I agree with Least Original User Name Ever with the fact that we love Hollywood too much. Celebrities are not “regular” people, but we all seem to strive to be like them. And for most people, it’s not possible, so we’re doomed from the start.
A long time ago, being skinny was unattractive because if you were skinny, you were poor. Now it’s the opposite. It’s easier to be skinny when you can afford a personal trainer, gym memberships, good food and have the time to devote to health.
It’s frustrating being a woman in today’s society. And I think part of the thing about older women being seen as less attractive because they feel they need to try so hard to not look their age. Women that age gracefully and naturally are beautiful just because of the fact.
Indeed, National Geographic magazine had an article in its Feb 2006 issue, “Love-The Chemical Reaction”, which theorizes this very circumstance. Long-term couples produce more brain oxytocin, it says, which has a calming effect on them individually and as a unit. Congrats on nearly 24 years, Shodan! The two of you must be crammed full of oxytocin, if this article’s on the money.
For those of us women who dare to be single at advanced ages, & have yet to make the oxytocin connection with someone, we must hope that we can attract based on other features. If the wild world of internet dating has taught me anything in the last year, it is that every online male of 50-ish years feels he is entitled to the most well-kept woman available, usually at least 4 to 5 years younger than he is, no matter that he is a bald, bad-skinned, chubby introvert lacking in subtlety. There’s something amazing to me in that arrogant stance. Fortunately I have worked at being well-kept, and fortunately I am attracted to a certain level of arrogance in males.
I’d rather have the oxytocin connection, however. Sigh.
My 21-year-old daughter has friends who are lovely, skinny, and have big boobs. The kind of girls who would have driven me mad with lust at that age. But at 55, to me they just look like children. I’m a lot more interested in women who are older, or rather would be if I weren’t married.
So I don’t think getting older means losing attractiveness. There are things that do diminish a person’s attractiveness, but age isn’t one of them.
I remember THAT unfortunate truth from high school, when several of my geeky and frankly not bad looking but less than model perfect girlfriends had crushes on geeky and less than perfect guys (sounds like the same guys thirty years younger, down to the bad skin and lacking in subtlety). And they, in some sort of misplaced huburis, felt that they should be dating the perfectly groomed cheerleader. And then they’d whine about “nice guys” not getting dates.
(thank god for oxytocin and a husband, I think I’d stay single rather than enter that dysfunctional mess again!)
Empathy and compassion are not innate-- they are products of socialization. They’re so deeply rooted by the time we’re adults that they may *seem *instinctive, but they’re certainly not.
A child is taught empathy beginning at a very early age. Parents usually begin with saying things like, “You pulled Sarah’s hair. How you you feel if the same thing happened to you?” It’s natural to develop a sense of what sociologists call “the generalized other” but it’s something quite different to learn to* care *what others think or feel.
A lack of empathy is not a mental illness. In the criminal justice system, it’s termed a “character disorder.” It’s not something that can usually be fixed. Mental illnesses can be treated with medication and therapy. A character disorder usually can not. (At least it can’t be with the limited resources of the justice system. With intensive therapy, there might be some improvement, but I have no experience with this to be able to say one way or the other.)
Unless empathy and compassion are concepts introduced at an early age, it’s almost impossible for adults to comprehend or accept them. They understand, of course, that their actions have consequences if they’re caught, but they can’t fathom the reason they should care that another person is hurting or unhappy.
Nor is this a rare phenomenon contstricted to a small population of dangerous criminals. A person who lack empathy and compassion can lead a perfectly law-abiding life, and many of the criminals in my husband’s prison who have this problem are incarcerated for petty crimes.
I have read it, but I’ve read a lot of books relating to human social behavior. (My husband also teaches sociology at our local branch campus, and I have a great interest in cultural anthropology.) His theories are interesting, but studies of human behavior can never be an exact science. We can make guesses and theories based on our observations, no one has the perfect answers to why people act as they do.
I tend more to the nurture side of the argument, myself. (As I’m sure you can tell.) Some behaviors, such as desire for social contact and sex are hard-wired, but the vast majority of human behavior is socially created.
I don’t think that’s a good example. Language is something that’s hard-wired into our brains and bodies. Our vocal chords are specifically developed for us to make a wide range of sounds, and our brains are designed to facilitate communication.
A better example might be wearing clothes. We’ve been doing that for hundreds of generations, yet human toddlers don’t try to cover their bodies. They’re perfectly happy running around buck-naked if allowed. It’s only once they are taught shame in exposing their private areas that they feel the urge to cover themselves.
Likewise, we’ve been using utensils for eating for thousands of generations, but a human child will eat with their hands until we teach them that it’s not acceptable in polite society.
Again, this could be socially created. Children tend to follow the examples that their parent set, so if mom, dad, and the child’s friends are fervently religious, the child will tend to be as well. The key to proving or disproving this theory would be to see if a child born to heavily religious parents but raised by a family who wasn’t turned out to be very religious despite their upbringing.
