I wasn’t intending to say we only like muscles as an indicator of lifestyle. I was saying they’re also an indicator of lifestyle, so even if we are attracted to them we may still pass because it doesn’t match the kind of personality we prefer, and personality is generally a lot more important to us than appearance (generally, but not always.)
For instance, I find muscles attractive. I like that they show somebody’s interested in staying healthy, but I don’t generally date muscular men simply because I’m not into the fit lifestyle. I much prefer a guy who’s more likely to join me playing my favorite games or watching my favorite movies, because I’m a nerd and those are the things I like, and a guy who’s a little chubbier tends to be exactly that kind of guy.

I can’t speak for every woman, but I can speak for my own experiences and report based on the things women I know have said. For me and those I’ve spoken to, we may like muscles, but the things you need to do to get those muscles often aren’t as attractive and cancel it out. Like, if you’re getting muscles by going to the gym every day, that’s only gonna attract women who are enthusiastic about the gym. If you get them from farm work, you’ll attract women enthusiastic about farm life.
That’s why a lot of us like dad bods so much. It’s not that it’s inherently more attractive, it’s that it’s a body type achievable by living the kind of life style people who’re into that enjoy.
In other words, yes, muscles can be attractive, but not nearly as attractive as shared hobbies and interests, and it just happens quite often muscles can be a quick indicator that you probably don’t share many.

You’re free to disagree, but for me and many others, I’ve been through both, and I’m definitely waaaay more scared of being sexually assaulted again than being beaten half to death again. They have very different effects on your psyche. Physical violence I react far more with anger than fear, even if I was terrified in the moment. When it looks like it’s happening again, my brain says “Fight back.” When I’m afraid of sexual trauma being relived, my brain says “Escape, now. Can’t escape? Submit. Maybe that way they won’t kill you too at least.”

There’s a serious difference in the level of trauma between these examples, and the level of exposure to the dangers of the counter. Sexual trauma is a hell of a lot more scarring on your psyche than simply being beaten. In addition, at least in the US we’re exposed to gun violence every day as opposed to basically never for bear attacks. Even in other countries with better gun control, you’re dramatically more likely to hear about somebody being shot than you are to hear about somebody being mauled by a bear. Not only that, but it’s really easy to process “get shot, you’re dead.” It’s not as easy to make yourself believe you’re definitely gonna be killed by an animal that has whole guides written on how to survive them.
Those two things combined make your example far from comparable. In addition, I’m not saying in any way that the fear is justified nor that no attempt should be made to fix it, what I’m trying to point out us that people don’t realize how intense a fear it really is when they get offended at people making this choice.

Obviously, therapy is important to learning how to handle that fear and think more logically, but if every woman who needs it sought therapy for this, there just aren’t enough therapists in the entire world to handle the load. Not even close. So a bigger part of the solution is, y’know, making sure women aren’t getting traumatized in the first place. But everybody here wants to skip that part for some reason.

As a trans woman who has also been sexually assaulted, it has more to do for me with what danger is more real to me. I’ve experienced zero bear attacks. Nobody I know has experienced a bear attack. Why would I fear one? Of course, consciously yeah, I know a bear is dangerous, but I have no real world experience to back that assumption up.
Men though? Yeah, I’ve been sexually assaulted by men. I’ve been physically assaulted by men. I’ve had family and friends who’ve been physically and sexually assaulted by men. That danger is real to me. I know that if a man I don’t know is nearby me he could do those things to me, and I have the real world experience to prove that assumption correct (the assumption that they could, not the assumption that they would.)
Therefore, of course I’m more scared of the man than the bear. And of course I’d choose the bear over the man. I don’t care if it’s the wrong choice, I’ll take my chances to not have to relive that trauma, even if it means risking my life. Not like I’ll have time to regret that decision if the bear decides to kill me. Probably. And most women I know when asked expressed the same sentiment in different words. We’re more scared of men than bears, but that doesn’t mean we literally think men are more dangerous than bears.
Is it the logical choice to pick the bear? Probably not, but humans are not logical creatures. I’d rather make the wrong choice than the scary choice.

Trigger warning on this. Can’t get the spoiler thing to work at all.

Definitely not imagining it.
Since I first joined I went from having nice conversations with strangers about the weirdest things, never having a single negative interaction, to nowadays saying I think women deserve a baseline level of respect and being told I should die giving birth to a rapists baby.
To be fair, the dude who said that did get banned from the instance I’m on for that, but it happening in the first place would have been unthinkable to me a few months ago.