Women are attracted to relativity

[LordFall]

@Schizophonia I hope you're now gonna make this hinge account ASAP. There is a funny parallel that I read in Cal Newport's book so good they can't ignore you where when you're about to break free of the wage slavery of 9-5 there will be a random force like your boss clamping down on you to make it more difficult. God seems to present us with resistance when we are about to level up to test if we really want to become more powerful or abundant or if we are not ready yet. 

[Xonas Pitfall]

7 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

My post directly answered the question of this thread.

Women's preferences are more relative because position in a social hierarchy is needed for their survival, and position in a social hierarchy is relative.

That's why women are attracted to social proof and men are attracted to tits. Social proof is more relative than nice tits.

If everyone in the world thinks I'm a celebrity, I will get laid a lot more just cause of that. Whether people see me as a celebrity is very relative. Social things are much more fluid and malleable than tits are, although these days even tits are malleable, haha.

4 hours ago, Hojo said:

The fiction of not needing toughness and protection allows the woman to be able to go after the tech billionaire.

7 hours ago, LordFall said:

Those elite women weren't necessarily optimizing for raw biological sex appeal; they were optimizing for status demarcation to separate themselves from lowborn women.

Yes, but that's exactly my point. You have to consider that if you were born in that exact era, as a man, you would likely genuinely find those women more attractive than what we consider attractive today. I don't mean you'd just think, "Eh... she's kind of ugly but... she's from a noble family, so I should marry her, fuck her, etc." I mean you'd actually feel attraction, desire, excitement, and all the same emotional reactions people feel when they see someone they're attracted to.

That's why I push back against the idea that men have some consistent, objective evaluation system that tells them what women are attractive. (at least more or less than women do for men).

Plenty of men even today pursue women who aren't really their "type" but just because they're considered socially desirable and conventionally attractive. The idea of the "trophy wife" exists for a reason. Social influence affects male attraction and mate choice very much too.

That's why I don't really see how one is more relative than the other. If a woman living in the caveman-era would never bat an eye at some skinny nerdy guy and he'd essentially be pushed out of the "gene" pool, but today that same guy can suddenly become attractive because he owns a company, that shows how relative attraction can be. Likewise, if you were born a man in a period where higher body fat or extravagant pale skin aristocratic makeup were seen as attractive and signs of status, you'd probably find those women attractive too, even if those traits don't align with modern beauty standards. If you as a man were born into a different village, culture, or time period, you'd probably end up finding the women in that environment attractive, while other beauty standards might seem unappealing to you. Likewise, in some societies, it may have been far more important for a woman to come from a noble family, be highly educated, be exceptionally religious, etc.

Society heavily influences what people perceive as the baseline level of attractiveness, and it also heavily influences what people perceive as being at the top of the hierarchy, so to speak. That's why I don't really see how one is supposedly objective while the other is relative.

[Natasha Tori Maru]

The way I try to see it is biology providing a range of potential "attraction mechanisms" while culture adds in its hierarchy of what is important, desirable and meaningful. Then you have individual preferences further moving the needle to modify the above.

Neither sex has a purely objective attraction system. 

The question skews more toward how much of attraction is biological vs socially constructed? 

Not whether one sex is objective while the other relative. The premise is too reductive.

[Jirh]

8 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

Women's preferences are more relative because position in a social hierarchy is needed for their survival, and position in a social hierarchy is relative.

The best social place for survival is minimum wage. Being invisible. Away from danger.

But we all know the hierarchy isn't about survival. It's about ego.

Dating up is a feature of the ego.

But raw attraction is not that.

Raw attraction is what pulls you despite your ego.

So women might marry for money or social status. But they likely will cheat with a more compatible guy, who might even be a loser.

Raw attraction doesn't care about social standards.

Edited 2 hours ago by Jirh

[Jirh]

17 minutes ago, Natasha Tori Maru said:

The way I try to see it is biology providing a range of potential "attraction mechanisms" while culture adds in its hierarchy of what is important, desirable and meaningful. Then you have individual preferences further moving the needle to modify the above.

Neither sex has a purely objective attraction system. 

