August 2, 2006, 9:44 am
It may be that the unattractive man has a lot of money, or some other compelling attribute.
But a new study by Satoshi Kanazawa, an evolutionary psychologist at the London School of Economics, suggests it may be a simple supply-and-demand issue: there are more beautiful women in the world than there are handsome men.
Why? Kanazawa argues it’s because good-looking parents are 36% more likely to have a baby daughter as their first child than a baby son — which suggests, evolutionarily speaking, that beauty is a trait more valuable for women than for men. The study was conducted with data from 3,000 Americans, derived from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, and was published in the Journal of Theoretical Biology.
According to this news article, “Selection pressure means when parents have traits they can pass on that are better for boys than for girls, they are more likely to have boys. Such traits include large size, strength and aggression, which might help a man compete for mates. On the other hand, parents with heritable traits that are more advantageous to girls are more likely to have daughters.”
Beauty is apparently just one “female” trait. Kanazawa has done previous research suggesting that nurses, social workers and kindergarten teachers — those with “empathic” traits — also had more daughters than sons. Meanwhile, he found that scientists, mathematicians and engineers are more likely to have sons than daughters.
It is good that Kanazawa is only a researcher and not, say, the president of Harvard. If he were, that last finding about scientists may have gotten him fired.
(Hat tip: Nadine Groney)
So that means if you put a grazing cow on the hood of your car, you could save some money on a G.P.S. satellite location system. ”
2006
10:28 am
I would like to know how they determine wether someone is attractive or not. As far as I’m concerned I believe it can be pretty subjective.
Another thing is that in the article they say that beautiful people are more likely to have a daughter and that this will lead to an increase in the beauty gap between men and women. But what happens to a couple consisting of an attractive woman and a not so handsome man? Will they have a daughter or a son, and is she or he going to be beautiful? Because I assume that as the beauty gap grows, more and more women are gonna have to hook up with less attractive men.
— Posted by Gov
2006
10:37 am
Hm. I’d want to hear somebody talk about the mechanism for this–how do the traits involved influence which sperm does the fertilizing, or is it a third thing that influences/decides both?
Anyway, saying that scientists are more likely to have sons is bloody different than saying that girls are innately disadvantaged at science.
— Posted by queenofsheba
2006
10:40 am
Without digging into the article/study, I’m suspicious of the results.
It seems quite likely in both cases here that we’re dealing with correlation, not causality.
i.e. Examine mothers with only daughters (aged, say 8-15), versus sons. The former will be much more beauty conscious than the latter, primping their makeup, watching their weight, etc, both to inspire their daughters, and because of greater feedback (good and bad from their daughters).
Mothers with sons have less incentive and less of a feedback loop on beauty-related issues.
Parents with lots of sons might get involved in athletics in concjunction with their sons’ involvements.
Mothers might be more inclined to seek and stay on at “empathic” jobs (nurses, etc), if they have many other females (i.e. daughters) in their households.
— Posted by psteinx
2006
10:57 am
This is on the same subject Andrew Gelman’s the tyranny of statistical methodology and how it can lead even well-intentioned sociobiologists astray
— Posted by QQ
2006
11:22 am
Just background- I have looked at the same dataset for other reasons before and can you that the data on attractiveness is very sketchy. It is rated on a 1-5 basis by the interviewer. Data on race of interviewer is not recorded. So if there are systematic pairings of mixed race between interviewer and interviewee that would bias the results substantially. I don’t know if they even included interviewer fixed effects.
— Posted by sophistry
2006
12:02 pm
An underlying assumption here that has always fascinated me is the reliance on so-called (by me at least) rules of attraction. The rule relied upon here is that attractive people are supposed to mate with other attractive people. It is like beauty entitles you to date other beautiful people, which is something we think we everyone wants to do, and so we are amazed when a beautiful person will pass this opportunity up. I have always been interested in how people pair up. Do people assess their own level of beauty, or intelligence, or any other trait and then pick a mate accordingly? And when that breaks down, is that when we begin to look at a pairing with curiosity?
— Posted by conor
2006
1:04 pm
I agree with #1: Beauty is a matter of taste. And the special “male” trait of scientist and engineers can be a major obstacle to be attractive. Women prefer “female” traits like empathy feeling … you name it. I will stick with my old theory “Why Do Beautiful Women Sometimes Marry Unattractive Men?”
1. Yet another proof: “Good Marketing is worth every Cent”.
2. Big wallet. Big tits.
— Posted by Sackbauer
2006
1:10 pm
How many ways is this “study” flawed? We do not have a working definition of beauty, let alone any way of measuring it. We do not have a working definition of intelligence, nor any way of measuring it. We don’t have any reason to believe that either of them are hereditary, to any interesting degree (the most attractive people, by my lights, often have relatively unattractive parents, and lots of smart people have dumb kids (and vice-versa)). However we define or describe them, we certainly don’t have any reason to think they’re mutually exclusive. This seems to me to be almost a parody of social science in its most meretricious form: the construction of a monument of cliches on top of a foundation of sand.
— Posted by starfish
2006
1:18 pm
what needs to be studied here is the DEFINITION of beauty , rather than it’s repurcussions.
that would be an interesting study
— Posted by dvrravi
2006
1:46 pm
To go back to conor’s question: Yes, that is exactly what happens. The vast majority of men and women would mate with the most attractive person they could find, if that were possible. Reality teaches us otherwise (most of us, anyway) and when we discover that this is not in fact possible, we experiment until we find our own level of attractiveness which, we discover, entitles us to mate with people who are approximately on the same level of attactiveness as we are (or below), but not above (with rare exceptions). Thus, we have concepts such as “she’s out of your league”. I know very few straight men who would pass up the chance to “mate” with Angelina Jolie, for instance, or few straight women who would pass up the chance to “be with” Brad Pitt, to choose an obvious example.
— Posted by stanman
2006
2:23 pm
OMG it’s a good thing that beauty is objective and can be quantified. Pretty soon, evolutionary psychologists will plotting beauty on a trend line.
-Eye of the Beholder
— Posted by Dr. Vino
2006
3:01 pm
Did you hear about the study finding that women give birth to girls in higher percentages when there’s no father in the picture?
If the suggestion that attractive women give birth to more girls because attractiveness matters more to girls is not sufficiently outrageous, couldn’t you also hypothesize that attractive women have more girl babies because they’re more likely to get pregnant without a reliable father in the picture?
— Posted by cauloccoli
2006
3:27 pm
Apparently as men age, the likelihood of having a boy increases. Maybe ugliness increases as well…
— Posted by echo26
2006
3:34 pm
cauloccoli, I would think it’s hard to give birth to anything when there’s no father in the picture. ( A tip of the cap to groucho marx)
— Posted by mjstevens
2006
6:01 pm
> it’s hard to give birth to anything when there’s no father in the picture
He only has to be in the past. Not in the picture.
— Posted by pkimelma
2006
6:32 pm
I’m wondering if they could do a study of the symmetry of features, something which St Andrews Uni in Scotland determined as being a factor in attractiveness, and to what extent this is heritable.
— Posted by angelofthenorth
2006
8:04 pm
I vaguely recall reading about the correlation between facial symmetry and perceptions of beauty. A quick Google search dug up this Newsweek article from 10 years ago. I wonder how much knowledge has been added to the field since then?
