# Standards of beauty: Innate vs Cultural **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [June 19, 2018, 2:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/standards-of-beauty-innate-vs-cultural/816380 "2018-06-19T14:10:13Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![you\_with\_the\_face](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/ecccb3/32.png) [@you\_with\_the\_face](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/you_with_the_face)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2018, 9:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/standards-of-beauty-innate-vs-cultural/816380/41 "2018-06-19T21:13:00Z")
> [@F-P](#): > > So if you believe that the development of white skin itself was the result of some survival advantage in colder climates (a notion that is not particularly controversial AFAICT) then it would follow that an innate preference for that trait would also confer a reproductive advantage. I disagree this conclusion necessarily follows. A trait will be selected for in a population if people without that trait propagate genes less frequently than those with it. This could be due to early death, lower fertility, or early death of offspring. So if pale skin emerged in Eurasians because those with dark skin were more likely to have debilitating vitamin D deficiencies, there is no need to posit that sexual preference played a role; early death and low fertility are enough to explain the mechanism for natural selection. ---
**Author:** ![Fotheringay-Phipps](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/d9b06d/32.png) [@Fotheringay-Phipps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fotheringay-Phipps)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2018, 9:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/standards-of-beauty-innate-vs-cultural/816380/42 "2018-06-19T21:27:56Z")
> [@you\_with\_the\_face](#): > > I disagree this conclusion necessarily follows. A trait will be selected for in a population if people without that trait propagate genes less frequently than those with it. This could be due to early death, lower fertility, or early death of offspring. So if pale skin emerged in Eurasians because those with dark skin were more likely to have debilitating vitamin D deficiencies, there is no need to posit that sexual preference played a role; early death and low fertility are enough to explain the mechanism for natural selection. If pale skin had an advantage in vitamin D terms, as you suggest, then anyone who had an innate preference for pale-skinned partners would have lighter skinned offspring (on average) who would then have that same vitamin D advantage, which would result in that preference gene being disproportionately present in succeeding generations. ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2018, 10:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/standards-of-beauty-innate-vs-cultural/816380/43 "2018-06-19T22:25:21Z")
> [@Fotheringay-Phipps](#): > > If pale skin had an advantage in vitamin D terms, as you suggest… FWIW it does: > [@](#): > > Vitamin D insufficiency is more prevalent among African Americans (blacks) than other Americans and, in North America, most young, healthy blacks do not achieve optimal 25-hydroxyvitamin D [25(OH)D] concentrations at any time of year. This is primarily due to the fact that pigmentation reduces vitamin D production in the skin. > > SOURCE: [Vitamin D and African Americans - PubMed](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/16549493/) ---
**Author:** ![you\_with\_the\_face](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/ecccb3/32.png) [@you\_with\_the\_face](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/you_with_the_face)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2018, 10:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/standards-of-beauty-innate-vs-cultural/816380/44 "2018-06-19T22:40:30Z")
> [@Fotheringay-Phipps](#): > > If pale skin had an advantage in vitamin D terms, as you suggest, then anyone who had an innate preference for pale-skinned partners would have lighter skinned offspring (on average) who would then have that same vitamin D advantage, which would result in that preference gene being disproportionately present in succeeding generations. Yes, but a preference in not mandatory for an adaptive trait to later become dominant. You’re supposing that _if_ someone had such a preference, then their genes would become advantaged. Okay, that’s true hypothetically. But it doesn’t follow that such a preference would be evolutionarily necessary. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2018, 10:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/standards-of-beauty-innate-vs-cultural/816380/45 "2018-06-19T22:44:43Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > The first year Wham! were famous, I was called “weird” for pointing out that once George Michael got a decent dermatologist, he was going to kick his partner off the posters… anybody remember the other guy’s name? Without looking it up, I mean. Perfecto Telles? > [@](#): > > And there is a reinforcement loop. Ryan “the Jaw” Reynolds becomes bigtime famous so he’s declared gorgeous (his looks apparently being so much more different post-DP than post-GL) so guys with long chins become fashionable so you get more pictures of long-chinned guys to discuss so… I have to admit, it kinda bugs me when Reynolds as Wade “Deadpool” Wilson takes off his mask… and he’s not really that bad-looking. A lot of superficial scar tissue, to be sure, but there are guys coming back from Iraq and Afghanistan that are way more messed up. ---
