The No Such Couple Paradox by Joseph Danrock, first edition, 2011

Licence

All copyrights to this work are held by the publisher. You are granted a limited non-exclusive, royalty-free license to use and distribute this free ebook sample. No alternations to the content of this ebook sample are allowed. No terms may be added to or subtracted from this license except as described by the license itself. You are allowed to copy and distribute this ebook for non-profit purposes exclusively, and only to users who comply with the requirements of this license.

This ebook is protected by the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works of September 9, 1886, and local copyright acts, and as such it cannot be reproduced in any form or by any means without the publishers consent.

For more information visit the ebook's official website: nosuchcouple.com or e-mail us: info [at] nosuchcouple.com

Preface

I would like to thank every author whose work is mentioned in this ebook for providing me information and inspiration. All commented articles were found online every reader can compare my point of view with the original text of the quoted articles.

Please excuse my direct criticism of some of the quoted articles. I like to speak openly and bluntly. I encourage every author, researcher, and reader to review this ebook.

Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Chapter 13 Chapter 14 Chapter 15

Clueless society The exercise The Hormonal Law of Attraction Exceptions to the HLA The No Such Couple Paradox and other evidence Suzi Malin and Helen Fisher were close Sex appeal versus beauty Babyfaceness Femininity Results of the exercise Phases of the mating process The HLA pickup guide Other conclusions of the HLA Overview of recent studies regarding facial attractiveness So what do women want after all?

Chapter 1 CLUELESS SOCIETY

Countless theories try to explain why certain people are attracted to each other. In the beginning of the twenty-first century we are still unable to present a precise pattern of sexual attraction. Why is a given woman attracted to one man, while rejecting his best friend who is similar in every respect? What is considered sexy? What do women want? Numerous factors may have an impact on human preferences in choice of partner. The corporate world knows how to profit from this situation. Consumers will spend large amounts of money if they believe some product will help them to become more attractive to the opposite sex. Its easier to sell products when people dont know exactly what sexual attraction is all about. I have no idea why this girl fell for that guy, and why she has no interest in me. What does he have that I dont? The guy is not better looking than I am maybe its his scent? I better buy this new fragrance or maybe his sports car caught her attention? Wait, she couldnt have seen his car in the bar. Id better buy this new fragrance. Or maybe it was the pickup line he used an opener followed by some powerful seduction pattern. Id better get this new book on seduction. The fact that the fair sex perceives sexual attraction differently from men is beyond dispute. One glimpse at the covers of mens magazines tells us that what men crave physically is rather obvious. However, in this book I will show that men notice something more than just a pretty face and curvy body. This mysterious factor can be observed when we take account of womens choices. A beautiful woman is able to go to bed with almost any single man she meets. Men, however even those who are handsome, rich, or famous cannot simply conquer ANY single beautiful woman. What do beautiful women want? Do they perceive men in a different way than do other women? It is safer to examine the choices of beautiful women rather than the choices of ordinary women, and lets face it this is more interesting for men. Yes, safer. A womans physical attractiveness is a cardinal component of her mate value. Stunning women are always surrounded by men. We can be certain that if a beautiful woman settles with someone, she truly desires him. At first glance, the simplest theory is about beauty. The prettier you are, the prettier the partners you attract. Most of us noticed that in early childhood. Things get a lot more complicated when we enter adult life. We realize its not always about beauty. Attraction can be viewed from many angles. Some people say its about character and personality type. Others, especially men, say its a simple contract: the woman offers her physical attributes in exchange for financial security. This last notion is particularly popular throughout the masculine part of our modern materialistic society. Nevertheless, it is one of the biggest oversimplifications of this subject. Not to mention such factors as social background, culture, race, education... The so-called seduction community bets on the confidence that a man displays, as well as his social skills, and his sense of humor. Pickup artists (PUAs) and their students believe that men are able to manipulate women and create attraction. My findings show that nothing could be further from the truth. There are also those (usually women) who prefer to leave this aspect of human nature cloaked in mystery, by using such vague terms as chemistry, magnetism, or magic. Most of the above theories have one thing in common: they all claim its about competition. They all insist that we are concerned with a direct ratio. The wealthier, more confident, more intelligent, or more good-looking a given individual is, the more attractive he or she is to the opposite sex. But what about the feeling that many of us have that certain people are just made for each other? Are we really dealing with a simple analysis of profits, even one that is happening subconsciously, like this 1

one: Mr. A is definitely more handsome and better off than Mr. B, so he is boyfriend material. The fact that Mr. A got her number, and Mr. B got rejected, does not mean that Mr. A is superior to Mr. B in any way. It simply means Mr. B is not her type. But I bet you hear women using the above clichd phrase a lot. Why, then, does society insist on formulating mating theories that are essentially based on one individual having more of something than his or her competition, and therefore being more sexually appealing? In my opinion, it is because we are raised in a culture where competition plays an important role from early childhood. Society fails to recognize that some areas of human life are not entirely about competing with others. Beauty does indeed lie in the eye of the beholder.

Chapter 2 THE EXERCISE

Before I present my theory on the subconscious pairing of two people, and the evidence supporting it, I would like you to do the following exercise. The exercise is about rating celebrities, so you can easily find the appropriate images online. Try to find pictures that show the faces from the same angle. The best would be those presenting a person looking straight at the camera. In most cases I will ask you for front-view photos. Of course the faces shouldnt be covered no sunglasses or hats. In case of men, try to avoid images in which the celebrity has facial hair. It is about choosing one picture from each of the two groups: Group I: famous women Group II: famous men In the first group your task is to pick the woman who possesses a more feminine face. Note that by more feminine I dont mean prettier or sexier, just more female-like, more delicate. It is important not to stare at the photos for a long time; just pick the one that exudes femininity. Dont minutely analyze the facial appearance of each woman: Hmm, the girl in Photo A has a more oval face, and I heard that this is a very feminine characteristic I want a spontaneous choice based on your first impression. Bear in mind that we are evaluating the whole face. Otherwise, it is easy to get things out of perspective. One or two characteristic features may be misleading. Hollywood socialite Kim Kardashian has high cheekbones and a low forehead. But her overall facial appearance exudes femininity (all other features are definitely feminine). In particular, her nose and chin are small when compared to the length of the whole face. Obviously, her face is less feminine than all woman faces, like Marilyn Monroes. Luckily, you dont have to distinguish such nuances to conceive the theory introduced in this book. The work reported here will rely on extreme examples. Last but not least we are judging the face solely, so do not take into account the bodily attractiveness of the rated person (a girl with a masculinized body may have substantially feminine face traits). With the second group the task is to indicate the more masculine of the given mens faces. The previous instructions apply here respectively. When rating mens faces please do not confuse fineness of facial features or boyish looks with femininity. A good example of fine (symmetrical), boyish, but still masculine features is the face of former teen idol Leonardo DiCaprio. Notice his deep-set and closely set-together eyes, low-placed eyebrows, quite strong chin and jawline (in comparison to his whole face length), and small lips that altogether contribute to an overall mannish image. However, this image is not as extremely masculine as half of the faces featured in the exercise below in Group II. The photos are set together in such a way that one photo shows a man or woman with very masculine/feminine face traits, while in the other there is a barely masculine/feminine face. So in

each set I have put together extremes, so to say. This should facilitate the choice. The last set in each group consists of three pictures. One of them is the most respectively manlike/womanlike, then there is the least manlike/womanlike, and the third lies somewhere in between these two extremes.

GROUP I Set 1 Set 2 Set 3 Set 4 Set 5 a) Meagan Good a) Laura Bush a) Katie Holmes a) Angelina Jolie a) Pam Grier b) Pauletta Washington b) Hillary Clinton b) Jada Pinkett Smith b) Sarah Jessica Parker b) Salma Hayek c) Monica Bellucci

GROUP II Set 1 Set 2 Set 3 Set 4 Set 5 a) Denzel Washington a) Bill Clinton a) Tom Cruise a) Brad Pitt a) Richard Pryor b) Jamie Foxx b) George Bush b) Will Smith b) Matthew Broderick b) Edward Norton c) Vincent Cassel

Answers available in Chapter 10. Note that age is a relatively important component while gauging sexual dimorphism. Both mens and womens faces tend to look more masculine as they get older. I used the word relatively, since a very feminine older woman will still have softer facial features than a masculinized younger woman. In addition, by choosing photos of actresses taken when they were young, you decrease the possibility of a misjudgment caused by plastic surgery. Most celebrities decide to get plastic surgery when they are older.

