Ideas on Beauty

Why Do Gentlemen Prefer Blondes?

by Steve Sailer
National Post of Canada, 10/22/99

Blondes have more fun. Gentlemen prefer blondes. If I have only one life to live, why not live it as a blonde?

Tens of millions of women subscribe wholeheartedly to these truisms. One study estimated that of the 30% of North American women who are blonde, 5/6ths had some help from a bottle.

Why?

As we all know, the only reason so many women want to be blonde is because they've been culturally conditioned to follow Anglo-Saxon standards of beauty. Since the industrial revolution happened first in Protestant Europe, a northern white male power structure runs society. They've brainwashed everybody into believing in their superiority. Right?

Wrong. If true, this conventional wisdom should also apply to men. Yet, men are most admired when "tall, dark, and handsome." So, something else must be going on. Sure, there are blonde male movie stars. (Although supposedly "blonde" actors like Kevin Costner and Arnold Schwarzenegger are actually far more brunette than blonde actresses like Meg Ryan and Merryl Streep). But, Hollywood routinely uses blondeness to imply that a man is either a nitwit (see Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels in "Dumb & Dumber") or a soulless corporate weasel (see almost any James Spader or Jay Mohr movie).

Filmmakers profit by pandering to the public's desires to see darker men and fairer women. For the last 15 years, I've been carefully tracking nude scenes in big budget movies. (The sacrifices I make in the name of science ?) In at least 90% , the man's complexion is darker than the woman's. That's why I was especially anticipating the love scene in 1992's "White Men Can't Jump" between the caf?-au-lait Rosie Perez and that quintessential gravity-challenged white man, Woody Harrelson. Would that one break the streak? Well, with enough beige lighting, body makeup, and general movie magic, Rosie and Woody both came out butterscotch colored.

This pattern is not restricted to North America. Bizarre as it may seem, brunette Hispanic actresses like Perez, Jennifer Lopez, and Salma Hayek might have a better chance of making it big in Hollywood than in blonde-bedazzled Latin America. Soap operas and variety shows on Televisa and Univision, the main Mexican-American networks, feature wall to wall blonde babes. It's like watching Latvian TV. (The only time you'll see models who look remotely like the mestizo women who actually watch the Mexican networks are in beer commercials made by socially conscious norteamericano firms like Busch and Miller.) In contrast, Latin America's male stars, while of 100% European descent, are Antonio Banderas- style Latin lovers with smoldering dark looks.

Brazil might be even more bonkers for blondes: their top female celebrity, a combination Oprah and Madonna who calls herself XuXu, is virulently Swedish-looking. That XuXu used to be an item with Brazil's top male celebrity, black soccer god Pele, reminds us that this blonde woman-dark man pattern is highly visible in black-white relationships. In the U.S., 72% of black-white marriages consist of a black husband and a white wife, and in the U.K. 65% . And the great majority of the white wives seem to be blondes of one sort or another. Blacks themselves tend to idolize lighter women (Halle Berry, Vanessa Williams) and darker men (Michael Jordan, Wesley Snipes).

Fortunately, an explanation has been offered by physical anthropologist Peter Frost of Universit? Laval in Quebec. The reason women were traditionally called "the fair sex" is because, all else being equal, they really are fairer. "Although about only a tenth of the difference separating blacks from whites, there does exist a perceptible dissimilarity in pigmentation between men and women. Male skin has more melanin and hemoglobin than does female skin, i.e., men are browner and rud

Human Beauty

by Michael Sones

Appearance matters. What our ancestors have endowed to us through their genes does matter. Beauty does matter. It is a noble idealism which says that it should not. The evidence overwhelmingly is, in many walks of life, that our relative attractiveness influences what others think of us. For example, some of the benefits to attractive looking people are:

their partners tend to be more attractive;
they are thought to be more intelligent and sociable by their teachers who tend to give them better grades in school;
the courts tend to treat them more leniently.
It is said that you cannot judge a book solely by its cover. This, of course, is true. However, basic human psychology has evolved over hundreds of thousands of years and is an adaptation to a hunter-gatherer way of life. Civilization is a recent innovation. For over 99% of the time that humans and their hominid ancestors have been evolving on this planet we were nomadic scavengers, hunters, and gatherers of wild fruits, nuts, and vegetables. "Looks" are important to survival in that way of life. Looks helped ancestral man, and us still, judge what fruit and vegetables are ripe to eat and what bits are bad, brown and need to be removed.


