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PaperclipPerfector  8mo ago (text post)   3757 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for August 20, 2023

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

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Curious: are there any serious studies/papers/books/etc. on what constitutes beauty and physical attractiveness, particularly for women? (Would also be fine w/ a personal write-up). I'm interested in something relatively layman, but not boring party line platitudes like "beauty is subjective" and such (or, OTOH, incel-adjacent dorks sperging on about "canthial tilt" and such crap.[1])

For a while now... I've been feeling disoriented about my inability to verbalize when I find a specific person physically attractive, beyond broad, almost-meaningless (and shallow—makes me feel vaguely uncultured) descriptors like "thin", "good face" or "young". It's like I'm lacking control, unable to even articulate what I feel; it's a very torturous feeling.

[1] perhaps I'm being uncharitable here. But I'll admit I do feel an almost-atavistic sense of disgust toward them, for reasons I cannot really fully articulate why (but is perhaps related to their being incel = low social value, ergo disgusting, or something crude like that...yeah, I know. Irrational me 😿)

I'm not sure of a source that is both serious and targeted at layman. Awhile ago, possibly on a related forum, there was a thread discussing the pair of articles "Why Are Women Hot?" and "Dispelling Beauty Lies: The Truth About Feminine Beauty".

I'm pretty sure not everything claimed in those pieces is supported by the academic literature. There are a bunch of academic studies, though it's unclear how repeatable the results are. From memory, generally people prefer faces that are close to but not exactly symmetric. Composite images of population average faces score highly, but not highest, on attractiveness. People tend to approach a "8s" with traits they find particularly compelling rather than "10s."

I'm pretty sure not everything claimed in those pieces is supported by the academic literature. There are a bunch of academic studies, though it's unclear how repeatable the results are. From memory, generally people prefer faces that are close to but not exactly symmetric. Composite images of population average faces score highly, but not highest, on attractiveness. People tend to approach a "8s" with traits they find particularly compelling rather than "10s."

This actually meshes well with what "J. Sanilac" writes. In my opinion, both men and women having an individual "type" when it comes to faces is the more important message than "men overwhelmingly prefer figure-eight female bodies". The typical heart-shaped face that is common in AI-generated art is attractive, but it doesn't make you go "hnnng" if you know what I mean.

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