# Does such a thing as "objective beauty" exist in humans? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [October 26, 2011, 2:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-such-a-thing-as-objective-beauty-exist-in-humans/600811 "2011-10-26T02:31:44Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Mama\_Zappa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/71e660/32.png) [@Mama\_Zappa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mama_Zappa)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2011, 3:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-such-a-thing-as-objective-beauty-exist-in-humans/600811/21 "2011-10-27T15:20:19Z")
There’ve been studies that correlate what a fairly diverse group of people find attractive, and there ARE some features that tend to be found attractive by nearly everyone. Things like symmetry, childlike features (men seeking in women that is), etc. > **[Physical attractiveness](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physical_attractiveness)** > > Physical attractiveness is the degree to which a person's physical features are considered aesthetically pleasing or beautiful. The term often implies sexual attractiveness or desirability, but can also be distinct from either. There are many factors which influence one person's attraction to another, with physical aspects being one of them. Physical attraction itself includes universal perceptions common to all human cultures such as facial symmetry, sociocultural dependent attributes and per Haven’t read that whole article but I think some of those are cited. There was a show on one of the science-y channels talking about this as well - probably TLC or Discovery Channel. ---
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2011, 3:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-such-a-thing-as-objective-beauty-exist-in-humans/600811/22 "2011-10-27T15:42:51Z")
> [@rogerbox](#): > > Male, no. > > There are plenty of women I find ridiculously beautiful that my male friends would find odd looking, and mainstream celebrities rarely ever do ANYTHING for me. I get accused of trying to be cool or trendy when I say that Jessica Alba or Scarlet Johanssen or Angelina Jolie are not attractive to me. I don’t know anything about the personalities of the first two, and only a little about the third, but I’ve never said the big deal about any of them. Their faces aren’t ugly, but none of them seem anything close to a great beauty to me. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2011, 3:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-such-a-thing-as-objective-beauty-exist-in-humans/600811/23 "2011-10-27T15:56:16Z")
> [@Fear\_Itself](#): > > Men are most attracted to female figures where the [waist is 70% of the hips](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19688590).. _New Zealand_ men. How many men from, say, Namibia were part of the study? Or Mongolia? How many Chileans? Beauty is culturally defined. Unless you’re adapting for all cultures, you can’t generalize. ---
**Author:** ![Baal\_Houtham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/baal_houtham/32/13604_2.png) [@Baal\_Houtham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baal_Houtham)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2011, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-such-a-thing-as-objective-beauty-exist-in-humans/600811/24 "2011-10-27T16:10:14Z")
> [@rachelellogram](#): > > I look like two totally [different](http://i.imgur.com/81ZJQ.png) [people](http://i.imgur.com/aSSn0.png) ([source image](http://i.imgur.com/NSqHg.png)). Nah, you just used a photo where you’re turned slightly to your right. That made your face/forehead/mouth doubly different in the two shots. And while your mouth is asymmetrical in the source photo, that could just be a passing expression. I’m sure that you (and almost everyone) would look odd, even if the shot was taken perfectly, but in this case most of the strangeness (extremely narrow vs. extremely wide) comes from the camera angle. ---
**Author:** ![Stoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stoid/32/272_2.png) [@Stoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stoid)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2011, 8:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-such-a-thing-as-objective-beauty-exist-in-humans/600811/25 "2011-10-27T20:33:29Z")
> [@PlainJain](#): > > No cite but I’ve read that very young babies gravitate to symmetrical faces and studies to determine “beauty” largely favor symmetry. Babies have a good eye, though. My ex, who is Japanese, and I were standing in line at Frys behind an Asian man holding his baby over his shoulder. I would say the baby was maybe 6 months? The baby looked at my ex and goo-gooed at him and smiled and was all twinkly. Then the baby looked at me and all the smily twinkles vanished completely and he looked totally confused and disturbed. (_insert joke about my scary face here_) It was remarkable; both my ex and I assumed the baby had spent his short time on earth pretty much entirely among Asians and my big Caucasian face totally weirded him out. Considering that I have almond-shaped eyes and I was always assumed to be Asian myself when I was a baby it seemed to be a pretty sophisticated perception on the baby’s part that I was “other”. ---
**Author:** ![Kozmik](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/8dc957/32.png) [@Kozmik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kozmik)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2011, 9:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-such-a-thing-as-objective-beauty-exist-in-humans/600811/26 "2011-10-27T21:05:38Z")
[Yes](http://www.beautyanalysis.com/index2_mba.htm). [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-such-a-thing-as-objective-beauty-exist-in-humans/600811.md?page=1)