The question skews more toward how much of attraction is biological vs socially constructed? 

Not whether one sex is objective while the other relative. The premise is too reductive.

💯

Plus, I would argue that the individual biological preferences are the objective truth and are much stronger than culture.

Doesn't mean it has to manifest in public, though. Truth can be hidden. People can have secret undercovers relationships.

[Xonas Pitfall]

31 minutes ago, Natasha Tori Maru said:

The way I try to see it is biology providing a range of potential "attraction mechanisms" while culture adds in its hierarchy of what is important, desirable and meaningful. Then you have individual preferences further moving the needle to modify the above.

Neither sex has a purely objective attraction system. 

The question skews more toward how much of attraction is biological vs socially constructed? 

Not whether one sex is objective while the other relative. The premise is too reductive.

Yes, I agree with this way more!

But then I'd say it depends more on whether you're looking for something short-term or long-term than on gender itself.

If you're seeking short-term fun / lust, then I'd say both sexes are going to be influenced more by primal attraction and immediate physical cues. You'll see both men and women gravitating toward the classic hook-up/bar dynamics: he's tall, muscular, has a symmetrical attractive face, seems confident and fun; she's sexy, beautiful, has an hourglass figure, seems sexually open, playful and fun, and so on. In those situations, people are often making judgments based on immediate attraction.

For long-term attraction, though, I think both men and women become much more context-dependent because they're considering how well someone fits into their life and the society they're in. Things like social norms, religion, family background, career, financial stability, and reputation start to matter a lot more.

For example, society largely influences how acceptable promiscuity is perceived to be, what people expect from a husband or wife, how important religion is, what careers are considered respectable or financially secure, how much weight is placed on someone's family background, etc.

I guess that way I could argue the OP's point as leaning more true through this lens is that many men seem more willing to pursue short-term relationships, while women have historically been judged much more harshly for doing the same. As a result, women's choices have often been more oriented toward marriage or long-term partners than short-term relationships, more socially relative, with more factors being considered.

Edited 2 hours ago by Xonas Pitfall

[Xonas Pitfall]

13 minutes ago, Jirh said:

So women might marry for money or social status. But they likely will cheat with a more compatible loser.

Exactly. You can also see this manifest in men through the Madonna-whore complex. Society tells them what the "picture-perfect good girl" wife and family should look like, so they marry that kind of woman. But privately, they may have a completely different set of attractions or desires, leading to dissatisfaction and infidelity.

[Jirh]

3 minutes ago, Xonas Pitfall said:

If you're seeking short-term fun / lust, then I'd say both sexes are going to be influenced more by primal attraction and immediate physical cues.

Yes, but not necessarily physical. It could be psychological or intellectual or even spiritual cues.

It all comes down to how they make you feel.

[Jirh]

4 minutes ago, Xonas Pitfall said:

Exactly. You can also see this manifest in men through the Madonna-whore complex. Society tells them what the "picture-perfect good girl" wife and family should look like, so they marry that kind of woman. But privately, they may have a completely different set of attractions or desires, leading to dissatisfaction and infidelity.

💯🤝🏻

[Natasha Tori Maru]

10 minutes ago, Jirh said:

Plus, I would argue that the individual biological preferences are the objective truth and are much stronger than culture.

Interesting line of thought.

I think this pushes to "how objective are biological mechanisms?" 

Which is interesting. I can think of "pain" being a good example to steelman this. Pain, you could argue, is a pretty strong objective indicator that triggers a biological response of "not good, get away, warning, stop". Our experience of pain is objective on this way, removing the range of perceptive tolerance, it still indicates danger or something wrong. 

Pushing this into men's response to the appearance of women: waist to hip ratio, breasts, arse. Clear skin. Shiny hair. Bright eyes. All can induce similar "objective" (you could argue) responses in men. Many times, outside their control. 

Women experience something similar, but the example is better suited to men due to the strength of their sexual drivers and biological responses.

[Natasha Tori Maru]

Health indicators over appearance might be a better frame.

[Xonas Pitfall]

1 minute ago, Jirh said:

Yes, but not necessarily physical. It could be psychological or intellectual or even spiritual cues.

