How is physical beauty in the eyes of the beholder?

I am taking a sociology class and we are talking about being physically attractive.


My point is how come some people attract a wider variety of people than others?


Usually those who are widely considered attractive receive different treatment from those who are widely considered less physically attractive.


I do not think everyone agrees who is pretty and who is not but why are other people treated better than others if beauty is not somewhat universal?


Some people have been received attention from the opposite sex all their lives while others have barely managed to get their first bf/gf in their early 20s?|||where else could it be?|||As creatures of instinct, we prefer people who show no signs of deformity or illness, and have a good deal of symmetry to their face. That is usually considered 'pretty' because they are pleasant to look at.





But that quote doesn't deal with overarching terms, but personal and individual cases. Beauty to Jake can only be decided by Jake. If you find someone ugly, and someone else find's them beautiful, you're both right. It's about the individual's right to choose, not what (as a species) we still have programmed in us.|||Very little about physical beauty is in the eye of the beholder. There are common traits that are considered physically attractive, which is apparent in both scientific study and casual observation. Sometimes, we just pretend beauty is in the eye of the beholder to console the less beautiful. It sounds better than a blunt truth such as "you weren't lucky enough to be born beautiful, so your life is just going to be harder than better looking people".|||Beauty may be in the eye if the beholder,


but don''t be in a hurry.


All good things come to people who wait.


The pretty ones may get picked first.,


but it is the intelligent ones who hold out till last.


They know beauty is only skin deep. %26lt;}:-})|||this may help but i dont have the full answer (and my spelling sucks sry!)





i was watching a physcolagy snip on some channel and they were saying people over all look for symetry in the face (tracing back to hyroglifics on egyption walls) and the golden rectangle or something


people look for others who look healthy (less zits and symetrical face)and will have healthy kids with. its a very basic and natural human instinct, esp in girls. Read "uglies" by scott westerfeld if ur really interested in all that. the whole series is really quite good





then,





girls subcontiously look for a strong jaw line and broad sholders in men and proportions of womans boobs, stomache, and butt and c if theyre well balenced.





men look for the waist size and position and full boobs|||1 Beauty IS in the eye of the beholder, because what one person thinks is beauty may be plain to another.





2 When the person themselves think they are beautiful, they send that message to others without saying a word





3 Our society (any society) "conditions" us to think a certain appearance is more desirable than another. Models, movie stars, etc. We are brainwashed into thinking "oh that looks good and this other thing does not"





4 We think a person is beautiful, but maybe once we get to know them they are ugly inside. Or we think someone is unattractive but once we get to know them find they are extremely beautiful because of who they are.





5 Beauty is only skin deep, ugly is to the bone, when beauty fades away, ugly will hold its own. Which means once the surface beauty fades away, or is destroyed by the "beautiful" person, their ugliness will shine through|||There are traits that are considered pretty in general, and then traits specific to you before of your specific genetic makeup and environment. for example, symmetrical features and an hourglass figure are generally considered pretty because we have been naturally selected to detect those features because they tend to correlate to high fertility.


however, how a person smells is a trait that is only considered attractive to specific people. those with genetic makeups more different from your own will smell better, because the ability to detect genetic variation through one's pheromones has also been naturally selected for. that's why it's always your family that tells you that you stink after exercising, but it's possible that you find other people smell better after some exercise.


so to summarize, those with traits that are generally attractive are those that attract a wide variety of people. but beauty is still subjective because there are a lot more factors that come into play, smell being one of them|||It's nature to feel a certain way about something. It's unexplainable. Even I don't know why I don't like the look of curly hair on women.|||Generally speaking studies indicate that beauty is a perception of health and sexual arousal and availability. I'm sure that what is perceived can also be influenced by what is the perceptual norm of a particular culture and probably what one's Mother looked like (for a man).|||The only beauty that truly matters is the one on the inside. A person can be beautiful on the outside but empty. I dont know about you but im not going to marry somebody just based on their looks I wanna have interesting and fun conversations with that person.|||I think a lot of our ideas about beauty may be socially and culturally conditioned to some degree.|||it is in the eyes of the beerholder.not beholder!!!!!!!!!!!