I don't understand what people find so attractive about women. What is it and why?

[Sander Seed]

If I had to take a stab at it I would say that breasts are attractive to people due to breast feeding and mother/child bond (even babies that aren't breastfed still have the biological conditioning to want to breastfeed). That's why on average most people find them attractive in some way and why even women can find other women aesthetically beautiful even if they are straight.

However, I also think part of it is cultural. If our culture for example allowed men to dress and run around with their genitals exposed and people were used to seeing them every day maybe people would also develop neutral standards of what makes a beautiful or less beautiful penis and hence attractive men. We have standards of what makes beautiful breasts because we see a lot of them. We have no standards of what makes a beautiful vagina because we don't see them as often.

 

[Stg]

Where we differ, is that you take this as the natural hardwired order of things. Like this is the way things are meant to be. This isn't biology, it is a grave social problem.

I take this as something we cannot change because we don't have power over the majority. Help me overthrow the world and then we'll talk. Until then, just accept it as something you cannot change. Do your part by not playing into that stupid mindset and you've done all you can do.

As for the topic at hand, it's already been said - Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. To elaborate (again), not everyone understands why they are attracted to the opposite or same sex or even inanimate object. So when you are asking us to explain to you things that most of us don't even think about on a psychological level (which I have), you won't be getting the concise answers you are looking for. I believe you have been given enough answers to sate your thirst for knowledge.

 

[SomethingDecent]

I don't really understand what the point of this thread is. Seems to me, you are disregarding a lot of good responses, and choosing to respond to those that say things you don't agree with. Breasts being functional is not a valid response because...you say so? Oh, and now they are phallic.

What exactly are you looking to find? There is no set explanation for what is attractive about women. As numerous people have stated, different things attract different people. Your question is too general.

Are you trying to have someone convince you that women are attractive? You don't seem sold on the concept...

 

[Radelaide]

Boobs.

It's all about the boobs.

Oh dear.

Well then, might I have some explanation as to what's so nice about boobs?

You know, while a little bit more round than the penis, boobs seem to be an awfully phallic attraction. According to this thread, people like how boobs produce milk, a white, sticky fluid.

Yes, penis is often longer and less round, but it seems like in terms of big, people prefer wider penises, not longer. And the same do heterosexual men(and maybe lesbian women?) seem to like. Round, big, pieces of meat that stick out and produce white fluid, to stick into their mouthes. Sounds pretty phallic, to me. You'd think that people who liked large boobs would also be into penis.

Oh yes, and the nipples are kind of like a penis head, too. Especially if they're feminine and big and puffy nipples. How, very, phallic. Yes.

I can happily entertain myself with my boobs. Also, boobs are argument winners and good distract-dealies.

Also, try and put semen in your coffee and see how good it tastes

 

[Smooth Operator]

you probably heard of the "woman trapped in a mans body" phenomenon

Transsexuality? It's not the same as gay.

The "trapped" thing is a stereotype, anyway. Most transsexuals don't actually feel "trapped", and their beliefs are quite diverse.

No I'm talking about the cross over phenomenon, like I said mix and match it in different areas and you get everything from transsexuality, bisexuality, homosexuality, asexuality,...

 

[NiPah]

Don't even try to start with the psychoanalysis, there is a reason you can't find it in any modern scientific journals.

As I already put down about two pages ago there is a perfectly good scientific reason for attraction, its nothing magical, it's simply the brain's reaction to visual stimulus. In the case of sexual attraction its a release of endorphins to the brain, it occurs when you detect a partner you would like to mate with, the choice of this partner is based on learned/conditioned perceptions and instinctual/unlearned perceptions that come packed in your genes.

People are attracted to women because of a mix of nature and nurture, we're taught to like what we like (read a bit on learned responses, its very complicated).

Oh and stop replying to people who post witty one liners, you know they don't actually care one bit about the topic.

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

Curves, Estrogen and the way they smile.

 

[Brawndo]

Boobs.

It's all about the boobs.

Oh dear.

Well then, might I have some explanation as to what's so nice about boobs?

You know, while a little bit more round than the penis, boobs seem to be an awfully phallic attraction. According to this thread, people like how boobs produce milk, a white, sticky fluid.

Yes, penis is often longer and less round, but it seems like in terms of big, people prefer wider penises, not longer. And the same do heterosexual men(and maybe lesbian women?) seem to like. Round, big, pieces of meat that stick out and produce white fluid, to stick into their mouthes. Sounds pretty phallic, to me. You'd think that people who liked large boobs would also be into penis.

Oh yes, and the nipples are kind of like a penis head, too. Especially if they're feminine and big and puffy nipples. How, very, phallic. Yes.