— Posted by keithmo
2006
9:56 pm
There was also the body proportions study done all over the world (including isolated tribes in the amazon). The variance is not huge, but it is there. I think it was head size to wasit to hips to heigh, or some such. Applying a more objective (if flawed) metric would seem to be more useful than artificial and subjective measures of beauty. It would also be interesting to know if the beauty measure was place after the couple had children or before. As someone posted, women with a girl vs. a boy may act and present themselves differently (if a young boy, they may just be worn out from chasing them around the house ;-)
— Posted by pkimelma
2006
10:32 pm
QQ has a link above to Andrew Gelman’s critique. This is well worth a look.
Our nuclear family clearly follows this pattern, though, since my wife is incredibly beautiful [aren’t all wives??] and we have 0 sons, 2 daughters.
I plan on showing her this study just as we go to sleep tonight. ;)
— Posted by zbicyclist
2006
1:52 am
Where I go with this, (and I know a few examples), is to wonder about the psychology of it. Many beautiful women have accumulated experiences of having men compete for them, try to impress them, take advantage of them, etc. Ugly guys tend not to engage in such behavior - they’re out of the running from the start. When a beautiful woman pays attention to an ugly man, she may find someone who actually pays attention to her in a genuine, authentic way. Or at the very least, she thinks she can trust him with her babies because he’s not doing the same BS she’s gotten from every other man who’s approached her.
Just a guess.
The question about what causes such a couple to have more girls may have more to do with testosterone or other hormones. I know studies have shown (can’t site, sorry) that women rated more beautiful tend to have higher estrogen levels, (even the same women at different times of the month hold true to this). I’m wondering if ugliness in men is related to hormone levels, and if that relates to the production of male vs. female sperm.
— Posted by joe9joys
2006
9:53 am
My theory is that every man and woman is somewhere on a single scale of masculinity vs femininity. Both sexes can be anywhere on this scale, though the sexes will manifest their position slightly differently — e.g. masculine women tend to be strong-willed and career-minded, and feminine men tend to be sensitive and intellectual. Beautiful women, for cultural reasons, have long been encouraged by society and their female peers to mate with masculine (handsome, well-built) men, as that kind of man could hypothetically best provide for their offspring. However, in the modern world, it is the often the intellectual man (i.e., the helpful consultant or nerdy entrepreneur, rather than the burly manual worker) who is a more likely to be a better provider. So modern beautiful women (Marilyn Monroe was a good example) can sometimes be more attracted to a sensitive male. I also believe that the sex of a couple’s child is determined mainly by where the father is on the masculinity/femininity scale — the more masculine he is, the more likely Nature is to balance his blustering machismo with a girl, and the more feminine he is, the more likely Nature is to balance his neurotic sensitivity with a boy. For more on this, see the e-book ‘The Twinkle Theory’, which is a free download at http://www.onlineoriginals.com/showitem.asp?itemID=244
— Posted by david3b
2006
10:37 am
I have a dataset that apparently wasn’t included in this study.
Over the course of my high school education, I asked out 27 physically attractive girls. 27 said no, and 0 said yes.
I think it goes some way in refuting the hypothesis.
— Posted by Mango
2006
10:47 am
Seems like a lot of readers are focusing on the concept of beauty and how to measure it. But when I went to the actual journal article, it became clear that for the past few years Kanazawa has been using a wide variety of indices beyond attractiveness scores to test a general hypothesis about evolution. (Thank you, Stephen, for linking to the journal to help us access the primary text.)
Here is that general hypothesis, articulated in the abstract of an earlier 2005 paper (”Big and tall parents have more sons: Further generalizations of the Trivers–Willard hypothesis”):
“This paper proposes the generalized Trivers–Willard hypothesis (gTWH), which suggests that parents who possess any heritable trait which increases male reproductive success at a greater rate than female reproductive success in a given environment will have a higher-than-expected offspring sex ratio, and parents who possess any heritable trait which increases female reproductive success at a greater rate than male reproductive success in a given environment will have a lower-than-expected offspring sex ratio. Since body size (height and weight) is a highly heritable trait which increases male (but not female) reproductive success, the paper hypothesizes that bigger and taller parents have more sons. The analysis of both surviving children and recent pregnancies among respondents of the National Child Development Survey and the British Cohort Survey largely supports the hypothesis.”
Size and height are easier to measure than beauty, so the conclusions from the earlier size and height paper may satisfy more readers.
— Posted by kah
2006
11:56 am
As long as the height is normalized for the Country of origin (definitions of “tall” vary, mostly by how recently the Country became industrialized and could full feed and house people - the so-called “secular trend”), then this study makes far more sense. So, why did they go from objective measure in that case to subjective measures of “beauty”?
— Posted by pkimelma
2006
1:03 pm
I think the question of what is beauty goes to the reproducibility of the study. If beauty is truly in the “eye of the beholder” then how do you measure it? I prefer that study about size and gender selection. Also, since physical characteristics can be culturally advantageous does that influence which inheritable traits are passed on just by who you live among? That starts to sound suspiciously like Lysenkoism.
— Posted by keithmo
2006
6:27 pm
I definitely don’t think there is an accurate way to gauge beauty absolutely. Hell the same person can rate someone two different ways based on mood, lighting, clothing, any number of things. Plus the female parent doesn’t even influence sex biologically. It’s the type of the SECOND sex chromosome that decides it, X or Y. How exactly can a beautiful mother change that. For that matter, I’m not entirely sure how a handsome male can change that. I hate to seem like I’m judging based only on preconceptions but all that is shown here is some correlation, and yet the study proposes a cause the mechanics of which go against biological fact.
— Posted by synapticmisfires
2006
7:14 pm
Maybe they aren’t truely attractive. You might not recognise them if you saw them first thingin the morning! The women know what they look like without the make up, hairstyling, enhancing undergarments, and enhancing surgery…..maybe they see an outward match that we don’t. Sometimes the gentleman that might seem unattractive outwardly more than makes up for it in personality and how he will treat a woman. Looks are more unstable than a match of interests and personalities.
— Posted by Jan
2006
7:40 pm
It could be that human beings are conditioned to be more likely to think of women as beautiful, than to think of men as handsome. There is no “fact” that there are more of the one than the other, just the bias.
— Posted by toml
2006
6:20 pm
Any good looking guy knows that women favor ugly men. It is a mystery, just like every single action that most females undertake. Maybe its about their low self esteem, since all good looking women have low self esteem, just look at the supreme arrogance they display, that is really a sign of an inferiority complex. Maybe its about controlling some ugly loser and spending all his cash and treating him like dirt. Maybe its just because they are irrational and there is no answer. I have a great personality, but, I get turned down for some ugly jerk who treats them like a piece of meat, and I am told its because of personality. Women make this judgment on looks alone, they are intimdated of a good looking guy and assume he is a jerk because he won’t bow before them, and they mainly just intimidated since their whole world is based on the supreme superficiality of the reflection they see as they put on their make up. They profit from their looks, exercising a level of power that is so potent and omnipresent that most people do not even see its existence. They primp and priss and strut around like gods, holding a man’s self esteem in the palm of their hand, which they are only to glad to crush to make themselves feel better. The good looking guy pays a dear price for daring to compete with her in her area. All of the good looking guys that I know get less women than unattractive guys, its an obvious fact, and completely unfair. I say they are insane and thats that. Don’t try to figure them out.
