Beauty appreciation may be instinctually hard wired into us. Not as a
type but of proportion so that a fat venus figurine could be sexy
universally as long as certain proportions hold, like the hit-to-waste
"ratio." And we may be driven to appreciate balance since the most
healthy have usually had similar aspects to different sides of their
bodies.
1. [Ratio]
SELXUAL SELECTION AND THE HOURGLASS FIGURE
The body shapes of men and women are sexually selected traits,
analogous to the plumage of the peacock. Strange as it might seem,
this conclusion is supported by much compelling evidence. To begin
with, feminine curves emerge around puberty, just like the colorful
train of the peacock (see fig. 2). They are produced by the same
mechanism, a surge in production of sex hormones. A surge of the sex
hormone estrogen stimulates the filling of fat cells located away from
the waist. The "loudness" of the signal (i.e., the size of the sex
difference) diminishes with age. In the same way, the greater height
of men, their broader shoulders, their deeper voices, and their
greater upper-body musculature are due to the growth spurt produced by
a surge in testosterone production at puberty.
Both sexes agree that women with "hourglass figures" are sexy and
attractive. This contrasts with the attractive male body. In sexy men,
there is little difference between the hip and waist dimensions, the
torso is moderately muscled, and the shoulders are broad. The
attractiveness of an hourglass figure for women is a constant across
cultures and across time, although the amount of curvature considered
desirable varies greatly in different countries and at different times
within a society.
Scientists assess the curvaceousness of the human body using a
statistic known as the waist/hip ratio. A small waist/hip ratio is
equivalent to a highly curvaceous body. Highly attractive women, such
as Miss Americas, have a waist/hip ratio of about 0.67 (the ratio
produced by a waist of 24" and hips of 36", for example). The normal
range for women is 0.67-0.80, whereas the normal range for men is
0.85-0.95. Lack of an overlap between the male and the female range
means that body shape is a highly predictable sex difference.
The intensity of the signal (i.e., the size of the sex difference)
declines with age due to a change in hormone production. If you are on
the beach and spot a couple strolling away from you in the distance,
distinguishing the silhouette of the man from the woman will be very
easy if the couple is in their twenties, but much more difficult if
they are in their fifties.
One distinguishing characteristic of the peacock's tail is that it
interferes with movement. Similarly, storage of fat away from the
waist is not mechanically efficient. It makes more sense to store fat
close to the center of gravity, in the abdomen. Highly curvaceous
women are at a distinct disadvantage in sports and rarely win Olympic
medals-for example, in events requiring agility and speed, such as
basketball and running. This is not to claim that curvaceous women
cannot be very athletic. Some are, but when they compete at the
highest level, they experience a mechanical disadvantage because
weight stored away from the center of gravity introduces turning
forces that use up energy.
Just as peahens are attracted to an extremely colorful mate, so
extremely attractive women are at an extreme of the range for
curvaceousness. Beauty contest winners cluster at the curvaceous
extreme of 0.67 compared to the normal range for women of 0.67-0.80.
Perhaps the most important and compelling point of similarity is that
curvaceous women, like showy peacocks, have superior immune systems.
According to recent research ot'Devendra Singh, an evolutionary
psychologist at the University of Texas at Austin, college-aged women
and men agree that curvaceous women (whether of normal weight,
underweight, or overweight) are more attractive, healthier, and more
capable of producing children than less curvaceous women. What makes
these findings really interesting is that they are borne out by
medical data. Women with low waist/hip ratio (i.e., with a curvaceous
build) not only have less difficulty becoming pregnant, they are also
healthier in terms of a lower incidence of many illnesses. Women with
relatively noncurvaceous bodies are at a higher risk for gall bladder
disease, some cancers, diseases of the heart and circulatory system,
and for diabetes. (It is important to realize that a curvaceous body
is different from an obese one: curvaceous women store fat away from
the abdomen whereas obese women usually have thick fat deposits around
their middle which pose major health risks.) Noncurvaceous women are
also more prone to behavioral disorders such as anxiety and drug
abuse. (It is true that some drug addictions can cause people to lose
weight, which might make them less curvaceous, but the finding applies
equally for alcoholism, which can have the opposite effect.) Less
curvaceous women are more likely to be admitted to psychiatric
hospitals for depression and other psychopathologies. They also have
higher mortality rates. The health consequences of body shape in men
have received less attention because the waist/hip ratio is not
routinely measured for medical records and is thus unavailable to
researchers. Women are at their most curvaceous in early maturity, and
one reason that men are attracted to women with sexy bodies is that
this is a cue to youthfulness. Exceptionally attractive women have
youthful facial dimensions that make them seem more attractive than
they really are.
The Science of Romance - by Nigel Barber
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1573929700/
2. [Symmetry]
Nigel Barber, and many others believe that we are instinctively
attracted towards symmetry in others because it is an indicater of
"health" in a potential mate. Maybe this bleeds over into the
appreciation of symmetry in nature and art?
Symmetry, or the exact match of the left and right sides of the body,
is important to the attractiveness of both sexes. Both sides of the
face should be exact mirror images of each other. Kevin Costner has a
far more symmetrical face than Lyie Lovett and thus Costner is
considered better looking. Careful investigations by biologist Randy
Thornhill and his colleagues at the University of New Mexico at
Albuquerque have shown that people with symmetrical faces generally
have symmetrical bodies.
Bodily symmetry is an esthetic cue used to assess the biological
fitness of potential mates among other species. For example, research
on swallows, which have forked tails, has shown that females prefer to
mate with males having symmetrical tails. Asymmetry is caused by
interference with normal development, which might be due to poor
nutrition early in development or might reflect the impact of viruses.
Symmetrical animals have superior biological qualities either because
they experienced a favorable early environment or because their immune
systems were effective at warding off viruses and other pathogens.
Swallows and people attracted to mates with symmetrical bodies acquire
a superior immune system for their offspring.
This explains why women should be attracted to highly symmetrical men.
Thomhill and his colleagues have discovered that symmetrical men have
more sex partners, and even that women get more excited during
intercourse with these physically attractive men. Symmetrical men
produce a pheromone (or airborne hormone) that is more attractive to
women than the secretions of less symmetrical men, suggesting that
women's attraction to men is based on assessment of biological fitness
through different sensory channels. Men's biological quality declines
with age, which is reflected in declining facial symmetry, for
example. This may have important implications for off- spring. Thus,
declining sperm quality of older men increases the risk of Down
syndrome and other chromosomal disorders.
The Science of Romance - by Nigel Barber
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1573929700/
