What body types do women/guys find most/least attractive?

Musketeer4 wrote: »

Obviously your sisters attraction to geek glasses is not directly genetics related. However she might have an emphasis for selecting on the basis of intellect and popular culture has also associated geekyness and glasses with high intellect. Hence your sister associates the two and is attracted to those with the glasses because they may have a higher intellect.


And regarding the guy who is attracted to post menopausal women, I'd put him into the same outlier evolutionary category as people who are sexually attracted to vegetables, animals, apple tarts or the same gender. Such individuals are so rare because their skewed preferences mean they are unlikely to reproduce. Then why do we still have a few you ask? Perhaps it is just chance, or perhaps they do have some low level reproductive success. For example your friend, he might have a one night stand with a fertile woman and have one child to pass on the granny sex gene, but nonetheless spend the rest of his days balls deep in batty aul geriatrics with the reproductive potential of a peat briquette.

No offence to our older readers intended, but from a purely evolutionary perspective post menopausal females, reproductively and sexually inert, would have been dead weight on prehistoric societies, consuming resources but yet not producing any children in return. Humans have a natural design life of about 40 years and menopause occurs because there was no real selection for a longer reproductive life because most humans were dead by 40 throughout most of our pre-history.


However, I would suspect that given our society's move towards having children later in life there is probably some ongoing natural selection and evolution in which women who are fertile well into their late 40s or even early 50s might have a competitive advantage over women who go through a normal menopause. The high high fertility potential of younger women in their 20s say would be of neutral advantage because very very few people that age have babies anyway.

I think maybe you should read a little more on the subject of evolution. That one ladybird book is not giving you anything near a full picture.

Musketeer4 wrote: »

It's not really. A human body maintains itself fairly well until that age. After that it slowly but surely deteriorates in performance, strength and integrity.

but gain in other areas like knowledge and wisdom. And that "slow but sure" deterioration can take 20-30 years. Again, you have significantly misunderstood what life expectancy means.

Legs

Musketeer4 wrote: »

How dare you! You're in no position to preach to me about my opinions with a post count of 69. Yeah, and what was your previous username I wonder? I have a good friend who is a mod that I could get to check up your ip and see what you were banned for before re-reging. I'd say that would soften you cough.

Mod:

Please report any posts that you think need mod attention, and leave it at that.

Reporting posts within AH will only alert AH mods as they are the only mods that can action the post. Other forum mods cannot action posts outside their forums.

REM76 wrote: »

Go for it Columbo. Your opinions and overall education are desperately poor. As it says in the bible, before searching for the splinter in my eye, remove the plank from yours.

Mod:

Don't post in this thread again.

Musketeer4 wrote: »

Are we talking about the "GI babies" here? When american GIs went around impregnating the japs en masse during and after the war.

Whats the Japanese CBD environment?

no idea what CBD is but the increase in height of the japanese post ww2 is usually put down to an improved diet. in particular an increased protein intake.

Wibbs wrote: »

Oh I don't think there's a gene or suite of genes for that L. The problem with genetics is that it's the science flavour of the decade and is applied to everything willy nilly. So if all you use is a hammer, everything starts to look like a nail. Ditto for the exalted position of evolution*.

But that's what you seem to be doing below, analyzing every element of attraction from an evolutionary perspective.

However your sister may be attracted to that type because a) it's a type prominent in her inner template

What do you mean by inner template?

and/or b) she is more that type herself and like tends to seek out like and/or c) "geek glasses" is more likely to signify higher intelligence(of a certain kind) in a man. Put it this way, in very general terms which group is likely to be more bookish and book smart, a gathering of bespectacled nerds or a gathering of bodybuilders?

She is not an intellectual and her past 2 boyfriends have been tradesmen. She is not into smart guys. It appears she just likes the look of geek glasses. Hard to put an evolutionary spin on that if its not actually related to perceptions of intelligence. I'm simply making the point that not every taste can be related back to evolution.

Again it would make sense that a species would have variability within the population for mate choice in changing environments. EG in a educated protected suburban environment the bespectacled highly educated "geek" is a better bet than the hyper masculine "jock" of average intelligence and education. Whereas if a war kicked off and protection required a more personal direct approach the muscled guy is the better bet. Regardless of environment it makes good sense for a generalist species to keep some minority traits on the go at any one time.

All this MAY be true. It may also be not true. The smartest people I know did not become the most successful. I'd say the same is even more true before education became so widespread. I imagine that there were plenty of brilliant young minds in the past who just did not receive the education to capitalize on it. I know you've pointed out below that strong pressures can cause quick changes, but its really only been about 30 years since intellectual skills became important in the workforce, they're still not that important, and usually as long as you have above average intelligence you can perform these jobs. So I see no need for selection based on perceived intelligence.

Sure, but in any population, especially one that is more open to diversity, outliers even individual "faults" are allowed. Or it's simply a "fault" in your friend. I mean there are folks who have fallen in love with objects, even buildings.

Well take the biggest outliers of all, gay people. Now I know there are plenty of theories within an evolutionary framework that purport to explain this, but these usually explain why people who are not attracted to the opposite sex exist. They tend not to explain the attractions of these people. Gay culture has an extremely diverse set of attractions, and in many cases they've got labels for these types. Why does one guy like bears (big, hairy guys) and another likes twinks (young smooth slim guys). Why among guys who like bears do some guys like muscle daddy bears and others like chubby geek bears (I recently was told by a friend there's a night in london that caters to this subtype). Here you have bizarrely specific types, not one of which will result in a child.

I'm not saying evolution hasn't played a part in attraction. I just find analyzing every attraction in those terms just doesn't make sense. It seems in many human enterprises there are aspects of taste, not just attraction. Not only do people have different tastes in movies (drama v comedy etc) but even within these categories tastes vary (gross out comedy, subtle comedy, slapstick) with many people having very strong preferences. To me, the specifics of attraction just reflect that natural human divergence of tastes.