Do Women Like Men Who Take Steroids?

There’s a growing trend of guys using steroids in an attempt to look more attractive (study). If you’ve been lifting weights for a while, that might sound strange. It’s well-known in the lifting community that steroids won’t make you more attractive. I’ll go through all the evidence in a moment.

My 17-year-old niece told me that two of her male friends had recently started taking steroids to improve their dating lives. It didn’t work, and they were confused. Nowadays, the idea comes from the blackpill and looksmaxxing communities, propped up by guys like Clavicular and Road to 1%. Before that, it was Zyzz.

It’s tricky. Women do love muscular men. Getting stronger is perhaps the single best thing you can do to improve your appearance (study). Strength is dramatically more attractive than being tall or lean. And steroids make you look stronger, so how could it be that they make you less attractive?

There are a few different reasons, some sneakier than others.

The Stigma of Steroids

What if women know you’re using steroids? There’s an interesting study where the researchers showed 112 women a photo of an athletic young guy with his shirt off:

Women saw the photo paired with one of two stories. The stories were quite long, such that the steroids were just a small detail buried in the middle.

• The man went about his day, studied, and had a pre-workout meal before lifting.
• The man went about his day, studied, and took steroids before lifting.

Both groups of women rated the man as equally physically attractive, and both thought that he would make for a good short-term partner, but most women didn’t want to be in a relationship with the guy who was taking steroids.

That’s interesting. It tells us that, all else equal, women prefer guys who are natural. But steroids have physiological effects on us. All else wouldn’t be equal. The guy taking steroids is more likely to be bigger, stronger, and leaner. He may also be going bald, have acne, have redder skin, have more wrinkles, and give off a variety of other signs of greater masculinity and poorer health. He might also have side effects like gynecomastia.

My Surveys

I made a detailed response video with my findings, but I’ll give you a quick summary. I started by grabbing this screenshot from one of Jeff Nippard’s videos:

Jeff Nippard claimed that all of these guys are natural lifters. He gave them each a drug test, and all of them passed. Whether you believe those results is up to you. Then he had people sort the men, with the guys who looked the most steroidy on the left, and the guys who looked the most natural on the right.

I surveyed 110 women, asking them which of the guys they found most attractive. I didn’t want to bias them, so I didn’t mention steroids. However, after collecting a few dozen answers, I added another question, asking them which guys appeared to be using steroids. That way, I could see whether priming them with the idea that some of the guys might be steroid users would change anything.

1. Julian: 75% assumed steroid use, and 0% rated him as the most attractive
2. Shemar: 90% assumed steroid use, and 1% rated him as the most attractive
3. Hussein: 80% assumed steroid use, and 16% rated him as the most attractive
4. Tolga: 70% assumed steroid use, and 6% rated him as the most attractive
5. Jeff: 95% assumed steroid use, and 1% rated him as the most attractive
6. Spencer: 0% assumed steroid use, and 48% rated him as the most attractive
7. Brad: 5% assumed steroid use, and 1% rated him as the most attractive
8. Seb: 0% assumed steroid use, and 27% rated him as the most attractive

The guys who looked the most steroidy got the least votes, and that was true whether I mentioned steroids or not. It seems to me that women started by disqualifying the men who looked overly muscular, and then disqualified the guys who looked out of shape, leaving them with #6 and #8 as their favourites.

I also wanted to test the stigma of steroids directly. So, in a separate survey, I asked 400 women whether they would date a guy who took steroids:

• 79% said they wouldn’t date a guy who took steroids.
• 20% said it was a red flag, but they would give him a chance.
• 0.5% said they preferred guys who took steroids.

Do Steroid Users Have Greater Romantic Success?

But you might have spotted a problem. We’re looking at who women say they prefer, not who they actually choose in real life.

The problem goes deeper. Perhaps when a steroid user goes out clubbing, smaller guys are impressed by his strength, and so they pay him more respect. Maybe women find that prestige attractive. Or maybe when a steroid guy goes out clubbing, the smaller guys are intimidated by him, so they let him flirt with whoever he wants, giving him an advantage. Or maybe the steroids give guys a higher sex drive and greater gusto, making them more likely to go out clubbing and approach more women.

Or perhaps the effect runs the other way. Maybe when guys see a steroid user, they assume he’s insecure, vain, or abuses other drugs. Maybe they pay him less respect, and women sense that, and it’s a turn-off.

So, I asked 500 men if they were natural or took steroids, and then I also asked them how romantically successful they were. In another survey, 90% of guys told me they would rather be in a long-term relationship than sleep around, but I didn’t want to bring that into it. I asked them how successful they were on their own terms, at whatever they were trying to do:

• Natural: 30% said they were better than average at dating. 65.5% said they were romantically successful.
• Steroids: 8% said they were better than average at dating. 45.5% said they were romantically successful.

This survey isn’t perfect. We don’t know why naturals are so much more romantically successful. It could be that when guys are already successful, they’re less inclined to take steroids. Maybe the guys who take steroids are taking them because they’re trying to solve a problem.

Do Steroids Make You More Attractive?

Women have a strong preference for strong men. They love the look of guys who are strong, muscular, athletic, lean, and physically capable, and those findings are consistent across every study, no matter how you measure it. Getting into better shape is by far the best thing you can do to improve your physical appearance.