Chapter 3 THE HORMONAL LAW OF ATTRACTION

The Hormonal Law of Attraction (HLA) states that the mating of human beings is essentially based on attraction toward certain facial features. We subconsciously find attractive those faces that display a level of sexual dimorphism similar to ours. For instance, a woman with very feminine facial features will feel a strong pull toward very masculine faces. Her friend whose face is barely feminine will be drawn to very effeminate mens faces. Such men will also find her appealing, just as men with very masculine faces will fancy her friend. This is the supreme rule that governs human love life. Objective beauty, money, personality, etc., are taken into consideration only once this first condition is met. What is the heart of sexual attraction? The answer is literally written in our faces. OBJECTIVE BEAUTY By objective beauty, I mean fineness of facial features (an elaborated definition may be found in Chapter 7, Sex Appeal Versus Beauty). Even a substantially masculinized womans face may be beautiful; American actress and sex symbol of the 70s Pam Grier serves as a great example. I am aware that her fans are probably going to lambast me. People often find it hard to understand, since most sought-after women have an above-average degree of facial femininity. Studies quoted in Chapter 14 confirm this. Imagine a quite feminine but at the same time average or even ugly face, being compared to the gorgeous and very masculine (detailed analysis in Chapter 5) facial features of Pam Grier. The majority would point at Pams face as being the more feminine. Why? The overwhelming power of beauty. Subconsciously it is very hard for most people to accept a verdict that contradicts the meaning ascribed to the word beauty by the culture we are raised in. In our society, beauty female beauty almost always equals femininity. Most of us dont realize these are two totally independent categories. In the case of men it gets even more complicated. Very often feminized mens faces are handsome at the same time. The feminine element carries beauty. Men like Denzel Washington have unquestionably attractive facial features, although very little about them is masculine. As with gorgeous women, for most people it is difficult to conceive that a male sex symbol may have effeminate facial features. Generalization is responsible for most of our false beliefs, in various areas of life. Many celebrities are not as handsome as Denzel; however, they are perceived as being absolutely very manlike consider Jack Nicholsons rugged face. Hunks often have very pronounced masculine features. Male sex symbols usually fall into this category for example: Brad Pitt, Jude Law, Tom Cruise, Robert Redford. There are some exceptions as mentioned before, such as Denzel Washington or Will Smith. These two components appear in every possible configuration, so there are also those who are objectively handsome and little masculine in terms of facial features (again Denzel Washington or Will Smith), and those who are not exceptionally handsome and have soft face traits (George W. Bush or Richard Pryor). The female population may also be divided into the above four categories. Naturally, female sex symbols are objectively very beautiful. At the same time most of them are distinguished by gracile, feminine, neotenous facial features Marilyn Monroe, Brigitte Bardot, Kim Basinger, Monica Bellucci, Angelina Jolie, and Megan Fox, just to mention a few. As I mentioned in Chapter 2, masculinity or femininity as discussed in this book depends exclusively on facial features and not on body build. How do people recognize facial masculinity or 5

femininity? It takes just one look at a persons face for us to read the level of facial sexual dimorphism. This has been established by experiments quoted in Chapter 14. LAW OF ATTRACTION The popular especially around life coaches law of attraction claims that like attracts like. The HLA is based on the same principle, hence the name of the rule. People whose faces developed under a high level of sex hormones are attracted to each other. The same pattern applies to medium and small levels. Like attracts like it is as simple as that. Sometimes this process is blocked by secondary factors. This happens especially in case of men, who often wont find attractive, for example, an overweight or simply objectively ugly woman, although she perfectly matches them pursuant to the HLA. Likewise, a woman may reject a man who perfectly matches her, just because there is another man around. This other gentleman is also her type and also happens to be, for instance, rich. SCIENTIFIC BASIS The expression sexual dimorphism in general relates to the differences in appearance between males and females of the same species. In this book I use the phrase facial dimorphism to describe certain human facial features that are characteristic of each sex. Our face traits depend on our genes. They are shaped by sex hormones, which act on the fetus: Men develop under higher androgen levels than women. Women develop under higher estrogen levels than men. Both androgens and estrogens affect various skeletal structures and soft tissues in different ways. Therefore, an examination of overall physical appearance allows one to compare the ratios of testosterone (a major androgen) to estradiol (a major estrogen) that people of the same ethnic group have developed under. http://www.femininebeauty.info/feminine-vs-masculine Hormone markers: In many species, including humans, sex steroid production and metabolism mobilize resources for the effort to attract and compete for mates (Ellison, 1998). Testosterone (T) and Estrogen (E) affect a number of facial and bodily features. In the human face the basic proportions are sexually dimorphic; male traits develop under the influence of T and female traits develop under the influence of E. For example, in pubertal males, facilitated by a high T/E ratio, the cheekbones, mandibles and chin grow laterally, the bones of the eyebrow ridges grow forward, and the lower facial bone lengthens (Farkas, 1981; Symons, 1995). In females, the signaling value of many body features is linked to age and reproductive condition, both of which correspond to a womans E/T ratio (Symons, 1995; Thornhill & Grammer, 1999). Schaefer K., Fink B., Grammer K., Mitteroecker P., Gunz P., Bookstein F.L.,Female appearance: facial and bodily attractiveness as shape, Psychology Science, Volume 48, 2006 (2), p. 187 204 John T. Manning explains in the beginning of his book Digit Ratio: A Pointer to Fertility, Behavior, and Health (Rutgers University Press, 2002): Evolutionary biologists are fascinated by the differences between males and females. Some of us are also enthusiastic about the potential for sexual selection theory to say something about human behavior and human illness. In pursuit of this many, including myself, have focused our work on sexually dimorphic traits which acquire their sex difference at puberty. This is a pragmatic decision because sexual differentiation is profoundly influenced by prenatal events. When we remember this, 6

we pay lip service to the effects of testosterone, which acts on the fetus from as early as week eight of pregnancy. Manning provides an excellent review of human dimorphism. He concentrates on the issue of relative lengths of the index (2D) and ring (4D) fingers (read more in the section Second to Fourth Digit Ratio in Chapter 6). Contrary to most authors, he relied on prenatal events rather than puberty. Prenatal development of facial features seems more significant than the processes that take place during puberty. There is a notion that patterns of sexual dimorphism can be observed throughout puberty at the earliest. In the case of facial appearance, this is not true. Take a look at photos of any two faces of individuals of the same gender, who significantly vary in terms of facial dimorphism. Then compare their childhood photos. I bet you dollars to donuts the difference in facial features remains unchanged. Mutual proportions of the bone structure of the human skull are formed prenatally. My hypothesis is that, since sex hormones shape our faces, the amount of sex hormones affecting the fetus will determine whom that person will attract in adult life. Thus, the Hormonal Law of Attraction. In this book, amount of sex hormones should be understood as the amount of sex hormones that shaped the facial features of a given subject prenatally, and not the current amount of sex hormones (which can be measured by doing a blood or salivary test). The question of whether facial traits somehow mirror a persons current level of sex hormones is still controversial (read more in Chapter 14). We should keep in mind that the current amount of sex hormones may be influenced by various factors, particularly in the case of women. VAGUE WORDS The visual trigger of attraction described in this book is present any time two people connect. Otherwise, there is no chemistry, no magnetism, no sparking; in other words, there is no attraction. This explains why women have their types. We hear women saying that a given man has got that something. She has just seen him for the first time, but she already feels butterflies in her stomach before she even speaks to him. Some people say that this is merely the beauty factor at work. If so, why do women use the word type when they could say handsome? For men, it is very difficult to understand such behavior. We appreciate mainly the objective beauty of a woman: the fineness of her facial features and the proportions of her body type. LONG AND SHORT-TERM RELATIONSHIPS Why did I emphasize long-term relationships? It is difficult to define this term precisely. If two people get married (and it is a real marriage one of them did not marry the other just for money, for instance), then I am sure the level of their sex hormones is proportional and their facial appearances match. In the case of casual relationships, such as one-night stands, the only virtue that will matter is most likely objective beauty. ATTRACTIVE WOMEN Sought-after women may choose other strategies. Highly attractive women with very feminine faces will choose only HLA-matching partners for short-term and long-term relationships. Alluring women always have a choice. Even in the case of short-term relationships, most of them will choose men who are their types. After all, there are plenty of fish in the sea. Why not choose someone attractive who also has that something?

