Sexual Attraction and Beauty?

[Sunstone]

Is there really any difference between someone's sexual attractiveness and their beauty? Is physical beauty necessarily sexy? What do you think?

 

[Meow Mix]

Yeah there's a difference; I can find people beautiful who are not sexually attractive to me. For instance there are beautiful men and children, whom I don't find sexually attractive (or with sexual connotation at all).

 

[Father Heathen]

I think the human form can be beautiful without being sexualized.

 

[Meow Mix]

I think the human form can be beautiful without being sexualized.

Agreed, and to add:

Even female forms (I'm attracted sexually to females) can be beautiful without being sexualized. I'm not sexually attracted to nude statues or artistic depictions, for instance; nor am I sexually attracted to some beautiful women that I simply don't see in a sexual context.

 

[Sunstone]

But if you saw a beautiful person of a gender you were attracted to, wouldn't you want to jump his or her bones?

 

[Meow Mix]

But if you saw a beautiful person of a gender you were attracted to, wouldn't you want to jump his or her bones?

No, I addressed that afterwards upon realizing it was probably your intention to find the anwser to specifically that.

No, even people who might potentially fall within someone's sexual attraction zone can be beautiful without being sexualized.

 

[Sunstone]

No, I addressed that afterwards upon realizing it was probably your intention to find the anwser to specifically that.

No, even people who might potentially fall within someone's sexual attraction zone can be beautiful without being sexualized.

I happen to agree with you, but do you think most people are like us? Isn't there a cultural tendency to conflate beauty with sexiness?

 

[Mathematician]

Is there really any difference between someone's sexual attractiveness and their beauty? Is physical beauty necessarily sexy? What do you think?

No, they're inseparable, even if we are not conscious of the fact, but that is not to say we are pursuing a sexual relationship with said person. We can refer to a small boy as 'handsome' without feeling sexual impulses, but we are probably referring to his symmetrical face, bone mass, etc., which are physical characteristics humans attribute to health - ultimately our instinctual way of evaluating someone's potential as a mate.

A gay man can admire the beauty of a woman, for example, and while he's not hoping to jump in bed with her, the reasons he would find her attractive are still based on an ingrained 'reproductive' element.

This isn't PC, but if someone possesses a massive hump on his back and boils that pock-mark his face, very few people are going to find that personal physically attractive because of the reasons aforementioned. There's a reason most human aesthetics have superseded culture: a woman's breasts and lips become larger while aroused, for example.

 

[idav]

I happen to agree with you, but do you think most people are like us? Isn't there a cultural tendency to conflate beauty with sexiness?

It may be a cultural thing but I also think that men and women are two different animals, men being more likely to conflate the two due natural inclinations. With women it seems to be different. I still can't figure out how my wife thinks women can be beautiful without wanting them sexually but that's my retarded man mindset for you.

 

[Alceste]

I am attracted to people primarily for reasons other than their physical beauty. If you give me one physically flawless, boring man and one ordinary looking man who is intelligent and funny, I'm statistically more likely to bang the witty one. I still recognize that the pretty one is pretty, and may spend a little bit of time gazing at him appreciatively before I take the funny guy to bed.

 

[Quintessence]

No, they're inseparable, even if we are not conscious of the fact, but that is not to say we are pursuing a sexual relationship with said person. We can refer to a small boy as 'handsome' without feeling sexual impulses, but we are probably referring to his symmetrical face, bone mass, etc., which are physical characteristics humans attribute to health - ultimately our instinctual way of evaluating someone's potential as a mate.

A gay man can admire the beauty of a woman, for example, and while he's not hoping to jump in bed with her, the reasons he would find her attractive are still based on an ingrained 'reproductive' element.

This isn't PC, but if someone possesses a massive hump on his back and boils that pock-mark his face, very few people are going to find that personal physically attractive because of the reasons aforementioned. There's a reason most human aesthetics have superseded culture: a woman's breasts and lips become larger while aroused, for example.

Is this a roundabout way of saying we're all pedophiliacs? :areyoucra

 

[Shadow Wolf]

They are two separate things.

No, they're inseparable, even if we are not conscious of the fact, but that is not to say we are pursuing a sexual relationship with said person. We can refer to a small boy as 'handsome' without feeling sexual impulses, but we are probably referring to his symmetrical face, bone mass, etc., which are physical characteristics humans attribute to health - ultimately our instinctual way of evaluating someone's potential as a mate.