The trouble is that steroids don’t just make you bigger and stronger:

• Drug Stigma: Steroids are drugs, and most women aren’t attracted to drug abuse.
• Poor Character: Steroid use can hint at vanity, body image issues, and poor judgment.
• Uncanny Muscularity: Steroids can make guys unnaturally large, and most women don’t like guys who are unnaturally large. They prefer guys with more human amounts of muscle.
• Uncanny Masculinity: Steroids have a masculinizing effect, making guys hyper-masculine. Women prefer guys who are masculine in a more human way.
• Strange Growth: Steroids cause uncontrolled growth in many different muscles, including muscles that wouldn’t normally grow from getting in shape, like your facial muscles and organs. Not all of that growth looks good. (Some of that growth is also quite dangerous.)
• Poor Health: Women value strength, but they also value health, and steroids degrade most visual signals of health. For example, steroids make the blood redder and thicker, giving the skin a redder hue. This looks unhealthy.
• Premature Aging: Steroids cause guys to age prematurely, accelerating balding and skin aging. For example, steroids tend to enlarge pores, increase sebum productive, destroy elastin, and thicken the skin. This makes the skin look older, oilier, and more leathery.
• Side Effects: Steroids can cause side effects like acne and gyno.

On a purely aesthetic level, most women prefer men who are strong in a way that looks natural and athletic. I’ve got an article about exactly what that looks like. The best way to build that physique is still by lifting weights, eating a healthy diet, and living a healthy lifestyle.

As long as you do it in a healthy way, you can get as big and strong as you want, reaching your full genetic potential. If you go from benching 185 to 225, women will love it. That’s a solid bench press, and you’ll have a solid amount of muscle. And if you gradually work your way up to benching 315, they’ll love how you look even more. But you’ll notice that you’ll start getting positive attention from women fairly early. Even just repping out 185 for a dozen reps is quite good. You don’t need to get that big and strong to have an attractive physique.

Why Do Some Steroid Users Do Well With Women?

In my survey, 8% of steroid users said they were doing better than average at dating. That isn’t very good. Of all the questions I asked, this one had the strongest association with poor dating success.

However, 8% isn’t 0%. For every hundred guys who are using steroids, eight of them feel like they’re doing better than average with women. Sometimes, those guys are famous influencers.

What’s harder to figure out is whether there are men succeeding with women because they take steroids. Let’s consider Arnold Schwarzenegger:

• Arnold Schwarzenegger was famously popular with women. Or at least that’s how it seems in the photos. But that’s true of all the natural Hollywood action stars, too. Bruce Willis wasn’t exactly hurting for attention.
• Did steroids give him his career? Maybe he wouldn’t have become a Hollywood star if he hadn’t been juiced up. I suspect he would have been, just like Steve Reeves was, but it’s hard to say.
• His physique would have been incredible either way. Schwarzenegger had some of the best muscle-building genetics in the world, so his physique would have been incredibly impressive even without the steroids, akin to Steve Reeves (a natural bodybuilder from the previous era). And his physique would have been impressive in a way that would have appealed to a wider variety of women.
• Was he successful with women? Arnold Schwarzenegger was married to Maria Shriver, had affairs, and got divorced. If steroids increase sex drive, increase the drive for sexual variety, and increase impulsivity, then perhaps the steroids are partly to blame.

My point is, steroid users are more than just steroid users. There are plenty of guys who use steroids, and they’re happily married, with three children, and they do all kinds of great things. The decision to use steroids is just one decision—just one part of a full person.

My fear is that guys—often young guys with low self-esteem—are being tempted to take steroids because they think it will improve their love lives. They know it’s unhealthy, but they’re willing to take the risk for something as important as love. My fear is that they’ll take steroids, harm their health, and wind up with less romantic success.

If you’re drowning in success with women, then taking steroids won’t ruin your love life. You can make up for it in other ways, or you could go after that tiny percentage of women who like steroids. But if you’re already struggling, steroids could be the death blow.

Conclusion

Steroids will almost certainly make you quite a bit less attractive. Taking steroids is unattractive right from the beginning, before they’ve had any effect whatsoever, because women don’t like the sorts of guys who abuse drugs. Even worse when guys are abusing drugs for vain reasons like wanting to be more muscular.

Steroids boost muscle growth while attacking your youth and health. There are the obvious possible side effects, such as gynecomastia, acne, and balding. But boosting your testosterone outside of the natural range also accelerates skin aging, destroys elastin, thickens the skin, makes blood thicker, and raises blood pressure. This makes the skin less elastic, more leathery, and gives it a subtle red tint.

But what if you take steroids subtly? You could take steroids in a subtle way, keeping your testosterone levels within the natural range, such that you can’t see the effects. In that case, you would look okay, and you wouldn’t expect as many health problems (outside of shutting down your natural testosterone production, becoming depending on steroids, and losing your fertility). However, if people learned that you were using steroids, you’d be at a disadvantage.

I should note that some people need to use steroids for medical reasons (TRT/HRT). You’d be taking steroids to bring your testosterone levels from being too low to being normal. In that case, you’d expect it to improve your appearance, energy levels, and health. If you had to tell someone about it, you’d imagine they would be more understanding. After all, you’ve made a reasonable decision, given your circumstances. It wouldn’t come across as vain or shortsighted.

Women love muscle, strength, physical health, mental health, and a healthy mindset. The best way to develop and flex all of those traits is to build muscle naturally, as part of a balanced and healthy lifestyle. I care about this because I want what’s best for your health, but I also want what’s best for your goals. If you want to be better looking or get better at dating, I want you to succeed at that, too. And I don’t think steroids will help you.