Even though I am sure you will be able to find some exceptions to my theory (more in the following chapter), there is still a scope of human relationships, where the HLA always works. Strictly speaking, with physically attractive, exceptionally feminine women, they ALWAYS choose partners with masculine faces. This is the basic premise of what I call the No Such Couple Paradox. The bottom line is that women will decide whether someone is boyfriend material within the first few seconds of seeing his face. But the polls quoted in the following article show it is three minutes, not seconds, that are decisive: Speed dating: A man has just three minutes to impress a woman before she makes up her mind about him based on looks and manners. It also emerged most women believe 180 seconds is long enough to gauge whether or not he is Mr Right, or Mr Wrong. The study also found women rarely change their mind about a man after their initial reaction and believe they are always right in their assumptions and judgments. The reportwas commissioned among 3,000 adults to mark the release of Instinct, a new book by Ben Kay. Kay said: I think a lot of people believe in trusting their instincts when dating. It makes it seem more magical, like its coming from somewhere deeper. But its surprising how quickly women make a decision. Thats barely enough time to finish a drink together. Its interesting that so many women trust their instincts and yet still give men the opportunity to change their minds. Some men might think this is leading them on but I would imagine most women just want to give every bloke a fair shot. Basic instinct: Women take just three minutes to make up their mind about Mr Right by Daily Mail Reporter http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1340868/Basic-instinct-Women-just-minutes-make-mindMr-Right.html?ito=feeds-newsxml# Yet remember, the article did not exclusively study physical appeal. In terms of physical attraction, I believe the whole rating process happens within seconds in a womans mind. I particularly agree with the authors last remark. A man thinks that because a woman is still talking to him, he has a chance with her, while in reality she only wants to give everyone a fair shot. She is just being nice. There is nothing a man can do to change a womans mind in this respect. It means that the majority of the ideas created by the so-called seduction community have nothing to do with reality; they are love life science fiction. There is a positive side to this aspect of feminine nature: if a man matches a given woman, she gives him credit no matter what her family, friends, or society says. He may do something dumb that will make her change her mind, or she may have second thoughts. This last risk usually involves competition from another compatible masculine face. If that other man is more handsome, rich, or funny (depending what her priorities are), then a hostile takeover is possible. The HLA also explains why we often hear women commenting on the romantic choices of their female friends with the phrase: What does she see in that guy? MENS CHOICES Men are biologically inclined to find physically attractive partners. Women also look for objective physical attractiveness in their love partners, but not to the extent men do. Does this mean the HLA has no application to mens choices? No, men also follow the HLA. They will most likely choose a woman whose face matches their own, provided her female competitors are not significantly prettier than she is. Consequently, for long-term relationships men will choose their partners in accordance 8

with the HLA. This conclusion is also in line with the hypothesis described in the section Mating Strategies in Chapter 15. MADE FOR EACH OTHER My theory states what many people feel subconsciously: some people are truly made for each other, and some are not. There is nothing on this earth you can do to win the heart of someone whose facial features do not correspond to your own. It is not about having more money, intelligence, selfconfidence, humor, or beauty. It is all about the chemistry. Call it whatever you want; the point is, you cannot create it. So is it written in the stars that two people will be together no matter what? No. Some people are made for each other in the sense that they have the chance to connect. Others do not even have a chance with this single person. Doesnt sound very optimistic, does it? This merely confirms the popular belief that dating is a numbers game a very difficult one, where the odds are against us. Matching individuals are not guaranteed to form a couple. After she gets to know the man, the woman may find out that this physically appealing man is simply rude and dull. The woman may have facial features that match the mans, but he may not consider her sufficiently attractive in terms of objective beauty. This is the second phase of the love game, where secondary factors are judged. DO LOOKS MATTER? Yes, facial appearance is the main attraction trigger; however, its not in the way most people would predict. It is NOT about the objective physical beauty of a given human being, which explains the Shrek and the princess couples. Beauty itself may (depending of the values held by someone) be only one of the previously mentioned secondary factors. Men place significantly higher value on objective physical appearance in a partner than women do. The married actors Kerry Washington and David Moscow could serve as an example of a Shrek and the princess couple (sorry, David). Both extremely masculine/feminine faces match perfectly. Can you see any feminine features in Davids face? Almost none strong chin and jaw, little mouth, small set-together and deep-set eyes, low eyebrows. Only a high forehead and not-that-big nose add marginal femininity to this face. Kerry Washington is all woman her face seems to be composed of only highly dimorphic elements. If I had to put to fine a point on it, I would say her jaw is well shaped. Still, just as in the case of Davids nose, you have to compare it in proportion to the whole face. At the same time, they are very different in terms of objective beauty. Kerry Washington is no doubt a divine woman, whereas David is not a rather exceptionally handsome man. It is this same level of facial dimorphism that makes his face so attractive to Kerry. Otherwise, why would she pick him from the probably thousands of men she has met during her acting career? Lots of men would reply, David Moscow is a famous actor; I bet he is well off. He is not a major movie star, though he is recognized by some people. He probably is in a good financial situation. But so is she! Has she never been approached by another actor objectively better looking than David Moscow? Like Will Smith or Denzel Washington? LOVE IS NOT BLIND Many women would respond to the above raised question about Kerry Washingtons romantic 9

choices by pointing at the unconditional power of the feelings that bind her and David Moscow. I am not questioning their love. I am just not sure whether it is completely unconditional. Is it pure coincidence that their faces happen to reflect the same amount of sex hormones? That they perfectly match as far as facial dimorphism is concerned? My theory does not contradict the idea of romantic love. I only emphasize that visual attraction must take place in the beginning even if someone is objectively physically unattractive. After that, people start to get to know each other, and it may lead to feelings deeper than simple visual attraction. I just dont believe in the concept of love between a man and a woman as a completely unconditional feeling No Such Couple Paradox! Love at first sight? I havent studied this aspect of human relationships. My guess is that this phrase is used especially by the fair sex when the initial physical attraction is followed right away by deeper romantic feelings. I imagine it happens when two people are compatible on many diverse levels (secondary factors). TERMS DEFINED HEREIN I would like to stress that whenever I use the terms masculinity or femininity, I am referring to certain facial traits that are associated with these adjectives. I could use instead the terms sharpness and softness or babyfaceness. Our society strongly associates the terms masculinity and femininity with certain character and personality types. However, this has nothing to do with the expressions masculinity or femininity as used in this book. For instance, a man with very masculine facial features may be a coward, or a woman with a masculinized face may be feminine in terms of personality. Another example relates to sexual orientation. Not once have we heard about womens silver screen idols, archetypes of masculine lovers, who turned out to be gay to the grief of their female fans. As you see, testosterone does not always equal masculinity: These data support an association between male homosexuality and high fetal testosterone, claims John T. Manning in his book Digit Ratio: A Pointer to Fertility, Behavior, and Health, Rutgers University Press, 2002.

