It amazes me how many Muslims have such good teeth. You always seem them angry on the news yelling, and they have these great white teeth.
Now perhaps the news crews only pick out the ones with good teeth to show. After all they are “bearing them in anger” to the USA. But it doesn’t matter if they’re Iranian, Afgani or Arab they all have these great teeth.
I keep thinking they must have a great dental plan 
(or more likely no soft drinks)
I’d doubt your intellectual honesty. (The general “you” not you personally.)
Yup
I would argue that you aren’t racist if you don’t dismiss someone out of hand for being in a certain racial group. Having a preference for certain features is not the same thing.
Heck, many darker cultures have a preference for lighter skin, while Americans actually seem to tend towards darker skin, with all the push for tanning.
The tanning is just a current trend. For most of history, dark skin has not been desirable. This is just a fad and it will probably pass at some point.
Yes, many “dark” cultures exhibit preferences for lighter skin. I’m always amazed when I catch a clip of some Bollywood thing and everyone in it looks European to me. Likewise on Mexican news channels, the news anchors all look like they could pass as French or Hungarian or something. Totally different from what most Americans think of “Mexican” looking. All of the female movie stars in the Philippines look absolutely nothing like Malays, they look like light skinned Spanish which is what they probably are, predominantly, in their background.
I did a google image search for “libyan people”.
This was the first image for a man:
http://www.joshuaproject.net/profiles/photos/p13169.jpg
And this was the first image for a woman:
Not scientific, but I imagine he’d be extremely happy to hook up with her!
Totally true for my country, Serbia. Although it is a matter of taste, of course.
I’m a straight female and I find 99% of the men here physically unattractive. I’ve lived here for most of my life yet I’ve only seen a handful of guys I would consider describing as “attractive” (heh, thankfully I’m in a relationship with one now).
But the girls, for the most part, are above average looking.
In fact, I discussed this with my friend the other day and she had the same observation… so we might be onto something.
Dunnow, could it be because of Indian men’s often-gorgeous eyes?
Very much agree with what Anaamika said.
In my class trip to Greece, some of my classmates were disappointed by the unatractiveness of Greek guys. I did remind them that they should be searching for short George Michael lookalikes, rather than the tall Norse gods which magazines back home (in another country of short, dark men) insisted we had to like: wrong end of Europe for the second kind! I have absolutely no problem with the general attractiveness of Italian or Greek guys, but I know better than to expect long legs there
One of my Turkish friends was super-pissed after returning home from a visit to Italy. “Italian man very handsome!” he lamented. “But Italian woman, not handsome!”
I will say there was a noticeable drop in attractiveness of the local population when I went from Istanbul to Athens. Turks of both sexes tended to be very good-looking. I remember thinking to myself while strolling around Athens that the Greeks weren’t nearly as good-looking. I also haven’t heard of any stereotypes about Greeks being especially sexy (although Turkish men, bless 'em, they have an intense love for every variety of female, and that includes Greek women).
Ditto here. Well, not quite–I find Russian women’s features a bit “sharp” for my tastes, if that makes any sense. But they tend to be regarded, in my experience among my male American peers, to be in the top tier of hotness.
In general, I find women from the Slavic countries and Hungary to be more attractive than their male counterparts, but I’m really terrible at judging male attractiveness. It’s more that I find women from these countries to be particularly hot, especially Czech Republic, Hungary, and Serbia.
Michael Caine’s autobiography – where you can find the SDMB’s beloved quote about JAWS IV – contains a quick aside about Brazil, where he notes that (a) the men are more attractive than the women, and (b) the most attractive women turned out to be men.
I can’t really relate because from my POV men everywhere are hopelessly ugly, while women are beautiful. Whether it’s some war torn desert hellhole or a primitive tribe in the middle of a jungle there always seem to be ridiculously hot women. I’ve even seen good looking Inuit women.
The biggest difference in hotness between the sexes seems to be Arab women over men though. Some of their men look downright trollish. I’d also agree with Eastern European girls having a significant lead over their counterparts.
It’s entirely subjective I suppose, but I’d tend to agree with you (your general thesis, not your specific examples). When I visited Iceland the women were conspicuously gorgeous, while the men were pretty average. Everyone in my group (3 guys 3 girls, Americans) came to the same conclusion.
You must not read National Geographic. I swear their photographers go out of their way to find the absolute ugliest woman in whatever village they’re covering to sit as the subject of an “artistic” portrait. At least they used to.
The story goes that when the Vikings settled Iceland way back they would raid villages and only kidnap the hottest looking women. Not sure if that is true but it’s widely accepted that the women there look great.
You haven’t? Come on, it was a Greek woman who gave us the description “aphrodisiac”!
[quote=“Mississippienne, post:28, topic:576813”]
One of my Turkish friends was super-pissed after returning home from a visit to Italy. “Italian man very handsome!” he lamented. “But Italian woman, not handsome!”
I will say there was a noticeable drop in attractiveness of the local population when I went from Istanbul to Athens. QUOTE]
omg i couldnt disagree more …I ve never been to Istanbul but when i went from the greek island of Kos to bodrum -turkey i noticed a significant drop in attractiveness that was verified by my other female friends as well…Turkish people tended to be shorter (both sexes-pretty much as short as Italians, Greeks tend to be the tallest in the mediteranean …) and with rougher facial features,(no offense thats only my personal opinion) and turkish men well ,they usually were thick-short with fat noses… ://
I was recently noticing this about the UK. While there certainly are beautiful women there (Catherine Zeta-Jones, Keira Knightley, Kate Middleton and many others), I find the average UK woman, to me, to not be attractive - again, to me. I was wondering if it’s a “cultural thing,” since I am American so I’m used to “typical American looks” and I’m not used to “typical UK looks.”
It’s a personal preference, apparently. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder…
I tend to think this about middle easterners, that the men are more attractive than the women. In western nations it is the opposite, the women are more attractive (but I’m a heterosexual, so I guess that plays a role).
I wonder what role culture plays in it. In nations where women are less educated than men, don’t get as good nutrition as men or where cosmetics are considered immoral the women aren’t going to be as attractive as men.
I’ve noticed vegans tend to be more handsome and attractive than people who eat junk food. Part of that is a good diet makes you young and healthy both on the inside and the outside (better skin, better hair, whiter teeth, etc). So in nations where women are malnourished or can’t get makeup they are going to be uglier.
Well, say no more… 
Patently wrong. Obviously you never been to Russia so will ascribe this to a plain lack of 1st hand experience.
I know this is a 2nd post in the thread but I saw it right after my knee-jerk reaction post