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What Makes Pretty
(A Short Study of Human Sexual Attractiveness)
13 Apr 2001
Every person will tell you that they know what is attractive, but from almost
everyone, you will get a slightly different description of what makes a person
sexually desirable. But is there any underlying, possibly subconscious, standard
that all people follow when making decisions about a mate? Anthony Zee thinks
so, and I’ll analyze his opinions with the help of Denis Dutton. By the end of
this article, I’ll show that the conflicting views of these essayists can show a
compromise of ideas.
Zee’s article, ‘On Fat Deposits around the Mammary Glands in the Females of Homo
Sapiens’ discusses the evolutionary purpose for globular mammary glands. During
this discussion, he addresses the topic of sexual selection, and points to the
shape of women’s bodies as the major factor in the choosing of female mates.
The opposing view comes from Denis Dutton. In ‘Art and Sexual Selection’, Dutton
discusses the purpose of art talent, and art appreciation in humans. His ideas
are centered on the book, “The Mating Mind: How Sexual Choice Shaped the
Evolution of Human Nature” by Geoffrey Miller. During his discussion, like Zee,
Dutton addresses sexual selection, but he is pointing instead to intelligence,
and creativity as the major factors in mate selection.
Zee points out several different
physical aspects of women that seem to be universally considered attractive. He
starts by pointing out that a solid connection can be made between the symmetry
of a body, and it’s level of sexual attractiveness. Likely, the males’ minds are
geared to look for this as a sign of health in their possible mate. (Zee 200)
More important, though is the placement of fat around the body. Fat that is
stored in the breasts and in the buttocks is retained, by design, until needed
to support a fetus, so the body tries to hang on to this fat for as long as it
can. “In the ancestral environment, women were either gestating or lactating
most of the time. In modern women, Nature is constantly preparing for the
pregnancy that never comes.”(Zee 206) This fat placement could be another
tip-off to the subconscious male mind of who would be a good mate, because it
would be wasted effort to impregnate a woman who doesn’t have the resources to
keep the fetus alive.
Along these same lines, Zee discusses the ratio of the size of the waist to the
size of the hips. In scientific studies, it seems to be universal that this
ratio is Ideal when at 7.0. Men can, subconsciously, tell the difference even
between minute differences in this particular ratio.
The male perceptual apparatus is finely tuned to gauge this ratio. Looking at
the cartoon drawings of various female figures used in the experiments, I as one
particular male have no trouble seeing a difference of 0.1 in this ratio. I
think I would probably not be able to tell a difference of 0.1 in the ratio of
arm to leg length, however. (Zee 207)
Dutton’s claim is that at the divergence of homo sapiens from the tree of
evolution, physical appearance stopped being the major factor in mate selection.
Taking its place were the mental and social values that made life easier in that
ancient world.
He specifically points out humor and artistic ability as indicators of
creativity and problem-solving, story-telling and ornate language as indicators
of memory and intelligence, respectively, and morality, gossip, and
self-consciousness would be indicators of social survival skills, which were
becoming more and more important as humans developed. (Dutton 514)
Dutton’s main point is that the creation of artwork can signify more about a
person, than any other action. The rarity of the materials that are used can be
an indicator of wealth or social connections. The physical difficulty in
completing the work successfully can be an indicator of health and endurance.
Finally, the quality of the work can indicate creativity, intelligence, and
hand-eye coordination. These qualities were all important to have for the early
human, as well as today’s human, (Dutton 514) causing the physical traits
described by Zee to lose their place in the center ring of human sexuality.
The two views that are represented by Zee’s and Dutton’s articles are only
conflicting because they each claim that theirs is the primary cause for
attraction. To myself, it seems that neither view is correct in that sense, but
that a compromise must be reached, and that it must be realized that such things
are different from person to person.
Let’s look at Zee’s ideas first. The best way, I think, to analyze Zee’s article
is to look at a world where his ideas are true. In that world, physical
attraction supersedes mental and emotional attraction. In evolutionary terms,
what would this mean? It would mean that only the genes that cause round
breasts, and .7 waist-to-hip ratios would be passed along by the females, and
only those genes that cause a squared, defined jaw line and a trim, symmetrical
body shape would be passed along from the male. In Zee’s world there would be
very few people who do not meet the criterion for beauty. In our world, very few
people do meet these requirements, and looking around, very few even come close.
It’s clear that our world does not match Zee’s world. At one point in the
development of humans, maybe our world did resemble Zee’s more closely, but we
must have diverged from that some time ago.
That divergence was part of Dutton’s argument. As stated before, he claims that
at about the time when homo sapiens became homo sapiens, they lost their
preference for the physical, and became art-seeking creatures, when searching
out a mate. Let’s look at a world in Dutton’s universe. In this world, like in
Zee’s world, we have a different evolutionary tree. And, every picture of that
tree is masterfully rendered. For, in that world all people have received the
genes that make an artistic master, having been bred by our attraction to fine
artists with nimble hands. This of course is assuming that there are any people
around at all, because what causes the initial attraction between people seems
to be a question. I suppose that men and women in Dutton’s world don always a
sandwich board, displaying their wares. That world also is very unlike our own.
In our world, it is still a thing to be admired, when an individual can
free-hand sketch an aesthetic depiction of the human form, showing that both
ability and shape define an attractive human. And, the fact that people come in
so many different shapes, and so many different levels of artistic ability shows
that people have many different sets of priorities when scouting a prospective
mate, and that no generalities on the subject could possibly be accurate.
Works Cited:
Anthony Zee, “On Fat Deposits around the Mammary Glands in the Females of Homo
Sapiens”, New Literary History, 32.1 (2001) p. 201-216
Denis Dutton, “Art and Sexual Selection”, Philosophy and Literature, 24.2 (2000)
p. 512-521
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