10

Chapter 4 EXCEPTIONS TO THE HLA

As the saying goes, there is an exception to every rule. The exceptions to the Hormonal Law of Attraction that I have managed to find never concern the choices of beautiful, exceptionally feminine women, as shown in the next chapter. This sole fact defends the HLA as a general rule that governs sexual attraction in our species. Moreover numerous scientific studies have reported facial resemblance in romantic partners read more in section Facial Resemblance of Chapter 14. Sometimes the same woman may be drawn to men who have slightly different levels of facial dimorphism. Sarah Jessica Parker has a barely feminine face. No wonder she is married to an actor with very feminized facial features Matthew Broderick. Broderick was once engaged to Jennifer Grey, who had almost as masculinized facial features as Sarah Jessica Parker. I used the word had because she underwent plastic surgery in the 90s a nose job, or rhinoplasty. Today her nose is a lot smaller compared with her image from Dirty Dancing, for example the surgery made her face look more feminine. The theory introduced in this ebook is, of course, based on our natural facial features (more on plastic surgery in Chapter 13). Jennifer Grey was also engaged to Johnny Depp, a man with not an exceptionally masculine face, but a substantially more masculine one than Matthew Brodericks. Johnny Depp was engaged to an actress with quite feminine facial features: Winona Ryder. Winona definitely has a more feminine face than the two previous actresses. She was in a long-term relationship with Matt Damon, an actor with a harsh masculine facial bone structure. We have to be careful while relying on information considering someones personal life available on the Internet. Therefore, describing the above exceptions to the HLA, I used mainly faces of people who got married, were engaged, or were at least in a long-term relationship. I have to admit that I was not able to identify an exact pattern describing the exceptions to the HLA, apart from the fact that attractive very feminine women never change their preferences. Hence, barely masculine men are never able to conquer such women. This applies even to wealthy, famous, and handsome men with little facial masculinity (the next chapter elaborates on this finding). This proves that acclaimed theories based on facial appearance (e.g., Suzi Malins findings, described in Chapter 6) are more relevant than society thinks they are. In a world where plastic surgery has become as common as getting a haircut, this might sound counterintuitive. We indeed live in times when visual attraction is more important than ever before. Yet it hasnt greatly influenced popular views on what actually counts in the game of love. Still, the most widespread concepts are those that place importance on the non-visual factors (character, intelligence, sense of humor, money, etc.). For the media this is simply the most convenient solution. Each issue of some mens magazine might have a new seduction theory. Womens magazines offer never-ending articles with tips about character/personality. Its a neverending story, and the best part is that you dont have to provide any evidence. In most cases it is simply impossible to prove such concepts take, for instance, the effectiveness of improving your sense of humor. Sure, its a good thing. But how does it affect your success rate with the ladies? By 10%, 35%, or perhaps even 75%? Actually, some of these theories could be verified, but it would be expensive and burdensome. No one bothers to even ask for evidence, when you may simply quote some expert. Visual appeal, meanwhile, has much less commercial potential. But heres the truth: some people have the chance to be together and some dont. 11

Chapter 5 THE NO SUCH COUPLE PARADOX AND OTHER EVIDENCE

I defy anyone to point to a romantic pairing that contradicts the HLA, subject to the reservation made in the last chapter. For this reason you have to limit your research to extreme examples i.e., very feminine women and barely masculine men. Furthermore, this way you diminish the possibility of misjudging the facial traits of your candidates to the No Such Couple Paradox contest. You already know what facial features indicate exposure to higher than average amounts of testosterone in the womb and the ones that reveal high influence of estrogen. Still, it may be burdensome to precisely evaluate a medium masculine face or a medium feminine face. You have to keep in mind that facial masculinity or femininity does not depend exclusively on the size and proportions of certain elements of the face. The general thickness of facial bone structure is also a factor that has to be considered. Thus, in terms of sexual dimorphism I demand extreme faces: a very effeminate mans face and a very feminine womans face. That said, I will now give you proof for the HLA. This is strong negative evidence in the legal language, this means evidence that a fact did not exist or that a thing was not done, did not take place, or that a witness did not hear, see, feel, touch, taste, or smell. Namely, I will prove that in the whole world there is no such couple as defined below. So far, in accordance with all other theories, there are no rational reasons that would impede such people to form a couple. The HLA is the only logical explanation, maybe except Helen Fishers theory in some scope (which also supports the premise that certain hormone levels wont let certain individuals feel mutual attraction). You are about to witness an experiment with not 15, not 30, or even 100 participants, but literally thousands of couples will participate. Furthermore, the person who will carry out this study will be you. I defy you. I defy all scientists who have studied facial features. I defy relationship experts who have created theories that are aimed at solving the mystery behind the human mating process. Last but not least, I defy all seduction community gurus, PUAs, and supporters. I defy all of you to find at least one such couple in the whole wide world, or should I say in the whole wide Internet. To ensure that we are dealing with legitimate couples, lets restrict our research to married celebrities. That leaves us probably hundreds of thousands of couples around the world. As celebs, their photos and biographies certainly may be found online. Here is your task: Under all the predominant theories, there is no logical reason why a man with very effeminate facial features would not be able to conquer a beautiful woman with very feminine facial features. All his other characteristics are up to you. You may pick a famous, tall, and handsome millionaire, which is evidently the case with many of our experiments participants. Ladies first the soft, dazzling facial traits of Monica Bellucci could serve as a good guideline for you. Hair color does not matter. The famous blonde actress Charlize Theron also has an 12

extraordinarily feminine face. As for Latin women, Jessica Albas face is exceptionally feminine. Asian actress Li Gong falls into the same category. Every portraitist or anthropologist who studied the human skull will agree that the above are examples of exceptionally feminine faces. Other remarkably feminine faces that come to my mind include: Marilyn Monroe, Brigitte Bardot, Audrey Hepburn, Annette Bening, Kim Basinger, Diane Lane, Angelina Jolie, Jennifer Lopez, Katie Holmes, Bridget Moynahan, Eva Longoria, Cheryl Cole, Megan Fox, and many, many more Now compare any of the foregoing faces with the strong bone structure of another Hollywood beauty: Jada Pinkett Smith. Even though all these women are gorgeous, you must admit that, for instance, Monica Belluccis face contrasts with Jadas. Maybe we should compare Jada with someone from her own ethnic group like strikingly feminine Kerry Washington. Kerry Washington, as is the case with all actresses from this group, illustrates what a purely feminine face looks like: overall delicate bone structure, big wide-set eyes, full lips, high-placed eyebrows, high narrow forehead, and a small nose, chin and jaw. Its difficult to find any masculinized features. Jada, meanwhile, has a strong facial bone structure, closely set-together eyes, big nose, strong jaw and chin, and rather small lips. Lets look at another black beauty: 70s sex symbol Pam Grier, who is very attractive and at the same time barely feminine. Notice her pronounced bone structure: high cheek bones and big in proportion to the size of her whole face long nose, strong jaw, and chin. Her little lips also do not add femininity to her face. The only feminine traits are her shiny eyes and high eyebrows. Going back to blondes, consider the complete opposite of Charlize Theron: Sarah Jessica Parker. As for men, take a look at Jadas husband, Will Smith. This could be a good indicator of a very effeminate mans face. Another African-American Hollywood star with little facial masculinity is Denzel Washington. Thats right; People magazines Sexiest Man Alive of 1996 has very effeminate facial features, mostly due to large wide-set eyes, high-placed eyebrows, little chin and jaw, and soft bone structure. His quite strong nose adds only marginal masculinity to his face. Bellucci is Caucasian, so I will give you two examples of barely masculine facial features within this ethnic group: British rock star Pete Doherty and American actor Matthew Broderick. Lets return to the boyish facial features mentioned in Chapter 2, The exercise, where Leonardo DiCaprio was given as an example of boyish but still masculine beauty. I hope you can now see the difference between boyish and effeminate facial features. You could describe both Leonardo and Matthew as boyish. This is arguable. Nonetheless, only one of them has definitively masculine facial features. This is an objective category, which can be measured. Most of us probably share this sense of a masculine image: the potent bone structure and sharper image that can be seen only in Leonardo DiCaprios face mainly because of his deep-set, closely set-together eyes, thicker eyebrows, and stronger brow ridge. Someone could object: Maybe Leo has more masculine eyes and eyebrows, but Matthew has a stronger chin. Wrong. This is something like an optic illusion. In fact, Leos chin is slightly bigger. As stressed before, you have to compare certain features in proportion to the size of the whole face of the same person. Again, in case of Will Smith, Pete Doherty, or Matthew Broderick, every portraitist or anthropologist will agree that we are dealing with barely masculine faces. Now, 13

confront Brodericks soft face with Belluccis husband, Vincent Cassel. Can you find at least one soft line in his whole ultra-masculine face? Jamie Foxx is an example of a highly dimorphic face from the African ethnic group. Chinese film director Yimou Zhang has a similar degree of facial masculinity as the two actors mentioned before. Other examples of greatly masculine faces include: John Wayne, Frank Sinatra, Warren Beatty, Alec Baldwin, Bruce Willis, Josh Brolin, Brad Pitt, Tom Cruise, Marc Anthony, and many more. Your job is to find any celebrity couple in which the man has very effeminate facial features and the woman is distinguished by highly feminine traits. Below are two schemes of extreme levels of facial dimorphism to sum up your task: A very effeminate mans face:

Read more in the section Second to fourth digit ratio, included in Chapter 6. A very feminine womans face:

Read more in Chapter 9.

