Introduction

Historically, the ideal male abdomen has been marked by rectus abdominis definition and overall pronounced muscle tone. Nonetheless, the perceived ideal degree of male abdominal etching is unreported. Alfredo Hoyos formulated the “BMX” protocol, which defines basic (B), moderate (M), or extreme (X) etching.

Objective

To discern the population’s preferences for varying degrees of male abdominal etching and to understand how this preference is associated with respondent demographics.

 

Methods

A photo-realistic 3D scan of a male trunk was sculpted using ZBrush to showcase basic, moderate, and extreme contour.

 

1,017 participants were tasked with rating each image on a Likert scale of 1-7 and ranking them side-by-side from most to least attractive on Amazon Mechanical Turk.

Results

Compared to basic contour, respondents were

3.5 times as likely to rate extreme contour a 7.0 and 2.9 times as likely to rate moderate contour a 7.0 (both P < 0.001).

 

Overall, 55% of all respondents found basic contour least attractive, 4% found moderate contour least attractive, and 41% found extreme contour least attractive (P < 0.001).

 

Respondents across all demographic subgroups ranked the extreme contour the most attractive (all P < 0.001).

Conclusions

The findings suggest that the overall population across demographics trends toward a strong preference for moderate to extreme contour over basic contour.

 

Analysis of demographic subgroups revealed that younger populations (<40) favor extreme levels of contour more than older populations (>40) do.

 

The BMX paradigm provides a schematic for contouring options, but moderate to extreme contour resonates as the more attractive male meso/ectomorphic physique.