Looks are obviously not reliable in the sense of judging a person's character but they go a long way in helping us to judge how old someone is (at least until recently) and how healthy someone is. Both age and health are important in terms of sexual reproduction so an ancestral man who was going to invest his resources in an ancestral woman and their joint offspring would be attracted to a healthy woman. An ancestral woman would be primarily attracted to a healthy, strong man who would be able to obtain the resources to provide for and protect her and her offspring. However, looks both in Nature and in man can deceive and anxiety about being deceived by the beautiful is rife in human cultures.

The primary biological purpose of beauty is to attract attention and give pleasure for purposes of sex. The primary biological purpose of sex is reproduction both in the animal and human worlds. Evolution has so shaped our brains and minds that we find most beautiful those faces and bodies or aspects of bodies which are most suggestive of being suitably fit for healthy reproduction.

Good looks were a sign of being healthy and relatively disease free. A cross-cultural study by the psychologist David Buss revealed that in the cultures which most prized attractive, healthy looks there was a connection with the prevalence of parasitic diseases. In other words, where there are a lot of parasitic diseases in a culture there is a greater emphasis on the importance of physical appearance. This makes sense in that a physically, healthy, attractive body would be a sign of freedom from or strong resistance to the parasites. The same parallel has been noted among many songbird species. The most colourful come from the most heavily parasitized species-a very colourful display is an indication of their health.

Research shows that even three month old babies stare at photos of the faces of attractive people longer than at photos of unattractive people. The human face and eyes are innately very attractive to babies and hold a baby's attention. This attraction to human faces and, particularly, the attraction to attractive human faces, seems to be built into our psychology. It does not depend upon the culture we grow up in.

There seem to be cross-cultural ideas of facial beauty: preferred features in females are small lower faces with smallish chins, delicate jaws, high cheekbones, full lips, wide smiles and large eyes which are large in proportion to the length of the face.

The most attractive male faces seem to be those that, while emphasizing masculine features such as a strong chin and prominent brow which are s

Wow, interesting readings. I think there are definately advantages to being 'attractive' but one must first define what 'attractive' is. To me, 'attractive' means 'unoffensive' or 'pleasant to look at'. It is possible for people of a culture to agree on what it is to be 'attractive' but it must be stipulated that thinking somebody is attractive and 'being' attracted to someone are two different things.

Isn't it funny how people instinctively react to 'attractive' people differently? It sucks, but it's true. One thing I've always thought of is that the less 'attractive' people are happier. I think that when you're attractive, you are so used to being told you're attractive or things become so easy for you, that you lose sight of how to EARN certain things the way a less 'attractive' person has to. Let's face it, if this world favours 'attractive' people, then the less conventionally 'attractive' have to work a lot harder to get noticed and gain the priviledges the 'attractive' get. It must be so boring to be attractive!

Sometimes I think its a real disadvantage being 'attractive'. I have a friend who is gorgeous, and I mean, GORGEOUS. Everytime we go out, guys just oggle at her, (which is fine by me because it takes the attention off me, hehe) and while it may seem cool to some girls, it disturbs her because they only want one thing from her. I think she likes me because I don't care about that side of her. To me she is my screwed up friend, hehe!

Yeah, I think it would be a curse to be really physically attractive.

lol..

a mans opinion on women

There's nothing more subjective than attraction. There are generalities -- like a full set of teeth -- that occur with frequency, but mostly, it's up to the individual. However, it will always include the naughty bits. ALWAYS! Women attempt to deny this attraction standard; men embody it. That's because men have a brain that is rigid in it's distillation of stimuli -- it likes geometric shapes and obsessive processes. Well, ladies... when coupled with the overpowering presence of testosterone -- our second personality almost -- our brain's attention goes toward your bodies quicker than to a double-decker bus crash! I'm sorry, that's just the way it is.

