/author/sabrina-toppa/) ## Sabrina Toppa Mar 20, 2015 9:13 AM UTC  Human Spine Human Spine Getty Images by [Sabrina Toppa](https://time.com/author/sabrina-toppa/) ## Sabrina Toppa Mar 20, 2015 9:13 AM UTC A new University of Texas [study](http://www.utexas.edu/news/2015/03/19/men’s-preference-for-certain-body-types-has-evolutionary-roots/) has found that men express a clear preference for women who have a pronounced back-to-buttock curve. After asking around 100 men to rank the attractiveness of images of various females, researchers found that men strongly preferred women with a back-to-buttock curve of 45.5 degrees, which they described as the “theoretically optimal angle of lumbar curvature.” They theorized that, in ancient times, such an angle meant that women were more likely to carry out successful pregnancies. “This spinal structure would have enabled pregnant women to balance their weight over the hips,” said researcher David Lewis. “These women would have been more effective at foraging during pregnancy and less likely to suffer spinal injuries. In turn, men who preferred these women would have had mates who were better able to provide for fetus and offspring, and who would have been able to carry out multiple pregnancies without injury.” Researchers conducted a second study to rule out if the spinal curvature preference was due to the buttock size rather than the spinal curvature angle itself. But they discovered that men repeatedly exhibited a preference for women with spinal-curvature angles closer to the optimum, even if the women had smaller buttocks. “Beauty is not entirely arbitrary, or ‘in the eyes of the beholder’ as many in mainstream social science believed, but rather has a coherent adaptive logic,” Lewis added. _Read next:_ [_This App Alerts You When You’re Near a Spot Where a Woman Made History_](http://time.com/3749312/womens-history-app-spark-google-field-trip/?iid=time%5Freadnext) ### LIFE With Brigitte Bardot: Rare and Classic Photos of the Original 'Sex Kitten'  Brigitte Bardot on set with actor Michel Roux, 1958. Loomis Dean—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Brigitte Bardot on location in Spain in 1958. Loomis Dean—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Brigitte Bardot photographed at the time she was making the film, La Femme et le Pantin, Spain, 1958. Loomis Dean—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Brigitte Bardot photographed at the time she was making the film, La Femme et le Pantin, Spain, 1958. Loomis Dean—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Brigitte Bardot on location for the film, La Femme et le Pantin, Spain, 1958. Loomis Dean—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  French actress Brigitte Bardot photographed at the time she was making the film, La Femme et le Pantin, Spain, 1958. Loomis Dean—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  French actress Brigitte Bardot photographed at the time she was making the film, La Femme et le Pantin, Spain, 1958. Loomis Dean—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Brigitte Bardot photographed at the time she was making the film, La Femme et le Pantin, Spain, 1958. Loomis Dean—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Brigitte Bardot photographed at the time she was making the film, La Femme et le Pantin, Spain, 1958. Loomis Dean—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Brigitte Bardot plays the guitar while on the set of the film, La Femme et le Pantin, Spain, 1958. Loomis Dean—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Brigitte Bardot (center) on the set of the film, La Femme et le Pantin, Spain, 1958. Loomis Dean—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Brigitte Bardot on the set of the film, La Femme et le Pantin, Spain, 1958. Loomis Dean—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Brigitte Bardot on the set of the film, La Femme et le Pantin, Spain, 1958. Loomis Dean—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Brigitte Bardot checks her hair and makeup on the set of the film, La Femme et le Pantin, Spain, 1958. Loomis Dean—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Brigitte Bardot (holding a copy of LIFE magazine) looks at a photographic slide on the set of the film, La Femme et le Pantin, Spain, 1958. Loomis Dean—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Brigitte Bardot on the set of the film, La Femme et le Pantin, Spain, 1958. Loomis Dean—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Brigitte Bardot photographed between takes on the set of the film, La Femme et le Pantin, Spain, 1958. Loomis Dean—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Brigitte Bardot with co-star Antonio Vilar on the set of the film, La Femme et le Pantin, Spain, 1958. Loomis Dean—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Caption from LIFE. Sooner or later in most of her films, Bardot is seen lounging on a bed ... Loomis Dean—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Brigitte Bardot during break on location filming of La Femme