Are looks really objective?

goskies · 2021-10-04T23:56:13+00:00

I find that gay and bisexual men don't always have the same taste in men as straight women do. I even find that a lot of bisexual women have different tastes than straight women. I also think straight women rate other women they're friends with higher than they are, and find a lot of female celebrities to be "beautiful" when they're pretty odd looking.

From my own experience, I have been called hot to my face by gay men and a couple bisexual women, but i can't remember the last compliment I was given by a straight woman that wasnt over 45 lol.

I have also seen some of my friends date guys and idk what they're thinking. The guy just isn't that attractive yet my female friends will swoon over him.

I honestly think height is a big part of it. Im 5'9" in shoes and most of these dudes are dumbo looking 6'2" or 6'3" guys.

deste_eloise · 2021-10-05T02:51:29+00:00

Who said Ana De Armas is plain looking?😡 She’s a babe!

odd_cloud · 2021-10-05T00:09:32+00:00

Objective with a share of subjectivity. If looks were completely subjective, there would not be people polar among the opposite sex because of their looks.

Good looks is an enormous advantage. Because of halo effect attractive people are attributed with positive qualities by others, like honesty and intellectual abilities.

It's better to be ugly man I suppose. At least a man can be lucky enough to be born charismatic.

SlashCo80 · 2021-10-05T03:58:44+00:00

There is some objectivity to it. Almost everyone is attracted to people who look clean, fit and healthy, with symmetrical features. Beyond that it's down to cultural norms and personal preference.

Demasii · 2021-10-05T00:54:19+00:00

It's objective to a point. There is a cultural component to what you find attractive. Especially with what races you are familiar with.

People have a hard time gauging a person's attractiveness of another race if they haven't met enough people of that race in the past. Attraction is contextual. We tend to compare a person not to an objective perfect image but what have been available to you in the past.

BTW Jennifer Aniston is extremely plain.

IOportA · 2021-10-05T02:13:51+00:00

A guy who says a pretty woman looks plain is just trying to sound contrarian, and thus more interesting.

It's the same kind of guys who say they don't like a movie that everyone else likes or doesn't like a band everyone else likes. they're just trying to find some way to set themselves apart from everyone else.

Ignore it, 90% of beauty is objective, 10% is personal taste.

06534956 · 2021-10-05T00:19:43+00:00

There are things that can be generalized, like men are more likely to be attracted to a thinner woman than an obese woman, but it’s hard to be objective about looks alone.

Just like everything, human beings are complex and have a lot of nuances. Psychology has a part to play, too.

I’ve dated men who weren’t my type in the beginning, but as time went on and we spent more time together, I started to think he was more attractive. Same goes the other way, the more time I spent with a particular someone, the less attractive I found them.

TodTheRod01 · 2021-10-06T02:28:56+00:00

I would say speaking from a male perspective, that in general we men will agree that X, Y, Z women are good looking....but ask 100 different guys to rank them 1 to 3, 1 being best looking of the 3, and so on. You'll get many different permutations.

Using Jennifer Aniston, Penelope Cruz and Ana De Armas....I would not say they are plain looking, they have nice features, pretty faces....but none of them is really carrying much in the titty or booty department, and none of them have particularly small waists (the golden ratio)

I would lean more toward Sofia Vergara, Salma Hayek, Jennifer Love Hewitt.

Cimorene86 · 2021-10-04T23:53:54+00:00

I don't believe looks are objective for 95% of the population. It's subjective the majority of the time.

SoMuchForLongevity · 2021-10-04T23:45:00+00:00

Looks are exactly as objective as songs.

We generally agree that "Bohemian Rhapsody" is a great song, like 9/10, and that "Hey Soul Sister" is a terrible song, like 2/10.

But with certain songs, there are vastly divergent ideas and people get fighty about them. Like, say, the Disturbed cover of "The Sound of Silence." Is that song sexy or is it a fucking dog? There's no consensus.

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flowerwoven · 2021-10-05T01:06:46+00:00

Taste, preference, and attraction and highly subjective. There are objective signs of healthy and lack of health but after that it's your choice.

TheBookOfSeil · 2021-10-05T01:58:23+00:00

Physical attractiveness is not very objective. There will be a cluster of people who find certain traits attractive but not everyone will rate equally. Some might rate a certain feature as a 6 while others might rate it an 8.

I don't understand what you mean when you ask if looks are objective though.

Infammo · 2021-10-05T02:22:21+00:00

Outside of niche fetish things 80% of a woman's attractiveness is her weight and 10% is not having an... unfortunate face. The remaining is set dressing and that's what varies between men. Billie Eilish, Jennifer Aniston, or whoever are all someone's ideal woman within that template.

just_a_place · 2021-10-05T03:37:14+00:00

No, and no one says they are.

This is actually a branch of philosophy called Aesthetics.

