An In-depth Look into Sexual Attractiveness in Humans.
This may seem like a lot but read it ALL! This should effectively kill most current and future relationship type threads.
Anthropologist Helen Fisher, through her studies, has believes in three separate rules for the mating game.
1. Lust-The sex drive-sexual gratification.
2. Romantic Love-Our adoration for the one partner seems to be all that we seek.
3. Attachment-The way we develop a secure union with a long term partner.
She believes all three are evolutionary traits of reproductive success.
Attachment allows for a child to be born and raised at least through infancy.
She is also conducting research from “recruits” from the campus of the StoneyBrook University NY.
They are using fMRIs to scan blood flow to the brain of people who think they are in love. They first show a picture of a neutral image to the person and then scan the blood flow in the brain. They then show the person an image of the person’s lover and scan again.
This is what was discovered in that study:
Men are turned on visually.
Women are turned on by character.
Quote, “Among our male subjects, we found activity in the brain region more associated with the integration of visual stimuli. In our female subjects, we found more activity with the region more associated with memory recall.”
For men, visual stimuli activate the brain more than they do for women, and are important for the sexual pleasure for a man.
Helen said, “Women do like to look but men, like to look more and I feel that this is due to a profoundly powerful Darwinian reason.”
What are men looking for?
Researchers were sent out to the streets of London to demonstrate a classic psychology experiment.
The researchers mission was to ask men which of 4 drawings were most attractive.
The female figures were virtually identical. The female figures had very small differences; the hip size was the difference. They liked the women that had a waste to hip ratio of 7/10; a woman’s waist who has a size ration of 7/10 precisely. A woman with a 26 inch waist would have 37 inch hips:they are thought more likely to be able to bare babies, more likely to get pregnant, live longer, and have fewer miss carriages.
Well formed lips, sizeable cheeks, and sizeable breasts are also markers of sexual attractiveness: all of those traits are controlled by the sex hormones: they are called hormonal markers.
Professor Randy Thornill of the University of New Mexico studies biology, specifically how our bodies display sexual attractiveness.
He said that our bodies are basically signals of symmetry and signals of hormones. He said, “…attractiveness is a collection of signals of both symmetry and hormone signals.”
Size of the breasts and fat deposits in the upper cheeks and lips are substantially shaped by bodily levels of the hormone estrogen.
Estrogen also affects the secondary characteristics of sexuality at puberty. Professor Thornhill said, “Estrogen is a marker of the quality of the female and that includes her reductive capacity; that includes her ability to bare children and is all highly estrogen related in women.”
Testosterone causes several visual features at the onset of puberty such as cheek bones that are prominent, strong jaw, a muscular physique, and broad shoulders. These masculine features are markers for virility and health in a human male.
Also, another sexually attractive trait in males is the dominant markers.
Dominance in males is associated with male reproductive success.
In 2004, $13 billion was spent on cosmetic procedures; 90% carried out on women.
A younger female fertile and fully developed female is considered more attractive, the vast majority of the time, to any male. Variances to the above marker are almost always attributed to psychological disorders such as pedophilia. (Unnatural lust.)
Men get cosmetic things done as well but because women, more than men, seek out other attributes for sexual reproduction other than the appearance they are given by natures default.
For women, the ideal male mate is more than just a source of fertile sperm. They are more attracted to intangible characteristics such as loyalty, kindness, which suggest a good husband and good father for her children.
Women have more blood flowing to the part of the brain called the hippocampus, the part of the brain associated with memory. What does memory have to do with sexual attraction and a woman’s love life? Helen Fisher suggests that women are particularly interested in the men’s’ character and that they build up a memory map of their behavior in order to determine if they will be a suitable mate and a good father for their children.
Memory is vitally important. Women are more likely to contact others about their interactions with the opposite sex. Women also look for status in men so that they and their children can be provided for. Men advertise this status to attract mates. (Think Peacock type males.)
Healthy offspring are the key to a status of attraction which leads to stranger findings.
Professor Randy Thornhill believes that we interpret sexual signals in milliseconds; without even knowing.
The human nose is part of the sexual attraction of the opposite sex. This is how Thornhill found this out:
He gets a group of men together for a game of basketball wearing white shirts. The shirts are freshly laundered. As the players play basketball, the shirts absorb sweat and sweat contains pheromones.
Thornhill has discovered that pheromones convey far more complex information than previously believed when it comes to sexual attractiveness. In his biology lab, Thornhill asks a group of students to test the pheromone idea out. The women will smell each shirt and rate them for sexiness, pleasantness, and intensity. The women do not know who the shirt is from. They write down their judgments, based on nothing more than smell. Thornhill has analyzed the immunes systems of the both male and female volunteers, by studying the major histo-compatibility complex..(Called MHC.)
A group of genes play an important role in the human body immune response system. He discovered that women prefer the smell of scent of a male with a most different MHC. This makes good evolutionary sense. A better range of genes in reproduction contributes to a species success. The babies get the best of the “mix”.
Human beings are able to pick a suitable genetic mate with just their noses!
Our noses can also detect symmetry..It may seem bizarre but women can smell who are symmetrical. More symmetric men smell better to women. Even more than that, they prefer symmetrical manly looking men even more when they are at the peak of their menstrual cycle.
Researchers in the 90s did several studies on symmetry. They collected many photos and analyzed how symmetrical the faces were in the photos and then presented those photos to people to rate on a scale of 1-10. The faces most attractive were those that were most symmetrical. What’s strange is that a face that is completely symmetrical (Basically, a computer is used to “mirror” one side of the face so that both sides are a perfect mirror reflection of each other.)is unattractive.
Faces also display information about our immune system. Symmetry is marker of how healthy and individual is because it is very hard in nature to “get it right”. Apparently, parasites and disease contribute to an asymmetrical face. They also found that men that were rated higher by the women had a greater variety of genes and also had a stronger immune system. (Bi-racial men and women are found, often, to be attractive for a reason; it is not specific preference.)