— Posted by GoodLooksAreACurse
2006
12:44 pm
Lol…I always wonder why the cliche goes that good looking women favor unattractive men.My initial attractions are always toward the good looking ones (and Im a woman).It takes a few interactions with the not so good looking ones to then get to like their good personality traits.
— Posted by ng
2006
10:32 am
I think that if “mating” means more than one-night stand or just casual sex, physical attractiveness (does not matter how you measure it - by facial symmetry or hip/waist ratio) will be secondary to other personal qualities, hence the answer for classical “beauty and the beast” riddle.
Do biologists have an answer or at least a hypothesis on why particular couple has a girl or a boy? Possibly it makes more sense to study their ideas first?
— Posted by crimeagirl
2006
5:26 pm
ng, I think I love you
— Posted by GoodLooksAreACurse
2006
5:48 pm
crimegirl,
what you are saying proves my point: women turn down the good looking guy for one reason: because he’s good looking. They don’t get to know him and his personality, they automatically assume, no matter what, that he does not have a good personality, and that the ugly guy does, why, because he must, because he’s ugly, because we all know that all good looking guys are bad people, and ugly guys are all saints, they all wash the feet of the poor in Calcutta, and they are all beyond judgment. This is a totally superficial judgment, it assumes that all good looking guys are the same. well, what about all stuck up blondes with their nose in the air and their face in a mirror, with a shirt that says princess, and a license plate that says 2Hot4U, who is always going around asking her adoring audience: “do you think I could be a model?” At the same time she ignores and rejects the good looking guy for daring to have the self esteem to know he is good looking, but turning him down because he wasn’t “confident” like the ugly guy who has nothing to lose; and turning him down for his “prsonality” when the guy she chooses is an ugly jerk who is mean to her and cheats on her, and turns the good looking guy down because he is really just too nice. Most of these ugly guys out here getting these beautiful women do it for two reasons: most beautiful women like a jerk, and most beautiful women like an ugly guy because of a self esteem issue. There are exceptions, as we have seen above, as with anything, there are many great women who make perfect sense, but there are many who don’t. I will admit, when I look at the typical guy out here that is highly successful with these types of women, I can’t imagine why anybody would want anything to do with any guy, since they are such arrogant jerks. Another thing, good looks are not just about sex. I get pleasure just from being around good looking women. How can you kiss someone ugly. Also, I am straight, but if I am talking to a guy, I would rather he not be ugly. If I am at a concert, I would rather look at Chris Cornell than somone ugly like Kid Rock. If I am watching a movie, I would rather see someone who looked like George Clooney rather than Billy Bob Thorton. Just like when I have a car, I would rather it be a good looking car. I would rather live in a nice looking house. I would rather my meal be served to me in an aesthetically pleasing manner. And, I would rather the trees, the sky, and the lillies in the field be attractive rather than not. Call me crazy.
— Posted by GoodLooksAreACurse
2006
11:30 pm
This study is wierd, since it implies that guys (like me) can selectively spurt out sperms based on the genes that they have. Hmmm, how do I do this? While this is great news for people in China, who has strong preference toward boys (there’s you’re answer, Chairman Mao! If you want boys, get your boys to be nerdy, and then make them marry unattractive girls!), I guess I need to practice my butt-clenching skills to make this work.
There is a lot of folklore about how to selectively have boy/girl babies. In Japan, it is said that pre-mature ejaculation leads to girl babies (due to the ph level within the vagina that tends to kill sperms with XY chromosomes), and proper female orgasm leads to boys. This is a stupid theory, but this may be a mechanism to explain this experiment; with attractive women, guys may get more aroused then they thought, leading to pre-mature ejaculation, and thus leading to more girls. This also explains why this is only observed in the first-borns; by the time they get to the second baby, you’ve seen enough of her so you won’t have to rush.
Mayby Dr. Kanazawa had this folk theory in mind when he was doing this study.
— Posted by hiroo
2006
2:17 pm
I think that a couple of things are going on here. First, and foremost, attractiveness as a mate has traditionally varied greatly between the two sexes. In the case of males, a lot of it ultimately comes down to the guy’s ability to provide resources. In some societies, that implies size, but not all, and not ours now. Mathematical thinking is presumably more useful that size now.
Also, there does seem to be an conflict between really good looking men and women. From both, you hear about the arrogance of the other. So, maybe many relationships have space for just one such ego.
But what is really interesting about the study is the theory that inheritable traits that benefit boys would result in more boys, and visa versa. It makes sense that it might be accurate.
— Posted by Bruce Hayden
2006
9:36 am
Do beautiful women marry unarrractive men because all the beautiful men are gay?
— Posted by bubblegum
2006
3:30 am
I would suggest that one big reason that beautiful women marry unattractive men is that their criteria for a mate is different than a man’s criteria. Many women are more likely to go for wealth and power, than looks, and those are only slighly correlated with looks (apparently, good looking men are slightly more successful than less attractive men, given equivalent credentials).
— Posted by Bruce Hayden
2006
3:35 am
I haven’t seen any statistics on this, but do believe through observation that gay men do take significantly more care in their grooming, on average, and, thus, do look better, given what they are working with.
However, a recent study also showed that gay men on average have slighly narrower shoulders and slighter frames than straight men, and to the extent that broad shoulders and heavier frame translate into good looks, that would somewhat counter their better grooming.
— Posted by Bruce Hayden
2006
4:47 am
There’s something missing here. The idea behind this is that evolutionary pressure means parents are more likely to have a kid of x gender because that gender is more likely to benefit from the traits they possess. Hence hot people having girls and brainiacs having boys.
But the reason hot people have girls is that women are generally more highly valued based on their looks than guys. Which directly say that women are more likely than their male counterparts to find things other than looks attractive in a potential partner. If that wasn’t the case, the selection pressure wouldn’t be happening in the first place because there’d be no greater benefit in being a hot woman as opposed to a hot guy. Which is very different from a supply and demand issue, it’s just different attraction criteria.
— Posted by guesswest
2006
11:34 pm
A while back I came upon this study:
http://dienekes.blogspot.com/2004/09/handsome-not-high- status-men-get-girl.html
which stated that handsome men are prefered by woemn and that status playes no part in female mating selection. If this is accurate (it does seem to fly in the face of common knowledge by all the comments expect mine agree, and female reader wrote duh!) then beauty is not a “female trait”. In fact, if anything, this article seems to indicate that beaty is more usefull to men than to women.
Quote:
Sex differences among preferences for good looking and high-status partners were small or even insignificant. […] In both sexes, PA [Physical attractiveness]was much more preferred in a potential partner than status. For both sexes, physical appearance was decisive for the subject’s dating attractiveness. […]Men with more than four sexual partners were all above-average in PA, while the most attractive women had a medium number of sexual partners.
— Posted by kilrati
2007
4:55 am
Oddly, I am pretty hot, and I have always been attracted to good looking people, at least, I thought they were good looking. Lately I have had someone tell me that I wasn’t that hot, which really surprised me, I think that he is blind, but, maybe it is me that is walking around in a state of denial.
However, I wanted my kids to be both smart and good looking so I choose a mate that would bring that about, and wal-la, my kids are all smart and good looking. So.. I don’t know about that with the theories.
