Is beauty just a cultural thing, based on whatever the common consensus is at any particular time? Or is there a ‘true beauty’, that we find in all cultures and times? Actually it’s a little of both. Do you want to know which aspects of ‘beauty’ are arbitrary, and which seem to be biological? Or whether stick thin models are truly beautiful, or just an artificial fad? Then keep reading!
A strange event got my mind onto this topic. I was in Primark, a discount clothes store here in Leeds. An interesting peculiarity about this store is that its layout makes it impossible to get to the men’s section without walking through the women’s underwear section. Having no other option, I made my way through this mysterious section of the store.
As I slowly walked towards my destination, I saw someone from the corner of my eye who caught my attention, and my head instinctively moved to her. And there she was, in all her glory.
An industry-standard ‘female’ mannequin.
I’d just walked through a women’s underwear section, which, being a busy Saturday afternoon, was filled not only with lots of women’s underwear, but also lots of women, and a mannequin is what catches my eye.
Maybe that’s an interesting peculiarity about me?
No… don’t open that door…
Sexy? |
Why did the mannequin catch my eye? The mannequin’s job is display the clothes in the best possible light. It’s a hard job to get into - the hours are long and employers will only hire you if you’re the epitome of attractiveness; because the same item of clothing worn by two people will generally look better on the more attractive one.
‘Male’ mannequins don’t have sunken chests and pot bellies, do they? The idea is to make you think you’ll look like that, if you’d only purchase the item of clothing.
Fair enough. But, why do they look like they do? Why am I supposed to find this particular shape and size woman attractive? I looked into it, but stuck to female beauty, because (a) it’s a more interesting topic (don’t ask how long I spent “researching” pictures), and (b) it has more relevance to issues like body image concerns, the effect of the media, and so on.
Eye of the Beholder
We can start to answer this question by looking at what different cultures and times have held to be beautiful. If there is wide variety, we can say beauty is mostly cultural. If there’s wide agreement, we can say it’s biological.
The classic comment I got while chatting to people about this, is that although “thin is in” right now, in the past, fat was desirable. Not ‘curvy’, but actually overweight. I wondered if this was actually true.
Here are a couple of adverts. The left one’s from 1885, the right one from roughly 100 years later:
Things have changed since 1885! Though to be fair I did pick both of these specifically to illustrate my point, so they don’t really prove anything.
To find more evidence I searched the web, looking at how different cultures across time had depicted women in their art. I don’t have time or space to give a full rundown, but here’s some stuff I found out:
Women through time
 |
- The oldest known representation is the Venus of Hohle Fels. It’s around 35,000 years old, and is most clearly an overweight woman.
- Of course there’s the work of Flemish artist Paul Peter Rubens in the early 1600s, who influenced the ‘Rubanesque’ movement. Rubens displayed women as pale and plump; this was considered attractive. For example, have a look at his painting, Venus at a Mirror. This is the same Goddess of love and beauty who was depicted more slimly in other times.
- Slim women got their fair share of attention too. The Egyptians consistently portrayed a more slender ideal in their art, similar to the current trends. See the painting here, from the Tomb of Nakht, around 15th c BCE. Also, based on the paintings I found, the Chinese also preferred the slim look.
- Weight wasn’t the only factor. For example in Elizabethan England (1558-1603), beauty was pale skin and a plucked forehead! Yes, the hair was plucked to make the forehead appear larger. Not sure where that one came from, but pale skin was a sign of wealth, partly because the ingredients of the cosmetic of choice to achieve this look were rather expensive, and also health because if your face was clear and pale you probably didn’t have small pox.
I didn’t do an extensive study of all cultures prefer, but it’s pretty clear that there’s been a lot of variation over time. So far, beauty does look like it’s in the eye of the beholder.
Metal necks, ceramic mouths and silicone breasts
Even within the cultures of the world today, there exists massive variation in what is considered beautiful. It’s amazing how creative we are with this; all manner of adornment, tattooing and manipulation of body parts are linked to beauty. Again, not a comprehensive study but just a few points:
 |
- In many parts of Africa, obesity is desirable - it is associated with abundance and fertility. In some areas, girls go to “fattening farms” - much the same in principle to health farms and gyms - a cultural institution aimed at increasing the appearance and charm of its clientele by placing them more in line with the current consensus.
