First of all, for all practical purposes, I think most people in our culture would refer to me and my ideas about women as being feminist. I don't know if you've checked out any of my other pages on this site at all, but if not, I'd suggest reading at least a bit of this page (about Patriarchy and Misogyny) and this page (about my relationship with my partner, Karen) just to make sure you know where I'm coming from on the issue of women in general. 

I've thought about this issue of beauty and sexual selection a lot. I used to think my preferences were programmed into me by my family and my culture and that I was just walking around obeying the dictates of those who had gone before me and of those who wanted me to buy their products. I thought that if I just tried hard enough, I could eventually change the preferences in my mind and the reaction in my body to the sight of someone with my preferred body type and other sexually relevant physical features and characteristics. 

However, for many years now I've suspected that my tendency to be sexually attracted to a certain general body type (including things like height, physical fitness, facial characteristics, the shape and size of breasts and buttocks, hair color and so forth) in women is not just because of what I was told or shown while growing up or because of what I've been exposed to in society. It has seemed to me that my preferences (the details of which I have purposely withheld here for scientific reasons) concerning these particular features are at least to some degree actually part of my nature. 

Through personal experience, scientific investigation, and the research of many other people, I now know that much of what I consider "beautiful" and the reasons for why I'm attracted to what or whom I'm attracted to are not just simply a result of the way I've been trained or conditioned by my family or culture. 

I've obviously inherited other traits from my parents relating to things like my body type, diseases my body is more prone to, cognitive functions (such as the extremely high ability to systemize), personality traits and abilities such as enjoying talking to others in the sense of teaching or instructing but being less naturally skilled in conversational dialogue (though I'd like to be more and am endeavoring to strive for more of this in my personal life) and of course things like the fact that I have ADD and I probably got it from my father. We could go on and on for days talking about all of the things that we already acknowledge as inheritable traits. Why can't things like preferences and the tendency to choose certain things in certain situations be inheritable too? 

Of course there is still a lot of what we think and say and do that comes about as a result of our up-bringing and our exposure to others in society, but this is not enough to explain what we now know through genetic, biological, psychological, sociological and evolutionary research. 

Certainly there is already proof that the mechanism of preference it self (the tendency to prefer one thing over another at all) is a biologically inherited trait. Now there's real, hard core scientific research about our species in general to back up what I've sensed in my own life for a long time. Not to say that everything about me and what I prefer is absolutely predetermined before I even step out into the world, but there is a general preference that is in fact built-in, so to speak. 

We already know from previous scientific research that at least some preferences are genetically based. When a preference for something is genetically based, that preference gets passed on to future generations when those genes get passed on. It's that simple. To a certain degree, some of the things that I prefer, I prefer them because they were things that my ancestors preferred. I prefer them like they did because the genes that helped produce their preferences got passed on to me and are now a portion of that genetic make up that forms my preferences today. 

So, in a certain way, it is true that my preferences come from my family. What's different in our understanding of it now though is that, to a certain extent, they come to me in a much more direct route than was previously suspected. That's why I titled this page, "the eyes genes of the beholder: Finally, the truth about beauty, physical attraction and the nature of sexual selection in the evolution of homo sapiens". 

If you are at all interested in this subject (whether in your own life or just curious about how it effects the lives of others around you), I strongly suggest reading the book "Survival of the Prettiest: The Science of Beauty" by Nancy Etcoff, from Anchor Books, 2000. 

From the inside cover...
Nancy Etcoff has an M.Ed. from Harvard, a Ph.D. in psychology from Boston University, and has held a post-doctoral fellowship in brain and cognitive sciences at MIT. She is currently a faculty member at Harvard Medical School and a practicing psychologist at Massachusetts General Hospital. 

from the back cover... 
"In this provocative, witty, and thoroughly researched inquiry into what we find beautiful and why, Nancy Etcoff skewers one of our culture's most enduring myths, that the pursuit of beauty is a learned behavior. Etcoff, a faculty member at Harvard Medical School and a practicing psychologist at Massachusetts General Hospital, explores what it is in our nature that makes us susceptible to beauty, what qualities in people evoke this response, and why sensitivity to beauty crosses all cultures. She proposes that valuing beauty is an essential and ineradicable part of human nature and that it is revered and ferociously pursued at enormous cost in nearly every civilization. When seen in the context of a Darwinian struggle for survival, our sometimes extreme attempts to attain beauty become understandable. Agree or disagree, you will never think about human beauty in quite the same way again." 

from the New York Times Book Review...
"Survival of the Prettiest is the first book to pull all of the science on beauty into one lively yet thoughtful package, showing again that it's not just ax-grinding males who believe that biology continues to play an important role in our lives." 

from The Boston Globe... 
"Through a series of global scientific studies, Etcoff... presents a compelling argument for why so many cultures are influenced by beauty." 

from the Houston Chronicle... 
"Nancy Etcoff... writes confidently that today's culture of beauty is not a backlash against feminism. She delves into why we devour fashion magazines, agonize about waist sizes, and gaze longingly at objects of desire." 

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