I think of it more as imprinting. I’ve worn the groove so deep that I don’t react (as least not the way I did in my twenties) to anyone who doesn’t resemble her in significant ways. I have noticed it several times - I couldn’t tell why the new secretary was so noticeable until I realized that she has a big nose, blue eyes, and large - er, attributes - while the other secretary, whose attributes are even larger and is more conventionally pretty, doesn’t get much reaction from me at all.
Of course, the LaTMrsS still gets hit on at the gym. So maybe I am talking thru my hat. Or maybe I am just too accustomed to being out of the hunt.
If you saw me shirtless, you’d beg for it to be 50%
Then again, it all depends on how you feel about guys with pierced bellybuttons. Then again, if the sexy sells, I suppose I could remove it during work hours.
There was an artist named Pierre Bonnard who painted nude studies of his wife bathing, for over forty years of their marriage. And yet, for as long as he continued to paint her, he always portrayed her as a young woman. The explanation offered by most art historians is that he simply loved her.
The poet and the geneticist can agree that “love comes in at the eye,” but there is still something unexplained that keeps it there in some, sadly too rare, instances.
Basically. Fertility seems to go from the 12-35 range, anything beyond that isn’t really knee jerk attractive to most men.
As far as attractiveness goes though, once you know someone they become either alot more or alot less attractive. So even if women are born ugly or they are wrinkled or if they are 25 and look like a model after you get to know them on more than a superficial level your attraction changes. I can think of very plain women I’m attracted to and to beautiful women I want nothing to do with. So it isn’t really a gigantic deal long term IMO.
The “high school loser gets the girl” mentality has always pissed me off. Some dork wants to elevate his social status and thinks dating some trophy girl is the way to do it. The hot cheerleader should date you because a) she likes ugly guys b) she likes guys who don’t share her interest in athletics and group activities c) she’s bored of having an active social life and wants to explore the exciting world of being an antisocial loser?
Its more than oxytocin though. Other chemicals like phenylethylamine & vasopressin play a role too. its actually an interesting subject. I wonder what happens if a person just takes drugs that mimic these chemicals. I remember a guy I used to know several years ago who had a bad breakup and who decided to research the biochemistry of love because he felt his emotions were due to biochemical pathways going awry. He said he had a bit of luck with it too, yay for science.
Thankfully, the label unattractive is mostly subjective. Now, I did say mostly. I won’t argue the fact that there are likely some unambiguously hideous examples of humanity out there. That being said, I often find that people tend to use the label unattractive according to their own preferences for a mate. Heck, there are women and men who I personally find extremely unattractive, but that hasn’t stopped them from being successful. I try, occasionally, to remember that just because I wouldn’t want to know a person in the biblical sense doesn’t mean that someone, somewhere wouldn’t. Less choice, maybe. Discrimination, not so much.
Now, as to aging gracefully, I’ve tried to do so. Thirty-five years and three children have taken their natural toll, and I am more pliant and yielding than the “high and tight” that someone earlier mentioned. I’ll not speak for my husband, though, to say what he sees when he looks at me. I like to think it must be pretty good considering how often my 15 year old son averts his eyes and mumbles for us to get a room. I’m not going to wring my hands and wail about the injustice of it all. Stonebow keeps me pretty occupied, so I don’t have time to complain.
For one, our sexual dimorphism shows that we are not naturally monogamous. Secondly, in studying hunter-gatherer societies, most individuals there multiple partners. I can’t think of a society where this is not the case, but I haven’t studied them all. Thirdly, genetic tests done on babies in western hospitals have shown a sizable percentage are not the male partner’s biological offspring. Fourthly, when we compare the sexual habits of our closet relatives – the chimps and bonobos – monogamy is not practiced.
Finally, human sexually is not all that strange or unusual.
Prove that the desire for a younger female and older male is universal to humans.
No restrictions on murder of non family members and non group members could be what he meant. I doubt there is a culture where you can murder your parents and the tribal cheif or the guy who fetches water from the stream at will.
There are cultures where a pre-pubescent girl is the ideal.
There are cultures where a married, mature moher is the ideal.
There are cultures where skeletenal girls are the ideal.
There are cultures where very fat women are the ideal.
There are cultures where attractive young women are given as gifts to wise older men.
There are cultures where attractive young men are given as gifts to wise older women.
Indeed, there is a culture where just about every premutation of sexual traits and pairing is considered ideal. Just because ours happens to prefere one doesn’t mean there is anythin inherent about it.
Our culture undervalues older women and considers them unattractive because it convinces them to buy lots of crap, thus perpetuting the culture.
For population control, hunter-gatherers appreciated post-menopausal women because of their infertility. They could not afford large families.
See http://witcombe.sbc.edu/willendorf