I also found out something interesting, no one looks good when they are angry or drunk, no matter how good they look when they smile… where does that fit into the theory? I mean, I have even looked at myself when I am drunk, and I look like a slob, sound like a slob and think I am soo hot. So, I think all this stuff is really dependent on where the person who is doing the judging is at inside themselves.
On that level, there are probably a lot more great looking people out there than some of us realize, or visa-versa.
— Posted by electricfemale
2007
12:45 pm
My two cents is:
Beautiful girls fall for ugly guys because:
1. Good looking guys assume that a girl that good looking cannot be alone and won’t approach her because they are afraid of rejection. A good looking guy is very touchy about rejection because he seldom experiences.
2. Good looking girls only get hit on by ugly guys because they have nothing to lose. They are used to get rejected and will try to win over a good looking girl without fear of rejection (they have experienced it many times before) and girls love a guy who just goes and talk to them.
I am above average looking girl and I never get approached by a good looking guy at all. Only ugly guys.
— Posted by Skyler
2007
6:07 pm
So where exactly are all these hot women looking for ugly men ? I am quite ugly, and women generally run from me. Where am I going wrong ?
— Posted by Joe
2007
9:39 am
I think this whole thing is flawed personally…I don’t see any data to prove these points,but I would also ask…how many of the women that have been sited in this so called study and considered beautiful have had cosmetic surgery??? If they have had it their children may not turn turn out so beautiful…by these superficial standards anyway…and how would that effect the gender outcome?
Joe there have been polls conducted that women love a man with a great sense of humor…it overshadowed looks every time…might be a place to start anyway!
— Posted by Beth
2007
10:59 pm
Attractiveness is definitely a matter of opinion, and that opinion is often warped by societal standards. I have noticed that many women considered “hot” look basically the same, and most of them resemble some “hot” celebrity. This is evidenced by the fact that just a few hundred years ago, in the Western world, plumper women were considered more attractive, as shown in much of the artwork. Other socities share this trend of “popular beauty”, often placing a label of beauty on women that men of OUR society wouldn’t take a second look at.
Yet, even in spite of popular molds, opinion still varies greatly. I can’t count the times I’ve been with a buddy who’s pointed out some “hot” girl who I thought was nothing special, or even downright unattractive.
— Posted by Eric
2007
11:55 pm
Skyler,
I believe that you are absolutely correct. I am an “above average looking” guy, from what I’ve been told by many girls I’ve known, and I often made that fatal mistake of assuming that a beautiful girl couldn’t possibly be alone and wouldn’t be interested. However, in the past couple years I’ve made a conscientious change in my attitude. I’ve tried to adopt the “nothing to lose” mentality, and just talked to her, for the sake of being friendly, instead of expecting some kind of relationship. And, yes, I have discovered that girls appreciate when a guy, no matter how he looks, is just friendly enough to talk to them.
— Posted by Eric
2007
10:48 am
I think beautiful women think of themselves at prostitutes because they are always looked at for their body, first. To them, the appearance and keeping it up can get overbearing. They tend to go for ugly men who are in their race, class, or religion because it takes the pressure off in keeping appearances. They do not go for men who are outsiders of their klan and if they are, they tend to be good-looking as if to make a statement to their inside world.
— Posted by Davan Mani
2007
10:02 pm
I think it’s because beautiful women want someone they can easily push around, and they want good-looking guys to see her with this average joe and wonder why they can’t have her so her husband just becomes a pawn in their twisted little prettiness world.
— Posted by Scott
2007
6:36 pm
Interesting discussion. I was just in Barnes & Noble today and saw Kanazawa’s and Alan Miller’s new book which fleshes out this topic.
It is called “Why Beautiful People Have More Daughters: From Dating, Shopping, and Praying to Going to War and Becoming a Billionaire– Two Evolutionary Psychologists Explain Why We Do What We Do”
As I stood there in the store and gave about 30 minutes of my time to going through parts of the book my smell test got more and more peaked.
I am going to go off of the original paper this article is discussing a little bit, but I believe that my reasons will be justified as I feel that the book is just a natural end result of their research you have read so far. (remember I have not read the book all of the way through, but I believe that anyone of you could easily finish it in about 3 hours as although it is 272 pages it is formatted more like “Why do Dogs have wet noses?” (imponderables)
Here is a link to 10 of their more controversial theories. All covered in the book
http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/pto-20070622-00 0002.html
They believe that men are hardwired (instinctively) predispositioned to reproduce. Because of this, men are more attracted to blonde women. Why you might ask? Because the most fertile women tend to be younger and there are many women (Caucasian) who although they turn out brunette when they reach older age, do start out life as blondes.
Women, wanting to attract males fall into this line of thinking and tend to believe men prefer blondes thus fulfilling the premise that they will be more attractive as blondes.
The authors go on to debunk the belief that women want to be blonde because that is what Western society feeds them as the ideal (Barbie – they used this word), because women have been dying their hair blonde for centuries, long before our societies brutal crushing ideals penetrated their psyches. Oh and on the same page they used the example of women in Islamic faiths, who have not been exposed to much Western ideals and who despite covering their bodies in Burkhas when in public as being more weight and looks conscious. ( I didn’t delve more into this part)
(it is not mentioned why they only include Caucasian women as the attractive set. Maybe we are all descended from them? – this Black male would love to read about his long lost Norwegian great great grandparents ;)
Right at this point they put me off. They admitted to using, at one point, Pamela Anderson as an example of a beautiful blonde – even after admitting much of what her appeal is comes from artificial means. (strike one) They also admitted to dumping her about the time she left Baywatch in 2000-2001 as her “looks” faded and considered using Britney Spears as possible young blonde ideal. (strike two – what man over the age of 17 finds her an ideal good looking woman) and then in the next paragraph they state that had they done their surveys 30 years ago they would have probably used Farrah Fawcett as the ideal. At this point, I kid you not, they claimed Farrah at 60 is better looking than many women half of her age. Do they have eyes? I remember Farrah also being more of a blondish-brown back in the day.(strike three)
Some other points to note.
They answer the question “why do men like large breasts?” with the idea that again men instinctively know that women with firm breasts are young and fertile so older women will have sagging breasts thus repelling virile men from them. (We will some how know this. I guess they strongly discount Paul Simon and all of the MILF lovers who flood the internet. (But women all over are getting breasts enhancements sometimes with obviously fake results. It doesn’t matter say the authors, men can’t help it and are attracted to them in spite of the obvious plasticity. )
Nowhere I saw – again I didn’t read the whole book – do they talk about the other features that attract (eyes, body, lips etc) and repel (attitude, harshness etc) women to men.
The authors, when asked how homosexuality is propagated from generation to generation if there was such a thing as a “gay gene”, which the authors neither confirm they believe or disbelieve, admitted that they didn’t have an explanation for it. But Kanazawa stated he had a female grad student who had a thesis that stated that (and I am very much paraphrasing here) since homosexual men are in this society greatly looked down upon, they keep their sexual preferences secret. Somehow, I wish I remembered how he stated it, once they gained true sexual freedom, their numbers would greatly diminish in the coming generations. Really.
— Posted by marshall
2007
4:09 am
I am a good-looking big beauty and I just met an average guy on plusmeet.com
As far as I am concerned,the reasons why I choose him are as following:
1. He cares more about me than attractive guys. He cares about my thoughts and like to talk to me. As you see, females like to talk. But many attractive guys do not like to listen, no mention talk.
