What attracts men and women to one another?

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What attracts men and women to one another?

3News NZ

A Wellington man is studying women's breast sizes, among other things, in order to discover what people find attractive in each other.

It is serious research - in fact, some of the doctorate student's work has gained international recognition in academic circles.

He has found some surprising truths about men and women.

So why do we fancy someone? Why does someone fancy you?

Men and women have always watched each other and admired good looks, but on Wellington's streets at least, they insist they are attracted by deeper things. Victoria University doctorate student Barnaby Dixson does not believe them. He says it is not personality first, and he is doing the research which he thinks will show that.

Human nature and sexual attraction is Mr Dixson's thing, specifically women's body shapes and men's body hair.

Like Charles Darwin, he insists our drive to reproduce determines who we chose to mate with.

Mr Dixson measures how fast men scan the bodies and where they look. They are also asked to rate the women's attractiveness to find out whether they will go for Darwin's ideal of a healthy child-bearing body with a low hip-to-waist ratio.

So what do women want in a man? Mr Dixson is looking at Darwin's theory on beards, played out by league side the Warriors recently when they decided to grow them. 

Barnaby photographed men being angry with beards and without.

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Comments

21/09/2009 3:05:07 p.m.

scrubbuzz.com wrote:

Well; Duuh!

C’mon Barnaby – the sole reason that mechanics adorn the walls of their workshops with unadorned boobs is because they know that breasts put blokes into a hypnotic trance for long enough to swipe the eftpos for 500 bucks when all that has been done are the spark plugs. Hardly the sort of stuff that wins Nobels...

19/07/2009 2:26:48 a.m.

John wrote:

For me personality, artistic creativity, a bit of real sassy glamour and a great sense of humour, verbal and visual are tops! Physical attributes are not that important especially when you get older. Real interests in common, interesting conversation and a shared lifetyle are what makes married life go with a swing along with caring natures, liberal tolerant attitudes, and of course great sex together or with friends if You are that way inclined! A friendly family pet would be nice as well.

Seriously I take the beardie-weirdie stuff on board, but in my experience may top politicians in my area have had beards, and indeed trim neat cut beards can look very sexy, paternalistic and very distinguished; only untrimmed bushy beards look like Santa living on the streets.

Dr.in waiting Barnaby Dixson is only half right on what men like me find attractive; Of course we love big child bearing hips, but why do so many guys like me adore fleshy mature full bodied figures with thunde thighs, droopy breasts and wobbly botoms? f we are just jooking to reproduce why are so many of us attracted to older women, or are gay or bi-sexual, or the sporty playboy guys who date stick insect anorexic girlfriends with mock Rolex watches, chunky sexy jewellary and hard macho muscular thighs! Why do we not want 20 children each anymore? To be honest this kind of neo Darwinian social biology can degenerate into a trivial kind of pseudo-science and is not to be taken too seriously. Dixson scores a point when he says You need some kind of physical chemistry and reaction when you meet which is one reason to be cynical of internet dating and sweet web romaances.

True love is not about whether your bum looks big in this dress, but needs a lifetime to understand.Real love is when You always miss your lifetime partner when they are not there, but also knowing in some weird way they are really with you all the time. Real love is whenlike Gromit my doggy namesake you never have to say Sorry! Gx2

12/03/2009 2:08:04 p.m.

Milena P wrote:

The problem with most people is that they think they know everything about everything. If they would just open their eyes for a minute, they might realize that what they believe to be the truth isn't necessarily so. You can learn a lot about a topic you think you are an expert on and sometimes even conventional knowledge can be proved wrong...
Of course there is a lot more depth involved when developing a long term relationship with someone, but that isn't really what this researcher is testing now is it... He is challenging fundamental theories of attractiveness with what I believe to be innovative technology.
Lighten up people!

6/03/2009 12:01:51 a.m.

Neil wrote:

Some women can look really sexy and attractive - that is, until they open their mouth.

2/03/2009 11:29:07 a.m.

J wrote:

Its all about how we smell in the end. Take a good wiff and tell me im wrong.

23/02/2009 6:15:42 p.m.

Peter Vaughan wrote:

Stabbing at answers in the dark I say. The thing that attracts people to people is firstly a visual thing, then a harmonic thing. If no visual is available, i.e. phone dating - e-mail dating, then its a sound thing, then a harmonic thing. How do I know this? After 100,000 case studies, people have attributes in common that cannot be observed on the surface. The attraction process is complex but simple when you know how. It is the same process a mother has when she names her new born; its a feeling thing - the name just 'fits' her emotional sensing and this cannot be observed by the studies being conducted in this story. Cheers, Peter

23/02/2009 4:41:15 p.m.

Richard N/A wrote:

The attractive feature between us has nothing to do with the body. It is the spirit soul which actually attracts us to one another.

A woman could have the most beautiful body but if you remove the soul no one is interested. For example; you walk up to a lady with the most beautiful eyes and say "you have the most beautiful eyes I have ever seen". The woman then proceeds to pull out her eye balls and hands them to you. You're then left with a couple of squidgy eye balls in your hands which all of a sudden don’t seem so attractive.

You see it is not the physical body itself that we are attracted to. It is the spirit soul which illuminates the body which we are truly attracted to. The body is just a combination of blood, bones, urine, faeces, hair, skin, vomit etc. Which if you put in a pile in the middle of the room would probably make you sick. Without the soul you could have the greatest breasts or beard but nobody would be interested!

When one is lacking in any real knowledge of the actual self then yes they will base their decisions for a partner on the temporary body. And we practically see that 99.99% of these relationships that are based on the temporary body end up being just that, temporary.

23/02/2009 3:04:53 p.m.

Simon, Wellington wrote:

Gosh let me guess. Taxpayers funded this clown to troll bars with a tape measure ?

Whoever agreed to fund this study needs to be sacked. Even from an academic point of view it leaps to all sorts of assumptions that breasts have anything to do with it. The most attractive and interesting woman I know is flat breasted and is as skinny as a rake, but has the most amazing sense of humour and intoxicating off the wall personalities.

There ya are... Self confidence is the key and now please can the taxpayer be given a break ?