- This preference was also found in a study in 2008; in the US, men preferred a body shape thinner than the average, while men in Ghana preferred a body shape that was heavier than the average. (1)
- Again though, we find that there’s more to beauty than body weight. The Padaung women of Southeast Asia like to place metal rings around their necks. They start this practice from a young age, and over time, the rings lengthen the appearance of the neck, increasing their desirability. This has lead to an imaginative nickname: “Giraffe Women”.
- In some African tribes, large ceramic and wooden plates are held in the mouth to stretch out the lips. Bigger lips = more desirable. Eventually, the lips have stretched so much that the whole plate can be pushed into the mouth with ease!
- Perhaps strangest of all is the modern West. Many women undergo surgery to alter the size of their breasts, waists and lips. Other surgical procedures are also common, usually based around increasing the appearance of youth.
Imagine if Western culture had evolved to desire mouth-plates instead of silicone breasts. Imagine women on the cover of Vogue holding ceramic plates in their mouths, or Pamela Anderson running down a sandy Californian beach, mouth-plate bouncing up and down as she goes.
It sounds ridiculous, but is it any more ridiculous than putting lumps of silicone in your breasts? All over the world, people go to incredible lengths to match up to the standards of beauty their culture endorses. At first glance these standards do not appear to be consistent. When a culture changes, its standards of beauty often change with it. So to a certain extent, beauty is ‘democratic’, decided by whatever the people happen to prefer. But there’s more to this story than differences. For example, even though “thin is in” at the moment, it’s not true that every thin woman is considered beautiful, is it? You couldn’t replace a Playboy centrefold with a random girl of equal weight.
So there must be something else going on, other than cultural influences. Perhaps the answer to what this is lies in what the different cultures agree on.
We’re not so different after all
Evolutionary psychologist Devendra Singh discovered that all around the world, men have a preference for women with a low waist-to-hip ratio (WHR) - A waist that is relatively thin and hips that are relatively broad. This is regardless of the actual weight of the woman. The magic ratio is 0.7; here’s an example you might recognise: (2)
Marilyn Monroe - 0.7 waist-to-hip ratio |
If you zoom in so that the hips measure 20mm, you’ll find the waist measures 14mm - a perfect 0.7 WHR. This ratio is consistent in beauty icons across time and culture. Audrey Hepburn had it, the average Playboy centrefold is 0.68: even the Venus de Milo has a WHR close to 0.7. And a relatively thin waist has been seen as attractive through time - a study of English and Chinese literature consistently found references to thin waists in descriptions of women considered beautiful at that time. (3)
So what’s the attraction to this particular shape? It’s because a favourable WHR suggests that a woman is young, healthy, and fertile. It’s a signal of genetic fitness and a good choice for a mate. Women whose fertility has been impaired tend to have higher WHRs, and unhealthy, starving women cannot maintain large buttocks and breasts - they need to use this fat as fuel.
Not surprisingly then, the magic 0.7 ratio is a preference shared in almost all cultures studied. WHR provides very important information to a species whose main drives are to survive and reproduce. Although there is some controversy over just how universal the 0.7 WHR preference is, there is reason to believe that even if fads and fashions change, this preference would remain - to so some extent.(4)
Face the Facts
One thing we haven’t looked at yet is facial beauty. This is typically studied by showing photographs of faces (or actual people sometimes) and asking participants to rate their attractiveness on a scale. In a massive meta-analysis of over 900 studies of this kind, psychologists discovered a huge agreement both cross-ethnically and cross-culturally on which faces were attractive. This analysis strongly disagrees with the idea that “beauty is in the eye of the beholder”, and suggests there’s something universal and genetic about facial attractiveness - something we all recognise.
Three important aspects seem to be symmetry, clear skin, and averageness. The more symmetrical a face is, the more attractive it seems to us, and when a group of faces are morphed into one by taking the average of all their proportions, that artificial face is usually seen as more attractive than any of the individual ones.
Researchers did exactly that with photos of entrants to the Miss Germany contest. The average face was rated more attractive even than the eventual winner. Here ’she’ is on the left. But, it’s not purely averageness that is attractive, because several unattractive faces morphed into one is not seen as more beautiful than a prototypical attractive face. (By the way, check out Beauty Check, where this photo came from - it’s an excellent site and their study is great fun too).
Don’t forget to indicate!
Looking at the evidence, a certain portion of the beauty pie is taken up by biological preferences inherent in most, if not all, humans - the indicators of health, fertility, and good genes.