Wait - I like girls' boobs and playing with them, thus I am a latent homosexual? This sounds like a really bad attempt at a Freudian analysis. In fact, it seems everything to do with Freud involves penises. I'm sure Freud could also make an argument about breast play involving some kind of unresolved mother complex, but even if that's true, I really, really don't care. Female breasts arouse me, make of it whatever you will.

 

[LilithSlave]

I am merely trying to spark a discussion about attraction that doesn't revolve around "because boobs are awesome lol and I like a nice big booty" or "because we wouldn't have children if we didn't/biology" response which are cheap and not so great. And poke around at some of the oddities of attraction.

I've got to say, boobs and the fetish around them seems kinda phallic to me. The vagina is understated and small. I mean, the only external thing you could really like is pubic hair or cameltoe.

So in the end, many attractions to "masculine" things, and "feminine" things don't seem that different. And pointing this out should spark some discussion that hopefully goes in a creative way for once.

 

[jimahaff]

Hormones, and since our society is still controlled by men (lets stop kidding ourselves misogyny is alive and well) our societal view of beauty is what men find attractive, ergo hormones. There is really nothing more to it than that. It isn't that women are inherently more pleasing to look at, it's just that's how our society see things, and brain washes us to see things.

 

[Jubbert]

Surely there's some kind of thought process.

1. Observe attractive female.
2. Gain arousal due to heterosexual male psychological processes.
3. Act on said arousal through interaction with said female. If leading to sexual intercourse, male gets reward. If not leading to sexual intercourse, male will still be able to use previous arousal for solo intercourse.
4. Profit.

 

[Frozen Donkey Wheel2]

OK, OP, I want you to think about this for a second.

You are claiming that you are bi. This means that you are attracted to both sexes. But at the same time, you are asking why anyone finds women attractive. Do you see the problem yet? I'll tell you: IF YOU HAVE TO ASK WHY WOMEN ARE ATTRACTIVE, THEN YOU OBVIOUSLY AREN'T ATTRACTED TO WOMEN IN THE FIRST PLACE.

Short answer: You're not bi, you're straight. Therefore, you have no reason to be attracted to women and no reason to be confused about the issue. As someone said a long time ago, this thread is bad and you should feel bad.

EDIT: Ok, you seem to be operating under the idea that attraction between members of the human species is driven by some kind of strange, unquantifiable force and we have no idea what's behind it. This is not true. We know exactly why humans are attracted to each other. Men like big boobs because somewhere in our brains is the instinctual desire to get our children the best food supply. I know you don't like the "it's just biology" responses, but unfortunately, your question has a right answer, and that's it. There's no discussion here, it really is just biology.

And as to statement that boobs are phallic....You have either never seen a pair of boobs, you just don't know what "phallic" means. Cigars are phallic. Guns are phallic. Hell, the Eiffel Tower is phallic. Boobs....aren't.

 

[Nalgas D. Lemur]

Well, I've tried to figure out what's so nice about, say, boobs and the like.

But every time I do, I can't seem to see what's more to them other than just being another piece of fat on the body.

I skimmed through this thread looking for what I was going to say and didn't find it, and this was the first post about it to quote that I found, so here I go.

One of the evolutionary biology hypotheses about it is that breasts became a visual "replacement" or substitute for butts as we shifted to walking upright, which also explains why humans have them but our close relatives don't. For most of them, they generally like big butts (and they cannot lie), which are shown off by the way they walk/move around and indicate when they're in heat and all sorts of useful things like that. When you walk upright on two legs, you suddenly stop spending all day bent over with your butt at everyone's eye level, and so the idea goes that evolution selected for females with large fat deposits of a similar shape where they're much easier to display/see. The mammary glands are fully functional on their own, and the large sacs of fat are purely decorative. It's all hypothetical and can't really be tested, because such is the nature of the field, but it is at least fairly plausible.

The more you know.

 

[LilithSlave]

1. Observe attractive female.

You oversimplified step one.

I'm trying to understand the inner workings of step one.

Furthermore, this isn't just about sex. But of calling "beautiful" in general. There is a multi-billion dollars industry around women's looks, and millions of books and magazines gushing about how women are beautiful. Possibly not even in just a sexual way, just beautiful. Just a general, objectifying thing.

And yet people are able to describe what they find beautiful about a painting. You'd think that people would at least be able to attempt to explain what they like about boobs.

They have colours(dependent on race), physical features, all sorts of different shapes and sizes. In fact, men seem to love to talk about how they have a certain shape and size they love, often bigger and rounder, leading many women to get enlargement surgery.

And yet, "what's the fuss about?" has no decent explanation. How funny.

 

[Nalgas D. Lemur]

OK, OP, I want you to think about this for a second.

