Is men's importance placed on beauty in partners nature or nurture?

[Bethany22]

How much of the women you guys are attracted to have to do with your own wiring, vs what other people, such as family and friends, have encouraged you to like? Do people encourage you to have such high beauty standards? And if so, who is it that encourages it? Share stories.

[GuyAnswersGirls123]

I never had any beauty standards for partners of a kind I could articulate, and I seem less picky about women's looks than any other guy in my social group. I've dated a very wide variety of races and ethnicities, for a start.

I do have a sense of beauty, like I'll be able to say one woman is more visually appealing to my personal taste than another. I even have a visual arts background to aid in that assessment drawing upon classical canons of beauty and visual composition and so forth. The difference is that I don't need what I consider the most visually appealing woman or the most conforming to classical canons or even close for my wife.

I also have some basic health standards (mental and physical), like I'll be reluctant to date an obese woman unless she is serious about adopting a healthy lifestyle, reluctant to date a heroin junkie, and reluctant to date a suicidal woman with a history of self-harm for similar reasons, yet that has nothing to do with visual appeal.

As for where I got my general lack of beauty standards, I think it's primarily because I'm biracial and grew up in a wide variety of places throughout the world. Initially when I was a boy and teenager, I did have ideas of beauty that aligned more with my friends and popular media. Yet after being in new country after new country with changing beauty standards in each culture, I just started to learn to find the widest variety of healthy women attractive.

I believe that was the dominant influencing fact on me: being exposed to so many conflicting ideas of beauty to the point where I just threw it all out and started to find beauty in every single healthy woman around me with whom I could have an engaging conversation.

[GuyAnswersGirls123]

Might also be the visual arts background to some degree. In university, I took figure drawing courses where I had to draw a wide variety of models in the nude (both men and women), and they weren't all conventionally attractive or even young. To do them justice, I had to find each one beautiful in their own way.

Now I tend to do that a lot for insecure people. For example, I met a woman on Discord last year who was rather overweight but she was leaning down and improving her lifestyle. Yet she was very insecure. So during one of the live streams where she shared her cam and talked about her insecurities, I tried to doodle her really fast on my tablet. I was insanely drunk at the time and was turning into a complete alcoholic last year and developing dementia-like symptoms which showed in my doodles (as well as writing and speech and everywhere else). Yet I found her profile very pretty with flowing hair and tried to scribble that real fast like this:



And I truly found the beauty in her. I tried to accentuate certain features in the drunken scribble to show her the features I find most attractive about her but there is a way to look at every single human being in my experience and find the beautiful angle and light. I try to do that for lots of people.

And there is a way to fall in love with just about everyone we can get along with as I see it if we learn to find that angle. As an example, I used to think pugs were the ugliest dogs on the planet until my family got one as a pet. Then I fell in love with her so much that I now think they are the cutest dogs on the planet. It's like that.


We just have to spend a lot of time with them and find the angle.

[GuyAnswersGirls123]

Also I think the features we might initially find a bit unattractive, as with the pug case, can actually end up becoming the most attractive over time. For example, one of my early girlfriends had a Frida Kahlo style unibrow, and back then I was younger and still a bit superficial so I was a bit put off by her eyebrows initially:

Yet I got along so well with her and our conversations were so great and so I started to fall in love with her unibrows and that was one of the first things I remembered fondly about her when we were away. It became her distinguishing characteristic in my mind and how I associated her beauty to something that could be caricaturized and symbolized in my memories.

[GuyAnswersGirls123]

I do have ideas again for what makes women I don't even especially attractive from a pure visual perspective. For example, I find a majestic type of beauty in very tall women and also I have a soft-spot for natural red-heads (perhaps in part because they're so rare in Japan). Yet they are neither standards nor even necessarily preferences on my part. For example, my wife is not very tall at all and has black hair (these days with silver streaks, which I love).

With tall women, they've very visually appealing to me and fun to draw since we can maximally focus on the most subtle nuances of their pose given such long limbs. Yet I'm not even sure when I was a bachelor if I preferred very tall women or just found them visually appealing and very interesting to draw. The height difference might manifest itself clumsily in physical activities like carrying the woman in bridal position a well as sexual. I have no idea since I've never dated women so much taller than me.

So I have ideas of beauty for sure, but not beauty standards as in I allowed them to dictate who I dated. Most of all, I found the woman I was most engaged in soulful conversations to be typically the most attractive. I grow smitten quickly over women with whom I get along so well and can have the deepest, most open conversations where we can share pretty much everything there is to share about ourselves: our hopes, our dreams, fears, vulnerabilities, doubts, pride, sense of humor. I think that's a general ENFP craving is to "soul-connect" with people, and for me at least, that's usually how I grow most deeply attracted to a woman.

[GuyAnswersGirls123]

* I do have ideas again for what makes women I don't even [know] [...]
[*] [...] clumsily in physical activities like carrying the woman in bridal position [as] well as sexual.

[serious]

I will answer in parts:

1. How much of the women you guys are attracted to have to do with your own wiring, vs what other people, such as family and friends, have encouraged you to like?"

Well, I strongly believe it has everything to do with your own wiring. It has everything to do with a person's perspective, what they have understood or learnt from life etc.

That being said friends and family do play a role in this as well, their influence cannot be entirely ruled out. However, the percentage of influence friends and family has on the individual would entirely depend on the fact whether the individual is rigid, closed minded, stubborn or more open minded and flexible.

If the individual is highly resistant, stubborn, rigid then they are likely to have their own definition of beauty, attraction, personality standards etc and they don't go by what people say to them but rather what they have understood from life.