The rest is taken up by cultural preferences. Why do societies differ in these ways? Are they just arbitrary? Way back in time, did a group of high-status people in a tribe decide that long necks were sexy, and dictate that preference to their subordinates, eventually spreading the idea through the whole tribe?
Partly, but even cultural preferences are indicators in their own right. They might signal things like health or whether a person has reached breeding age, but the thing about health is that it looks pretty much looks the same wherever you live. Other things might look differently in different areas - for example, wealth. There seems to be a pattern between body weight preference and wealth - although the specific weight that is used as this marker seems to differ across cultures.
Researchers Sobal and Stunkard did a large review of sudies that looked into both body weight and socioeconomic status. They found that in rich countries, the correlation is negative - the richer you are, the thinner you tend to be - and in poor or undeveloped countries the correlation is positive - rich people tend to be overweight. (5)
The reasons for this are unclear, but it’s thought to go something like this: in a poor society you need to be wealthy to become fat, and if you’re a hungry person in a poor society, wealth is very attractive. So overweight people suddenly become appealing. Also, more weight is seen to relate to maturity, and it’s useful to have mature people around in hard times. However, in a society that’s generally rich, these preferences aren’t activated, which allows thinner body ideals to evolve more often in these places.
Another interesting study found that men going in to a canteen reported that they preferred heavier women than men going out of the canteen. Hungry men prefer heavier women. So if you hate the thin ideal and want a way to get rid of it, now you know how - starve all the men in the society! (please don’t, though). (6)
What is beauty?
Combining these findings, we come to a basic formula:
Adherence to social consensus + Genetic Fitness = Physical beauty
Social consensus will be things like the current body size preferences, fashion/adornment preferences, and so on. Genetic Fitness is WHR, facial symmetry, and things like that.
So take a genetically fit (’biologically attractive’) woman, and throw her in any space and time. Provided she can match up to the status quo of that time, she’ll always be a catch. And even if she didn’t match up, she’d probably be seen as attractive to some extent. Likewise, a woman who isn’t as genetically attractive can ‘trade up’ by adhering to the social consensus.
In other words, take Jessica Alba, and fatten her up, or use brass rings to make her neck seem longer, or pluck her hair line back and make her skin pale - and she’d still be considered beautiful in Ghana, Northern Thailand, or Elizabethan England, respectively. Do all three, of course, and she’d be an absolute smash in a goth club.
I’m being superficial
I’m being superficial on purpose here, because I just wanted to look into beauty. There’s more to attractiveness than physical beauty of course - personality, how you carry yourself, confidence, and all kinds of other things - although I know it doesn’t seem that way, because our culture is very superficial. The only thing is, I don’t know how much of the attractiveness pie is taken up by physical beauty, and how much is taken up by these other things. Maybe that’s a topic for another day.
Is it right or wrong for a society to be as focused on physical beauty as we are? I don’t know, but it’s clear that we’re not alone on this - through time and space, people have altered their bodies to look more attractive. All manner of cosmetics, paintings, decorations, piercing, exercise regimes, scarification and accessories have been used. But all of these practices are essentially arbitrary, and relevant to a specific culture at a specific place and time. They establish connections with the norms of that time, or to a particular group within a society.
But it’s useful to understand that apart from the biological markers of health and fertility, there’s no definition of beauty that isn’t considered ugly in another place or time.
译文:
何之为美？
美是否仅仅是一种文化的东西？它是否是基于生活在特定时代的人们的共识？抑或是否有一种我们可以在所有的文化和时代里都能够发现的“真美”？事实上就美而言，这两种假设都有一点点道理。你想知道美的哪些方面是任意的，可变的，哪些方面是固定的，遗传的吗?又或者身材纤细的模特们是否是真正的美丽还是仅仅作为一种人为的时尚？想了解的话请继续往下看。
我对这个问题的关注源于一件怪事。当时我在利兹的一家服装折扣店（马克）里。这个店有一个有趣的布局特色——要到达男装区的话就必须经过女人内衣区。别无它法，我只能走进这间店的神秘区域。
当我慢慢走向目的地的时候，呈现在我眼角的人引起了我的注意。我本能地转头看她。而她就立在那里，光彩夺目。
一个符合行业标准的时装女模特
在这个繁忙的星期六下午，我装作若无其事地穿过这个内衣区，这一区不仅内衣多，而且女人也不少。而捉住我眼球的是一个时装模特。
也许我身上有个有趣的特征？
非也...别打开那扇门...