14

So your contestants should look more or less like these:

Why was I not able to find even one such couple in all my searches? I bet youve heard the saying If it doesnt exist on the Internet, it doesnt exist. Sure, Ive heard of theories that argue that women crave only masculine faces. But still, not even one such couple? There is a concept that facial masculinity in males is connected with perceived attractiveness (Scheib J.E., Gangestad S.W., Thornhill R., Facial attractiveness, symmetry and cues of good genes). Some people could argue that this is the reason there is not even one such couple. As we all know, sought-after women dont need to compromise. We analyze celebrities, women who are even more attractive in mens eyes. Therefore, popular women choose partners they find most visually appealing, who are, in conformity with the above quoted article, men with a substantial degree of facial masculinity. There is a big hole in such theories (for more on my objections to the methods of conducting most of the experiments relating to facial masculinity/femininity, see The need to examine both sides of the equation, in Chapter 14): Real world partner choice does not correlate with such theories. What about Pam Grier, Jada Pinkett Smith, or Sarah Jessica Parker, to name just a few examples? They are all female celebrities. All considered beautiful. Why on earth did they choose men with a marginal level of facial masculinity? The HLA is the only rational explanation. Men with effeminate facial features are usually handsome (Denzel Washington, Will Smith, and Matthew Broderick are good examples) or at least not ugly (Richard Pryor, for instance). Moreover, celebs on average are physically attractive people. Hence, it is widely assumed by society that they are likely to pair up with attractive women, who on average have very feminized faces. Evidently the No Such Couple rule is a huge paradox. THE DENZEL WASHINGTON PARADOX It is another paradox that Denzel Washington, the man who was pointed out by scientists as being a perfect example of masculine beauty (Geoffrey Cowley, The biology of beauty, Newsweek, June 3, 1996, v127 n23 p60(7)) and who was called People magazines Sexiest Man Alive in 1996 (and was included in numerous other similar rankings), is also the man whose facial features serve as the best evidence of the fact that sexual attraction lies in the eye of the beholder. It all depends on the face traits of the rater. Denzel was chosen by scientists as the best example of attractive facial 15

features, and at the same time his face is ideal to prove the HLA: it is much easier to find attractive women who consider him sexually unattractive (not to be confused with objective beauty) than to find attractive women who view, for instance, Brad Pitt as unattractive. Why? Simply because most beautiful women have feminine faces see Smith Law M., Perrett D.I., Jones B.C., Cornwell R.E., Moore F., Feinberg D.R., Boothroyd L.G., Durrani S., Stirrat M., Whiten S., Pitman R., Hillier S., Facial appearance is a cue to oestrogen levels in women, Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 2005, quoted in the section The need to include a large number of participants in the experiment of Chapter 14. Why am I limiting my speculations to attractive females exclusively? Certainly there are unattractive women whose opinions could confirm the HLA. Less attractive raters bring a big risk that I would like to avoid. That is, attractive women dont need to compromise; but the unattractive ones could put aside their hormonal inclinations just because they desire handsome guys like Denzel so much. THE SELF SEEKING LIKE HYPOTHESIS Numerous studies have shown that romantic partners tend to resemble each other. You may find a list of such articles in Chapter 14, section Facial resemblance. That section also includes a review of some research that led to different results, and my comment on their validity. The recent study carried out by Liliana Alvarez from Universidad Simn Bolvar, Caracas (Venezuela), demonstrated that people are able to match photographs in a way that corresponds to actual couples, with far larger probability than expected by random guessing in most experiments. I will briefly review this work, as it is relatively new, and its full text is available online with photos of the rated subjects. During the experiment 36 randomly selected couples, from a list of addresses provided by a local doctor in the city of Mrida, Venezuela, were photographed. The couples had children and/or were living for at least three years together, and reported to have no known family relationship between them. More than 100 volunteers at the universities in Caracas and Mrida were instructed to assign each of the photographs of female target subjects to one of the males. The participants did not know any of the photographed people. The test was performed double blind: neither the experimenter nor the test subject knew the correspondence of the photos to the real couples. For more details you may get acquainted with the full text of the article: Alvarez L., Jaffe K., Narcissism guides mate selection: Humans mate assortatively, as revealed by facial resemblance, following an algorithm of self seeking like, Evolutionary Psychology humannature.com/ep 2004. 2: 177-194, Universidad Simn Bolvar, Caracas, Venezuela. Once again we obtained evidence demonstrating that mate choice depends to a significant extent on our facial features. The bottom line is that the self seeking like hypothesis is an indirect confirmation of the HLA. In this sense two faces of the opposite sex that developed as a result of the same amount of the respective sex hormone are similar. Surely it all depends from which perspective we look at the question of facial resemblance. Someone may try to put this in another way, and say they are their exact opposites (a very mannish face would be in direct opposition to a very womanly face). But this is arguing on semantics. The fact that many experiments demonstrated impressive similarity between facial appearance of couples, which was also observed by Suzi Malin (read more in Chapter 6) and confirmed by the No Such Couple Paradox, clearly establishes that the facial features of two people attracted to each other have much in common.

16

ITS A SUBJECTIVE THING The study quoted in section The need to analyze both sides of the equation of Chapter 14 (DeBruine L.M., Jones B.C., Little A.C., Boothroyd L.G., Perrett D.I., Penton-Voak I.S., Cooper P.A., Penke L., Feinberg D.R., Tiddeman B.P., Correlated preferences for facial masculinity and ideal or actual partners masculinity) supports the notion that the evaluation of attractiveness of the masculinity level of a given mans face by women is of very subjective nature. Naturally, in accordance with the HLA the same can be said about gauging the femininity level of womens faces by men. In this last case, however, the objective womens beauty makes the process less visible. Men tend to be more focused on beauty than women. 2D : 4D DIGIT RATIO CONFIRMATION The problem with the No Such Couple Paradox is that visual categories may be misleading for many people who are not portrait painters or have not studied the build of the human skull. For example, a whole generation grew up on Will Smiths action movies. It may be difficult for some to accept that this Hollywood bad boy has effeminate facial features. The majority will probably agree that Sarah Jessica Parker and Jada Pinkett Smith are characterized by masculinized facial features. But some facial features are tricky. In some cases the patterns of sexual dimorphism are not so obvious. The inexperienced rater could consider the face Kate Moss (see Chapter 8) as quite feminine. This is all the more likely if the rater associates her image with the label supermodel or fashion icon given by the media. But we may confirm the No Such Couple Paradox using the 2 nd to 4th digit ratio method, which I will describe in the next chapter: There is not a single couple in which both partners have very high 2 nd to 4th digit ratios, in the light of the average ratios for each sex. All other requirements for our test remain unchanged a legitimate celebrity couple, a long-term commitment, an objectively beautiful female. The theories that we will examine in Chapter 6 also indirectly confirm the core idea of the HLA.

