'From skinny wuss to instant sex god'

James Delingpole is delighted to hear the results of a UCLA study that showed women preferred slimmer, less muscular men to musclebound types like Arnold Schwarzenegger.

[T]he reality is that a lot of women find muscly bodies a bit suspect.

It’s not that they are against well-toned physiques in principle. Just that, with characteristic intuition, they understand that the sort of man prepared to put in all the time and effort needed to get that physique is at best a preening solipsist, at worst a selfish bastard.

But while that same study showed that men preferred a little more meat on women than is shown in fashion magazines, Carol Midgley says women receive conflicting messages.

Because when it comes to the female shape, men are out and out hypocrites. Their natural instincts might tell them that ultra-thin women are tiresome and that it’s far sexier to grab a full pair of hips than risk injury on a razor-sharp pelvic girdle.

But when famous men want social kudos and to be envied by other males do you see them with an ample-bottomed wench on their arm? Do you hell. You see them with a stick-thin, breastless supermodel who drinks sparkling mineral water all night and doesn’t smile once except when she sees a photographer.