I'll tumblr for ya

I wonder if you could say that making men impossibly huge/muscular is sexualization since male sexuality is linked to power, not to physical “beauty” like women are ie bigorexia versus anorexia.

Eh, I’d say not, if only because women who prefer big beefcakey dudes seem to be in the minority. More often than not when you see guys who were designed by committee for women to find attractive they have a boyish figure and edging towards androgynous features. It’s why movies like Tangled star guys who look like this;

instead of guys who look like this;

You see the big tanky jock as the guy who gets all the ladies in movies geared towards a male audience a lot of the time, but more often than not in a media made with a female audience in mind they avoid hypermasculine physical power fantasy stereotypes for the “hot guy” character and aim for more either boyish model types, non-threatening goofy guys, or clean-cut sharp-dressed business men.

This is not to say you never see beefy dudes being objectified in women’s media, but more often than not it’s played off as a joke, like some buttoned-down housewife ogling the sexy mechanic. Possibly because scenarios like that play out halfway between a bad porn intro and a Harlequin romance novel cover.

Harlequin covers seem to throw a wrench in that theory since all their cover boys are… Fabio… I’m not sure if that’s a sign of changing tastes over time, like in the same way voluptuous figures on women went out of style and kind became demonized the big-muscles-big-hair look of the 80’s had a falling out. Or it could be that the middle-aged housewife market they target the books at is more likely to fantasize about big powerful guys than younger girls are.

Either way, I’m (sadly) not expecting a romantic comedy starring Terry Crews as the dream boat love interest the girls all dreamily sigh over in the immediate future.