Alpha Mail: How much do male looks matter?

Anonymous asks about the importance of men's looks:

Yohami and Rollo both posted on the value of looks to a guys game. Rollo seemed to value looks (physical appearance + phsyique) more highly than Yohami, who looked at it from a total package kind of view. What do you think the correlation is between a man's physical appearance and his status on the socio-sexual hierarchy? Is being good looking alpha? Does being physically attractive automatically raise a man's rank?

Spacebunny and I were just talking about this last night. I definitely come down on Yohami's side, which is to say that looks are one important factor in a man's socio-sexual rank, but not a conclusively definitive one. I perhaps have a useful perspective on this because I have the highest socio-sexual rank in my family despite having been the least physically attractive among the brothers.

My brothers all had minor stints as male models after they were "discovered" when the family was out to dinner one evening. The agency scout didn't so much as look at me, while she was very intent on getting the others into a photographer's studio for some headshots as soon as possible. The most handsome brother always did very well with women, (and he was sufficiently good-looking to cause women to openly gawk at him), but he was always handicapped by an inferiority complex and tended to underkick his coverage to a certain extent.

The general rule when we went out in a group was that women always noticed him and immediately gravitated towards him. However, once we were all engaged in conversation, they often tended to shift their interest towards me due to the group dynamics. But not always. I found it more than a little amusing when one beautiful young girl, who was bright, charming, and a bit too young for me when my brother started dating her, subsequently lamented a few months later that she had gone after the wrong brother.

I habitually socialized as part of two very different core trios. One was with two men who were very intelligent but of average appearance, the other was with two men who were notably stylish and handsome. I think it's fair to say I was the best-looking of one trio and the worst-looking of the other. There was no question that the average caliber of the women in the female groups I encountered in the company of the latter pair were usually 1-2 points higher on average than when in the company of the former, but there was no real difference in the quantity of women encountered.

My chief observation is that very good-looking men tend to be quite lazy about women. This makes sense. What is the point of exerting yourself to obtain the rare 10 when you can easily rotate a sequence of 7s, 8s, and the occasional 9 without ever having to lift a finger? I think this explains why the best-looking men are quite often with women who are a point or two less attractive than one would tend to expect, whereas the most attractive women are often with less physically attractive men, especially when one considers that less attractive women are more likely to pursue men than their more attractive competitors.

So, I would slightly modify Yohami's list of female priorities thusly:

1. Game
2. Social proof
3. Looks
4. Assets

Now, assets definitely help, but in terms of attracting women, looks are more important. In answer to the actual questions, I would say that there is a strong correlation between a man's physical appearance and his status on the socio-sexual hierarchy. Being good-looking is not alpha, it merely prevents a man from falling below delta and increases the chances that he is a natural alpha. Being physically attractive doesn't "automatically raise" a man's rank, but it plays a major role in permitting him to establish a higher rank.

Of course, it would be interesting to hear what the women have to say. So, ladies, if you have 100 points to allocate between Game, Social Proof, Looks, and Assets in building The Ultimate Attractive Man, where would you spend them?