tinderheight-628.jpg

Like anybody who’s ever endured pool party season, I get irritated as hell when someone says that the sexiest thing you can do is be confident in your skin. First of all, everyone knows that the sexiest thing you can do is smoke unfiltered cigarettes. Second, it’s hard to just be confident. Otherwise we’d all spend our days having sex and eating turkey legs on our money piles. So if you’re among one of the many men who dreads taking your shirt off in public during summer, let me give you some good news: your flawed body is very on-trend. More than ever, women I know admit to preferring a guy who looks like he rarely sees the inside of a gym. Some like ’em skinny, some like ’em pudgy—but the unifying factor is that these women are into the types bodies that we’ll call "beach, non-traditional."

Ask any of your female friends what male celebrity she’s "weirdly attracted to," and most likely she’ll name a famous person who probably doesn’t even lift, bro. Do a cursory Twitter search for the term "weirdly attracted" or dig into the #shamelust hashtag and you’ll turn up your Drivers, your C.K.s, your sundry Cumberbatches, Rogens, and Harts. Thing is, "weirdly attracted" is just "regular attracted." Take it as an article of faith that most straight women want to have sex with Peter Dinklage. (Yes, I would, and so would most of my friends.)

I credit a few things for the female appreciation of the weirdbody. First, a wave of Internet-based body positivity campaigning, coupled with the fact that many of our new celebrities became famous by sitting at a desk and singing into a webcam. Second, I blame bros on dating sites who are both obnoxiously gross about their expectations for a woman’s body and overly obsessed with their own body fat percentage.

They’re why Tom Hardy has to eat only unsalted chicken and jump rope until we can see all his veins. It’s like he’s inside out!!! Fun. Although I’m sure female pleasure factors into the reason to get that muscle-bound (AHAHAHAHAH, jk jk), these really jacked actors exist to give men something to fetishize.

I’m not saying ship all men with visible abs to man-spinster colonies. Women still like abs! I think it’s totally cool if you like fitness and staying "in shape," but do it for yourself and the Internet message board where you talk to other guys about the merits of Muscle Milk—not for women. We’re just as depraved as you, and we’re into all kinds of different bodies. In an era of kaleidoscopic physical and sexual diversity, we’re just as likely to ogle the guy with the deflated pecs and puffy nipples as the one with that perfectly sculpted above-the-penis V.

So if you can’t be confident in your weirdbody, at least be confident knowing that someone out there who is very much turned on by whatever you have going on beneath that ironic Garfield t-shirt you insist on wearing to the pool. Now take it off.

More: Should I Base My Sex Life on TV Shows? Ask a Real Live Lady

Related Stories for GQWhat She SaidRelationships