17

Chapter 6 SUZI MALIN AND HELEN FISHER WERE CLOSE

Sexual attraction is an extremely popular topic in modern society. No wonder the scientific world tries so hard to reveal the core of human mating. Thousands of experiments have been conducted, which have led to even more articles and books. The Hormonal Law of Attraction is about the premise that women (and men to some extent) have their types. This idea is shared by two other theories, both created by women. LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT TYPES OF FACIAL FEATURES When it comes to facial appearance, arguably the most accurate theory was formulated by someone from outside the scientific world: Suzi Malin, a great British portrait painter. The message of her book is that we are attracted to people who either remind us visually of ourselves or a key figure (mother/father/nanny) from our childhood. The author distinguishes: a) harmonism couples whose faces are of the same proportions. The spaces and distance between the key features of the faces of harmonist couples are very similar. This category covers many pairs from show business; Because they tend to have regularly proportioned faces, harmonists are often very attractive people. b) echoism couples whose faces are of similar looking features (eye shape, mouth shape, etc.). A good example of such a couple (at least that is what some journalists claim) is Jose Maria Aznar and Rachida Dati, mentioned in Chapter 13s section Scandals/affairs. c) prima copulism couples where one person has facial features that remind the other of his or her mother, father, nanny, etc. (Suzi Malin, Love at First Sight: Why You Love Who You Love, Dorling Kindersley, 2004). Both this theory and the HLA show that human mating is strictly connected with our facial appearance. This explains why the theory closest to the truth was laid down by a portraitist someone who observed characteristic traits of human faces all her life, and mastered the ability to transfer them to canvas. With regard to echoism and harmonism, every anthropologist will confirm that the examples given in Suzi Malins book actually present faces so similar that it cannot be pure coincidence that those people became couples. But prima copulism is not so clear to me. Some of the examples featured in the book make sense, yet this premise is difficult to verify. We would have to track all relevant people from someones childhood to verify whether we are concerned with a case of prima copulism. In the end of her book (Do we have it?), Suzi Malin gives guidelines on how to compare your face with the face of someone you fancy (or that persons first blood in case of prima copulism). In the part relating to echoism matches, she writes: The womans head will be smaller than the mans, so it will need to be scaled up. Disregard the noses and lights of chin and forehead (when describing how to match two photographs appropriately). As you see, echoism and harmonism do not mean similarity in every aspect. The differences in the size of the whole head, and in the lengths of the chin and forehead, are attributed to differences between masculinity and femininity. Paradoxically, the more similar in terms of echoism two faces are, the more they differ in terms of lengths of those elements. If two people are very feminine/masculine, they bear resemblance to each other in the sense that they both were exposed to a high amount of the respective sex hormone, and at the same time it means that the differences in 18

the lengths of certain facial elements will be substantial. The HLA unveils what is sometimes difficult to understand under Malins theory when you look at faces that display prima copulism. In most cases it is a troublesome task to trace someones ancestors. At the same time, I concede that in cases where we are not dealing with intense facial masculinity/femininity, but rather with medium masculine/feminine faces, love at first sight may be better to apply. Sometimes after merely one glimpse at two faces you already see striking echoism. We all like to play the look alike game. Nonetheless, a huge similarity cannot be observed very often. Most frequently there will be only harmonism. In most cases it will be impossible to take apart facial proportions in a photo. THE CHEMISTRY OF PERSONALITY TYPES Dr. Helen Fisher, a biological anthropologist, developed a theory that contributed to a very successful dating website. Chemistry.com does what matchmakers did in the past. Only this time its a website algorithm and scientific research instead of the matchmakers intuition. You can find more about her concepts on Chemistry.com; here is a brief summary: Certain genes, hormones and neurotransmitters have been associated with specific personality traits, she explains. For instance, testosterone is associated with independence. All of us have these chemicals, but some of us have more activity in one of these chemical systems than another. The upshot? After reviewing the data, Fisher found that based on the activity levels of four key chemicals (serotonin, estrogen, dopamine, and testosterone), people largely fall into one of four temperaments: Builder, Negotiator, Explorer, and Director. Heres a rundown: The Builder Chemical in charge: Serotonin (associated with sociability and feelings of calm) Personality: Calm, managerial, conscientious, home-oriented but social Best match: The Explorer Worst match: The Director The Negotiator Chemical in charge: Estrogen (associated with intuition and creativity) Personality: Imaginative, sympathetic, socially skilled, idealistic Best match: Good with all types! Worst match: None The Explorer Chemical in charge: dopamine (associated with curiosity and spontaneity) Personality: Risk-taking, spontaneous, curious, adaptable Best match: The Builder Worst match: The Director The Director Chemical in charge: testosterone (associated with independence and rational thinking) Personality: focused, inventive, daring, logical, direct Best match: The Negotiator Worst match: The Builder (Are Certain Types Destined To Date? by Kimberly Dawn Neumann, Chemistry.com)

19

As you see, the HLA shares one basic finding with Fishers chemistry there are certain types that go well with each other, and the dominant hormones in your body have a major influence on what type you are attracted to. This conclusion complies with Suzi Malins theory, although she did not go so deep into the subject to describe chemicals that influence our love choices. But it is common knowledge that facial features depend on prenatal hormone levels. Suzi Malin and I approached the subject from a somewhat different perspective. We looked closely at physical appearance, while Dr. Fisher examined personality types. Helen Fisher does not guarantee that certain people will be together, and neither do I. Both of us only indicate those who have a chance with each other. I have to accentuate that according to Dr. Fisher the personality type associated with testosterone (The Director) matches with the one associated with estrogen (The Negotiator), which is basically the essence of the HLA. Chemistry.coms matches are slightly more complicated than the simple rule laid down by the HLA. This is because Helen Fishers research is focused on personality, while the HLA deals with facial appearance. 2nd TO 4th DIGIT RATIO Fishers findings involve the prenatal level of sex hormones. She measured testosterone levels using mainly the 2nd to 4th digit ratio method, which states that your second to fourth fingers length relation is connected with the amount of testosterone that affected you in utero pregnancy (one of the questions in the Chemistry.com questionnaire is about finger length). The lower the 2D:4D ratio, the higher the concentration of prenatal testosterone. It is an acclaimed method of measuring testosterone you can read more about it in Professor Mannings article The ratio of 2nd to 4th digit length: a predictor of sperm numbers and concentrations of testosterone, luteinizing hormone and oestrogen, Manning J.T., Scutt D., Wilson J., Lewis-Jones D.I. (1998), and in Digit Ratio: A Pointer to Fertility, Behavior, and Health, John T. Manning, Rutgers University Press, 2002. In that first article, John T. Manning and colleagues reported that the sex difference in digit ratios was present in 2-year-old children, and further developed the concept that the index was a marker of fetal sex hormones. Since that time research on the topic has burgeoned worldwide. Both facial features and digit ratios are dependent on the concentration of prenatal hormones. Hence, there must be some connection between 2 nd to 4th digit ratio and facial dimorphism. The following experiments results confirm such speculations: (b) Procedure (i) Data recording We measured the lengths of the second and fourth digits of the left and right hands from the tip of the finger to the ventral proximal crease from photocopies. Colour digital images of each participants face were taken with a digital single-lens reflex camera at high resolution in TIFF file format under standardized light conditions (Hedler Studio Lights, Hedler GmbH) and in frontal view. (ii) Facial shape analysis The shape of each face was defined by manually setting 64 predetermined feature points (landmarks) on each image. While this represents no standard anthropometric scheme (indeed, there is no such point scheme for facial photographs), it seems to us to be reasonable and thorough; the nearest comparable somatometric method may be Knussmanns (1988). From these points, 32 could be unambiguously identified in every case at positions that could plausibly be claimed to correspond from face to face on biological or perceptual grounds....

20

Figure 1. (a) An example face with 64 predefined landmarks. The grey-filled circles indicate classical landmarks that can be identified unambiguously, the white-filled circles are semilandmarks that lie on a curve (see 2), and the forehead boss points (solid black) are used for visualization only and are not included in the statistical analyses. (b) All 106 landmark configurations superimposed by the Procrustes fit. These coordinates are the basis for further statistical analysis.

Low 2D:4D ratio 0.831

0.899

0.967

1.035

high 2D:4D ratio 1.103

4 s.d.

2 s.d.

average

+2 s.d.

+4 s.d.

