Who knew? Burnel University lead researcher Dr William Brown:
We found that shorter, slimmer females with long slender legs, a curvy figure and larger breasts are more attractive.
Great, though I hardly think it’s unprecedented news. An excellent article by Guy Dammann examines the study and the components of physical attractiveness in today’s Guardian, in which he says:
Norms of physical attractiveness vary enormously across culture and time. One indication of how complex our sense of physical attraction has become is that, among both men and women, norms of sexiness and beauty seem to have separated to an almost radical degree. Very few of the flat-chested, frighteningly elongated fashion models upon whom so much of the our culture’s desires focus themselves seem at all promising from a reproductive point of view. As for the men, many of them look pretty much like the women. Meanwhile, at the ‘glamour’ end of the modelling trade, one regularly finds breasts paraded which seem to signify nourishment not so much for one’s own potential offspring as for that of the local osteopath.
As Dammann asserts, we’re all individuals, but there are still widely held standards of physical attractiveness as the study shows. Since many of us seem to share the same standards, there must be common reasons for it. No matter the reason, I can’t help but find Scarlett Johansson immensely hot. I didn’t decide to feel that way, I just looked at her and did. Whether cultural, genetic, mental, chemical… it just is. And that there’s a consensus about the fact doesn’t bother me in the slightest.
Read the rest of the article for more focused, intelligent discussion.