The ideal woman according to men on Adopteunmec.com
Today, millions of people meet each other with the help of online dating sites. In 2021, a third of French people had already used them. Adopteunmec (AUM), which translates as “adopt a guy”, stands out among the hundreds of existing sites: created in 2007 for heterosexual people, it offers an informal approach to dating by borrowing codes more frequently associated with e-commerce. Here, the man is a “product” that the woman can virtually put into her shopping cart. She can either make direct contact with the men she is interested in, or they can send her a “charm” (a notification inviting her to chat) which she can choose to accept or decline. It’s always the woman who has the power to communicate with her suitors. However, the men have a space on their profile – the “Shopping List” (SL) – where they can explain exactly what they’re looking for in a partner.
- Arnoult A., Kredens E., 2021, “Les représentations de la ‘femme idéale’ sur le site de rencontres Adoptunmec.com”, Interrogations, no. 33
Arnoult Audrey is a member of LERASS, Paul Sabatier University: audrey.arnoult@iut-tlse3.fr
Kredens Elodie is a member of LLSETI, Savoie Mont Blanc University: elodie.kredens@univ-smb.fr
Corpus and methodology
So, for the men registered on AUM, what is the perfect female like exactly? How do they describe them? Do the terms they use refer to beauty, intellect, personality or even social status? To find out what the perfect woman is like, we isolated 660 men’s profiles between April and July, 2019. Aged from 25 to 34 (consistent with AUM’s target age of 31), the users all lived in Lyon, in the city centre or within a 10 km radius. Among them, 454 had written a “Shopping list”.
Thanks to the Iramuteq textual data analysis software, we were able to identify the different themes associated with the ideal partner. By dividing the texts into segments, then grouping them according to similarities in their vocabulary, two themes linked to representations of the feminine ideal emerged.
The different types of men according to their feminine ideal
Before studying the representations of the perfect woman, we took a look at how men formulated their expectations. We pinpointed several profiles:
- Men who have no specific criteria apart from a “vibe”. One writes “if there’s a good vibe, the rest will follow”, another “I think having a good vibe helps”.
- Then, quite the opposite, those who have a very specific idea of their ideal partner. Their SL includes a list of terms, often linked to values. For example: “a down-to-earth, calm, serious, attentive, ambitious woman, with a good sense of humour and charm”.
- The third category of Internet users are ambiguous in terms of their perfect female, where men can claim that it’s all about having a good vibe but immediately state their dream woman’s precise characteristics. They can also allege to have no criteria at all but then go on to list several. For example, one Internet user writes: “no particular criteria really, […] but someone down-to-earth, with a sense of humour and who looks after themselves”.
- Another category – albeit a minor one – includes men who have chosen to use the site to put a humorous or even poetic twist on their content. While one user writes “I didn’t come here to do my shopping…”, another claims to be seeking “a one-legged girl who speaks Moldovan”.
- The last category is made up of Internet users who failed to fill in their SL at all, that is, a third of the profiles collected. There are several hypotheses to explain this. These men may not be looking for a serious relationship and therefore have no specific profile in mind. They may also be reluctant to carry out this type of request.
According to the French Academy, the definition of ideal is “that which the mind conceives as the expression of perfection” and which “fits with the individual’s idea of perfection”. The feminine ideal therefore presupposes a set of criteria. However, of the five categories of men, only two really describe their ideal partner: those who are specific and those who are ambiguous, that is, those who draw up a list of criteria while claiming to have none. Therefore, only some of the male Internet users in our corpus are worried about describing the ideal female. In other words, the first thing we learn from our study is that the majority of men have no specific idea about the woman they would like to meet.
Now, when we did our study, you could specify the type of relationship you were looking for in your profile. Using job-hunting codes in a comical way, the AUM site offered three types of “love contracts”: the “CDI” permanent contract for a long-term relationship, the “CDD friendship-cuddles” fixed-term contract and, finally, the “One shot” for a one-night stand. In our sample, the men who chose to specify this element were mainly interested in serious dating, although this could just be for show, of course.
Therefore, the adjective “serious” is the first significant word in a theme identified by the software. Also, words connoting casual relationships are absent from the SL. For example, if the expression “booty call” is used, it’s actually to prohibit this type of relationship (“No booty calls, thanks!!”). The same goes for one-night stands: “I’m not into one-night stands”. Closer analysis of this theme by the Iramuteq software confirms the importance of serious dating. This adjective is associated either with the term “relationship” or with that of “woman”, and is sometimes used by itself. Finally, the search for a serious partner is also indicated with the expressions “have a good head on her shoulders”, “feel comfortable with herself”, etc.
