skin deep??
what is beauty? why does a guy get attracted to a 'beautiful' girl? more precisely..y does a guy get attracted more to a 'beautiful' girl than to a 'not-so-beautiful' girl? in what way are attraction and beauty related? and considering that attraction is due to biological reasons, is it possible to say that the concept of beauty is biologically motivated?
well..I understand that to answer all these we need some definitions first...we have to some how quantify beauty..but am no expert and I dont want to digress from my main point..so for the purpose of this post I will go by the 'crude' way of majority voting and accept whatever is the popular choice..
now, coming back to relation between beauty and biology..to understand my point..consider an analogy..in animals the strongest male (strong in whatever sense that species follows) gets to mate..this has a logical reason of propogating possibly the best genes to next generation...other than the possible advantage of the strongest male protecting the female and the child(if the males of that species stay back with the family, that is) .. and since the males rarely get a chance to mate..i guess they go with whatever they get :)
but the point is..the notion of strong has biological underpinnings..similarly..does the concept of beauty have any biological foundations? is a beautiful girl 'better' in some terms which are helpful in the well-being of the child?? and perhaps the evolution and future of the species(humans)?? for example..may be a beautiful girl is more physically fit to take care of the child before/during/after birth..
there is another aspect to beauty..that it lies in the eyes of the beholder..although it is a cliched saying..I have experienced it...even in a small group of 3-4 guys I have found difference in opinion abt how good looking some girl is..if whatever I was pointing out was true..that is, if there are some biological reasons behind some one feeling some girl is beautiful..does this difference in opinion mean that one girl is more suited (biologically) to some guy than others..that is..is this preliminary rejection/preference based on looks also influenced by other stronger reasons?
Disclaimer:I am just wondering aloud..I have no 'beliefs' that a beautiful girl is better in other terms also ..and ofcourse absolutely no data to support any such beliefs :)
well..I understand that to answer all these we need some definitions first...we have to some how quantify beauty..but am no expert and I dont want to digress from my main point..so for the purpose of this post I will go by the 'crude' way of majority voting and accept whatever is the popular choice..
now, coming back to relation between beauty and biology..to understand my point..consider an analogy..in animals the strongest male (strong in whatever sense that species follows) gets to mate..this has a logical reason of propogating possibly the best genes to next generation...other than the possible advantage of the strongest male protecting the female and the child(if the males of that species stay back with the family, that is) .. and since the males rarely get a chance to mate..i guess they go with whatever they get :)
but the point is..the notion of strong has biological underpinnings..similarly..does the concept of beauty have any biological foundations? is a beautiful girl 'better' in some terms which are helpful in the well-being of the child?? and perhaps the evolution and future of the species(humans)?? for example..may be a beautiful girl is more physically fit to take care of the child before/during/after birth..
there is another aspect to beauty..that it lies in the eyes of the beholder..although it is a cliched saying..I have experienced it...even in a small group of 3-4 guys I have found difference in opinion abt how good looking some girl is..if whatever I was pointing out was true..that is, if there are some biological reasons behind some one feeling some girl is beautiful..does this difference in opinion mean that one girl is more suited (biologically) to some guy than others..that is..is this preliminary rejection/preference based on looks also influenced by other stronger reasons?
Disclaimer:I am just wondering aloud..I have no 'beliefs' that a beautiful girl is better in other terms also ..and ofcourse absolutely no data to support any such beliefs :)
posted by sarvagnaani at 5:50 AM
7 Comments:
Some studies show that a person's defenition of beauty is due to what is called a "beauty map" in the head. This map is built since childhood, and close relatives have a strong role in shaping that map.
I remember reading a Reader's Digest survey which tried to analyse beauty, and they laid out this character map, facial symmetry, lack of any obvious disease, etc. as some features that contribute to beauty.
But I guess beauty is just one parameter in the attraction game. I wonder if it's a co-operative game? ;)
>This map is built since childhood, and close relatives have a strong role in shaping that map.
may be this explains why guys find girls from the same race more attractive..have observed this in case of guys who have been abroad...
and abt the attraction game being a co-operative game..rarely does a guy get so lucky..i guess its always a 'many-men all-losers' game :) on the lines of n-player zero-sum game
more seriously..biologists have actually modelled attraction behaviour in animals using signalling games
My opinion something weirdo.
Humans are most idiotic race and nature fools around with us to get its work done.
Its a hanging carrot game, we see carrot and keep trying to get it, harder we try, closer it gets, but we never have it actually to eat. I know you are wondering what i want to say.
Have you wondered why sex is such a important thing in any living species in Animal kingdom. Other then the fact that sex is about having babies there is another orthogonal prespective associated with it. Just imagine sex to be just like anyother physical activity, like shaking hands. A phyical activity which gives birth to babies but do not give any pleasure. Or what I want to say is look at sex as physical activity with no orgasm involved.
In my opinion Orgasm is a carrot shown by nature to encourage a creature to have sex who's by-product is a genesis of new life. So Nature don't care about sex, neither about orgasm but it cares only about healthy next generation.
Now the second tricky part, healthy. If it was just about creating babies and having sex then picking up any male and female at random would do. But what nature imposes is a fact that the best individuls pass on the traits. Beauty is just one of the triat but not the only one.
A traits of a healty person are intellect, beauty, built, leadership, money, status, goodness, caring, so on and so forth. But if you look at the above list we see that "Beauty" and "Built" are the only two features which are prominent in first meeting. And other traits are known only over a period of time. So though we like a nice. cute looking female(person) we may not want to marry him/her.
When we love(again this is a carrot.) a person we are attracted to all his/her traits and not just beauty. So I feel beauty its not something which should carry an importance so that it solely gets associated with the biological prespective of mating.
Grooming is common in all socities and is based on the fact that, it helps in taking first step towards building a relationships which sould some day lead to marriage and having healty babies.
beauty is linked with symmetry moms...
eshtu symmetrical lo ashtu olledu
yeniway yen samaachara lifealli ?
nan makkla mail kalisdru reply maadakke yellarigu attitude-u
suddep : i agree about the symmetry part. its one of the compulsory stuff, but not the only one.
kummi: we are bilogically tuned from childhood and thats the problem. If you are trained in some other way you will go that way. Eg. Girls dont discuss erotica (to an extent like boys do from childhood) and hence they are more disinclined towards that.
@aniket:
that comment can in itself be a blog post :)
I concur with you..but I guess it can be generalized to all animals..now, i dont know if animals have any evalutaion process for females of that species..but the carrot part can be extended to animals..just to add to carrot theory..if u really see, at a crude level, intercourse involves 'injection' ..imagine how reluctant people/animals would be to have sex if it was as painful as a doctors injection :) it sounds weird/crazy but its wonderfull how nature converts the painful process to a pleasurable experience
@sudeep:
symmetry is one aspect..may be an important one at that..but it is not the only thing..
and btw..mail yavaga madidhe?and after seeing this comment i mailed..and no reply for that??!!!
@zd:
when u said biologically tuned did u mean psychologically tuned?does beauty have biological foundations? that was my main doubt
kummi: incase of humans its pyschologically tuned to totality. Thats my belief
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