You are claiming that you are bi. This means that you are attracted to both sexes. But at the same time, you are asking why anyone finds women attractive. Do you see the problem yet?

You know, this is a very good point and the first thing I thought of when reading the first post, but then I got sidetracked by the science of boobs. Curse you, Science! Foiled again!

 

[King Pest]

lilithslave could you explain why you find the male body attractive like chest, legs, penis, or ass? etc

a vagina is a warm inviteing open (and yes wet) place that we can go into for pleasure. as for looks i like the pink redness to it like tender meat. I've also noticed that lines seem to be attractive as well with cleavage, ass crack, and vagina all having them. the v or u shape to the vaginal area is hot. I'm not really sure how to explain it this is the best i could come up with and as for boobs all i could think of is their feel although spherically shaped boobs are preferable even if there not naturally like that and perhaps the less spherical the boobs are the less attractive they would become as they would be off, like how 3d characters in games are sometime off and that seems unnatural or weird.

this isn't really concrete but more like museings I've had and i think things that are attractive are due to feelings and the mind, things that are much harder to describe but you asked for actual thought process so i tried.

 

[LilithSlave]

lilithslave could you explain why you find the male body attractive like chest, legs, penis, or ass? etc

I bet I could, but oh, how lude must I be around here?

And eh, I don't find the male and female breast all that different. A flat chest is a flat chest. A fat chest is a fat chest. I don't have much of a preference in terms of fat or skinny or in terms of chest size. I usually just like a chest because it's attached to face and personality I like.

I'm not asexual, but the most attractive part of the body to me is a cute pair of eyes. The rest of the body can be incredibly fat or incredibly skinny for all I care. And I'll be perfectly physically attracted to them. A human body is a human body. They all look pretty similar to me. A face seems much more unique and interesting.

As for the penis, I'll avoid going into even more gross detail than I have generally in this thread. I actually don't have much preference in terms of the penis and vagina, other than the inside of vagina seems utterly gross like an intestine. The outside of vagina looks okay. I just wouldn't want to put my face near one. I like penis more, because the whole think is flesh coloured instead of some weird dark pink. It's too inconsistent and un-skin like. And licking one would feel like licking intestines because it resembles them.

 

[xyrafhoan]

Time for a pretentious artist outlook on things...

I'm a straight female and I still find other women attractive, for the most part. I'm not saying I find every woman attractive, but I think there's something comforting in the proportions and curves in the female body that the male body just doesn't have. Women generally have a "softer" look, which I suppose is less mentally provocative than a more angular male body, 9 times out of 10. If you break down body forms, you find that men tend to be more triangular and rectangular while you can represent the female body as a series of circles and ovals.

As for "I think vaginas are unappealing", sexual organs are not sexy. Vaginas are flappy pieces of flesh that women bleed out of once a month. Penises are... just kind of odd, really. Although I do like natural breasts that have a bit of perk to them, as they give the female body nice proportions. Fake books or fat boobs are really unpleasant. And smells... this isn't a hard and fast rule, but women usually smell better too. Except me...

 

[Syzygy23]

I don't mean to say I don't understand any small portion of it. I'm a bisexual myself so I'm indeed just a bit attracted to women, too.

And yet, I still don't get it. It feels like that feeling that something is overrated because you don't like it as much as other people, even if that reasoning is completely illogical. And especially within the realm of sexual attraction where all is some kind of pure taste or orientation or whatever. But it rather bugs me.

Because some people seem to act as if women are somehow universally beautiful, aside from even sexual orientation or anything. And billions of dollars are spent on highlighting women's supposed "objective beauty". And it feels weird, I don't get it. What's so beautiful about females? I, for one, don't see any kind of objective beauty in the woman. Heck, I don't even see what people think is some "beautiful" or "pretty" about women.

I know this isn't any better than a man asking "what's so attractive about men? I don't understand it." topic. And I would be fine with such a topic, to be honest.

But I seriously just feel dumbfounded. Feel free to make your own about men. But me, I don't get what's so attractive about women. What do women have that men don't? A vagina? What's so great about those? It's just another hole, a particular hole, that, if anything, is constantly under threat of being pregnant. A situation that is often disadvantageous to everyone involved. Boobs? What's so great about boobs? They're flabby sacks of fat that flap around. If you like boobs, are you attracted to man-boobs? Because I can't tell much of a difference except for that one is on a male and one is on a female.

You can give a typical expected answer of "oh God this question is stupid. It's of course because evolutionary reproductive biology men are meant to be attracted to women and women are meant to be attracted to men blahblahblah" but that doesn't actually answer my question.