**Author:** ![P-man](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/p-man/32/3606_2.png) [@P-man](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/P-man)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2018, 10:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/standards-of-beauty-innate-vs-cultural/816380/46 "2018-06-19T22:57:22Z")
I remember reading somewhere that small imperfections can actually make someone more attractive. By this I mean something like a small gap between the front teeth or a slightly larger than average nose. Maybe I just made that up because I have the latter and Ms. P has the former before braces (also the first girl I fell hard for in high school had the “spitting gap.” Dunno if there was a reproductive angle to my wife and I picking each other (she does have the waist/hip ratio, maybe a little bigger in the gluteal area), but both kids were conceived in the first try even though we were both in our thirties). ---
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2018, 6:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/standards-of-beauty-innate-vs-cultural/816380/47 "2018-06-20T06:42:31Z")
This actually comes up a lot on the Dope. Culture absolutely plays a big part. But I still feel it gets over-emphasized, because we really \*want \*it to be true. We leap on, and exaggerate examples of cultures that prefer, for example, “overweight” partners. And try to ignore all the stuff that seems cross-cultural. If you look at Chinese art, there are plenty of centuries-old paintings that are not only pretty by modern standards, but even emphasize certain curves the same way we might do in e.g. western comics. What a coincidence. > [@P-man](#): > > I remember reading somewhere that small imperfections can actually make someone more attractive. By this I mean something like a small gap between the front teeth or a slightly larger than average nose. Yes, I recall reading a couple of studies on facial attractiveness where they found that the most attractive faces are those that are averaged out from a large population _but then_ you make one minor change, so it’s not exactly average. ---
**Author:** ![Fotheringay-Phipps](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/d9b06d/32.png) [@Fotheringay-Phipps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fotheringay-Phipps)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2018, 1:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/standards-of-beauty-innate-vs-cultural/816380/48 "2018-06-20T13:29:43Z")
> [@you\_with\_the\_face](#): > > Yes, but a preference in not mandatory for an adaptive trait to later become dominant. You’re supposing that _if_ someone had such a preference, then their genes would become advantaged. Okay, that’s true hypothetically. But it doesn’t follow that such a preference would be evolutionarily necessary. Right. I’ve already addressed this in post #17 (see final paragraph). ---
**Author:** ![you\_with\_the\_face](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/ecccb3/32.png) [@you\_with\_the\_face](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/you_with_the_face)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2018, 2:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/standards-of-beauty-innate-vs-cultural/816380/49 "2018-06-20T14:58:09Z")
> [@Fotheringay-Phipps](#): > > Right. I’ve already addressed this in post #17 (see final paragraph). This is what you posted in that #17 > [@F-P](#): > > So as I understand it, I’m saying that it would make sense to **assume that it exists,** since there would be survival pressure in favor of it. You’re saying that doesn’t mean that it actually does exist, since there could be survival pressure in favor of something which may nonetheless fail to come about. And what me and **naita** are saying is that\* it doesn’t make sense to make this assumption\*. > [@](#): > > From my vantage point, if you see that something actually does exist, and it’s easily explainable as a survival adaption, then it doesn’t make sense to assume that the survival mechanism had no impact and the phenomenon exists solely for other reasons. We’re not making an assumption in either direction; we’re just not treating it as a given that an adaptive trait translates to sexual preference. ---