性感？ |
为什么那个人体模特能够捉住我的眼球？她的职责是在最好的光线条件下向顾客展示服装。这是一件苦差——工作时间长，而且雇主只用很有吸引力的人；因为同一款服装穿在更有魅力的人身上通常会更好。
“男性”人体模特没有下垂的胸部和小肚子，有吗他们？目的就是让你觉得如果你买这款衣服来穿的话，你的身材看起来将会像模特一样。
很不错。但是为什么他们能出色地胜任其工作呢？为何我要找这个外形独特的魅力女性呢？我仔细地看着她，但却深陷于女性之美，因为（A）这是个更有趣的话题（不要问我花了多少时间去“研究”这些相片），还有（B）这与对身体意象关注和媒体的影响效果等有着更为密切的联系。
情人眼里出西施
对于这个问题，我们可以从不同的文化和时代关于美的概念这个角度进行回答。如果大家对于何之为美各有所见的话，那么我们可以说美是某种传统观念里的东西。如果大家对此有广泛的一致认同的话，那么美就是作为人而与生俱来的视觉认同（这种认同不因文化和时代而异）。
当我和他人聊到这个问题的时候，大多数人都会说虽然现在“瘦是一种时髦”，但在过去，人们垂涎于肥。大家追求的不是曲线美，而事实上是追求过重的体型。我想知道这是不是真的。
这里有两幅广告。左边那幅是出自1885年，右边那一幅大概比左边的晚了100年：
Things !
为了找到更多的证据，我就到网上去搜索，看看不同文化和时代的艺术是怎样描述女性的。我没有太多的时间和空间去作出一个详细的总结，但这里有一些我所找到的材料：
不同时代的女性
- 现知最古老的代表是霍勒菲尔斯女神。到目前为止大概已有35000年的历史，很显然她是个肥胖的女性。
- 那是弗兰德的艺术家保罗彼特鲁宾斯在17世纪早期的作品。鲁宾斯影响了“鲁宾斯绘画特征”运动，他的画展现了女性的洁白和丰满;过去这被视为很有吸引力。例如 ，让我们来看一下他的另一副画——镜子中的维纳斯。她同样是爱和美的女神，但在其他时代，她被画得更为苗条。
- 身材苗条的女性也很受关注。埃及人一贯喜欢将一个更加苗条的理念描述于他们的艺术之中，这与当前的审美趋势很相似。看这幅来自納黑特古墓的画，大概创作于公元前15世纪。同样，从我搜索到的画中，我发现中国人也更喜欢苗条的外表。
- 体重并不是唯一的因素。例如在在伊丽莎白时代的英国（1558-1603），美的定义就是洁白的皮肤和无遮掩的前额！是的，拔掉前额上的头发让前额显得更大些。我不知道前额这个标准是从哪来的，但是洁白的皮肤却是富有的标志，部分原因是由于能够使人看起来更美白的化妆品是十分昂贵的吧。而且洁白代表健康，因为如果你的脸干净又洁白的话，这大概可以说明你没得天花。
在不同文化对美的取向这一方面，我没有进行深入广泛研究，但是不同时代对美却有着各种各样价值标准，这一点是毋庸置疑的。到目前为止，对于何之为美这个问题，似乎只能用情人眼里出西施来形容.
