A to Z: Beauty's in the eye of the (cultural) beholder

Visit the other A to Z Bloggers! http://www.a-to-zchallenge.com/

There are various orders of beauty, causing men to make fools of themselves in various styles.

GEORGE ELIOT, Adam Bede

What is beauty? What makes someone beautiful?

Before you jump up like the eager teacher's pet and shout out, "their soul", let me specify: we're sticking to physical beauty today. Call me superficial. Just for the sake of argument, today it's all about the shell and not the meaty and savory oyster flesh, ok?

A woman, for instance. Blonde or brunette? Tall or short? Thin? Fat? Big boobs, tiny waist? Long legs? Tiny feet? Shiny straight hair, a mass of curls? Dark eyes, colored?


Some of these things can be bought--a box of dye in the supermarket, a trip to a third-world country for surgery, the latest starving regimen, a set of contact lenses. I, for one, am like Dove--a fan of the natural, a cheerleader for authenticity, an enemy of aesthetic surgery. But I won't judge if you're not, and I applaud anyone that takes matters into their own hands to make changes they sincerely believe will make their life better. We can get into the psychology of that some other time, if you want.

My point today is about beauty... About the definition of beauty. In the West, ever since the Greeks, we've had a certain image, a certain standard, a set of attributes that, together, define beauty for us. But the West is a very small part of the world, and there are other definitions--that's what interests me.

Whereas it's been acceptable on this side of the world for girls to starve themselves, do serious--and permanent--damage to their health, in order to be socially beautiful, there are cultures where overweight is considered attractive--because it's a mark of wealth, of leisure. Some cultures consider piercings barbaric, self-mutilation--but in Mexico it's standard practice to have girl newborns' ears pierced on their first day of life. In many countries a tattoo is a stigma, something to be hidden--but in the South Pacific, tattoos are not just a symbol of maturity and adulthood, but they also beautify their bearers, make them more desirable to the opposite sex.

These dichotomies are more common than we think; they're everywhere, and they're not just cultural. The definition of beauty varies also among social strata, communities, even families. What we find attractive is almost as personal as the kind of underwear we like, or the way we brush our teeth. Still, there are certain cultural traits that make some physical characteristics more attractive--in general--to people of a certain environment than others. Case in point--super models.

Here's a bit of food for thought: female beauty is the one that is usually discussed or argued or agreed upon. The female ideal of beauty is one we're all familiar with, and thanks to the last twenty years, with global exchanges becoming more and more common, it's become almost universal--blond hair, green or blue eyes, tall and slim, bosomy, shapely. Yeah--the Barbie.

But--what about Ken?

What about male beauty? Maybe you'll argue there is no such thing as male beauty, that men aren't supposed to be beautiful. Ok, fine--my bad choice of words. Let's talk about male appeal, then. What makes a man appealing? Does that vary from culture to culture too, like female appeal?

Where I come from, where men are usually not very tall, and they're dark-skinned and dark-eyed, where the dominant hair color is dark, too, blond tall men are considered very attractive. But throw one of those stocky well-muscled dark loverboys into the midst of American female tourists, say in Cancun or Acapulco (the dive instructor?), and the short spiny-haired runt becomes Adonis.

Are we attracted to the different, the special, the unique?

Still, I believe that there's an intrinsic difference between male and female appeal. I believe female "perfection" is important for men (and for women, too, but let's leave that out of the equation for the time being), whereas male "perfection" isn't quite so important for women. Why do I believe this? Because, at the risk of sounding totally sexist, I think attraction begins differently for the sexes. The attraction organ of men is the eye.

For women, it's the ear.

What do you think?