2. Well, to be frank, he makes me feel safer than attractive guys. You see, since attractive guys are attractive, females would like to flirt with them or ask them to go out.
3.He would like to spoil me. He knows for appearance, he cannot match me. So he works very hard and often spoils me when I have requests.
Let us share your experience with unattractive guys! LOL!
— Posted by Shirley
2007
9:47 am
Most of the gugs take alot of alcohol which make their faces change in a way, too much alcohol make gugs very old while in their youth age.[penis can not do normal work any more.
— Posted by donzun patrick
2007
11:03 am
I think they’re right. Love doesn’t depend on look. Just like those rich men on ricmhingle.com, some of them may be not attractive, but they’re kind and humorous. Once you choose them, they will try their best to take care of you.
— Posted by Robery
2007
2:14 pm
Okay, let’s leave beauty out of it and go back to the height/strength thing.
Assuming, for the sake of argument that greater height/strength is advantageous for a male, the supposition is that taller, stronger parents would be more likely to have male children.
The question then becomes: how does one determine whether this is occurring?
Various factors could affect the results. For example, family size.
If a family prefers boys to girls, and have 2 boys, they may stop having children, whereas if they had a girl first they might have more… or if they wanted a girl, but had 2 boys they might stop because they didn’t want three children… obviously the permutations of this scenario are infinite and call into play human desires, not just evolutionary factors.
I’m not convinced that the sex of the FIRST child is meaningful. Since infant mortality was so high in the past, it would only have evolutionary merit if the first child was significantly more likely to survive.
Similarly, their contention that why middle-class people have fewer children is a mystery to evolutionary psychology assumes that EACH INDIVIDUAL should be acting to maximize his/her genetic propagation… the list of reasons why that’s faulty thinking is vast. But one viewing of the movie Idiocracy should make it clear.
— Posted by Steven
2007
4:35 pm
GoodLooksAreACurse seems to proliferate the stereotype that physical attractiveness inversely correlates with personality… albeit unintentionally.
However, I would actually like to know if there is actual physical evidence of a correlation between physical attractiveness and personality (and/or status/self-confidence/abuse). Evidence beyond disgruntled ramblings, please.
I’ve always thought that shorter, uglier people such as myself were more likely to have poorer personalities due to lack of confidence and proclivity to bitterness. For example, wasn’t there an early study that suggested there was a positive correlation between height and salary?
— Posted by John
2007
4:09 am
I am an only child and female. My mother was beautiful. I took after my father - b****r.
— Posted by gerry
2007
9:33 pm
I just broke up with a very atractive man. After having a crush on him for over one year, finally dating him turned out to be big dissapointment. I thought I was ready to date somebody who was more attractive than I was, but his selfish ways, vanity and pressure on me to be just as beautiful grew tireing! (Plus, there’s always tons of other girls feeding his ego)
I can now understad women who prefer less atractive men. They are sweeter and make you feel beautiful! It can be fun to have a handsome man to kiss and go out to parties with…but only for a while. Just check out Heidi Klum, JLo and Nicole Kidman… they are happier now with less atractive men than they were with their hot exes!!!
Then another issue is that ugly guys can be pretty nice, but also boring! So I still believe that there has to be some level of attraction…its important in order to keep the spark and the passion going…
— Posted by Celina
2007
1:57 pm
True article, we will all be ugly soon XD
— Posted by Josh
2007
12:55 pm
I’ve been wondering lately why 90 percent of my friends have been giving birth to boys, and this article does absolutely nothing to clarify that. Many of these couples are incredibly attractive, sensitive, and involved in the arts and social sciences. The relationships are in no way built on masculine and feminine norms. What kind of study was this? I find many people incredibly attractive that we wouldn’t see on TV because they have crooked teeth, scars, they’re too short, etc.
— Posted by JM
2007
9:48 pm
These broad generalities just make me puke. There is no universal agreement on who is beautiful. Why do we keep having to hear that there is. The factors affecting what makes one attracted to another are numerous and complex. I personally find both Pamela Anderson and Britney repulsive because I know what they are like.
— Posted by Jake Werenton
2007
7:36 pm
Society conditions us to think that a female body, ceteris paribus, is more attractive than a male body. If you did a survey on whether the female naked form is more aesthetically pleasant than the male naked form, you would see a lot of females saying yes, which is strange, since every woman would be a closet bisexual in that case and I don’t think they are. I know this is not directly related to the findings of the study (which I do not find very credible), but it is a sad, sad fact that women are conditioned to be ashamed of being interested in the male body as a natural instinct and have to at least pretend to be after money, support, or intellectual superiority.
— Posted by anti-stereotype
2007
8:33 pm
there are just more females so hey… someone’s bound to marry the ugly guy
— Posted by someone
2007
10:23 am
I don’t agree with the cooments that beautiful women marry with ugly boy/man
yes, its true that she wants a lot of money which she can get by marry.
demand and supply also play a very important role in it.
— Posted by prof.rcgoel
2007
8:11 pm
Perhaps many women begin their first steady relationship with a less attractive man- obvious reason being a timid or shy disposition, uncertainty or low self esteem.
Due to the high importance of security, the woman feels safe and settled and more at ease with the less Macho man who she sees more as being trustworthy or the typically loyal male life partner. He is willing to do more for her emotionally and sexually then a super attractive, seemingly empty male partner. She is able to dictate more and expend less of her energy— this is typical in the animal kingdom. Her needs are met with simplicity and very few problems.
It seems very likeley that these personality traits would cater more to an influx in female population because the couple is in a sense basing their efforts around the protection of the female. She is sought after and well taken care of thus allowing for an entire gaggle of girls who can enter a centre of the universe where they are well treated, free of violence and encouraged to be little girls.
I am an attractive mother of two gorgeous girls. I appear “Amazon”, whereas my man appears more svelte and wiry. Our girls are more petite and fine featured than I am.
But what happens after ten years of partnership, when your timid and shy husband loses his ability to show you his love and appreciation (although still an excellent father- not a very attentive lover- and still hasnt asked you to marry him ??).
I am no longer the timid and shy girl that I once was. I feel stronger, more fulfilled and more physically attractive than ever before. And I fear I am falling in love for the second time in my life with a super gorgeous wonderful man who I never would have recognized on my radar screen before this point. My husband is extremely jealous lately of any guy who shows attention to me.
My heart aches so much, because I do love my man, life itself and would do almost anything for my two girls. But I feel like I am truly worthy of this new man’s more outword and blatant shows of affection. I have for so long found it hard to be physically turned on by my man and wonder at the possibilities this new guy might bring.
— Posted by JewelQueen
2008
11:59 pm
Whether a child is male or female depends on the sex chromosome contributed by the male (women are only XX and men are XY)So the sex has nothing to do with the woman, and so wouldn’t depend on whether she was beautiful or empathetic or anything like that. Also, such a small study can’t really be extrapolated like that to the entire world… a 3000 person sample from the US is an insignifcantly tiny and biased portion of the world. And also, even if a couple was more likely to have a girl as their first child, what about the other children if they have more?
p.s. to JewelQueen:
don’t let your curiosity ruin your family. You say you have two beautiful girls, and you said you love your guy, so tell him that, and try to get him to want to officially make you all a family because he can’t hold on to you if he won’t give you what you need (and it might just be what he needs too)
— Posted by bubblyrunner585
2008
11:08 pm
met my guy on a blind date.Wow, was he ever good looking.I’m so so, but we are OK and have a very nice life
— Posted by zera
2008
4:36 am
handsome is as handsome does. god made us in his own image and we should embrace that. what i have learn t in life is the fact that beauty does not matter much. it is the inside that matters. like the saying always goes “not all that glitters is gold”
— Posted by caeser
2008
1:49 pm
What absolute rubbish! I admit I haven’t read the study, but do you need to read a book on Bigfoot to fully assess whether he exists?
