Breaking The Height Taboo

Six-foot-two Ann Friedman is all for it, lamenting the fact that “only four percent of heterosexual couples feature a shorter man”:

[Neutralize] her insecurity by conveying that bigger is sexy. That you love her in heels. That you don’t feel like less of a man when you’re with her. This is complicated stuff. Some of it boils down to you owning a more classic masculinity—going in for the kiss first, deciding the dinner location, simply being more assertive. But keep in mind that, because you’re asking her to question gut-level beliefs about what she finds attractive, you need to be willing to broaden your own definition of what you find attractive—and convey to her that it does not contain the phrase “smaller than me.”

Of course, women also have to be willing to check their own biases about short men. I consider short guys my natural allies and am constantly making the case to my female friends that they should stop fetishizing tall men. (When one friend narrowed her OkCupid search to men taller than six feet and then complained about a boring date with some guy built like an NBA player, I laughed in her face.) Here’s how I figure it: If a man is comfortable with the fact that I’m taller, he’s also likely to be comfortable with the fact that I’m competitive and outgoing and career-oriented. As in: It means he’s a secure man.