Men Think Women Who Look Like Them Are Totally Hot

In a disturbing new sociological twist, that thing where dogs look like their owners might have something to do with how guys deem certain women more attractive than others. According to a study from a French research team at Institut des Sciences de l’Evolution de Montpellier printed in MedicalXpress, homogamy plays a large role in male mate selection. 100 men were asked to indicate which, of a selection of feminine faces presented to them were the most attractive. A second group of men were called in for a more specific test that involved digital manipulation of some of the images to resemble the individual men more closely—and, of a set of four faces, 37% of the men picked the face which shared the most features with theirs. The researchers also analyzed photographs of real-life couples, and sure enough, each one shared more facial traits than two random individuals would. It’s so V.C. Andrews! Remember Chris and Cathy?!

However, the second hypothesis that researchers hoped to prove with the experiment doesn’t seem to play into this stage of human evolution anymore: specifically, a latent paternal uncertainty that would dictate that men subconsciously pick women with recessive genes (e.g. blue eyes, red hair) in order to see their own dominant traits in their offspring.