There is a school of thought that “beauty is in the eye of the beholder.” Namely, that physical attractiveness is subjective and a product of cultural norms and personal taste. This is technically true insofar as people do have different tastes and everybody is attractive to somebody. There are even freaks out there that are particularly attracted to things generally considered unattractive. But there are limits to this, of course, as a lot of folks in our corner of the sphere are quick to point out. Certain attributes, facial symmetry is typically used as an example, transcend cultures. There are arguments for curves and for slender, but there is a level of fatness that is generally not considered desirable. And while there are people that have abnormal attractions, they remain exceptions and some physical features are naturally going to be more attractive to more people.

I fall more in the second camp than the first when it comes to pictures and immediate impressions. I also believe that inner beauty (subjective, typically) affects outer in that when you love someone, you view them as being more physically attractive than others you might have rated higher from a photograph. Further, some people take universality of beauty too far, I think. They make it less a general truth and more an pavlovian sort of thing. I just don’t think it’s that exact.

One of the things I find interesting is how our tastes develop within the general hierarchy. For instance, by real-world standards Taylor Swift is a really attractive young lady. So is Kristen Stewart. Yet when I look at pictures of them or see them on TV, there is simply no doubt that I think Stewart is remarkably the more attractive of the two. Others would swear that Swift is. In the land of Hollywood, where nearly everyone is quite attractive, we almost have to take our cues from relatively subjective or even arbitrary criteria. I don’t know why I find Stewart to be the more attractive of the two. But I think it has repercussions in real-life attraction amongst people in my station. Stewart has a more steely demeanor. Not cold, exactly, but sort of determined and tough. I married someone with a similar demeanor. I don’t think that’s entirely a coincidence. Nor is it a coincidence that among all of the really attractive women on the TV show Las Vegas, the one that garnered the most of my attention was Sam Marquez (Vanessa Marcil). Same sort of steeliness in comparison to the flightier Delinda (Molly Sims) or sweet Mary (Nikki Cox). Of course, also notable is the fact that Marcil, Clancy, and Stewart have dark hair.

Some of it probably relates to the projection of personality. Easier to do when it comes to Las Vegas, where they are all playing characters with personalities, though I also think that Marcil and Sims were chosen precisely because they looked the part. I’ve never seen Kristen Stewart in a movie and I’ve only seen one Taylor Swift video, so it’s less a factor there. It’s more about the way that they smile for the camera and in Stewart’s case a slightly prominent chin and narrow features that I think I associate with a sort of inner toughness.

Why I would be attracted to a steeliness of expression I have no idea. It’s not like I like cold people. When I met Clancy, she was in a very comfortable element and surrounded by friends. She was smiling a good portion of the weekend. I was attracted to that… but I also don’t think that it’s a coincidence that it lines up with what seem to be particular biases. I have two “types” that I’ve historically been attracted to and Clancy (and Julianne, for that matter) falls into one. Conventional in appearance, conservative in demeanor, and relatively strong-willed or exuding a quiet strength. All of this has to do with personality more than appearance, but again, I think when we are looking at people we are looking for cues on personality matching.

All of this brings me to the inspiration of my post, which is Phi’s post on the comparative virtues of Meghan Fox and January Jones. As Phi and the commenters there note, regardless of who she actually is, Fox exudes a certain kind of sexiness that makes her the sex symbol that Jones is not. It’s that projection that makes her as attractive that she is to a lot of men. That projection is largely an object of not just personal preference but cultural preference. The same cultural preference that inexplicably made Angelina Jolie somehow considered attractive. The tastemakers, as far as such things go, have decided what is attractive and we take our cues from society.

Not because we’re mindless drones of corporate-enforced tastes, as some folks who swear in some aboriginal or African culture droopy breasts are considered hot and thus it’s all subjective. Rather, because people like Jones and Fox are both attractive by any normal criteria and thus choosing between them (and the thousands of Hollywood actresses that are similarly attractive) is susceptible to relatively insignificant criteria. Likewise, in real life when I would see two women at a bar or church or wherever else, if they’re comparatively equal, it comes down to relatively silly criteria such steely-demeanor or wearing glasses or something else that either indicates (a) this person’s personality could be compatible with my own (or more attractive to me) or (b) if I got together with her it would be more impressive to my friends.