金属脖子，陶器嘴巴和硅胶胸脯
当今世界，在文化传统不相同的国家中，人们对美的认同也有很大的差别。在追求美这一方面，我们的创造力大得惊人；像装饰，纹身和对身体某些部位改变处理，所有这些方法都是为了美。接下来说到的同样仅仅是一些观点，并非一个全面综合的研究：
- 在非洲的许多地方，肥胖是令人渴望的，因为这意味着充裕和富饶。在某些地区，女孩们去增肥庄——大体上与健身庄健身房差不多——一种旨在增大客户的体型和魅力来使她们更符合当前的审美标准的文化机构。
- 2008年的一项研究同样发现有这样的偏好；在美国，人们更喜欢比平均水平要瘦的体型，而在嘎纳，情况正好相反。
- 虽然如此，除了体重之外，我们还发现有些更美的东西。帕督安是位于东南亚的一个国家，那里的妇女喜欢在脖子上放上一些金属圈。她们从小就开始这样做，随着时间的推移，那些圈圈就使得她们的脖子变长了，这能使她们更有吸引力。这就产生了一个富有想象力的昵称：“长颈鹿美女”。
- 在一些非洲部落，为了使嘴唇能伸展着长出来，一些大的陶制和木制平板就被放到嘴里。越大的嘴唇就越令人渴望。最后，那些嘴唇已经伸展得很长很大，以致整个平板可以很轻易地放到嘴里。
- 也许在所有的这些整形中，要数西方国家的最为奇怪。很多西方女性通过外科手术来改变她们胸部，腰部和嘴唇的大小。其他的外科手术也很常见，通常是围绕着使外表看起来更为年轻这个目的。
想像一下，如果西方文化已经演变为渴望平板嘴而不是硅胶胸。想像一下在时尚杂志封面上的女人将一块陶瓷板放到嘴里，那情况会是怎样呢？又或者帕梅拉 安德森跑到加利福尼亚的海边沙滩，让陶瓷板一样大的嘴随着她的跳动而上下摆动，那该多有趣呢。
这听起来似乎很荒谬，但这有将硅胶填进你的胸脯那么荒谬吗？全世界范围内，人们付出令人难以置信的代价去迎合当地文化所认同的美的标准。咋一看，这些标准似乎并不一致。当一种文化在转变的时候，它对美的标准常常也会随之改变。因此，在某种程度上说，美是一种“民主”决策，它取决于人们对某种标准的偶然偏好。但这里有的并不仅仅是差异。例如，即使瘦在当下是一种时尚，那是否每一个苗条的女性都漂亮呢，是这样吗？我想你是不能取代《花花公子》杂志插页中任何一个与你同样苗条的女孩。
因此，除了文化的影响之外，肯定有其他因素在起作用。答案也许就在于不同文化对美的认同。
我们都一样
进化心理学家德文德拉 辛格有一个发现，那就是全世界范围内，男性更喜欢腰围与臀围比率（腰围/臀围）小的女性。也就是说腰相对要细而臀部相对要大。这完全不考虑女性的真实体重。最有吸引力的比率是0.7；这就有个你可能会认可的例子：（2）
玛丽莲梦露——0.7的腰 臀比 |
如果你将图片放大到臀部宽20毫米，你将会发现腰部是14毫米——一个完美的0.7腰臀比。这个比率符合不同时代和文化对于美的标准。奥黛丽赫本就拥有这样的身材。《花花公子》插页中的女性们，其平均比率是0.68：甚至米勒岛上的维纳斯也接近这个0.7的比率。任何时代，拥有一段相对纤细的腰肢总是迷人的——在一个对中英文学的研究中，研究者发现不同时代的文学作品总会提到能用纤纤细腰来形容的女性是美丽的。（3）
这种特别的身材到底有何吸引力呢？因为一个好的腰臀比能够表明一个女性的青春、健康和具有良好的生育能力。它表明该女性具有良好的遗传基因，并且是择偶的的好对象。一般而言，生育能力较好的女性一般腰臀比会更高。而不太健康并瘦小的女性不会有大的臀部和胸脯，因为丰满的臀和胸是要靠脂肪来支撑的。
研究发现，所有文化对魅惑的0.7比率都有偏好，这点毫不奇怪。腰臀比为我们提供了一个重要的信息，即人类这个物种的主要本能需求就是生存和繁衍。虽然在偏爱于0.7这个比率的普遍度方面还存在一些争论，但是在一定程度上，我们有理由相信，即使时尚和潮流转变，这种偏好也将保持不变（4）
脸和美
有一样东西还没有说到，那就是美丽的脸蛋。这是一项典型的靠研究脸部照片的研究（有时还要用到真人），它要求参与者评价他们的魅力等级。通过对900多个此类研究的整合分析，心理学家发现，在哪些脸是具有吸引力这个问题上，存在着广泛的，跨种族跨文化的一致认同。这个分析与“情人眼里出西施"的观点形成了强烈的反差，它表明了在有关怎样的脸蛋才算漂亮的问题上，存在着一种普遍的具有遗传性的标准——这是我们都认同的。
