New research has found many women are no longer turned on by the rock-hard abs and perfect-pecs of Calvin Klein-type models. (Warren Toda/Toronto Sun)

There’s renewed hope for the majority of mankind.

And a reason why portly comics Jack Black and Kevin James are now considered leading men.

New research has found many women are no longer turned on by the rock-hard abs and perfect-pecs of Calvin Klein-type models.

Which may cause most men to breathe out a big sigh of relief — just as they loosen up their belt buckles.

A recent poll conducted by a UK ice cream manufacturer found a shift of feminine desire away from the self-pampering "metrosexual" icon, and toward a renewed appreciation for guys with beer bellies and hairy chests.

The survey by Lion Bar Ice Cream found 80% of women no longer long for a tall, slim, fine-featured male.

In fact, more than 4,000 of the 5,000 women who took part in the poll said they’d rather an unkempt man, with ruffled hair and a bit of a belly, than a toned specimen like British football star David Beckham.

The news gets even better for those men who don’t really give a damn, and whose gym membership long ago expired. Even those among our gender too tired to get up to shower have reason to feel good about themselves this morning.

A fifth of those polled don’t mind “a bit of body odour.”

And at least 10% can’t see a problem with man-boobs and the same amount like it when their husbands or boyfriends smell like — not Old Spice — but of beer.

David Mitchell, a columnist with the UK’s Guardian newspaper, believes men should see this new data as a liberating call to less toned arms.

That it goes against what advertisers would have us think of ourselves. That women are begging us not to be like them.

“They’re right – it is too late for them,” he writes of women. “These customs are too ingrained: women will always be expected to shave their legs.”

Announcing the results, the ice cream company proclaimed to men: “They can get their roar back and ditch the moisturizer, manicures and tight shorts.”

But what they, and Mitchell, may have overlooked, is that the majority of our gender have never really followed the primped and conditioned image sold to us on screen and in magazines — even though, yes, we suck in our guts when you pass us on the beach and use our razors not just for our faces.

It’s not that we’ve been too smart.

We just knew it was too far to travel to get there.