Figure 2. Visualization of the shape regression on 2D : 4D ratio (averaged among both hands) within males. The middle face with an undeformed square grid is the average landmark configuration and corresponds to the average digit ratio for males. The right grids show deformations from the mean face to faces that are predicted for higher 2D : 4D ratios (0.068Z2 s.d. 21

and 0.136Z4 s.d., respectively, higher than the average). The left faces correspond to low 2D : 4D ratios (K2 s.d. and K4 s.d.). The G4 s.d. values are outside the data range. Fink B., Grammer K., Mitteroecker P., Gunz P., Schaefer K., Bookstein F.L., Manning J.T., Second to fourth digit ratio and face shape, Proceedings of the Royal Society I have chosen the lowest and the highest 2D : 4D visualizations from the foregoing experiment so you can compare them to some examples of very masculine and very effeminate mens faces given in this book:

lowest 2D : 4D

highest 2D : 4D

22

Chapter 7 SEX APPEAL VERSUS BEAUTY

These are shameless times we live in. Sexy lingerie does not make anyone blush nowadays. Contests for the sexiest car of the year are nothing new. Songs with sexual allusions are played 24/7. It seems that the performers image has been more important than musical talent since the start of MTV. Not to mention the whole movie industry. Sex has invaded even politics and sports, as the media focuses repeatedly on the sexiest politicians and athletes. I wonder when refrigerators will be advertised as sexy. Thanks to the HLA, we may finally formulate a clear definition of the most popular adjective in the history of pop culture. Many researchers believe that all cultures consider symmetrical faces to be beautiful (see the section Symmetry as a Sign of Objective Beauty in Chapter 14). Among the human species, judgments are quite consistent about whether a given face can be considered as an example of fine facial features whether a face is pretty. But the question of what specific factors are responsible for making a face pretty is widely disputed. Some researchers suggest that averageness of facial features is responsible for aesthetic appeal. I cannot agree with this last notion. Every individual does not share the preference for averageness. I explain my doubts in the section The Averageness Hypothesis in Chapter 14. I assumed for the purposes of this book that fine facial features are a result of more than just average symmetry. Therefore, both sexes share the same sense of objective beauty. Our brains, independently of our sex, culture, or nationality, perceive symmetry and proportions in a similar way. People from all over the world, for instance, admire great architectural monuments. At the same time, I am aware that facial beauty cannot be reduced to a single variable such as symmetry. I predict that, apart from symmetry, there are certain proportions of facial features that are perceived as attractive to the eye, just like the golden ratio in architecture. However, this aspect is beyond the scope of this book. We may agree that most people from both sexes share a very similar sense of facial beauty. This will be referred to as objective beauty. Now, the question is raised: what is a sexy face? Women certainly do not share a sense of what is sexually attractive in mens faces. In this respect opinions differ, not only between several cultures but also within several women in the same group of friends. I suppose some men would say that a sexy face is simply a pretty face. Why then the different terminology? We should remember that men place much more emphasis on objective beauty. Facial dimorphism is the critical determinant of sex appeal. This is my definition of a sexy face: objectively beautiful + indicating an appropriate level of sex hormones = sexy face Subject to the reservation made in Chapter 3 (Scientific Basis), the appropriate level of sex hormones refers to the prenatal concentration of these chemicals, and not the amount of sex hormones possessed in mature life. Men with, for example, pronounced masculine facial traits might turn out to have correspondingly high levels of testosterone in their blood. However, this relationship does not always work, especially in the case of women. As we know, the level of hormones in the female body is very unstable. In the case of men, the amount of testosterone may also vary during adult life. Among other factors, obesity may have a negative impact on testosterone levels.

23

We are concerned with a very subjective category. Fine facial features on a given face will make it sexy to some observers, and to others it will be just pretty. Two women often have very different opinions regarding the same man. One woman admires him as extremely handsome, while the other one claims he is awful. Yes, awful I have personally heard women using that word, even referring to male celebrities who are often considered sex symbols by the media. Men are a lot more consistent on this topic. Their opinions may vary, but it is difficult to find a man who would call any Miss World finalist awful. Mens magazines that include naked pictures of attractive women may be sold around the world to consumers from different cultures, nationalities, or social backgrounds. In most cases in this book I have chosen the point of view of a stunning woman who is being approached by a man. From a scientific point of view, this situation is much more interesting than the analysis of mens choices. Men generally value a womans physique. If a man finds a woman who is significantly prettier than her competition, he will choose her. In the long run other factors gain importance. The true challenge begins when we try to discover the criteria that women use to select their mates. Many of us would predict that they adopt more or less the same strategy as men they look for the most handsome men available. But many beautiful women end up with ugly men. One could point out rich ugly men! However, it is a fact that many stunning women choose unexceptional-looking men of average financial status. Lets look a little deeper at the subject. I suppose every man has witnessed the following situation: Two equally good-looking men try to pick up the same girl, who doesnt know anything about them. One of the men approaches her, and before he opens his mouth, you can see from the expression on her face that she is not very receptive. Two minutes later the other man approaches her, and before he finishes saying, Hi, how are you doing? she is already smiling brightly. How can we explain this? Sometimes the rejected man is objectively better-looking and wealthier than the one who succeeded. The defeated man approached her smoothly, and led the conversation to something more interesting than the usual lines that go after Hi, how are you doing? The answer is what most women would say when asked to comment on such a choice: the second man was simply her type. But what does that mean exactly? The word type refers plainly to his looks, since she had been receptive before he managed to open his mouth. Women cannot explain what it exactly means. Most of them will recall this shine in his eyes, magnetism, chemistry, or other mysterious terms that women use to describe the mechanism behind the HLA. This, of course, leads to many misunderstandings; men cannot accept such vague answers. They try to discover the reason for such an irrational (on the surface) choice. This is where many popular theories regarding human mating originated. As previously mentioned, most of these theories provide an explanation based on competition: the more confident/funnier/charming man always gets the girl.

24

Chapter 8 BABYFACENESS
The easiest way to help you estimate the sex hormone level of a given individual (including yourself) is to answer the question: How much does this face resemble the face of a baby? This is what I call the Babyfaceness Test. The trick is NOT to focus on any specific part of the face, because it may be misleading. Take, for example, Kerry Washington. One of the most feminine faces in the film industry has two traits that may cause confusion when judging Kerrys facial femininity level: she has a well-shaped chin and jaw. But when you look at her face without focusing on any specific part of it, you can see clearly that it is almost the delicate face of a little girl. This is why we have to evaluate the overall look, the first impression that strikes us. She has a characteristic jawline and chin. But these elements are surely of small size. This is another important tip you have to bear in mind. When rating someones facial dimorphism, always consider size in comparison to other facial features. What matters are proportions. Otherwise you have no point of reference, and your evaluation becomes completely subjective. We have to conclude that Kerrys jaw and chin are not masculinized. They are characteristic, well shaped. But still, in comparison to her whole face, they are small. The same Babyfaceness Test can be applied to men. Look at French President Nicolas Sarkozy. Could you ever call him baby face? I bet his face was not typically childlike even when the current leader of France was in kindergarten. Mr. Sarkozy has very strong, robust facial features. His new wife, former Italian top model, singer, and actress Carla Bruni, is characterized by delicate facial features. She is already in her forties, yet she could still play the role of a 20-year-old girl. Well, maybe after getting her wrinkles photoshopped. The point is her facial bone structure is delicate. Things get more complex when you have to judge someone who is more in the middle of the facial femininity/masculinity axis. It is always easier to point at extreme examples, and match them appropriately. Some scientists argue that infantlike facial features in women increase their attractiveness the socalled Babyfaceness theory. In general this notion is correct. Yet in real life we can also find masculinized beauties. An interesting experiment involving this subject was carried out by researchers from Regensburg University: Research on facial attractiveness has pointed out that the presence of childlike facial features increases attractiveness. These are: Large head Large curved forehead Facial elements (eyes, nose, mouth) located relatively low Large, round eyes Small, short nose Round cheeks Small chin In order to examine the so-called babyfaceness hypothesis, we produced several variants of 25

selected female faces. The variants all had different levels of childlike facial proportions and were judged for attractiveness by test subjects. They created a scheme of childlike characteristics:

Which was based on four children aged 4 to 6-1/2 years:

This is how we went about: we computed an average child face using the four original images. Subsequently, we selected several attractive woman faces. By using the morphing technique we gradually warped the facial shape of the female faces into the shape of the scheme of childlike characteristics. Only the proportions of the faces were manipulated, not the faces itself! We produced six variations of each selected female face. http://www.uni-regensburg.de/ Fakultaeten/phil_Fak_II/Psychologie/Psy_II/beautycheck/english/kindchenschema/kindchenschema .htm

Below I enclose the least childlike variation (face 6: 0% child, 100% adult woman) and the most childlike variation (face 1: 50% child, 50% adult woman), so you can compare them with the actresses shown in Chapter 5.