三个重要的方面似乎是对称的脸型，洁净的皮肤和“平均脸”。越对称的脸型似乎对我们越有吸引力，而且当我们在一组脸型中，取其各种器官的平均值去合成一张脸（平均脸）的时候，这张人工脸蛋要比其中任何一张脸都要好看。
研究人员拿德国小姐大赛参赛者的照片做了仔细的研究，发现所谓的平均脸得到的评价是比比赛的最终赢家更具吸引力。而左边照片中的正是她。但并不是说纯粹的平均就有吸引力，因为几张不太漂亮的脸合成一张的话，它似乎也没有原来的任何一张好看。（顺便说一下，到Beauty Check去看看吧，这张照片就是从那里来的——这是个很优秀的网站，而且他们的研究也很有趣）。
别忘了点破迷津！
看看这些证据，美丽馅饼的某一部分几乎（虽然不是全部）是被人类（健康，生育力和优秀基因的显示器）先天的生理偏好所占据。
其余的被文化偏好占据。为什么不同的社会会在这些方面有着不同的表现？难道他们是专制的，随意的？让我们逆着时间的隧道往后看，难道长脖子就是性感这种偏好是由一个部落中的一帮有地位的人决定的，然后将这种偏好强加于他们的属下，最后使之在全部落普及开来？
部分正确吧，但文化偏好本身就是价值风向标。它可以是一些比较重要的东西，比如何为健康或者一个人是否已经到了繁育年龄。但是，无论你生存在何种社会，健康的标准几乎是一样的。其他的东西就可能会因为地域的不同而有所差异——例如财富。虽然特定的体重似乎是区分不同文化的标志，但是体重偏好与财富之间似乎存在着某种关系模式。
研究人员索鲍和斯顿卡德对调查体重和社会经济地位的关系研究进行了大量的审查工作。他们发现，在富裕的国家，这种关系是反向的——你越是富有，你就越偏瘦——而在穷国或者是不发达国家，这种关系是呈正向的——越富有的人越容易长胖。(5)
当中的原因还不清楚，但情况可能会像这样：在一个贫穷的社会，要长胖你得先有足够的钱，如果你是此种社会的饥民，那么财富对你来说是很有吸引力的。所以肥胖的人突然变得很有吸引力。另外，体重越大被认为是更成熟，而在困难的时候，有个成熟的人在身边是很有用的。尽管如此，在一个正常发达的国家，这些偏好并不普遍，因此在这些地方，瘦身的理念发展得更快。
另一个有趣的研究发现，正走进一家餐厅的男人们要比正走出餐厅的更青睐于较胖的女性。饥饿的男性更喜欢胖一点的女性。所以，如果你讨厌瘦身理念并设法将其抛诸脑后，那么现在你该知道怎么做了——让整个社会上的男人都挨饿！（话虽如此，但请勿为之）。（6）
何之为美？
整合这些调查结果，我们可以得出一个基本公式：
所坚持的社会共识+遗传基因=外表美
社会共识即是当下的体型偏好、时尚偏好和打扮偏好等等。遗传基因就是腰臀比、对称的脸型，诸如此类。
因此，把一个有着良好遗传基因的美女放到任何时代和社会中去，假如她符合那个时代的审美状况，她将会是个人物并总被人追捧。而即使她不符合这个审美潮流，在一定程度上，她也可能被视为是具有魅力的。同样，一个生来并不太美的女性也可以通过不断使自己符合这种社会共识来“抬高身价”。
换句话说，让杰西卡•阿尔芭变胖，或者用黄铜圈使她的脖子显得更长，又或者将其前额发线后移并让她变白——当她相应地出现在嘎纳、泰国北部或是伊丽莎白时代的英国，她仍将被认为是美丽的。当然了，如果她真的做了这三种整容，在一个野蛮人俱乐部里，她将会是一个很了不起的人物。
我是肤浅的
在这里我故作肤浅，因为我只想对美作一个调查。当然，除了外表美之外还有更美好的东西——个性，如何展现自我，自信，还有其他各种各样的东西——虽然我知道世俗并不这样认为，原因就在于我们的文化是非常肤浅的。问题是我不知道这个魅力馅饼有多大一部分是由外表美组成的，又有多大一部分是由其他东西做成的。也许改天我们可以讨论讨论这个问题。
对于一个社会来说，像我们一样将眼光集中于外表美是对还是错呢？我不知道，但我们并不仅仅关注外表美，这点是很清楚的。穿越时空的隧道，我们可以看到，人们已经改变了他们的身体，让其看起来更美。各式各样的化妆品，彩绘，装饰品，穿体装饰，锻炼，刺穿和各种辅助物统统被派上用场。但所有这些行为本质上都是随意的，这与存在于特定的社会和时代的文化传统有关。他们与某个时代的规范和某个社会的特定群体建立起一定的联系。
尽管如此，在任何地方任何时代，美的定义除了是健康和生育力的生物学标志外，其它有关美的概念都是丑陋的。如果你能够理解这句话，你将受益匪浅。