So, according to this, that 50/50 chance of boys and girls, of X/Ys that is always taught in schools, universities and is supposed to be common knowledge is just plain wrong.
Beauty is completely subjective in the first place - it can really be in the eye of the beholder. It seem like LSE always wants to impose economic theory on every sphere of life, in this case biology. There are reasons why ugly guys get beautiful women; status, money, personality etc; men are more visually stimulated than women, women are more turned on by description, so personality is more effective. These arguments have strong support amongst scientists; this 36% rubbish is cobblers, (implication; if people become better looking through natural selection, then eventually there may be no men, and then the human race will die out)- it seems like an insult to science.
— Posted by Rowan
2008
11:45 am
His recent book, “Why Beautiful People Have More Daughters,” is filled with shoddily constructed explanations for “natural” tendencies.
Kanazawa and his co-author Alan Miller rehash the tired myth that standards of female beauty grew from years of evolutionary pressure. They tell outlandish stories about the origin of everything from the male preference for blond hair to the preference for a small waist.
It’s the old premise that since sperm is cheap, men go for beauty as an indicator of health and baby-making potential down the line. And this matters above all things. Thus men love youth, hips, and a small waist. While women could care less about looks. Women want a strong, smart man who can help them rear a baby, because women can’t have as many babies as men can.
But part of Kanazawa’s argument is that selection happened back “in the stone age” when men and women had multiple partners. What about a story that says since sperm is plentiful cheap, men should have evolved very little “taste” in women? After all, men have the ability to impregnate a virtually unlimited number of women. “Uglies,” even the older ones, might have been able to bring some children to term.
And how could it not be advantageous to mate with smart, mature women? Especially if the male wanders off to pick up new partners, wouldn’t evolution favor the offspring of a female that is smart and strong enough to bring her offspring to child-rearing age on the wild, stone-age savannah?
On the other hand, in this “stone age” scenario, women should be most concerned with finding “fit” younger mates. If a woman has to invest in fewer men, since she can’t have as many offspring, and if she can’t absolutely rely on the man helping to rear the child, shouldn’t she choose the man who looks the best and the healthiest? She might look for good abs, shiny hair, bright eyes and plump lips.
Of course, my proposed scenario is not airtight. But how many of these sex-defining evolutionary scenarios are?
Besides, how eager are most men to state that for thousands of years, smart women have selected them to be dumb, with shiny hair and a firm, full buttocks.
— Posted by deedee
2008
1:20 am
Historically our society has notgiven women much chance to develop their self esteem ie sports in school, etc. About the only thing they has to improve their self esteem was cheerleader, most beautiful a d most popular girl. That is six and in a larger school the other thousand or more was left out. They have also been taught to care for others more than themselves. Bottom line is this resulted in women competing primarily for the number of dates they had and boy frineds. Many pretty womean intimidate men and this results in most men thinking the pretty girl is out of their league and as a result they will not approach them. I found (after marraige and discusions with an numner of female buddies) that a good man no matter what the he looks like is hard to find. I will say that womend expect more from men in terms of economic success, power and status and this does not help. After I was endgaged for 4 years I married after my wife finished graduate school. I worked with many educated women and we discusssed this issue often. Personnaly I think very few women view themselves as beautiful and men don’t realize that anyone enjoys a good conversation and company no matter what the other perosn looks like. All women feel much more pressure to marry while they are young enough to attract a good provider. Couple whis with the lack of self esteem that is so common among females as a result of the way they are socialized and you have a situation where the first guy that asked them to mate for life gets a positive response as noone likes to be left on heself.
Until I was out of citculation I felt intimidated by beautiful women and fighured out that they are just posple like the rest of us and likek to be treated accordingly unles they have some sort of personal problem.
Scott
— Posted by scott
2008
8:20 pm
I think beauty should be measured on the inside with all the technology today anyone can be “pretty” for the right price. People who care for each other and are together should be beautiful that way.
— Posted by Phil
2008
12:44 pm
The researchers have obviously never dated beautiful women. If they had, they would have observed that beautiful families are rare: typically one or both of the parents are not beautiful; often the beautiful woman is the only beautiful offspring, their siblings being of average attractiveness. Finally, there is a reversion to the mean that occurs when beautiful women have children; it’s not likely that their daughters will be as beautiful as they are.
Looks are genetic, and better looking people will have better looking offspring, but true beauty is a luck-of-the-draw event.
— Posted by David
2008
10:32 am
women like pacient men whether they are wrong or not you have to smile at them.
— Posted by Jacinto Bernardo Simbe
2008
2:56 pm
Just a couple of half remembered data points.
A lot of studies, none of which I can quote, show men’s success in many things is related to height rather than attractive looks. Height to a man is what looks are to a woman.
Also Deedee makes a point about older women having reproductive capability. Some studies suggest that very young women (16-21) are not as attractive to men with resources as 25-30 year olds. Women under 21 are not at peak fertility. 25-30 year olds are. The issue is one of choosing a mate compared to a one night stand. If a man is going to donate resources to a mate he wants a good one. If a woman is just dating then she wants a alpha male stud. If she is choosing a mate other factors are important. Sometimes mistakes happen. Missions get confused. That is why we need the disciplines of marriage and preparation for such. That is why single women over 25 who are postponing marriage find it so hard to find a good man - their life position is confused.
— Posted by Trader
2008
10:35 pm
God is the one who brings a man and woman together.I once went out with a girl in Miami Florida in 1963. We met at a dance studio, and went out on dates. I was 22 and she was 19. At the studio she dance with me, and world war II song called “I’ll Be Loving You Always” would be playing, and she would sing it. I didn’t no what was going on, because I was slow with girls.As she was singing that song, I would be humming “I love Paris, by Cole Porter. Her last name was Paris. never tried to have sex with her, and for that she felt in love with me. I didn’t treat her like a whore. She had a problem, she liked having sex. She loved the good in me, but didn’t love that in youself. She didn’t tried to change her self. I left her because I thought she love some one else, because I call one night and her girl friend she was living with said she was going steady some guy. The last time I call the phone was slam in my face, and I thought she didn’t it. That was in May of 1964. I 1967 I find out she didn’t slam the phone in my face. The gay she was with did it, he got upset with me,because I kept on calling her while they were having fun. How can I know they were having fun? God was the who had me called the while her and that whoremonger she was with. The only way she would change is by me leaving. I have a strong feeling she had change. She is not in this world any more. She may had died in 1967, because of losing me. I 1967 I cleaning a office room in NYC, and there was a radio in the room. I said to myself, “does Joann still love me, there was no one in the room except me. I turn the radio on, and what song was playing, “I’ll Be Loving You Always”, I was in shock. I knew it was God’s doing. I had never gotten married because of her. She cames to me thought esp. Esp is receiving thoughs and feelings from someone who loves. Sometime I would feel sad. Don’t worry, I never put a gun to my head. I always believed in God and tried to do right, and never treated a women like whores. Even before I met her I had respect for women or girls. I didn’t believe in sex before marriage. I believe in life after death, and there are marriages in heaven,with one woman. I been studying the writings of Emanuel Swedenborg since 1966. My church’s doctrine is on his writings.