**Author:** ![Fotheringay-Phipps](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/d9b06d/32.png) [@Fotheringay-Phipps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fotheringay-Phipps)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2018, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/standards-of-beauty-innate-vs-cultural/816380/50 "2018-06-20T15:26:53Z")
> [@you\_with\_the\_face](#): > > And what me and **naita** are saying is that\* it doesn’t make sense to make this assumption\*. OK. We disagree on this point. > [@](#): > > We’re not making an assumption in either direction; we’re just not treating it as a given that an adaptive trait translates to sexual preference. So to confirm, if someone were to say: “_preferences in skin color can be assumed to be based on culture and not on innate preferences_”, you would disagree with that statement. Since your position is that you make no assumption in either direction, and accept the possibility and plausibility of it being innate. ---
**Author:** ![you\_with\_the\_face](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/ecccb3/32.png) [@you\_with\_the\_face](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/you_with_the_face)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2018, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/standards-of-beauty-innate-vs-cultural/816380/51 "2018-06-20T15:46:16Z")
> [@Fotheringay-Phipps](#): > > OK. We disagree on this point. > > So to confirm, if someone were to say: “_preferences in skin color can be assumed to be based on culture and not on innate preferences_”, you would disagree with that statement. Since your position is that you make no assumption in either direction, and accept the possibility and plausibility of it being innate. It’s not an assumption I would make, but I wouldn’t feel the need to express disagreement with it. What I _believe_ (not assume) is that our preferences in stuff like skin color are shaped largely by environmental factors. This includes culture, but also includes stuff as basic as what your surrounding community looks like. If you’re socialized to see pale skin as normal and good, then you’re more likely going to see it as attractive than if you’ve been socialized to see it as a deviation. If you’ve been raised to value conformity and avoid difference, this further increases the likelihood you’ll be drawn to other pale folks. Change any of the above and preferences will change; hence the increase in interracial relationships in time. We see this often enough that we can be sure that the environment plays a major role. I don’t tend to pin a lot to our genes, because I believe humans are a lot more complex than DNA sequences. Being adaptive and malleable is what has helped us dominate the planet, and you don’t get to be this way if each generation is stuck following the same script as their parents. ---
**Author:** ![Lamoral](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lamoral/32/16078_2.png) [@Lamoral](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamoral)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2018, 3:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/standards-of-beauty-innate-vs-cultural/816380/52 "2018-06-20T15:55:51Z")
What people _say_ they find attractive, and what they _actually_ find attractive, can be very different. They may _say_ one thing, based on cultural conditioning and the approval of their peers, but conceal a strong attraction to something else. The long and unfortunate history of slave owners fathering endless waves of children with female slaves would indicate to me that the raw biology of physical sexual attraction overrides bullshit societal attitudes about thinking that black people aren’t attractive. Yeah, it’s a fucked up power-trip kind of attraction that essentially equates to rape, but I would assume that most of the slave owners who sexually violated their female slaves were doing so because they were motivated primarily by lust. Lust - the sexual desire that comes from looking at a person and the visual cues of their secondary sexual characteristics - doesn’t seem to have any racial barriers. ---
**Author:** ![Marcus\_Flavius](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a4c791/32.png) [@Marcus\_Flavius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marcus_Flavius)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2018, 9:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/standards-of-beauty-innate-vs-cultural/816380/53 "2018-06-20T21:22:04Z")
I think what we find attractive in others is very heavily culturally influenced. For example, there are people in certain cultures who find [this](http://cdn.viralscape.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/Ataye-Eligidagne-3.jpg) to be beautiful. Hardly anyone in this culture would be attracted to that. ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2018, 9:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/standards-of-beauty-innate-vs-cultural/816380/54 "2018-06-20T21:28:43Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > Women are attractive in general, and cross-culturally if they have the signals of health that **Whack-a-Mole** mentions, like clear skin, symmetrical features, and a waist-to-hip ratio of about 1:1.3. Men are attractive also if they are healthy, but more if they have the social signals that show high dominance, high status, and greater access to material resources. (Those signals vary widely across cultures, but they all are towards the same end.) Even that waist-to-hip ratio is subjective. I recall from the same episode I mentioned above that they showed a sub-culture in Africa where the women would stuff their