The hottest women are usually short or average, from my experience and preference. They just have better proportions. And I also ****ed my fair share of women taller than me, I'm 5'7'' btw.
It's good that you're able to get laid at 5'7". I would expect a 5'7" man to be able to have sex with women 5'3" and under. The fact that you got multiple women taller than 5'7" is good. What was it like for you to have sex with a taller woman?
A 5'7" woman is around the 80th-82nd percentile of women in the United States. 5'7" is about where women in the United States start to be considered tall.
In non-sexual situations, did the taller woman perceive some awkwardness?
In the end, preference doesn't mean **** when a guy has decent game. Height can be a big variable for Tinder and people with zero game, or if you're in the bottom 5% aka shorter than most women.
I agree with you that height is a bigger issue when trying to arrange dates via an app than when trying to arrange dates through real life methods.
In real life, average height + is good enough. On swipe apps, the threshold is 6'0"+, which is around the 85th percentile for men in the United States on height.
Data points do show that women start rejecting on height around 5'8" in both real life and in tech-based methods. The biggest difference between tech-based and real life is felt for the 5'9"-5'10" men, who are more likely to be rejected in tech-based methods as compared to real life methods.
You're correct that the bottom 5% of men on height are not desired. It's far more than that. It's the bottom 35-40% at a minimum.
models are tall because it's easier to showcase clothes on a taller person, not because they are hotter. In fact, from the statistics I saw, men prefer shorter women, in general. And I even saw some reddit posts where tall women complained about their height being an issue (shorter guys are bitter when date them and taller guys choose more feminine women).
Models are typically 5'9"-6'1". Many of the models are physically appealing. Gisele Bundchen is 5'11". In her prime, she was plenty attractive.
There is more demand for shorter women. There are a wider range of men interested in shorter women. Also, a lot of the taller women price themselves out of the market so to speak. Your typical 5'10"-5'11" woman isn't interested in the men shorter than she is, so her dating pool narrows. The typical 5'10"-5'11" woman still has good abundance.
I see the point that you make about women on the taller side not being perceived as being as feminine. I think a 5'10"-6'1" woman can be perceived as feminine. Many of them look feminine.
I don't think the taller girls on that Reddit thread have a valid complaint. They probably don't have good facial and/or body aesthetics in addition to being tall. The other things were the problem, not their height. I've seen plenty of guys go wild for 5'9"-6'1" women with good facial/body aesthetics.