I've often heard the question, "what part of a man (or woman) do you find sexy?" Women lie and say "eyes," or they'll even go so far as to say "butt" But we all know it's our ballsack that drives you wild. And with men, we might say "hair" or "lips" but we're really thinking "camel toes!" All kidding aside, I can't actually name one part of a woman that is the be-all end-all of sexy. It depends on the woman. Tits and ass are high up on the list of things to consider, though, I gotta be honest....

Women think we like 'em skinny and tall. No, ladies. We like you buns up and kneelin'. Other than that, and under 300 pounds, just about anything is fine. No, seriously... that super-skinny look is a result of decades of fashion moguls designing their clothes for the people on which the items will "hang" -- the best look for clothes. So, don't blame men; blame those hoity-toity fashion designers; and quit buyin' your clothes at the mothertreetrunkin' GAP.

Personally, I'm attracted to petite women. A tall one with a big ass won't go unnoticed, don't get me wrong, but a petite woman really does it for me. I like to be able to engulf a person with my love and hugs. It's a control thing, maybe, but it soothes me to know I'm not lettin' any of her slip through. My beautiful wife is petite, about 5'2", and she's hot as a firecracker!

You see, skimpy clothes and exaggerated body parts will draw my attention. But I don't find these things sexy necessarily -- just glaringly apparent, let's say. But as far as sexy goes, it's the total package. I can't say a woman is sexy, in my opinion, until I've known her a while. Like my wife... she's sexy from her laugh to the way she swipes her hair from her face... to her gentle snore... to her responsiveness to my touch... to her sarcastic remarks about my clumsiness. It's a package deal!

I may not be that attractive myself, unless that "eyes" & "butt" bullbutter is actually true, but I'm a good lover. I'm gonna go ahead and brag about that. I'm attentive and prone to oral activities. I don't mean attentive in bed or prone to oral activities in bed. That's just one place, but I'm that way all the time -- empathic and conversational -- and that's why I'm a good lover. You see, the relationship makes the sex good; the sex doesn't make the relationship good. The reason I'm a good lover has as much to do with Mesilla as it does with me. And absolutely nothing to do with my looks or my body or dumb-ass porn star gyrations or any of that frat-boy butter. And I'm only a good lover with my wife, because of our relationship.
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hmmmm...

and who cares for blondes? i dont. What is so great about blondes? i dont know.

hey hey hey Luz. I'm blonde- all natural. So is Pheonix (though I wonder about the natual part;p). I don't think there is anything great about blondes- I'd rather have red hair. I've never experienced more attraction because of being blonde. More often I get the reaction from guys that I have no working knowledge of tools or video games. But I think that goes for most women.

oh did you think i meant ABOUT blondes? nooo lol i meant whats so being blonde, meaning hair color. I dont know..hair colors kool and all, but i dont see how hair color is like the main focus on the mans fantasy..hmm

so great being*

Um, okay. lol. Libragirl, very thoughtful post, and I agree with you that I think to be freakishly, unbelievably good-looking could definitely have its drawbacks.

Gwen, as far as my haircolor, I was born with that white, platinum blonde color, then as I got older it got more golden, and now the natural color is like a dark blonde with really light streaks of almost platinum through it. But, I often highlight or color it, it's been almost every color but red. Presently I'm letting the natural color come back in because I'm sick of the damage from coloring it. I just find that my skin tone and eyes look better with blonde shades, and that is why I prefer them. Nothing to do with pleasing men, or women, or anyone, I just prefer being blonde...ER. lol. So yeah, it's naturally blonde, but not pale, platinum blonde, more like dark blonde.