Harry
— Posted by Harry W Smith
2008
8:01 am
Women are more beautiful because we have make-up, different hairstyles, and we care about our appearances.
If all women were to not “change” their looks with makeup, a lot less women would be pretty.
— Posted by alex.
2008
5:21 am
This is some hypothetical, unresearched bull crap.
— Posted by cr
2008
1:24 pm
I feel so annoyed when people say that men rate physical attractiveness more in women then women do in men. I feel that women are more desperate and have less choice. Traditionally women have relied on men financially, which has meant that they marry someone who they do not necessarily desire. Women would like to find an attractive man, but there are not so many out there. I personally would like to end up with a guy I found to be physically very attractive. It’s so patronizing to women to think that we are just looking for security and money.
— Posted by rob
2008
9:19 am
Its because women needs security and men want lust. this is not a joke. Women dont care really whom they marry unless they get money or love. Men go for skin but women may prefer instinctive trait of men like hunter,Protecter etc trairs in men.
If beauty is defined by skin its true that men prefer fair woman. if beauty is proper shaped body parts then its psycological and reality that gender wants perfectly created humans to co exist
— Posted by neil sequeira
2008
9:21 am
Men Prefer Beauty, Woman prefer Strenght.
— Posted by neil sequeira
2008
12:18 pm
My name is Andrew and im considering changing my name to Androgen. Do you think it will help?
— Posted by andrew
2008
3:32 pm
one fact , good looks are good looks , race doesn’t matter . If you are attractive no matter what race a person will look at you and see that you are attractive. What puzzles me ? why 2 very unatrative people can have the most attractive children . or why 2 attractive people will have a child that is not attractive at all . Myself I consider myself very attractive , My husband may not be , I was attracted to him because he is very smart and ahas a great body plus he makes me feel even more attractive .
— Posted by tara469
2008
3:47 pm
Andrew , NO …..
— Posted by tara469
2008
8:30 pm
Women are less into looks than men - men are more visual, supposedly. Women value other things equally, perhaps. Many women do marry unattractive men because they are insecure and think the guy will be so happy to have her that he will never cheat on her or abuse her. But this is not the case - just as many unattractive men can be abusive and have serious “issues” - including insecurity themselves, which could be exacerbated by marrying such an attractive woman. That insecurity can cause a lot of problems.
— Posted by Amy Williams
2008
9:13 pm
If a woman prefers an ugly man because he is rich, this rich man can be poor tomorrow - as a result she will lose all that really mattered for her at once. Also if she loves him because of a self esteem issue(that is he will treat her good because he will see her more beautiful than him and she will spend less effort on make-up and keeping up with him), the problem here is that beauty don’t last forever, as soon as she reaches thirty something she cant compete with the new generation of beautiful ladies and he will start to look for another young lady to satisfy his lust because physical attraction was all that mattered for him in the first place when he married her.
Finally I’m not saying It’s better for either gender to prefer the handsome/ugly mate, but if the man/woman loves the other for his personality, no matter if he will be rich or poor or she becomes less beautiful the relationship will remain strong and secure for a life time.
— Posted by Mohammed
2008
3:25 am
Personally, I think beautiful women tend to prefer less attractive men because they seem “safe”. As an attractive woman myself, I am hit on, barked at, and in general treated like a piece of meat on a daily basis. My experience with attractive men is that they are 1.)Promiscuous and into themselves, heartbreakers
2.)Self-centered 3.)I’ll always have to worry about him cheating because women will always be trying to sleep with him. Therefore, the less attractive man is a much safer bet. First of all, a less attractive man will be more likely to put the relationship first since he is not all stuck on himself and thinking that he is the center of the universe. You won’t have to worry too much about him cheating on you, because you’re the hottest thing he’s ever had! Unattractive men are usually more sensitive and more appreciative of their relationship, because they don’t view themselves as “total studs”. This is the kind of man you can have children with because he’ll be totally devoted to you, be a great father, and he won’t leave you. There you go.
— Posted by Manteca
2008
10:57 am
As tara469 pointed out, it doesn’t matter how you measure beauty, everybody can tell wheather a person is attractive or not.
Point being made, attractive women don’t have to worry about keeping the not-so-good-looking guys around. He’ll spoil her, rush to her whenever… And that suits better a woman’s behaviour than a man’s one.
Nevertheless, all those theories can work the other way around, but with a slight difference: an unattractive woman also mate with an unattractive man, but she doesn’t stick to him as much as a guy does. In many couples like this I know, the woman is not as careful as a guy in the same position.
I have a girlfriend far more attractive than me, and she doesn’t care about being thoughtful as much as I do.
So unattractive men provide this safety and “ease” women tend to like.
I just don’t see how that affects the maleXfemale ratio of the offspring, nor how this behaviour reflects on the attractiveness of this offspring.
— Posted by Andre
2008
11:13 pm
the good looks only last a while, then they look like every other late 30/40 year old after a while. Go for the personality and the brains. Learn from my mistakes
— Posted by Ken
2008
6:46 pm
I have to say that good-looking men, or rather, “pretty-boys,” (hate that term), are often bullied during their childhood, and resort to shyness and quietness. The only thing which precludes a beautiful woman from liking a “pretty-boy” is his lack of aggression. Good-looking guys are often distant, like the rebellious, James Dean’s Character, Jim Stark, in Rebel Without a Cause. I know first hand, that good-looking men are picked on heavily in school times. The only exception were those good-looking male kids, who were kind of athletic, and became popular, cause their parents saw fit to put them in sports; those are the ones that may have grown up later to be aggressive and arrogant with women. The others of us are the ones that have a hard time in society, and have our best bet in life to become entrepreneurs, or get famous somehow through the arts, where other people no longer think we are weird, but, rather, intriguing (that’s a chance in a million). In general, we have a hard time with women, especially, as the going after a woman for a shy good-looking man brings back memories of bullying and rejected, and never being included in social events, or just making an oaf out of ourselves, due to our lack of experience and excitement, when we are invited.
Often, we learn to overcompensate with our exterior and moods, as we get older. Most “pretty-boys” develop their bodies because of being bullied. There comes a time when no one picks on us anymore; everyone now takes a stance that we are so arrogant and conceited, but really, it’s the fact that we are defensive and have our guard up. All of this affects our chances with beautiful women. We don’t want conflict with other men, which is one reason we don’t put our necks out; we often want the woman to come to us, and figure they should cause of our looks; that rarely happens.
Girls are intimidated by us, which takes us a long time to figure out, as a lot of us have had insecurities to climb over, which usually centered around how we look. You see, in one aspect, adults were always telling us, as children, how handsome we were, and how we would grow up to look, but we could hardly believe it, due to other kids calling us ugly and kicking out ***es, and the fact that these people were usually related to us, or friends of our parents.
