I've always wondered about what makes attraction and what shapes how you see beauty.

Is attraction something that will always exist between two people, for example if I am attracted to someone will it ever change? Does your perception of beauty shift?(Even if you're looking at the same person.)

I've always thought that beauty was influenced by your family, friends and the media but everyone I've ever been attracted to has not been someone I "should" be attracted to, according to people my age. So what do you guys thing? Is your idea of beauty shaped at an early age?

EDIT:Sorry, I was going somewhere with this but I'm at work and I keep getting distracted. So now I have no idea where I was going or if the topic even makes sense.

I'm thinking it's a mix of imprinted importance on secondary sexual caracteristics, some behaviorism and a bit of social conditioning.

There was something in the school paper today about what makes people attracted to each other. I really can't remember what it said offhand, there were two reasons though.

I guess I contributed nothing. If I can track down a copy I'll post what it said.

This is something I think about as well. Today I was thinking about it in terms of changing attraction, mainly in pedophiles. I was thinking about how a lot of people claim they can be rehabilitated and on some level I think it's wrong because it's who they are as a person and it's not something they can change.

I'm not advocating that they go out and act on these sexual impulses but I don't think that it can be changed so easily.

I'd go with BC on this one, I've yet to see any other reason worth mentioning.

I think attraction to a person can change.
Love however, doesn't.

I say from experience. But then again, I'm still young it could change.

For me, in the summer (my first time single, and my first time legal) attraction was 100% looks, nice hair, nice eyes, nice bod especially. I only danced with and dated man candy. After summer though I just wasn't attracted to them. I'll acknowledge a guy is good looking, sometimes drool, but i won't feel the need to have him close or to get to know him. Right now I'm attracted to personality and a friendly, handsome face. I'm still kind of shallow, I wouldn't date an ugly guy, but, I'll settle for less than Brad Pitt now. Thank goodness my man is everything I could ask for. No joke.

I think attraction and beauty are 2 different things and you can always have one without the other. Art, for example, can be beautiful yet not "attractive" the way you're using it, but you can also have a woman (or man) who isnt the most beautiful, yet you have other reasons for your attraction. (like money) So to me, beauty doesnt necessarily mean attraction, and vice versa.

I think that it stems from looking healthy. Having symmetrical features, at least some bodyfat, good posture, nice complexion, long hair and nails (in females), muscles (in males) are all indicators of health. From there, I think that it's all culture and what's currently in vogue.

Yeah, I believe so. Moreso while growing up and out of adolescence.

You didn't take into account cultural differences. For example, if I think a "thick" girl is attractive, some of my white friends will say she's too fat to be attractive. Sometimes they point out girls they like, and I say they look "anorexic".

I did too. I said that having at least some bodyfat was attractive universally (I think everyone can agree that starving people who look like skeletons *aren't*), but when I said that from there it depends on culture and vogue, I meant that in addition to features that I didn't mention, that the specific degrees to which the features I did mention are present can also differ.

Its a combination of this and having proportions between features being the golden ratio.

I'm very asymmetrical, have pretty much no bodyfat, I slouch majorly, I have acne, very thin hair, though it's sometimes long, and not much in the way of muscle, and I've been told a couple of times that I'm pretty good looking. I've also been told a couple of times that I'm extremely ugly, though. I think I'm a little ugly, but not hideous.

I think it's mucho variable. I guess that's common sense, though. Maybe there's a standard to what's beautiful, but not what's attractive.

And I know that perception of beauty changes, with maturation, at least. There's a basic part of me that sees a girl and wants to rip off her clothes and fuck her till her nose bleeds, but that part of me is much less than the part that isn't attracted to a girl until he gets to know her. Personality is by far the biggest selling point for me.

The rehabilitation of pedophiles isn't about not getting attracted to children; It's not acting on these impulses that matters.

That and smell.

I agree with most everything said, but I've always wondered where my influence on what I find beautiful and attractive came from. It doesn't really fit with anything that has ever been in my life.

I also think that people who say they are attracted most to personality is BS. Yes, a good personality is attractive and a bad one can be a turn off but it takes attraction physically to keep the relationship well. No matter how amazing their personality is if you think they aren't good looking it won't last. You'll end up just friends.

Personality changes the way you see a person, that's why it's person-ality.

My ideas of beauty and aho Im attracted to is strongly based on my own feautres, I'm attracted to those who kind of look like me, I find beauty in others who have similar feautres and body shapes to mine. I have no idea about everyone else, I think theres a big difference in who people are taught cuturally to find attractive and what their body and subconscious find sexually attractive and turn them on... and I've always found that interesting. I can find people completely asthetically pleasing but having sex with them won't enter my mind and I don't feel like bodily reactions from it. Also, I think anything that looks(because of shape and texture usually round and smooth) like it will feel good in our hands is especially attractive and considered beautiful to us. Our sensuality plays a big part moreso than just a visual based attraction and it should be accounted for. That and I'm a hedonist, creepy and have dumped people because their personal smell didn't do it for me.

That's interesting you say that, I've noticed a lot of the guys I tend to like remind me of me, personality wise. They have slightly similar facial features, but for the most part the only thing we share is personality.

I've heard that you look for a mate who is similar to your parent, but that's not true because the guys I tend to be attracted to are nothing like either of my parents, in fact they tend to be the opposite.

I don't know what to tell you. I've been not sexually attracted to girls at all, but after getting to know them thought they were very good-looking.

And I'm not really into somebody at all just by looking at them, I have to know them. I can notice that a girl's pretty, or whatever, but it doesn't do much for me if that's it.

Personality's not just a turn on or a turn off, it's the part that matters. It will make them attractive or not to me. That doesn't mean I don't also notice what they look like, but what they look like and what they look like to me might not be the same thing.

This is of course true, and inextricably linked to the concept of attraction, but I assumed stripping away those factors for the purposes of discussion.

the purposes of discussion? you wouldn't be discussing attraction then, but a pointless, life-irrelevant version of it. anyway, it was directed at the poster above me.

I kind of sort of do that when I think about attraction and beauty on my own terms. I know I shouldn't it just kind of happens. I always wonder if the only reason one person dates another is because they are the best he/she can get at that point in time. I guess that does factor out the human factor.

*shrugs* I guess I just think of attraction in the life-irrelevant version.

Personality goes hand in hand for me, too, when it comes to attraction. I can look at someone and think they're hot/pretty/cute/whatever, but to be actually attracted to them, I need to know what they're like, too.

Also, I know what you mean with the not being attracted to who people think you "should" be.