What are the evolutionary roots of attractiveness

So, why then women like well built men?

arvistro said:

So, why then women like well built men?

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In prior eras there wasn't quite the emphasis on musculature in men that we see today. If you watch classic films up to even the sixties or seventies, the "ideal" men didn't have the kind of body that you develop through weight training. Perhaps, to some extent, that kind of body meant that a man did a lot of hard physical labor, which was considered "low class". Having a tan wasn't prized either, because it meant you spent a lot of time in the fields. It's only when having a tan meant you had the money to go on vacation to beaches or lakes that it became so popular.

Anyway, there's nothing like hard physical labor on a farm, clearing a field of stones, driving a plow, cutting down trees, splitting firewood, or using a sickle to cut down the wheat to build muscle.

You obviously didn't watch the video I posted. Luke Bryan quite clearly brags that nobody has muscles like farmers. Of course, mining is probably even better for that, or construction work, but they're even more grueling, and with mining, very dangerous and bad for your health.

These are all jobs that don't pay very well today, which is why most of the time if a man has enough intelligence (and the ability to sit still and focus, which we've been talking about), he goes to school so he can make more money and do his work in some heated and air-conditioned office.

Then he can weight lift for an hour or more a day so he looks as if he did indeed spend ten hours a day or more in a mine or a field.

Not totally logical, is it?

arvistro said:

So, why then women like well built men?

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Angela and GW had a good input about this issue already. Women like well built men same as men like well built women (in feminine sense). Most likely meaning for good health, no weird mutations. We also cherish unblemished skin, for similar reasons.
When you look the videos of Amazon tribes, all of them are well built, strong, like sportsman type. They really lacking the geeky and fragile individuals our civilization produced. Because we spent 2 million years as HGs, our natural sense of beauty prefers HG sportsman type more, than fragile and pail computer geek, who is around only for 30 years or so. Our genetic memory in action.

LeBrok said:

Angela and GW had a good input about this issue already. Women like well built men same as men like well built women. Most likely meaning for good health, no weird mutations. We also cherish unblemished skin, for similar reasons.

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There's a specific set of traits each gender is hard-wired to be attracted to. Doesn't matter where in the world a man is from he's attracted to the same thing. Whatever evolution caused it, it occurred way way back, before the out-of Africa event, probably rooted in archaic times.

Women aren't considered attractive because they're well built as much as men are. It's differnt. Not all attractive women are well-built. What humans evolved to be attracted to, I don't think has much to do with what you're saying, and is more to do with what's the best way to motivate people to reproduce. Most of that evolution probably happened millions and millions and millions of years ago, because almost all species do it basically the exact same way.

LeBrok said:

When you look the videos of Amazon tribes, all of them are well built, strong, like sportsman type. They really lacking the geeky and fragile individuals our civilization produced. Because we spent 2 million years as HGs, our natural sense of beauty prefers HG sportsman type more, than fragile and pail computer geek, who is around only for 30 years or so. Our genetic memory in action.

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That's an interesting idea. I'd think Farmers if anything have to be in better shape than HGs, because farming is harder work. So, adding farming as a way to get food I guess would if anything keep the "sportsman type" being favored.

Fire Haired14 said:

There's a specific set of traits each gender is hard-wired to be attracted to. Doesn't matter where in the world a man is from he's attracted to the same thing. Whatever evolution caused it, it occurred way way back, before the out-of Africa event, probably rooted in archaic times.

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Yes, but not too much way back. We are not sexually attracted to shapes of other primates like chimps or gorillas. Sexual attractiveness is rather evolutionarly young, after we lost body hair, and looked physically Homo Sapience. Not older than 2 million years.

Women aren't considered attractive because they're well built as much as men are. It's differnt.

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Sorry, I meant well built women in feminine sense. Brest, hips, buttocks, not too masculine or too skinny, hourglass shape, smooth skin, healthy hair.

]That's an interesting idea. I'd think Farmers if anything have to be in better shape than HGs, because farming is harder work. So, adding farming as a way to get food I guess would if anything keep the "sportsman type" being favored.

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I'm not sure about better shape, but different shape. Farmers need to work steady all day long. Hunters need to be more "exposive" in their actions.

Fire Haired14 said:

There's a specific set of traits each gender is hard-wired to be attracted to. Doesn't matter where in the world a man is from he's attracted to the same thing. Whatever evolution caused it, it occurred way way back, before the out-of Africa event, probably rooted in archaic times.

Women aren't considered attractive because they're well built as much as men are. It's differnt. Not all attractive women are well-built. What humans evolved to be attracted to, I don't think has much to do with what you're saying, and is more to do with what's the best way to motivate people to reproduce. Most of that evolution probably happened millions and millions and millions of years ago, because almost all species do it basically the exact same way.




That's an interesting idea. I'd think Farmers if anything have to be in better shape than HGs, because farming is harder work. So, adding farming as a way to get food I guess would if anything keep the "sportsman type" being favored.

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I don't think LeBroc meant that men are attracted to women with muscles. The preferred traits are different for men and women, but there are evolutionary psychologists who believe we are hard wired to prefer certain things because they are traits that are conducive to the survival of a healthy species.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/201206/eternal-curves

http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052748704100604575145810050665030

That may or may not be true, but I think culture can change the preferences.

