Reply #41: There is something to this [View All]

[populistmom]

A couple of items:
I have read research done with infants where they show faces of people, both male and female, the infants have a tendency to respond positively to those faces that are symmetrical, which is generally what unconsciously what we perceive as attractive. They indicate this by means of looking longer at the face, smiling, or sucking harder on a pacifier type thing. Obviously, very small infants have not yet succumbed to cultural bias.

In regard to females speciically, I remember once seeing some type of documentary type thing where men of many cultures indicated what they found to be attractive. In all cultures, what men found attractive was a specific waist to hip ratio. Now this varied widely, some men prefering larger women and some prefering smaller women, but what stayed the same was the mathmatical ratio regardless.

I think there are cultural biases, yes, but there are also innate preferances that are based upon biological origins, both male and female.