2. "Do people encourage you to have such high beauty standards? And if so, who is it that encourages it? "

Well, this is once again related to my previous reply. Depending on the individual it can be their family, friends, acquaintances or any well wishers who genuinely care about the individual or it can also be a dating coach etc. It can be anyone who encourages this.

As for me there are no stories to share as I have always been single but yes I do have " my type" and as an individual I am very rigid and closed minded

[serious]

Thanks for the MHO

[dynamicyandere]

When I was in my teens, I used to be attracted to girls for more superficial reasons.


As I got older, I learned to appreciate depth of character and personality.


So, I’d say that men being attracted to beautiful partners is nature.


But, depending on how a man develops further in life, they may or may not start to prioritize or appreciate other things.

[JoePro_]

At least for guys, I feel like the visual aspect of a woman is actually less important than the internal aspects that make her who she is. After all, attractive guys are usually willing to "date down", whereas attractive women tend to be less so. So, in that sense, it could be argued that women might place more value on the physical nature of a man than the other way around.

That being said, how much of the attraction to the physical nature of a woman is genetic versus taught? Probably a little of both. But I don't think physical attraction has the majority sway in overall attraction unless someone has a trauma associated with beauty.

For instance, maybe a young boy started dating a girl he really liked, and then all his friends, or even his father, ridiculed him because she was "ugly". That could leave a permanent emotional scare on him where he only searches for and dates the most beautiful girls from there on out. He never wants to be demeaned again, and so that's what happens. But these sorts of traumas a pretty rare.

Otherwise, I'd leave a beautiful woman for an average looking woman if it meant a personality bump. Beauty isn't everything.

[Flatmanlewis]

Probably, for me, a little bit of both. I’ll start this off by saying a woman’s personality and values trumps all things. I don’t care how beautiful she is - if she’s not a good person and we aren’t compatible then the looks mean nothing. A vulgar yet simple example: I don’t care how beautiful some pornstar was, her and I have zero potential to have a relationship. Her life and mine are simply incompatible.


Having said that, I also think I have strong preferences for a woman’s appearance. I like long hair. I like dark eyes and hair. I find petite, hourglass, and very feminine style all attractive. These probably don’t align with the majority of society’s definition of attractive but they are with mine. I’ve often wondered is as a little boy, when I read history books from my grandfather’s extensive library, and came across the nose art and pinup girls from WWII if it didn’t plant a seed in my young brain because to this day the retro/pinup look absolutely captivates me.

[Lionman95]

I would say both. In my experience it´s mainly nature though since my parents didn´t teach much about who to date but my dad spent effort on reminding me that a woman´s beauty can also trick a guy be used against him. He therefore taught not to go for beauty only.

[firenine909]

It’s more based on personal tastes which you’ve developed over time but genetics does play a factor in who you’re attracted to some degree. You’ll notice it when the type of person you’re attracted might have a similar physique to you (height, weight, athletic level etc)

[loveslongnails]

In my opinion... I believe the younger you are, the more looks driven and visual you are, both for men and women. However, everyone has different attractions and what's beautiful to one person is not to another. Sure, there's some generally noticeable standards in societies, but the emphasis on that wanes as you get older. There's also the element of humility, and that's different for everyone as well.

[lancecantee]

What I find attractive is entirely up to me. The people I grew up with are 100x different than most of my GFs I've had. I'll say my Highschool girlfriend was closer in line with who I was around as a child, but by about 24, I'd moved far from that group, didn't look back.

[RavVid]

Virtually 0 is from persuasion. I like small breasted slender women with a tight waist. Usually I am disappointed with what other guys point out to me.

No encouragement to high beauty standards. All self developed.

[Joshydavid25]

Women really set the standard honestly.. Men just respond because we are very easily visually stimulated thanks to testosterone.. So it's both as most things in life are.. But I can assure you most men's standards aren't that high..

[RSav4013]

I guess I'm not really sure if I'm understanding the question. For me personally, if I was deeply in love with a woman I couldn't care less about my friends or family things about her.

[lightbulb27]

My own a lot. I think media had influence. Girls ither guys were attracted to i didn't like. Very little is peer pressure

[boggboss]

I think many mens standerds are based on what others view as attractive actually I think that's hoe many people standards are

[genericname85]

nature first, nurture second. simply by the logic of "what you can reasonably expect to know about someone first".

[genericname85]

by the way women also have a LOT of importance on superficial stuff. that's nature and it's totally ok. i don't understand why it's only bad when men have this.

[GoodGuyBreakingBad]

I want the Beauty with inside of her Heart.

[Slapmynuts]

Definitely nurture! Beauty is nothing more than option and can be subjected to so many different interpretations

[Slapmynuts]

My response got cut off. Nurture can be measured and is a variable that can also effect the definition of beauty!

[clampfan101]

I simply like what I like with some of those likes being common.

[shortster]

I think that in my case it is 90% nature 10% nurture.

[Sabretooth]

It's the dominating factor. Everything else comes after.

[Abdulwahh]

Men usually go for womenn they find attractive physically as well as personality.

[NathanDavis]

I am not superficial

[NathanDavis]

being this superficial and vain comes from a deep rooted insecurity that fortunately I don't have to deal with

what I truly value are much more important and meaningful things about people, real things... not just looks and appearance, not like this... certainly not told by others "what's hot and what's not"

[laly520]

its more of personal preference

[Nifrayu]

I don't know. I don't share that value.

[Hispanic-Cool-Guy]

Zero. It's what I like.

[handsomelad70]

Probably nature, because men are naturally visual creatures (I'm ALWAYS ogling large-breasted ladies), and we believe that having gorgeous partners keeps the family and in some cases, group aesthetics high.