is beauty in the eye of the beholder ?

Post Reply New Topic

a girl told me :attractiveness is relative

i said : attractiveness is not really relative , look around : how many guys like obese girls ? how many girl like skinny guys?? so many?? i don't think so . Attractiveness may slightly vary from a person to another and of course there's some exceptions but if we look at the society as a whole , we can clearly see that there's some common points of attractiveness among people of the same generation .

No?

They have done studies on this and found that what we commonly consider to be a beautiful face is one with a high degree of symmetry.

I find that interesting but it doesn't take into account when someone has a face that is not traditionally beautiful but you find it fascinataing; that happens to me when I look at women (an interesting face has more character than a traditionally beautiful symmetry)

If it was all about symmetry then this face would be beautiful:

(actually, when I think about it .........)

It's part of being social to like what others also like. So inevitably whatever a culture believes is attractive is going to be fairly homogenized

I tend to think there are levels of attractiveness that people fall into... and generally people don't jump too many levels when finding someone. It's also easier to relate to those who are similarly in terms of attractiveness.

Someone has just shown me an exception to my theory. So I might have to rethink the whole thing.

Advertising does wonders.
As do other societal pressures.

But, I'll tell you this much, I don't
think I've ever seen someone I don't
love as beautiful.

Pretty or hot, yes. Oh yes.

Even within societal standards though,
there is a lot of variation. I get ragged
on for my tastes, all the time. Usually
accused as being shallow, but it's funny,
many who do so, DON'T particularly find
what I do attractive.

Here's the theory I heard, it's a bit complicated so bear with me.

Takes deep breath.....................

We all carry around in our minds our idea of someone beautiful. Part of this is in our conscious mind, we might prefer brunettes to blondes and short people over tall. The other half of the ideal image is in our unconscious mind, we can look at two people who are both the same age, height, eye color and build yet decide that one is beautiful yet the other is not. As an example, I'm about the same age as Richard Gere, I'm the same height, I have the same eye color and we are both going gray. Mr Gere however receives a lot more fan mail than I do.

When we meet someone for the first time the conscious mind makes an almost immediate judgement, first impressions really DO last. If we then decide that this person is of interest the unconscious mind then starts to slowly alter our hidden preferrences until they closely match the other person. Beauty is then in the eye of the beholder.

Ed Almos

What someone finds attractive is usually the purest reflection of themself.

I always thought that it was more in the mind of the beholder.

For instance, I can look up right now and see two pieces of furinture across the room (yes, I'm not talking about people. I'm pretending to make a point). There is a broken chair that probably hasn't been used since slaverly was abolished in the US on one side; there's a desk that probably just a touch newer, but in much better condition, on the other. I can see that the chair needs some repair; the rush is broken, there's a burn on one leg, and it badly needs some paint. I can also see the the desk, while it has a few spots, is clean; the white and gold painting adds a nice touch, and the lines of it are elegant. I see all that; I think that the desk is prettier than the chair. My eyes have no knowledge other than sight.

In any case, that's not really what you're asking.

Yes, beauty depends on the beholder. While there is an overlying trend for many people, determined quite a bit by media influences, there are also differences for everyone. There are guys who are attracted to obese women; there are those who are attracted to skinny women. A minority does not mean non-existance.

Beauty is, but goodness is not. Beauty is the appearance of some kind of goodness -- which appearance may be either false and thus misleading, or accurate. Anything can be beautiful. But "be" in relation to subjectivity is without true meaning.

I'm a believer in true meaning (apart from perception). But some people aren't.