We Asked Women If Vegan Men Give Them the Ick

Well, a new study suggests this might be wildly optimistic. According to research published in Sex Roles journal, men on vegan diets are often perceived as “lacking in masculinity”. This perception seemed to cut across gender, too – meaning this wasn’t just the Andrew Tate bro crowd calling vegan guys “gay”. A significant proportion of men participating in the study reportedly felt that male vegans are often viewed as physically weaker and less masculine, and a number of women participants believed there was truth to these stereotypes. 

Even weirder, some vegans thought this too. In a clear case of vegan on vegan prejudice, the study found negative beliefs about male vegans – such as being unmanly or weak – were harboured by a number of female vegans. “The female vegans themselves were surprised that they have such stereotypical thinking. After all, on a rational level they know that a vegan diet is not related to a person’s masculinity,” the study’s co-author Dominika Adamczyk tells PsyPost. “I think this observation further underscores how strong the connection between meat-eating and masculinity is.”

This seems like a fairly wild discovery, and a blow for all the vegan dudes out there. If even vegan chicks think you’re a wimpy soy boy for spurning animal products, what hope is there?! But does this study really hold water? Do women think vegan men are less masculine? More importantly, do guy vegans give girls the ick?

To get to the bottom of this, VICE undertook a bit of rigorous scientific research of our own. Basically, we asked loads of women if veganism was a turn off.

“Yes,” one woman responded immediately and decisively to an Instagram call-out. “Yeah, hate to say it but I love a man that eats meat,” another shot over. “Yes, is that bad?” another asked, before admitting she was speaking as “an ex-vegan” herself. “I do get the ick a little, but that probably says more about me than them,” a fourth woman confessed. “I worry that their farts will smell all Quorn-y and I love cooking steak so, it's a defo ick for me,” a fifth reported, definitely revealing more about herself than anything else in the process.

So far, it’s not looking good for the vegan guys. But surely Zoomers care less about all this than Boomers? Veganism is meant to have been “normalised” now, isn’t it? Beyoncé and Jay Z are vegan goddamn it! There must be a bunch of ladies out there who don’t always associate vegan guys with weakness and flatulence.

Next I turn to that infamous source of infinite wisdom: the Girls’ Group Chats. “I don’t see a vegan man as less masculine and it definitely wouldn't give me the ick,” Phoebe, 29, says in Quorn Guys’ defence. “To be honest, I’d quite like it because I'd probably end up eating healthier.” A similar line of thinking is advanced by 31-year-old Amy: “Being vegan might mean they’re a better, more creative cook, which is a pretty hot trait in my book.” Hannah, 30, agrees on the turn on. And now I’m left wondering if this says more about early millennials who were raised on cooking shows and now fancy Jeremy Allen White in The Bear, than it does #AllWomen.

“They’re more likely to be cooks who are used to adapting, which is also pretty hot stuff,” Hannah says. “I have lots of friends with intolerances and allergies, and I have other friends who struggle to cook for them because they’re not used to adapting ingredients.” 

So vegan guys are adaptable and good in the kitchen? That might not win over the Andrew Tate bros as signs of alpha masculinity, but it might help them actually get girlfriends IRL.

Don’t get comfortable too soon though blokes, because not everyone is sold on this. When I turn the question over to the wider internet ecosystem, 28-year-old Martha, who uses a fake name for privacy reasons like some others in this piece, is quick to pitch in on Twitter. “Honestly for me it’s just unsexy,” she says. “Also cooking, eating out and being open to trying new kinds of food is such a big part of what I enjoy doing. Veganism is an immediate blocker to doing that”. Eager to recover her reputation as a modern enlightened woman, Martha adds that she admires “the discipline and the moral, ethical cause” behind veganism, but this doesn’t translate to desire: “It’s just not sexy to me.”

Again though, there’s another side to this story. “Having a boyfriend passionately doing Veganuary right now, it will not surprise you when I say no,” my old school friend Molly, 30, says, when I commandeer our hang out to grill her on whether vegan guys are an ick. “To me, it shows they have a strong moral compass and believe in something. It almost doesn’t matter that it’s about being vegan specifically, but it’s just a good indicator that they care about something.”

Perhaps the real issue here is what gals are comparing vegan guys to. Are they the adaptable counterpart to a boring “meat and two veg” guy, or are they hard-to-please sticklers who won’t take you out to a new trendy small plates place? It feels important to ask: How sexy is the real alternative to vegan dudes – all-meat, all-macho guys?

“I genuinely think I’d find it more of an ick if someone refused veggies and would only have meat,” says 31-year-old Rebecca – whose opinion comes all the way from Australia, proving our scientific study’s global reach. “In fact, it would give me mega ick.” This isn’t because protein shake, bulking dudes make her baulk either. “I don’t mind a bit of a gym bro,” she says. “But sole focus on meat just says man child to me. It also kind of gives caveman vibes.”

In a world where people still think Jordan Peterson is some kind of role model – even though he literally put himself into a coma through his diet of only beef and Benzos – this feels like an important dividing line.

“Raw meat feels grossly masculine,” 27-year-old Chloe says, seemingly in agreement with Rebecca. But she also raises a new point, which isn’t really about diet at all, but about vibes. “Veganism is a huge ick, for men and women,” she says, “because I think it’s so preachy.” It’s this that’s the turn off, she explains. Veganism might be more popular now, and may no longer draw such intense eye-rolls from older relatives, but what we have now is not much better, Chloe suggests. “I think influencers have kind of infected my association with vegans,” she says. “Vegan influencers are always like, ‘Look at this Bali lifestyle I have where I promote veganism and say it cures cancer!’” she adds, with her own eye-roll. Essentially, diet and masculinity works on a spectrum: “Red meat blokes are more of an incel-y ick, where vegan men is, like, I don’t want to join your sex cult of loving celery.”

So Peterson-lite carnivores: bad. Preachy, pseudoscience white vegans in Bali: also bad. Is the real ick just overdoing it then? As in, making your exclusion diet such a big deal you become, well, a dick?

Flick, 54, offers some balanced words of wisdom. “With the likes of Woody Harrelson and Joaquin Phoenix as vegan male role models there’s definitely not a short supply of literally hot vegan men,” she says. “Also lots of athletes are discovering vast energy benefits to plant based eating, so we now have super-fit, hot vegan men too.” This has to be better than the alternative, she suggests. “I would struggle to be attracted to an old school meat-eating man because it's all a bit last century… emotionally, physically, spiritually.” Flick finds someone taking responsibility for what goes in their body and the planet extremely attractive – “as long as they don't go on about it.”

This seems to be the resounding conclusion of our research: Everything is fine as long as you don’t make it everyone else’s problem. As Sarah, who’s a vegan herself, says: “As with literally any ideology, if the seriousness doesn't come with humour and vital absence of preachy sanctimoniousness then it's unbearable. Also nobody wants to be talking about anyone's dietary requirements or choices all the time, it should be basically invisible.”

So there you have it folks: low maintenance vegans only. Basically, it’s not what you eat, it's the way you eat it. In the grand scheme of things, diet probably isn’t the deciding factor of whether you shag or not anyway. As Jas puts it, “I really couldn’t care less what anyone puts in their mouth”. How’s that for enlightened?

@eloisehendy