skirts so it looked like they had huge asses. Big butts are what got men going in that part of the world. It seems to be the case more broadly too: > [@](#): > > Other studies have identified body shape, or waist-to-hip ratio, as an important feature of female attractiveness for which Caucasian and African-American men may have different preferences. Low WHR, typically defined as .68–.80, has been suggested to be an indicator of reproductive health and fertility (Henss, 1995; Singh, 1993, 1994a,b,c) and also a signal of the absence of major diseases (Bjorntorp, 1988, 1991; Leibel, Edens, & Fried, 1989). Thompson et al. (1996) found African-American males were 1.9 times more likely to select a larger ideal female hip/buttocks size and 1.7 times more likely to choose a larger ideal female thigh size than Caucasian subjects. Evidence from other investigations demonstrated that African-Americans indicated a greater attraction to heavier figures than did Caucasian men, including a higher ideal weight and a preference for larger buttocks (Cunningham, Roberts, Barbee, Druen, & Wu, 1995). Similarly, in a recent study, Freedman, Carter, Sbrocco, and Gray (2004) found that African-American men often preferred WHRs in the range of .55–.65. They found that in addition to being more accepting of larger body sizes for women, African-American men preferred a WHR that was lower than the WHR preferred by Caucasian men. Such findings lend support to the notion that men’s weight and shape preferences constitute cultural variants that may contribute to the maintenance of unhealthy weights among African-American women. However, not all studies have supported these conclusions. Although Singh (1994a,b,c) found that African-American men did not prefer heavier women, the range of WHRs presented to participants was restricted (.70 through 1.0). Additionally, participants were only presented with figures that were Caucasian in appearance. > > SOURCE: [Do men hold African-American and Caucasian women to different standards of beauty? - PMC](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3033406/) ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2018, 8:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/standards-of-beauty-innate-vs-cultural/816380/56 "2018-06-26T20:00:25Z")
> [@Whack-a-Mole](#): > > Even that waist-to-hip ratio is subjective. I recall from the same episode I mentioned above that they showed a sub-culture in Africa where the women would stuff their skirts so it looked like they had huge asses. Big butts are what got men going in that part of the world. > > It seems to be the case more broadly too: It’s affected by culture, but the tendency remains nonetheless cross-culturally in general. Especially since (from your cite) - > [@](#): > > The results of this study are not consistent with previous research demonstrating that African-American men are more accepting of larger body sizes for women (Cohn & Adler, 1992; Fallon & Rozin, 1985; Greenberg & LaPorte, 1996; Thompson et al., 1996). Most striking, was the similarity between African-American and Caucasian men’s preferences for female weight. All men exhibited preferences for underweight and normal weight women, for both sets of figures. The results, however, support Singh’s (1994a) findings that African-Americans do not differ significantly from Caucasians in terms of preferred body weight for women. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![Textual\_Innuendo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/898d66/32.png) [@Textual\_Innuendo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Textual_Innuendo)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2018, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/standards-of-beauty-innate-vs-cultural/816380/57 "2018-06-27T18:22:49Z")
I’m with **Alessan**. 90%, maybe more, is innate, with cultural differences a very small part overall. Let’s run a thought experiment: we have a magical genie who is going to bring forth enthusiastically lusty beauties from times and cultures past. We give a randomly chosen selection of bog-standard unattached white American guys the (mutually consensual and enthusiastic) chance to mate with African, Mongolian, middle-eastern, Japanese, or Sumerian beauties who were widely noted beauties for their time/culture. How many take us up on the cross-cultural opportunity presented to them? You’d have a LOT of takers, across all those available cultures and ethnicities, probably approaching 95%+. This would be despite supposed cultural prejudices against non-white skin, despite linguistic and cultural barriers, and despite any supposed localizations of beauty for those times and places that are supposedly much broader and more varied and thus out of sync with our own. So where are the cultural influences? Do those that believe they’re a big factor think that there would only be 50% acceptance rates in the thought experiment above? ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2018, 6:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/standards-of-beauty-innate-vs-cultural/816380/58 "2018-06-27T18:41:28Z")