And I know a lot of people are going to turn heads at this topic, but it's a thought that's seriously bugging me. It's just so, mysterious and odd to me. And it's probably not in my sexuality to "get" all of it. But I'd at least like to kinda understand it aside from "well men are supposed to be attracted to women and blahblah". I mean, I know I like the colour blue because it seems calming and reminds me of the water, and I like to swim. I wish I could at least wrap my head around what goes through people's minds when they find females attractive.

I don't care if you're not even physically attracted to us, and find women beautiful nonetheless, but I just want to know why the heck people seem to find women so beautiful. If anything, a lot of things about us seem kinda gross.

Wow, could you be ANY more in the closet? It's like every other sentence you wrote is a freudian slip.

It's fine man, some of us developed in a way where we like vaginas n' tits. If you like a dick up the ass (or vice versa) nobody except fundamentalist religious zealots will care.

 

[Quantum Star]

They just are

That's never a logical explanation to anything. And doesn't lead to any scientific progress. That sounds like the religious response to wonder. "Why does x do y? Because it just is/God, of course!". Instead of, "there must be some sort of detailed explanation behind everything", which is a more skeptical and positively curious thought.

All "irrational" human reactions have some ration way of explaining and understanding. Even if wholly instinctual with no conscious component to them.

I do agree that sexuality isn't a choice. But it's also a complicated thing that should be understood on every level. Not that my reasoning is so lofty as it is just finding some social tendencies uncanny(such as men saying "yuck" to fat women, but equally lauding breast fat). What about foot fetishes? And men who don't like large breasts? What about men who prefer fat women? What about men reacting negatively towards fat women?

Funny how we act like nothing has any explanation other than the most simply biology when asking what's so attractive about breasts. But if someone finds feet attractive, it's seen as a fetish that must have some deep seeded psychological root that should be understood.

Sure, it's a simply, off-hand, irreverent question from a woman. But the "it's just biology" answer won't do. It's one part of the explanation, but it's not anywhere close to the whole thing.

I'm sorry, but the conscious mind and sexuality are not things that are disconnected and not intertwined at all. Else we would be able to control our sexual urges. Biologically caused or not, not a choice or so, human beings are sapient creatures, and we are aware of and can describe our sexuality. So a purely biological explanation is not sufficient.

So a purely biological explanation is not sufficient.

I'm sorry, but you're being very difficult. The people commenting here have given you the closest thing to an answer that this unanswerable question has and you go and say to us, "that isn't enough." You are demanding more from us than what we can provide and it just makes you sound selfish. Contrary to what you think, not everything that exists has to have a logical explanation to it. If anything, it sounds like you're trying to prove that your way of thinking is right, and that anything that can't be solved with your way of thinking is wrong.

The thing is, it IS just a biological reason, nothing more. If we didn't find members of the opposite sex attractive, we wouldn't want to mate, and we would eventually go extinct. You're asking the internet for a justification as to why you don't understand something and subsequently shutting down every answer with some reason why that doesn't work, or how you don't understand. You can say the same thing applies to men in some way or another, or that fat being acceptable in one place but not the other confuses you as many times as you want, but all it does is lead the discussion in circles, and that only leads to more frustration.

If some chemicals in your brain just don't process human sexuality the way they should, asking forum-goers on the internet will never give you the answer you're looking for. By trying to use logic to comprehend what is a 100% instinctual response in humans, you completely misunderstand what biology is. Hell, we wouldn't exist if it weren't for random mutations in DNA, for which there is no logical explanation to be found.

But the "it's just biology" answer won't do. It's one part of the explanation, but it's not anywhere close to the whole thing.

If that's how you think, then you have some major delusions about how biology works. I consider myself to be transgender; I identify myself more closely as a female even though I'm male physically. Could I give you a logical explanation for why I'm like this? No, of course not. Maybe something got fucked up in my brain while I was developing, but I sure as hell know it wasn't a conscious, logical descision by me. Some people are bi-polar, some people are asexual, and I bet none of them could give you a logical reason why their moods fluctuate so greatly, or why they aren't sexualy attracted to people.

As for the whole spending billions of dollars highlighting women's beauty, that's just the media and marketing at work, it's how they make money, it's capitalizing on women who are insecure about their looks to sell more products; it's strictly business, nothing to do with biology. (In fact, I don't know anybody who is attracted to the media's and corporation's portrayal of beauty.)

If you were able to navigate that wall of text, congratulations, you deserve a cookie or something. But if you can't understand what is a very basic human reaction and shooting down every response given to you so far by the people who have answered to the best of their ability, you will probably never understand, so just forget about the whole logical approach to why biology is what it is bullshit and discuss some more productive things, you're making it a much bigger deal than it needs to be and wasting all of our time.