The Erotic Highway
Helen Fisher's books- why we are attracted to certain people?
I recently read a great book called Why We Love: The Nature and Chemistry of Romantic Love. It addresses a great deal of issues, from the chemical and physiological reactions associated with love/lust, to these processes in non-human animals, to monogamy, to attraction. There is a chapter, I think it's chapter five, that talks about why we are attracted to certain individuals. There are so many theories, from symmetry, which actually seems to play a big part, to that fabled "waist to hip ratio," to evolutionary theory. It also states that there are different standards and influences depending on what type of relationship you are seeking. For example, a young man exploring sex for the first time may be attracted to a completely different woman at that stage in his life than when he is looking for a marriage partner, or the women he finds attractive when he is in a committed relationship, which makes sense to me.. Of course, some of this can just be chalked up to individual difference and preference, but it is interesting to delve deeper and read about the different studies and theories and how they inter-relate.
XoXo
Marea
Love Goddess,
I began to wonder more about the whys of human sexuality since I discovered the Erotic Highway. This weekend something occurred which made me reflect on a new topic, sexual attraction. I am not talking about the deep attraction for someone as a long term mate which (hopefully) involves some reasoning. The sexual attraction I am referring to is the one that causes erections and pure sexual desire.
The occasion which caused these reflections was a visit with an escort who I chose because of her smile. On this particular day I had 180+/- potential partners to choose from. I was aware that she was a shorter heavier woman but that had not figured into my decision to select her. She was neatly dressed, fresh, and clean when I arrived. Her smile in person was like the sunshine breaking through on a cloudy day. I was aroused. The original idea had been to begin with a massage but I was so hot we were quickly on her bed. The sex was dynamite. Later while we were chatting in that dreamy post-coital mist she mentioned that some guys would leave when they arrived because they did not like her shape. She smiled because we both knew what these guys had missed out on. Still I was mystified, why did I find her attractive when clearly others did not?
I am aware that I am blessed by being sexually attracted to a broad range of females including women that others do not find physically apealing. My last three playmates had different hair color, different body types, different weights, different skin pigment, and different heights. Their ages spanned 35 years. I cannot say that I found one more or less attractive than the others. Each was pretty hot in her own way.
The first time I can remember noticing a girl as an attractive human we were watching an older guy walk by with his girl friend. I can remember her to this day. She was taller and bigger framed than most girls. She had a nice smile and a happy laugh. She had long brunette hair which hung down straight over her sundress. At the very moment that the pubescent realization that girls were attractive formed in my head, the guy next to me said, "I wouldn't be seen with a hag like that." (Her boyfriend took him aside and instructed him on gentlemanly behavior.) Still, to this day nearly 50 years later I can't figure out why anyone would think that pretty girl was a hag.
I did a little research and learned that sexual attraction seems to be caused by the stimulation of the five senses. This told me everything and nothing. I read a couple of articles with mathematical calculations showing average attraction responses as related to body shape with no indication of why. There were plenty of articles on what men and women find attractive. There are plenty of conclusions that everyone is different. Nothing seemed to really properly address how we get that way.
Folk wisdom is that a man will have sex with pretty much any woman but I suspect based on my observations that is not true.
Experience doesn't really seem to figure in. Yes, experience has taught me that a woman's shape is unrelated to her bedroom skill. However, if my range of attractiveness had not included heavy women, thin women, pregnant women, ECT in the first place how would I have known that the sexual experience would be unrelated to shape? Preference may come from experience but sexual attraction was there first.
One explanation is that we are hard wired with a particular attitude towards attractiveness sort of like we are wired with a sexual orientation. That doesn't stand up because everyone can taste sweet in sugar but not every man gets an erection when a red head passes by.
Another explanation was that culture defines attractiveness. However if that is the case, where does the cultural value come from?
This is not a problem for me. I'm glad I'm out on the far edge of the bell curve where y is the number of males and x is the size of the pool of yummy partners. It gives me more skirts to chase than the average guy. Still I wonder how we develop sexual attraction.
Love Goddess, do you have a theory or even a hypothesis on the formation of sexual attraction in humans? Will you share or should we wait for your book?
Satyrically,
Tampa_Jim
Dear Tampa_Jim,
Please wait for my book. In the meantime, there are oodles of various theories on sexual attraction. I'd suggest reading something fun and interesting, like David Buss book "The Evolution of Desire: Strategies of Human Mating." Whatever I will have to say will be a rehash.
I'll state this, however; in cross-cultural studies of preferences in attraction, some factors stand out. These factors also dovetail nicely with my own cross-cultural studies, undertaken in such diverse places as Los Angeles, Irian Jaya, Gambia, Peru, Mongolia, Japan, etc. and wherever else I've traipsed in search of what men find attractive. And this is my assessment of it all:
They want someone whose waist to hip ratio is 70%. Singh, a researcher, has made this his life's work; according to his calculations, this is prevalent in cultures that celebrate Kate Moss as well as Venus from Willendorf. Then, there's the issue of smooth skin, facial symmetry and the absence of diseases. In addition, a nulliparous woman [someone who has not yet given birth] will have some desirable physiological characteristics, namely an absence of stretch marks, a face free of chloasma [pigmentary changes often called 'the mask of pregnancy'] and again...that waist-to-hip ratio. In addition, men in all cultures have consistently responded to a more mesomorphic female. In other words, someone anorexic just won't cut it. Now, you might feel Kate Moss is anorexic, but she does have that waist-to-hip ratio that makes her look curvy, despite her skinny knees.
Ok, I could go on forever. Many people dispute or refute these evolutionary theories I seem to support. But cross-cultural research doesn't lie, and I'll state my case as I interviewed some cannibals in Irian Jaya - an attractive female is not too fat, not too skinny, and is "good with the pigs." In Irian Jaya, that just means she's a smart businesswoman. Unfortunately, intelligence scores fairly low on the attraction totempole. But as we say - we have to make a difference between short term mating and finding a wife for the babies.
It all sounds like Stone Age, doesn't it,
the Love Goddess
I recently read a great book called Why We Love: The Nature and Chemistry of Romantic Love. It addresses a great deal of issues, from the chemical and physiological reactions associated with love/lust, to these processes in non-human animals, to monogamy, to attraction. There is a chapter, I think it's chapter five, that talks about why we are attracted to certain individuals. There are so many theories, from symmetry, which actually seems to play a big part, to that fabled "waist to hip ratio," to evolutionary theory. It also states that there are different standards and influences depending on what type of relationship you are seeking. For example, a young man exploring sex for the first time may be attracted to a completely different woman at that stage in his life than when he is looking for a marriage partner, or the women he finds attractive when he is in a committed relationship, which makes sense to me.. Of course, some of this can just be chalked up to individual difference and preference, but it is interesting to delve deeper and read about the different studies and theories and how they inter-relate.
XoXo
Marea
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