The girls also rejected us in school, cause we weren’t socially popular, and were labelled weird. We never fit in with the goths, or jocks, or any social group, but were rather labelled “the loners.” Also, family issues often contribute to this. Good looking men are often picked on by uncles, etc., due to the fact that we looks so cute when we are upset. A lot of us good looking boys get abused, and then taken advantage of as we get older (this can breed a lot of resentment which makes us quieter socially), until we establish our exterior, or crawl in some hole. I guess we were fun to pick on or something.
Unlike the beautiful girl, there are few to fawn after us, and we must figure out that we are good looking ourselves, by the few compliments, and watching peoples’ reactions, which are usually negative on account of our looks, rather than receptive attitudes. I remember asking the few friends I had, to the point of irritating them, if I was good-looking, when I was a young teen (poor dudes!). We figure it out sooner or later.
All of this self-concern and past issues make it hard for us to become approachers of women, and we often shy away from them, until we find one that is sincere, and loves us to pieces, and is gentle with us; meanwhile, the rest of the world thinks we are arrogant, rather than just self-aware. This can also make us seem “too nice,” as we haven’t had a lot of women in our lives, have listened mainly to our mothers and grannies, and are looking, often for “the one,” if you know what I mean.
We are often very intellectual too, due to being alone so much, while others were out with the guys. Intellectual men are also quite quiet. Everyone thinks we are mysterious, but we are just best at being alone, due to much practice. We need aggressive beautiful women, that at least meet us half-way. A good looking man, who realizes he is later on (ugly duckling syndrome) usually wont settle for someone who he is not attracted to, or meets his standard; I know that sounds harsh and arrogant, but it really isn’t.
There are also a lot of good looking men, who are with not good looking women, much for the same reasons that a beautiful woman is with an ugly, or average man; it is due to insecurity, and usually a non-attractive mate makes us feel secure by their giving us approval. This is like my good-looking brother; he seems to gravitate toward average women; whereas, after being used by a few of them, and realizing I’m not attracted to them, I’d rather be alone forever, if I don’t attract a physically beautiful woman. Unfortunately, non-good-looking people are no better than good-looking people, and often use us, whether it is male or female.
One reason for this with “some” beautiful woman, besides the fact that they are rarely approached by us good-looking men, is that good-looking men, justifiably, as a good-looking woman also thinks, values his looks. He may not even be conceited, but he surely doesn’t think he needs to fork out much other than himself to a beautiful woman, which is why a beautiful woman will go for a non-good-looking man. But you can rest assured, that she is not after the man mostly, but what he can provide for her in some way. I don’t know if I could live like this, ever!!! I had an experience with one beautiful woman once; and I was often hanging around her like a stray puppy, and letting her do whatever she wanted to me, without the consequence of me even bringing it up; I will say that I will never endure this again, as she drug me through her ego trip, and made me feel like a heel.
I have to say, being a self-assured, good-looking man, the prettiest ladies ARE, ACTUALLY, the only ones that have nerve enough to stare me down in public, now that I’m older. I find this scientific study to be untrue. The ones that are average looking and above average are actually more intimidated by us, and those that we have experience the most rejected from. They usually think of themselves as great-looking and have the worst attitudes; they are often the ones that judge us. At least, I have to say, about that beauty I was friends with, that she could be a sweetheart at times, and was full of beautiful compliments toward me, which I mutually displayed.
When a good looking man does get a girl who is aggressive, she is usually fat and dumpy and has nothing to lose; she usually hangs around, tenaciously, until we just seem to be with her, much like this ugly man the article is talking about. Some of settle, but people like myself will never settle, until we have someone we are completely attracted to. I’ve been with my share of unattractive girls.
As far as trustworthiness goes, I am a one woman type of person. The catch is that she will be beautiful physically and personality wise, or I don’t want anything to do with her; not cause of ego, but cause of natural attraction; we settle for the best we think we are… I think there is wisdom in that… It’s all in who you think you are, whether you are gorgeous or not, which determines who you will settle with. It is also what we project. We are not so much animals of instinct, but, rather, creatures of a powerful mind; we are creatures of decision and those things that shape us and influence our decisions. Ultimately, we make choices, and our choices are based on our own reasons. You cannot people people into a box like this article does. My life may be completely different and not relative to another person with or without the same issue, but it does apply to a handful.
Thanks for letting me talk,
Josh
— Posted by Joshua
2008
11:51 am
I can only speak from my present experience. My friend suggested that I meet her male friend. I declined at first, but she kept going on and on about him. One day she gave me his number and I decided to call. We spoke for hours and hours each day after. Well the big day came, the first date. OMG, when he approached me I was shocked. He was 5′10, well over 350lbs, and wore thick glasses. I couldn’t beleive my friend would do this to me.
Well I kept the date running smoothly, but decided to never call him again. I told my friend how I felt. She told me not to judge him based on looks. I couldn’t help it. He couldn’t walk far without stopping, he couldn’t fit in a booth at the restaurant, and he breathed really heavy. After a few weeks, I realized I missed him. I decided to call him and I apologized over and over again for my behavior. He understood and said he knew why I didn’t call him again. After slowing starting over, we’ve been together for a year and 2 months now.
Some of my family and friends don’t understand why I chose to date him. He’s a wonderful man and I can’t remember the last time I’ve been this happy. He is truly the love of my life and i’m I can’t imagine my future without him
I hope this helps other single women,
Adrienne
— Posted by Adrienne
2008
1:28 am
I recently finished a film called “Beauty: In the Eyes of the Beheld,” (www.beautydocumentary.com) where I interviewed women who were considered “beautiful” and asked them what it is REALLY like to be “beautiful.” The trouble I had was trying to pick which ones are “beautiful.” I took referrals instead of being the only judge. You wouldn’t believe what different looks came my way. I was so confused. I have a whole blog about my experience with the definition of beauty at www.beautydocumentary.com.
— Posted by Liza Figueroa Kravinsky
2008
5:58 am
Dear single Adrienne,
This is called “making compromises”. Since you don’t feel that he’s fit for you physically, then he’s not. You have the instincts to tell you if he’s fit for you or not.
You were simply too alone and too frightened of loneliness since you accepted him.
I have a story here for you: I used to date a guy whom I considered ugly. He claimed that he’s smart and he was probably above the average, but not so very brilliant as he claimed. Therefore he had no quality over me, practically.
One day I had a terrible nightmare: I dreamed him like a fetus, with a rachitic body. The same day I told him that we must break up.
I do very well alone.
And the answer to this article is this: on an average women are less intelligent than men, less strong and have less chances to make it in this society led by men.
Men therefore make the game and women accept it. Many beautiful women practically are sex meat.
Women marry ugly men because they are too stupid to realize that fulfilling God’s will by having a match that makes you pleasure is the only thing that matters.
Most of them choose to sell their bodies, or are pressed by poverty to do so.
It’s a rotten society.
— Posted by Vera
2008
2:10 am
Women will fall for guys who know to play her well… The looks are a plus, especially for getting the 1st date… but then the rest is all personality.
But these guys are more or less players, more or less acting and not being themselves, so they might not last long…
Often (but not always) the player leaves the woman (or the other way round) and the woman falls back to a nice, rich, stable, kind man… (who may have been a player previously, btw…) for a less exiting but more stable relationship that will end up in marriage.
— Posted by rolf
2008
1:25 am
SO you are telling me the reason my family had two daughters with me being the son as the middle child is because of selection pressures and my parents were unconciously aware that they should have more daughters than sons?
— Posted by bob