ClownBoro · 2021-10-05T04:38:17+00:00

Attraction is more subjective than "beauty" - people usually thought of as 8 or 9's are beautiful but it's certainly possible to not be strongly attracted or even bored by them. I always thought a lot of model level women in the 90's were sort of boring and plasticy looking, they just didn't have sex appeal to me as a horny teen even though I could see they were beautiful. There's the aesthetics of the thing and then there's actual arousal.

Conversely you also get people that aren't beautiful but may generate a good deal of arousal- Adam Driver is kind of the got to example for men. I don't think most women would call him beautiful but a good deal are attracted to him and for those that aren't it isn't that mystifying.

Mark_Freed · 2021-10-05T04:54:40+00:00

Less objective than what people on the right think, more objective than what the people on the left think.

I would say 60 40. The subjective component is the kind of females in your life when you grew up, the cartoons or movies you watched, your mom. That sets your “type”. Then if you bond with a girl and fall in love with her, her looks during the honeymoon phase can be so great, you can still objectively agree others would not find her 10/10 but to you she is.

Prismatic_Symphony · 2021-10-05T06:33:02+00:00

There are both objective aspects and subjective aspects, and subjective modifiers that may change based on social factors and emotions. If you're emotionally connected to the person you may think you find them more attractive, or at least you're more willing to forgive their physical flaws. And there are also people that lie about how/what they find attractive, for various reasons.

he things that are most universal and most generalizable are the objective things, or the MOST objective, if nothing can be said to be truly objective. We pretty much already know the things that approach the asymptote of objectivity: facial symmetry, healhty-looking skin, maybe good natural scent too. For women the most broad things are youth, waist-hip ratio, and some noticeable curve of ass and breast - even if she's slim and there isn't much there, having a body proportion that looks different from a man's shape is attractive. For men the most broad things are height, appearing physically strong (that upside down triangle shape), social status, and ability to provide. Maybe also his scent, that whole immune histo-compatibility complext thing.

For me personally, Jennifer Aniston and Penelope Cruz certainly aren't ugly, but I never paid much attention to them either, and wouldn't rate them very high.

SKY_ACTIV3 · 2021-10-05T09:12:58+00:00

Looks are completely subjective, but can be somewhat objectively measured.

I like the music example that someone gave. There is no such thing as an “objectively” good song. A song that literally no one has heard can’t be considered good, since there’s no people to reflect on the musical quality.

I’ve literally never met someone (IRL) that dislikes the song “Dreams” by Fleetwood Mac, and many, many people absolutely adore that song. This doesn’t mean that the song is inherently better than any other, but it is better by the measure that a lot of people enjoy it. I’m sure there are people out there that don’t like it, because music is very personal and subjective, but the sheer fact that it is enjoyed by so many means that it’s enjoyment factor is objectively high.

By that token, there are commonalities between songs that people generally like to listen to. A few of these are cross cultural, and based on innate human tendencies towards patterns, harmonic distributions, etc. There are also many factors that are cultural, and much of what makes music enjoyable to any one person is based on their musical history and background.

tl;dr, Scott Eastwood might not be someone’s personal taste because looks are subjective. But enough people find him attractive that he can be considered objectively attractive. Hopefully I’m making some kinda sense.

ginger_snap14 · 2021-10-05T10:18:13+00:00

I find it subjective, but reading through the comments, see that most people aren’t coming from the same place I am. I agree with a lot of people’s takes and admit that I’m in the minority when it comes to this subject. It kind of baffles me, actually. I’ve never been attracted to men who women flock to. My mentality has always been “ew” with men like that. I much prefer low-key men and that preference landed me an absolutely incredible husband.

ohheyhi99 · 2021-10-05T13:05:39+00:00

The most important factors in looks are mostly objective.

Looks can have a huge effect on how you are treated in every area of life.

GridReXX · 2021-10-05T13:19:36+00:00

There is some objectivity to it. Almost everyone is attracted to people who look clean, fit and healthy, with symmetrical features. Beyond that it's down to cultural norms and personal preference.

I agree with this.

Outside of health, fitness, and symmetry, and no deformed or grotesquely de minimus or large features, it becomes a matter of cultural and personal preferences around skin complexion, hair texture, nose, lips, height, etc.

UponABeautyRests · 2021-10-05T15:09:58+00:00

Paradox of human thought is that you can’t separate concept and function. All of attraction is based on utility. Some individuals just conjure immediate responses from others because they lower our trust threshold; doesn’t actually mean they’ll actually be able to make our lives easier when push comes to shove. Everybody needs help with different things when ensuring the satisfaction of biological imperatives for themselves.

badsign12 · 2021-10-05T15:19:21+00:00

This is almost a philosophical question. By definition, looks are subjective. The qualities that tend to comprise human beauty, like symmetry and proportions and skin and hair tone and texture are objective, but they mean nothing if the person is not perceived by another person who reacts to those qualities.