I'm not sure I'll be useful here - juste some remarks:
- physical diversified enough activity since young age seems as a whole produce close results: final result: limitation of growth of long (limbs) segments supposedly , better development of thorax and broader shoulders and surprisingly maybe larger braincase; all that UPON A GENETIC INHERITAGE which can be different - some specialized activities can produce diverging results:
- we have no cartoon nor pictures to show us the kind of work HGs or first farmers had - agriculture works changed by time, we don't know what charge of body works first farmers had -
- middle neolithical people in Europe seem having had small light builded bodies (what could be explained by some lacks in their diet, either bad crops or continual insufficciance of some needed oligoelements): the "race" could explain it, I'm sure, but some surveys about bones showed some of them knew malnutrition problems in their youth; all the way, they did not show the robusticity of the most of today European peasants, even if our last generations are less stocky built - so the hardness of the first farmers works is not so evident at first sight - I think agriculture works became harder and harder as they tried more and more to force nature to have better crops; the first methods were surely "softer", relying more upon Nature "gifts" and facilities - before discovering advantages of dung you had not to transport dung!
- HGs had to walk and run a bit, to find and track beasts - and here too we can figure out things changed with time, with less and less big preys what could have changed methods and kinds of body efforts - but when they didn't hunt surely they have to work to produce stone tools - women can have done that too but I think they had other tasks (leather clothes and so on, without speak about children) -
when we look at the great diversity of human types among today materially less developped populations living their traditional ways, we see they are all of them solidly built whatever their types, with muscles of different types by always muscled enough in fonction of their total weight, and no obesity -
- concerning muscles and strength, the true effective musculature of people having worked since youth has nothing in common with the blowed up anabolised bodies of bodybuilding adepts ! I made for a (short enough) time natural musculation, without too much change in my body, but I took some weight pounds and was stronger, but it was not too visible from far ... the most of the hard sports champions (not golf nor bowlong) in a lot of countries were sons of peasants or industry wrights until these last years when "medical assistance" helps more and more to do good performances -
concerning mating, I think appearence of strength is still appreciated by women, because it evocates good protection for females - but even here things are not simple: we are a gregary specie and we saw yet than among apes collective societies social deportment (even: "political" abilities) are balancing strength -
not easy, all that...

I would agree that the kind of musculature found in contestants in body building contests is extreme, and, in my opinion, not very attractive to most women. However, if ancient statuary is any indication, or Renaissance European statuary for that matter, the ideal male form for men past adolescence was indeed pretty muscular.

I agree Angela!
but look how different is the athlete pictured above from the bodybuilt men (I don't speak about the bodybuilt women because I' m too traumatized!)
have you seen the differences (as a whole) between rugby forwards and even backwards of the 1960/70's and the current ones? No comment!
the best built athletes accroding to me are the decathlonians (whatever they are long legged or short legged) and for me they are surely the best ones to react for surviving because not too artificially specialized -
I agree too with a former post (of yours?) about attractivity of females: the today criteria are not so old compared to the large scale of human evolution - and today in the last years new criteria came in play, keeping on with big breast but leaving broad haunches aside and favouring NOT LONG legs but MEAGER legs (not my choice). But are the avowed criteria, influenced by esthetism, the TRUE ones concerning real sexual attractivity? Today males are a bit lyers sometimes...
the broad haunches "high scoring" of some time is/was based upon a statement inspired by superficial look: in reality broad haunches (under fat influence, not only bones) is not a so good criteria because the pubian bones/cartilages ability to modify themselves for the birth work are more important than the allover breadth of female 's pelvis region.

I would agree that for overall survival someone who can perform well in a decathlon is indeed perhaps the most fit overall. However, for women in the middle of a war zone, or surrounded by wild animals, I can see how they might be drawn to a Laocoon type, as in the second picture above. I think there is a rather atavistic thing going on with women in terms of the attraction that certain men possess, and it has to do with physical protection even if they're not aware of it, or even actively deny it. There was a study done a while ago where women from war torn or just less settled and prosperous countries tended to express a preference for stronger featured, more "rugged" male faces. The same might be true in terms of musculature. Then, people are influenced by the media and the cultural norms that are celebrated.

As to females, did you take a look at the study I linked to above that found that the so called "hour glass" figure is the most attractive to men (something like 35-25-35 on a 5'6 inch 116 pound frame as possessed by models in "men's" magazines)? I'm not sure that was always true. Going by the fertility figurines, it would seem that the "pear shaped" figure was the most attractive, and I'm being kind here in describing it as "pear shaped" , but perhaps those figurines were deliberately exaggerated and were meant to express not what was the most sexually attractive, but what was a symbol of fertility to them for ritual purposes, i.e. the pregnant female body, or the female body exhausted by fertility it sometimes seems to me. Still, going by my art history classes, most women pictured as objects of desire from antiquity to just one hundred years ago did have a rather "pear-shaped" body. Of course that might have to do with the fact that most women are shaped like that, although it does vary, in my experience, by country or region.

Then the "ideal" seemed to gravitate more to the "hour-glass" figure, and women corseted to achieve it. Of course some women, like Marilyn Monroe, whose measurements and height and weight were very similar to the ones of center-fold women when she wasn't depressed and overeating, although her waist was almost freakishly small (22 inches), had it naturally. Sophia Loren had the same proportions only fuller.

The change to the physical type you describe, where the breasts are exaggerated and the hips and legs virtually disappear is yet another development. It's been calculated that if "Barbie" were real, she would have a 39" bust, 18" waist, and 33" hips, and a BMI indicating she was anorexic.

That's why I'm not sure if the study above is accurate and men do indeed find the "hour glass" figure of a men's magazine centerfold the most attractive, because if that's true why do we have this distorted "Barbie" type image in circulation? Who created it and why in that specific way? Why are Victoria's secret models considered so attractive, when they really have the bodies of adolescent boys with surgically enhanced breasts? That's not to mention the Vogue type models that women want to emulate nowadays even if men supposedly don't find them as attractive.

This is the problem with this kind of research. It's very difficult to distinguish between what is hard-wired instinct for survival of the species and what is a cultural overlay that might or might not be optimum for survival. It's especially difficult, as you say, because people might be lying on these types of surveys, although the motivations are unclear.