preoccupation with physical attactiveness

[jayy237]

i am attempting to see whether other people agree with me over the stereotype and to see whether or not others agree with this

why is it that homosexual males value youth and attractiveness so highly? (if they do, i could have got the wrong impression). from an evolutationary point of view - possibly the wrong one to take in light of what this board represents lol - guys value youth in females because it represents fertility and the ability to bring up a child. the more physically attractive/youthful, the more popular the female is with the menfolk

so i guess that could be transfered onto guys...they still value youthfulness and attractive, even if it is on the same sex. but also i've noticed that gay guys value attractiveness in girls aswel. it's as though superficial things are much more impotant to them than it is to straight guys

could also be because of just generally liking to hang around attractive people because they are often more confident > outgoing > fun to be around

again, i could be wrong and i'm not saying everyone is the same, but does anyone else think that this is at all true, that gay guys are more superficial than straight guys? and if true, why is this?

[Bryan90]

There has been a lot of research done on this.. (and a lot of heated debates as well)

Perhaps it really has nothing to do with fertility. Because after all straight girls do admire the beauty of other straight girls. I think it's just our "inborn" vanity (appreciation for beautiful and attractive things). A research was done which actually showed how babies tend to stare longer at good looking people. (some still question the veracity of such researches.)

And I really don't think gay guys are more superficial than straight guys.. Perhaps gay guys are more comfortable expressing it since vanity has always been correlated to the lack of masculinity, and WE ALL KNOW how many straight men will never want to be associated with that..

[jayy237]

i suppose your probably right. and with metroexuality on the rise, maybe things will change

i've just experience gay guys making snide comments about a girls looks and how not to bother with someone because of it, really bitchy stuff. and u kind of get that impression in films aswel... the effiminate gay guy bitching about how something superficial is not worth bothering with. cliche's became cliches for a reason

[sdc91]

That's a pretty loaded question, but I just think that's it's simply because attraction is pretty instinctual, and we follow instinct.

[jayy237]

but if gay people aren't attracted to girls, then surely its not following instinct? its not instinct to reject someone as a person on superficial levels

i agree its a very presuming questions, i'm looking to see if others share experience of it or agree with it, and if they do then theories on why its true

[joeyconnick]

I don't think it currently has anything to do with biology--it's all socially driven. You mention the "rise" of metrosexuality but metrosexuality is basically a creation of the advertising conglomerates to make it okay to market high-end fashion and cosmetics/body care stuff to guys without them having to feel their heterosexuality is threatened. It's primarily commercially driven.

If you happen to be hanging out with primarily young gay guys who are into the club scene, you will tend to get a biased view about what gay men in general care about, just because the young, relatively newly-out club scene is a particularly narrow subrange of being gay in the modern world.

As for clichés and stereotypes, yes, they do spring out of some kernel of reality some point back but to be honest I think a lot of gay men are bitchy simply because they are expected to be bitchy... i.e., they are living up to the stereotype and doing their best to fit into "mainstream" gay culture, where bitchiness is valued. But I don't think there's anything intrinsic to gay men that makes them more bitchy "naturally."

Youth is particularly valued by ALL facets of society right now, not just the gay ones, because youth is packaged and sold as a highly desirable product and our societies are very consumer-driven. But there are guys out there who do not fit that mould. They just aren't as easy to see because everything is about revealing how wonderful youth is.

As for beauty... well beauty is always an incredibly loaded topic because it is very definitely culturally and temporally constructed. The "beauty" of Victorian England is hardly today's celebrity-worship driven uber-thin "beauty" anymore than the ultra-overdone macho butchness "beauty" of the 70s San Francisco/New York gay male is the same twinkerrfic, barely-18, super-smooth "beauty" of today's gay club culture. And that's not even getting into straight female "beauty" vs. lesbian "beauty."

But to get back to my original point, it's gone so far beyond biological determinism at this point that trying to look at it from any kind of "evolutionary" standpoint is pointless, if you ask me.