There may be various things that make a woman appear attractive to a man. But what makes a woman beautiful goes much deeper than the skin she is in and what we see with our eyes. It depends on what makes a man fall in love with a woman, her personality, her behavior, and who she is as a person. Letโs take a look at what exactly makes women beautiful to men.
As a man with a nineteen-year-old daughter, I am sometimes quite concerned with societyโs continuing obsession with beauty, more specifically about our definition and attitudes about a womanโs beauty.
The messages, for the most part, are fear-based and focused not as much on appreciating beauty as artificially preserving it and hanging onto it. The premise is that time and age make a woman less beautiful and that women must sacrifice time, money, and health to conform to an externally dictated standard of beauty.
My concern is that the media has bombarded us with messages that have hypnotized us into believing that their definition of beauty is actually true. Like most of the messages we see in the media, the motivation is control and money. The beauty industry is a multi-billion dollar powerhouse that stays in business by telling us what is beautiful and who is beautiful, for their own gain.
Iโm not worth nearly a billion dollars, but I am a man whoโs been on the planet for over half a century, as well as a psychologist in Los Angeles, so Iโve seen and heard a lot about it, and would like to offer my perspective as a man whoโs been around the block and isnโt in the pocket of the beauty business.
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โThe best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched โ they must be felt with the heart.โ โ Helen Keller
First, a woman is not beautiful in a vacuum, there is always an observer who interprets that beauty, even if it is the woman herself. But what Iโd really like to talk about is how a man creates beauty through his perception of a woman.
Yes, I firmly believe that the love and admiration of a man has a role in creating beauty in a woman. As a former engineer, I learned that quantum physics tells us that observation affects the โrealityโ of what is being observed.
In making this statement, I want to make a distinction between โbeautifulโ and โattractiveโ. We are biologically disposed towards what is attractive, based upon what would make good โbreedingโ material in both sexes. Itโs not romantic, but itโs true.
As the theory goes, classic attractiveness is based upon symmetry and proportion. The more symmetrical, the more โpureโ and more prone to survival are the underlying genetics. We know and react to this deep within our DNA on a visceral, unconscious level.
This isnโt really news. The designers of the Great Pyramids of Egypt, as well as Leonardo Da Vinci and so many others of the Renaissance, used the โGolden Ratioโ of 1:1.62 in creating their masterpieces. When an object or person meets this ratio, we consider it or them to be beautiful.
We can apply this to the ratio of face length to face width. We can apply it to nose-to-chin or pupil-to-nose ratios. It is endlessโjust ask any plastic surgeon.
โWhen I think of the most beautiful women, theyโre not supermodels.โ โ Becki Newton
Psychologically, we find attractive someone who embodies the qualities of our primary caregivers. The people who raised us, typically our parents and extended family are our models for a relationship, emotionally as well as physically. Sometimes we choose someone who is the opposite of them, yet we are still using them as our template.
We are all drawn to certain body parts that sexually stimulate us: face, eyes, hair, breasts, belly, butt, legs, ankles. We each have different preferences, which is a good thing, as it is a rare woman who has each body part exactly as we would prefer. Again, this variation in what is attractive offers another genetic advantage through creating a more varied gene pool and is, therefore, more conducive to the survival of the species.
Emotional maturity consists of recognizing our predispositions and focusing more on what we appreciate than on what we donโt appreciate in our partner and being grateful for that. We do have a cerebral cortex that lets us override the instincts of our reptilian brain.
Taking all of that into consideration, I would argue that attraction and sexual chemistry donโt make a woman beautiful, they simply make her attractive. I would argue that beauty is defined by something deeper, that it is truly more than skin deep.
Love is a big part of what creates beauty in a woman, at least in my eyes.
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When I truly love a woman and love her beautiful way of being, she becomes beautiful in my mind and in my soul, and then in my eyes. And when she is able to witness and feel my love for her and my vision of her beauty and she can fully take it in, then she is transformed.
Iโm not saying this in a narcissistic, controlling way or even in a romantic sense. This beauty-endowing mechanism isnโt something unique to me or to men in general. We all have this gift. We all create beauty in our lives and in our relationships. There is something alchemical, something transformative about it, something soulful about it.
โThe beauty of a woman must be seen from in her eyes, because that is the doorway to her heart, the place where love resides.โ โ Audrey Hepburn
Have you ever experienced it from the other side? Have you ever wished that you could see yourself the way that your beloved sees you? You can and perhaps you have. Thatโs the beauty of a relationshipโwe can be mirrors for each other and can also be healers for each other.
I have loved deeply and experienced beauty in women that have not been conventionally attractive or classically beautiful. I have experienced tears in my eyes from witnessing a beauty that has caused my more objective friends to question my very sanity. Looking at photos of these women years later after my intense connection has subsided, I can understand what raised the eyebrows of my doubting friends. I can also understand the soulfulness and the love that expanded my perceptions.
The type of beauty that I refer to defies gravity and time. It doesnโt require Botox and Pilates and rigorous diets. Iโm not saying that we shouldnโt take care of ourselves and do whatever makes us feel good about ourselves. Iโm saying that the beauty of love is timeless and is not affected by the ravages of life.
Havenโt we all witnessed an elderly couple walking hand in hand and gazing into each otherโs eyes with a love that has endured decades and decades of lifeโs vicissitudes? Havenโt we all been envious of the love and the beauty that is the co-creation of their relationship?
The beauty that Iโm describing isnโt about attraction and sexuality, though we all deserve to have someone weโre sexually attracted to and who is attracted to us. It isnโt limited to one romantic relationship.
It is about any love relationship. I have had dear friends and family in the throes of cancer and AIDS, at less than half of their normal body weight and they have been beautiful to me. The soul is the soul and its essence is beauty on all levels.
โThe definition of a beautiful woman is one who loves me.โ โ Sloan Wilson
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The title of this article is โWhat Makes A Woman Beautiful To A Manโ and it was written as one manโs response to one womanโs piece about beauty. However, the mechanism of love is one that transcends gender and sexual orientation. I believe that it is true for ALL types of relationships between all types of people. The soul doesnโt care what kind of body it or its mate is living in. Love is love and beauty is beauty.
Am I a hopeless romantic or am I onto something? For the sake of my daughter and all of the young women in our world, I would like to think so. What are your experiences of beauty and of creating beauty in your partner?
Hereโs a great video that you may find interesting:
Written byย Dr. Adam Sheck Originally appeared inย The Goodmen Project
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