The portrait of the ideal woman
Given this context of romantic and/or sexual seduction, one might expect to find that terms describing the woman’s physique take precedence. However, the most common ones actually relate to the woman’s character and are “humour”, “silliness” and “ironic”. A sense of humour is often even mentioned by itself, and with particular emphasis. For example, one user writes: “a sense of humour, damn it, is that too much to ask? Let’s have a giggle before we say goodbye, you women are so charming when you joke around”.
Some men seem to be looking for a laughing companion, something confirmed by the presence of the terms “silliness” and “ironic”. On one SL, we read: “a bit of irony, silliness, pizzazz. Everything you need for a good fruit punch”.
This playful dimension may be surprising given that AUM is considered a serious dating site. However, “fidelity” is also among the most significant words – but further down in the list of terms that represent the theme – as is the word “attentive”. These words refer to a more classic vision of a heterosexual couple which is however not predominant: the man expects his partner to be faithful only to him and adopt a mothering role by taking care of him.
In any case, there’s no denying that appearance plays an important role when choosing a spouse (Bozon, 1991). In the men’s SL, the most common term regarding physical appearance is the adjective “natural”, often associated with other terms relating to physique, but also to personality or lifestyle. Physical characteristics are therefore apparently not essential. Here, we find no mention of their hairstyle, figure, clothing style or even makeup. Instead, men express their desire for an unpretentious, natural woman, which may go against the stereotypes associated with online dating sites.
The second term related to physical appearance is the adjective “feminine”. For example, we read “I like feminine, friendly girls who love to laugh”. This criterion of femininity traces a rather vague outline of the feminine ideal because the term is not explained and is, above all, subjective, as the meaning can vary from one man to another.
The last word related to physical appearance is the adjective “sporty”, often associated with other criteria. For example, one man says he’s looking for “a sporty woman with a good sense of humour”, while another is after a “sporty and ambitious” partner.
In short, expectations relating to personality are considered more important than those to do with physique. What’s more, when the word “physique” is used by male Internet users, it’s more to play down its importance than anything else. For example, one man writes: “I have no specific physical criteria”.
The woman in her everyday life and the relationship
While the first lexical theme painted a portrait of the woman using rather descriptive terms, in the second she is given a more active stance. Men mainly use verbs that refer to couple activities. The woman is therefore seen as a true partner who fits into the male Internet user’s life. Some are short or medium-term activities which don’t require a big commitment. Things like “going to a restaurant ”, “evenings in at home ”, “going to the cinema” or even “going for a walk”. Here, the ideal woman is imagined in interaction with the Internet user, the latter imagining a reality in which they evolve together.
Within this theme, we find two terms that imagine a common future: “move forward” and “build”. Creating the couple is seen as a long-term process. In this sense, one man writes: “I’m looking for a steady relationship that allows us to move forward and create our dream life together.”
Finally, long-term projections are far from precise. It tends to be about “starting a family”, building “something”, “a situation”, “a story” or even “a beautiful future”. This imprecision could be explained by the fact that the SL allows for digital contact before a face-to-face meeting. It might therefore seem intimidating to read a life plan that is too precise, since it can only really be built by two people together.
Finally, on the AUM dating site, men tend not to describe their ideal female even though the system openly encourages them to do so by providing them with a SL in the first place.
However, when men do choose to do this, they mainly describe their ideal woman in two ways: either by painting a descriptive portrait of a partner with adjectives, or by describing the activities they imagine doing with her using action verbs.
What’s more, in male projections, personality seems to take precedence over physical appearance, contrary to common belief. Ultimately, the ideal partner must have a sense of humour with a touch of silliness while also being down-to-earth and natural. It makes you wonder if, deep down, she might just be the female equivalent of a “good mate”…
Although there are major trends in the construction of the feminine ideal, this study invites us to consider the lack of homogeneity in men’s SL. In other words, there are almost as many perfect women as there are men looking for partners, which helps illustrate the saying “there’s someone for everyone”.
- Bozon M., 1991, “Apparence physique et choix du conjoint”, in Roussel L. and Hibert T. (dir.), L’Évolution de la nuptialité en France et dans les pays développés, Paris: Ined/PUF
Illustration by Adèle Huguet for Mondes Sociaux: CC BY-NC-ND
To see more of her drawings, visit https://adelehuguet.wordpress.com/
Images credits : Freepik, monkik
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OpenEdition vous propose de citer ce billet de la manière suivante :
Audrey Arnoult et Elodie Kredens (16 décembre 2024). The ideal woman according to men on Adopteunmec.com. Mondes Sociaux. Consulté le 22 janvier 2025 à l’adresse https://doi.org/10.58079/12xm1