I think the clearer question is "Is there a consensus or near consensus regarding who is beautiful?" I think there is. Some people are judged beautiful by most other people. Even outliers who don't find a particular person beautiful or as beautiful as others do can see what others see. Likewise with someone most people find especially unattractive. There will be outliers, but they'll understand on some level the general opinion.

Most people aren't on the extremes, though. Judgments about more ordinary looking people can vary more. And most of us aren't making judgments on real people's beauty, those we actually interact with, without also having other information that impacts our opinion. Their personality, the way they move, their voice, and other factors shade our opinion. So more ordinary looking people can theoretically appeal to me on 10 other dimensions besides beauty that impact my assessment, and be unappealing to someone else on each factor. I'm not a fan of 1-10 ratings but they facilitate discussion. In my scenario a person who is a 6 to most people on the looks only scale, might be a 7 to me given the variability of opinions about non extreme looking people. Then if all the other things click for me that person may effectively be an 8 for me. In my overall perception that becomes the lens I see them through.

If someone saw the person as a 5 on a looks only assessment, and then the other factors didn't work at all for them, they'd perceive the person as more like a 4. Which I think describes how looks can be so subjective, or more accurately how they can vary so much from person to person. A small gap in attractiveness can narrow or widen based on other factors that we aren't consciously aware affect that perception and lead to very different ratings.

spinsterchachkies · 2021-10-05T15:54:46+00:00

I think beauty and physical attractiveness is subjective. The only objective measurement of beauty is symmetry and even that isn’t a fullproof thing because lots of unsymmetrical people are attractive. People are attracted to different things. What someone considers a 10 someone else is going to think is a 5. That’s why it’s not objective.

Also beauty standards change every ten years or so, and from culture to culture. So skinny white women used to be in, now it’s tan women with incredibly big asses and tits.

It is a privilege to fit that beauty standard represented by the mainstream culture because how realistic is it to fit a trend that will change in the next 10 years? You’d have to either be lucky, or rich enough to get plastic surgery.

I would rather be an ugly woman because I’m used to being a woman and I’m ugly to someone so my life wouldn’t change. And I do not want a penis.

Ohyarlysmiles · 2021-10-05T19:50:26+00:00

Almost entirely subjective but made objective via ideology and consensus reality. Social learning is a real thing.

There are a ton of holes in the whole 'biological attraction' theory. First of which being that the high heritabilities of all metrics we associate with 'being hawt' cut AGAINST much, if any, selective pressure on the traits. Whaaaaat? Yeah, mang. Turns out that sexual selection decreases genetic variation, and heritability is a measure of phenotypic variation due to genetics, hence, strong selection on a trait over time (what we'd expect to find for UNIVERSALLY ATTRACTIVE TRAITS0 would reduce the heritability to zero or near zero,

However, culture will venerate certain facial and body phenotypes over others. People will learn to value these phenotypes via cultural transmission. Those phenotypes are obviously highly correlated with certain genotypes.

Not really that worried about it, though.

Also, the halo effect and 'good looks' aren't so simple.

It really is a combination of your body, race, and face, and even the type of face you have that forms the impression in someone else's mind. Like two guys can be equally attractive to a chick but the chick will not trust one of the guys and be a little aloof toward him and highly trust the other one and act warmer. Based just on looks,

Feisty-Friend9227 · 2021-10-05T20:56:40+00:00

How can it not be objective? How do animals mate and determine fitness if not for attractiveness being ingrained into the brain

Flightlessbirbz · 2021-10-05T21:15:27+00:00

Looks are both objective and subjective. There will always be a general consensus on how attractive someone is or is not, but there will also always be some disagreement. Like the vast majority of people might rate someone 6-7, but there will be one or two who rate them a 4 and one or two who rate them a 9. Everyone being honest will agree they are objectively not a 1 or 2, even if they’re not your type. Like I don’t find Chrissy Teigen attractive at all either (even ignoring her personality), but I can recognize that she’s objectively not ugly. Some people are more controversial than others, like pretty much everyone will agree that Chris Evans is objectively attractive even if he’s not your type, while some just don’t “see it” with Benedict Cumberbatch and others are obsessed.

Flubberyb · 2021-10-06T01:22:17+00:00

If you survey a large enough sample and the results say blue is the most commonly picked favourite colour, is it objective to say blue is the favourite colour of people.

Title	Are looks really objective?
Author	Danielcraigboston1
Upvotes	5
Comments	78
Date	October 4, 2021 11:40 PM UTC (4 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/PurplePillDebate
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/PurplePillDebate/comments/q1idud/are_looks_really_objective/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/PurplePillDebate/are-looks-really-objective.1077378 https://theredarchive.com/post/1077378

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