That was a pretty funny article Luz, interesting 🙂

Oh P.S., I hear you Gwen about people having lower expectations of you because of being blonde...god I hate that, it's so stupid. But anyway, as far as experiencing more attraction when I'm at my blondest (lol), I haven't so much noticed that, but what I did definitely notice was how approachable I *didn't* seem to be with dark brown hair when I decided to try that color out. I just noticed that I didn't seem to have as many strangers start talking to me out of nowhere, which for some strange reason, is something that happens to me a lot. lol. I noticed that I felt more serious with brown hair. It's so strange, I don't know why I felt that way, I just sort of felt less happy. And I think brown hair is perfectly fine and looks great on a lot of women, but for me, I just feel happier as a blonde. I have no freaking clue why this is. Okay, enough about hair. lol.

Top 10 Male Body Parts Women Love

By David Strovny

Every man is dying to know what male body parts turn women on the most. Well, guess what? I surveyed over 100 women and asked them that very question. Not only did their replies blow me away, but I quickly came to the realization that I need to get my sorry butt into the gym on a more permanent basis.
Although the question revolved solely around body parts, women had some things to add regarding the parts they selected. Whether it had to do with proper hygiene or grooming, the women were not shy about their demands. And we all know how supply and demand go hand-in-hand.

ten parts of men



The following list is made up of the most popular selections in specific order from what's fine and dandy to the very best. Take note and learn how to keep your woman happy.

10- Sharply shaped shoulders

Of the 100 women surveyed, a vast majority had a lot to say about shoulders. They like it when a man has well-defined, broad shoulders because they're a sign of strength and masculinity.

One woman wrote, "I love when a man moves his shoulders and you're able to see the (muscle) definition." Another gal added, "Running my fingers across broad, lean ones excites me immeasurably. That's why I love giving my boyfriend massages in this area." So it's time to get to work at the gym, and as the list goes on, you'll quickly come to the same realization yourself.

9- Chiseled chest

All men love a nice pair of breasts -- real or fake. As long as they look good, we're not complaining. Well, women have the same requirements (minus that whole fake thing though).

Perfect pecs are part of the whole image women have conjured up in their fantasy-filled daydreams. Most ladies said that they like being able to envision what a man's chest looks like under his clothes. The way a sweater or chemise falls on a man's body, they profess, reveals a lot about what's under there.

How fair is that? They get to have those push-up, water-filled, padded bras that create a complete illusion of what's really under there. And what do we have? I think Seinfeld's Kramer was on the right track with the man's bra -- or should I say The Bro?

8- Bulging biceps

Come on... you knew it was coming. Big, well-defined biceps don't just signify strength, they also reveal that you're taking good care of your body. And if there's one thing women love, it's a man who takes care of things.

As with the chest, women love when they're able to get a hint of a man's biceps either through his sweater or when he wears a T-shirt and they can see the start of the rippling muscle (their words, not mine).

It also doesn't hurt when guys are able to lift them up and maneuver their bodies effortlessly when they're engaging in crazy "slam you up against the wall" sex. So I guess that mom was just kidding all those times she told us that it's what's on the inside that counts. Real funny.

7- Luscious lips

Oh my, what big ass lips you have! That's right guys; we're not the only ones who long for Angelina Jolie-like lips. Women like full mouths on men not just for their aesthetic appeal, but for those more intimate things we can do with them.

One woman wrote, "I love to suck on a man's thick lips until they're swollen and then I like to rub ice on them while I kiss them." Yeah, I like to do that to lips too, just not the ones she's referring to.

But women were very diverse in the lip department. Some liked only thick bottom lips and some even preferred thinner lips. Perhaps that's because they all prefer the...

6- Tantalizing tongue

If there's one talent that women appreciate immensely, it's a man's ability to use his tongue as though it were a saliva-producing penis with an attitude. Lots of women were quick to point out that the tongue i

i dont know..i dont really go for buff well fit men..only some are optional..i sorta like those skinny/sorta buff tall guys..like brandon boyd from incubus.. *-*

Yeah Luz I definately agree with you. I think the words are "strong and lean"

He is good looking, no doubt about that. I would consider him to be relatively "buff" though! 🙂