It all comes down to how they make you feel.

Yes, definitely! I was mainly trying to address the original question, which was about how much mate preferences are socially influenced or relative for men versus women.

If you're pursuing something short term, then, as you said, immediate feelings tend to dominate. People rely more on instinct, physical attraction, chemistry, and personal preferences, so the decision is much more subjective, personal, and emotional.

If you're looking for something long term, and you're being deliberate about it, then it makes sense to consider a lot more socially relative factors. Things like whether someone has a stable career (largely dictated by society), whether your values align, family background, religious beliefs, financial stability, lifestyle compatibility, and long-term goals all become much more important. Those are the kinds of preferences that tend to vary much more across cultures, time periods, and social expectations than immediate physical attraction.

You can see both men and women sometimes choosing partners they might not even be the most attracted to because they believe that's what they should want, or because that choice better conforms to their social circle, family, or cultural expectations.

[Jirh]

@Natasha Tori Maru Why did you have to pick pain as an example? I know from experience some women are literally turned on by pain.

This should put the entire framework into jeopardy.

Individual preferences are the truth, not general trends.

[Xonas Pitfall]

2 minutes ago, Natasha Tori Maru said:

Pushing this into men's response to the appearance of women: waist to hip ratio, breasts, arse. Clear skin. Shiny hair. Bright eyes. All can induce similar "objective" (you could argue) responses in men. Many times, outside their control. 

Women experience something similar, but the example is better suited to men due to the strength of their sexual drivers and biological responses.

I think women experience this as well, which is why I feel it's more about short-term versus long-term mating strategies than gender itself.

Height, a symmetrical face, stereotypically masculine facial features, appearance of strength, thick hair, lean muscularity, a defined jawline, a deeper voice, confident body language, and overall physical attractiveness. Health indicators.

[Jirh]

4 minutes ago, Natasha Tori Maru said:

Health indicators over appearance might be a better frame.

Not even.

Sexual preferences are just encoded in our biology. We cannot negotiate them.

[Jirh]

1 minute ago, Xonas Pitfall said:

I think women experience this as well, which is why I feel it's more about short-term versus long-term mating strategies than gender itself.

Height, a symmetrical face, stereotypically masculine facial features, appearance of strength, thick hair, lean muscularity, a defined jawline, a deeper voice, confident body language, and overall physical attractiveness. Health indicators.

Health can manifest and look differently for different people.

You are not attracted to a healthy horse.

Or maybe are, how can I know? 😂 

[Xonas Pitfall]

1 minute ago, Jirh said:

Health can manifest and look differently for different people.

You are not attracted to a healthy horse.

Or maybe are, how can I know? 😂 

Hahaha, don't look at me, Chief - ask the furries, maybe...? 

I'd say there's definitely some merit to that. A lot of the traits we find attractive are probably influenced by the fact that they're also perceived as indicators of health. Not all of them, of course, but many are associated with sexual development and health. Things like facial symmetry, secondary sexual characteristics, clear skin, a healthy physique, and other cues can all signal underlying health or reproductive maturity.

[Jirh]

4 minutes ago, Xonas Pitfall said:

Things like facial symmetry, clear skin

Not these. If these were the metrics for attraction, they would be the general population, due to natural selection.

The reality is that these features are rare. They're here by luck or by mutation.

The other indicators, yes. But again, they can manifest differently for different people.

[Leo Gura]

49 minutes ago, Jirh said:

Raw attraction doesn't care about social standards.

LOL.

It DOES if you have a pussy. 

A pussy cannot afford to not care about social standards. Social standards are life and death, not a silly game.

Edited 2 hours ago by Leo Gura

[Carl-Richard]

Men are attracted to femininity which is quality (e.g. the quality of physical beauty, or feminine energy, depth, groundedness, feeling). Females are attracted to masculinity which is quantity (going from A to B, gathering x and y, structure, logos, behavior rather than looks). Quantities are relational (one thing vs another thing, that amount of things vs another amount of things). Of course a quality can be compared, that's quantity (there is no quantity without quality). But the more you go in the masculine direction, the more quantity, the more feminine, the more quality.