Not everyone judges a potential mate by physical characteristics. Evolutionary biologist and psychologist can preach it all they want, but different people have different things attractive in a potential mate. Myself, I look at personality and intellect before physical traits. There are also a number of people who claim that men look for someone who would make the best house wife and women look for a man that can best provide for the family. It's such a shame so many in the science field overlook Existentialist philosophies, because you really cannot sum up humanity as a whole in any conventional, convenient, or pretty methods or terms because there are far too many variables, both known and unknown, to scientifically summarize the human experience.
Or maybe it's because I consider myself artistically inclined and I can find beauty in many things, and for me to see beauty in a human without feeling sexual attraction comes easy because I see many things that I find beauty in that have no sexual attributes, unless you attach sexual meaning to them, such as how some compare orchid flowers to a vagina.

Is this a roundabout way of saying we're all pedophiliacs? :areyoucra

I have to agree it does kinda sound like that. Really though, I find it a sad outlook on life when one would mention sexuality when seeing beauty in a child, because there really is nothing that can compare the to life, vigor, innocence, and beauty of the smile of a child. As well as not being able to separate beauty from sexual attraction, as it must be rather boring and frustrating to not be able to separate the two.

 

[Mathematician]

I find it a sad outlook on life ...

Most people are disappointed to hear atheists go through life not believing in a higher power. Whether one is saddened by an outlook or not is irrelevant in regards to its scientific merit.

Sunstone specifically inquired into physical beauty in the second sentence. Personality is a separate issue that transcends sexuality: humans associate with a large, dynamic hierarchy of associates (relatives, lovers, and close friends at top).

I did not say we secretly desire that person. I find certain men attractive but I'm comfortably heterosexual. I'm saying that we all recognize attributes which indicate a strong, sexually successful candidate for someone. Sexuality is the cause of our aesthetic mindset. Our species is one of the most sexually active and successful in history: thinking that our prejudices are removed from this reality is just naive.

 

[Alex_G]

Is there really any difference between someone's sexual attractiveness and their beauty? Is physical beauty necessarily sexy? What do you think?

I do think there is a difference between sexual attractiveness and beauty.

I think sexual attraction represents our evolved mechanisms to drive the engine of reproduction. What sexually arouses us extends further than say simple visuals. Smell can have a powerful effect on sexual attraction, as well as temperature, contact, and so on. Many of these things cant really be described as examples of 'beauty', but they are clearly aspects of sexual attraction.

Additionally i dont think the 2 are dependent on each other. One can happen without the other, such as the appreciation of beauty in art music and nature. Of course this does raise the semantic question of what we mean by beauty in different situations, and whether it in fact endures the same definition. Perhaps one might use the word beauty in a sexual context, but it therefore have a different meaning to your use in describing music even though it shares the same word.

This then seems to raise the question that, given that the 2 can be meaningfully distinguished, and can occur independent of each other, eg the beauty of music not being sexual, if they occur at the same time within the same subject, to what degree do you have power to separate them in your own mind?
When you see a beautiful person that your not sexually attracted to that’s simple, but if you are sexually attracted to them, to what degree does that beauty you see or experience constitute a part of your sexual attraction? Might its absence be enough to diminish that sexual attraction, making their separation trickier? Is beauty and sexual attraction always two independent things that might occur at the same time, or can they sometimes be inherently linked?

Perhaps our capacity for certain appreciations (likely with origins in our evolution of complex reproductive behaviours) when not directly involved in sexual attraction constitutes a nice side effect of life that has led to art and music and a whole host of things to which we can be 'attracted to'. In such examples our descriptor 'beauty' can have meaning totally separate to conveying that any direct sexual attraction is involved. But when we are in a situation that does trigger sexual attraction (which no doubt involves many factors as touched upon eg smell, touch etc), the word beauty might also validly apply, but in a manner that is not only describing something that may be independent to sexual attraction, but something that is integral to it also, at least in that individuals specific example.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

Sunstone specifically inquired into physical beauty in the second sentence. Personality is a separate issue that transcends sexuality: humans associate with a large, dynamic hierarchy of associates (relatives, lovers, and close friends at top).

Your statement was the two are inseparable while mine is that they are. I used personality as an example to demonstrate that not all people seek certain physical characteristics (even unconsciously) as markers for a potential mate. Studies do show people prefer more symmetrical faces, but like so many other problems such studies is that they are conducted in a lab and what happens in a lab can happen very differently in real life, and be very difficult if not impossible to measure and test in a real-life setting. You also claim the our sexuality is the bases of our appreciation of aesthetics, although this is very doubtful as aesthetics is a novel and abstract idea, both of which have been linked to intelligence.

 

[Madhuri]

There are people that I think are gorgeous but I have no sexual attraction for and there are people who I think are actually kind of ugly that I've been sexually attracted to.
Looks are only one factor that influence attractiveness.

 

[jasonwill2]

Is there really any difference between someone's sexual attractiveness and their beauty? Is physical beauty necessarily sexy? What do you think?

People can be sexy without being beautiful and vice versa in my experience, or can both or none.