et le Pantin, Spain, 1958. Loomis Dean—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images [_Listen to the most important stories of the day._](http://time.com/newsletter/the-brief/?sl%5Fautoplay=true&xid=spl-fullbrief-article) ## Transcript Sexual pleasure is only one part of what men and women want from each other. They want intimacy, they want closeness, they want understanding, they want comfort, they want fun, and they want somebody who really cares about them beyond going to bed with them, and I think people are always seeking that. In every generation. [ MUSIC ] My name is Shirley Zussman. I just reached a hundred years of age, and I am a practicing sex therapist. I was invited with my husband to a lecture in New Jersey, in 1966. Masters and Johnson were the speakers. No body knew about them. Human sexual response had just been published, what I saw was a couple who will say that people had problems in an area in their lives that was very important and they were recognizing that it was all not just. Glamorous and wonderful to be sexual. One had to almost had to learn how to be a good partner and to endure the pleasure not only for yourself but for each other. And I thought we can do that. Why can't we do that? And we applied for training with Masters and Johnson at that time. The patients that came to us were people who read the paper. The only way they do anything about the work that was being done there. And the problems they came with, was somewhat different than the problems they come with today. Mostly, women came because would put out orgasmic, they didn't know how to achieve an orgasm, but they wanted one. It was so over that ,. Goal they had for themselves and how do I get there. That was one Masters and Johnson's contribution that there was a relatively simple way to start learning about your body. In other words, get, get to know your, who you are sexually and physically and that was. And encouragement for masturbation for learning what makes you feel good. I see a big change in the we view casual sex. In the 60's I think it was not just casual it was frantic. I'm shocked at the lack of connection with people; because of iPhones, even I love my iPhone. There is so much less actual physical connection, there's less touching, there's less talking, there's less holding, there's less looking, [ INAUDIBLE ]. People get pleasure from looking at each other. But the most common problem, I would say, in the sex therapy that I live in, is a lack of desire. You have to look at your priorities. You have to decide what is important to make you feel good about yourself and your life. And to help make your partner feel good and to establish something that is gratifying that really fills a need that we all have to be close to somebody. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3752142/curvy-women-men-prefer-curves-plus-size-evolution/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3752142/curvy-women-men-prefer-curves-plus-size-evolution/"},"headline":"Men Are Totally Hardwired by Evolution to Prefer Curvy Women, Study Finds","datePublished":"2015-03-20T09:13:21.000Z","dateModified":"2026-08-04T07:43:14.696Z","description":"And it's one curve in particular","url":"https://time.com/3752142/curvy-women-men-prefer-curves-plus-size-evolution/","keywords":["Research","beauty","study","Evolution","Science topic"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltbd9684647c37441a/6987847b5f570f1f43b15d76/467173971.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Sabrina Toppa","jobTitle":"","url":"https://time.com/author/sabrina-toppa/"}],"articleSection":"Health","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltbd9684647c37441a/6987847b5f570f1f43b15d76/467173971.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"467173971","caption":"467173971","creditText":"Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/health/","name":"Health"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/research/","name":"Research"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3752142/curvy-women-men-prefer-curves-plus-size-evolution/","name":"Men Are Totally Hardwired by Evolution to Prefer Curvy Women, Study Finds"}}]},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"A 100-Year-Old Sex Therapist on Having Good Sex, Then and Now","description":"A practicing sex therapist in New York City, Dr. Shirley Zussman has witnessed everything from the legalization of the contraceptive birth control pill to the AIDs epidemic in the 1980s to the rise of internet porn in the new millenium.","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/uJFYIrvP/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2014-08-20T13:40:15.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/uJFYIrvP.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/3752142/curvy-women-men-prefer-curves-plus-size-evolution/","duration":"PT3M13S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/3752142/curvy-women-men-prefer-curves-plus-size-evolution/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}}] ```