> [@Textual\_Innuendo](#): > > I’m with **Alessan**. > > 90%, maybe more, is innate, with cultural differences a very small part overall. > > Let’s run a thought experiment: we have a magical genie who is going to bring forth enthusiastically lusty beauties from times and cultures past. We give a randomly chosen selection of bog-standard unattached white American guys the (mutually consensual and enthusiastic) chance to mate with African, Mongolian, middle-eastern, Japanese, or Sumerian beauties who were widely noted beauties for their time/culture. How many take us up on the cross-cultural opportunity presented to them? You’d have a LOT of takers, across all those available cultures and ethnicities, probably approaching 95%+. > > This would be despite supposed cultural prejudices against non-white skin, despite linguistic and cultural barriers, and despite any supposed localizations of beauty for those times and places that are supposedly much broader and more varied and thus out of sync with our own. > > So where are the cultural influences? Do those that believe they’re a big factor think that there would only be 50% acceptance rates in the thought experiment above? I think “who I fantasize about sleeping with” has less to do with outcomes re: marriage and children than “who I can imagine being seen in public with and bringing home to meet my parents”. I think cultural attitudes are incredibly influential in the second category. ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2018, 6:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/standards-of-beauty-innate-vs-cultural/816380/59 "2018-06-27T18:45:35Z")
> [@Jacquernagy](#): > > What people _say_ they find attractive, and what they _actually_ find attractive, can be very different. They may _say_ one thing, based on cultural conditioning and the approval of their peers, but conceal a strong attraction to something else. The long and unfortunate history of slave owners fathering endless waves of children with female slaves would indicate to me that the raw biology of physical sexual attraction overrides bullshit societal attitudes about thinking that black people aren’t attractive. Yeah, it’s a fucked up power-trip kind of attraction that essentially equates to rape, but I would assume that most of the slave owners who sexually violated their female slaves were doing so because they were motivated primarily by lust. Lust - the sexual desire that comes from looking at a person and the visual cues of their secondary sexual characteristics - doesn’t seem to have any racial barriers. This. One modern parallel, I think, is that nowadays there seem to be a lot of men, who, when asked about what they like in women, will hem and haw awkwardly and come up with something politically correct like, “I’m attracted to a woman’s education, or career, or confidence, or sense of humor, etc.” - and assiduously avoid mentioning physical appearance as much as possible, for fear of being accused of looksism or being “shallow” - but yet the truth still is that physical beauty plays an overwhelmingly large role in men’s attraction to women. ---
**Author:** ![Textual\_Innuendo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/898d66/32.png) [@Textual\_Innuendo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Textual_Innuendo)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2018, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/standards-of-beauty-innate-vs-cultural/816380/60 "2018-06-27T19:21:26Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > I think “who I fantasize about sleeping with” has less to do with outcomes re: marriage and children than “who I can imagine being seen in public with and bringing home to meet my parents”. I think cultural attitudes are incredibly influential in the second category. But _beauty_, itself, has much less to do with outcomes re: marriage and children and who you bring home to parents. THOSE are much more “who will put up with me” and “who can I realistically expect to be with long term” with a dash of “oops I got somebody pregnant who may not actually be my ideal on any of these dimensions.” I thought we were discussing beauty standards and to what degree they are innate or cultural, not marriage standards (which has much less to do with beauty). ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2018, 7:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/standards-of-beauty-innate-vs-cultural/816380/61 "2018-06-27T19:33:26Z")
> [@Textual\_Innuendo](#): > > But _beauty_, itself, has much less to do with outcomes re: marriage and children and who you bring home to parents. > > THOSE are much more “who will put up with me” and “who can I realistically expect to be with long term” with a dash of “oops I got somebody pregnant who may not actually be my ideal on any of these dimensions.” > > I thought we were discussing beauty standards and to what degree they are innate or cultural, not marriage standards (which has much less to do with beauty). Fair enough. I disagree about how much culture is involved for reasons that have already been mentioned. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/standards-of-beauty-innate-vs-cultural/816380.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/standards-of-beauty-innate-vs-cultural/816380.md?page=4)