26

Face 6: 0% child, 100% adult woman

Face 1: 50% child, 50% adult woman

Hopefully, you can see that all the examples of feminine faces given in Chapter 5 look a lot more like face 1 than face 6. And all examples of largely masculinized faces share a lot more similar facial features with face 6 than with face 1. Furthermore, I am sure you have also noticed that some of the masculinized faces presented in Chapter 5 look even more masculine than variation 6. No wonder the researchers produced variation 6 on the basis of photographs of several attractive womens faces. Attractive womens faces tend to look juvenile on average. Scientists from Regensburg University forgot to list one more typically childlike facial feature a delicate jawline. For instance the overall image of British supermodel Kate Moss is masculinized. It is definitely not an example of delicate bone structure. Her face is barely feminine also due to other reasons, which were not mentioned in the commented paper. The authors of the experiment stated in the beginning of their report:
The

face of Kate Moss clearly shows characteristic features of babyfaces, but at the same time it also includes mature female features like high, prominent cheek bones and concave cheeks which are accentuated evenly by using make-up.

This face is tricky. Indeed there are some characteristic features that may be confusing. One should examine the overall look, and not base the whole rating on one or two specific features. Below I present the list of infantlike features made by the researchers from Regensburg University, and comment on the facial features of Kate Moss: 27

Large head maybe Large curved forehead not in proportion to the length of her whole face Facial elements (eyes, nose, mouth) located relatively low true Large, round eyes definitely not: her eyes, although wide set, are very small Small, short nose agreed Round cheeks the contrary: prominent cheek bones Small chin not that small in proportion to the whole face length As described above, many of her facial features are mature. General bone thickness has a major influence on whether we perceive a face as gracile or robust. In addition, she has a broad forehead, which is a masculine trait. Kates look is substantially masculinized. For many people it is difficult to accept such a verdict on a face belonging to a supermodel. After comparing Kate Moss with Charlize Theron, Jessica Alba, or Kerry Washington, to give just a few examples, we see there is no doubt who wins the Babyfaceness Test. The HLA works perfectly in this case: Charlize Therons former boyfriend Stuart Townsend is definitely a lot more masculine than former Kates boyfriend Pete Doherty. I picked former and not actual partners of the two celebrities only because by coincidence these men look quite similar. So you can see what difference sexual dimorphism does to a face, what is the core of facial masculinity. You may compare even skin tone. Pale skin is considered to be a feminine attribute. Speaking of the former Moss-Doherty couple, I found an article from a British newspaper contemplating what this beautiful supermodel saw in someone who looked like a refugee from a student squat: What on earth does Kate Moss see in Pete Doherty? According to scientific research, what attracts her is his baby face. Jane Gordon investigates. When Pete Doherty first lurched into the gaze of the paparazzi as the consort of Kate Moss, it was difficult to understand what she saw in him. With his large forehead made more pronounced by the signature trilby his wide eyes, chubby cheeks, full lips and ever-present sheen of sweat, he was the antithesis of accepted masculine beauty. All the usual features that we traditionally associate with male attractiveness a strong square jaw, a long, lean face, a defined nose and a firm mouth are missing from the lead singer of Babyshambles. Indeed, Doherty presents the facial profile of a big (his one really masculine trait is his height) baby. The appeal of baby-faced men by Jane Gordon, 24 November 2006 http://www.mailonsunday.co.uk/pages/you/article.html?in_article_id=418449&in_page_id=1908 I completely agree with the authors description of Petes baby face. But the conclusions drawn in her article are inadequate: But, strange as it may seem, there is a scientific explanation for Kates apparent aberration. According to Dr Anthony Little an evolutionary psychologist and Royal Society research fellow 28

there is good reason why contemporary women are attracted to baby-faced men such as Doherty and why the old ideals of what makes a man appealing are changing. In fact, it could well be that just as Kate Moss defines the way women in the 21st century want to look, so Doherty will become the blueprint for what more and more females perceive to be the perfect man. http://www.mailonsunday.co.uk/pages/you/article.html?in_article_id=418449&in_page_id=1908 Why havent I seen Pete Doherty with any supermodel who has very feminine facial features? Like any of the girlfriends of such rock stars as Lenny Kravitz, Mick Jagger, or Steven Tyler? All three singers have very robust faces. The author quotes Dr. Little, who claims that nowadays it is a universal tendency among women to feel attraction to babyfaced men: Kate Moss defines the way women in the 21st century want to look, so Doherty will become the blueprint for what more and more females perceive to be the perfect man. Is it really just a coincidence that Kate Moss has a masculinized face, while the girls that dated any of the three above mentioned rock stars have definitely feminine faces (Adriana Lima, Bianca Jagger, Brenda Cooper)? Courtney Love didnt fall for Kurt Cobains not very masculine face (yet a little more masculine than Petes) because that was fashionable during the 90s. Is it another coincidence that Courtneys facial features are less feminine than Adriana Limas, Bianca Jaggers, or Brenda Coopers, but a little more feminine than Kates? Why did such a singer of the 21 st century as Rihanna and such a singer and actress of the 50s as Marilyn Monroe both choose such rugged masculine faces as, respectively, Chris Brown and John F. Kennedy? I could list such coincidences for hours... Scientists would say that a babyfaced person has neotenous facial features. Sometimes the expression pedomorphy is used: A potential correlate of beauty is pedomorphy, which is the retention in adults of child-like traits. For instance, women have facial features that are closer to those of children than men, and more feminine women have facial features that are even closer to those of children. Thus, it may be proposed that pedomorphy is a correlate of beauty. www.femininebeauty.info/ethnic-comparisons/beauty-elements I quoted from Femininebeauty.info because some basic terms are well described on that website. Nevertheless, I do not fully agree with the author. For instance, the last part of the above cited definition (Thus, it may be proposed that pedomorphy is a correlate of beauty) is not adequate. Objective beauty and facial femininity or masculinity are two different independent issues, which is the main message of the next chapter.

29

Chapter 9 FEMININITY
Briefly speaking, the facial features that contribute to an overall feminine image are: - large, set wide apart eyes - oval face - full lips - small chin - round cheeks - high, narrow, curved forehead - high-placed thin eyebrows - small, short nose - delicate bone structure - facial elements (eyes, nose, mouth) located relatively low In contrast, attributes of typically masculine facial traits include: - deep-set small and set close together eyes - low-placed tick eyebrows - low, broad forehead - pronounced brow ridge - pronounced concave cheekbones - strong chin - squared jaw - big, long nose - small lips - strong bone structure You can find a more precise, scientific approach to facial femininity on www.femininebeauty.info/feminine-vs-masculine: There are additional changes in facial features related to sex hormones; these changes are addressed after controlling for size: the eyebrows are thicker and placed lower on the face, i.e., closer to the eyes, in males; the face is broader in the female; the distance between the eyes is greater in the female; and the chin is longer and squared in the male (Fig 7a).

30

Fig 7a: Face outline variation resulting from masculinization and feminization (front view, assessed via geometric morphometrics); f = female, m = male.(5)

You can find a more precise, scientific approach to facial masculinity on: www.femininebeauty.info/masculinization-feminization-in-men (the part relating to facial appearance) Again, I have to add that I have some minor reservations regarding Femininebeauty.info sometimes my judgments are less strict. For instance, the author of the website states in the beginning of the page dedicated to facial masculinity: The following example is an easy contrast between an effeminate face and a masculine one. The picture shows Leonardo DiCaprio and Burt Lancaster. Indeed Burt Lancaster has a more masculine face. But the author exaggerated describing DiCaprio's face as effeminate. It is less masculine than Lancaster's, yet in the light of the whole masculine population it is still quite a masculine one. I think a much better contrast can be seen when comparing a very effeminate face (Pete Doherty) to a quite masculine one (Leonardo DiCaprio), and to a very masculine one (Tom Cruise) with regard to Cruise's face the author of the commented website agrees with me.

Going back to the main subject of this chapter women's faces. The four above images posted on Femininebeauty.info are taken from the already quoted in Chapter 6 article titled: Fink B., Grammer K., Mitteroecker P., Gunz P., Schaefer K., Bookstein F.L., Manning J.T., Second to fourth digit ratio and face shape, Proceedings of the Royal Society You can compare the visualization of the shape of the average female face (m f) and the exaggerated, very feminine face (m f x 2) with the faces of female celebrities indicated in Chapter 5 as examples of very feminine faces:

31

mf x2 mf fm fmx2 Figure 5. Sexual dimorphism in facial shape. The two inner deformation grids are thin-plate spline visualizations of the shape differences between the average male face (m) and the average female face (f ). To enhance the details these differences were exaggerated by two in the outer grids.

Often cited here, Femininebeauty.info aims to promote feminine beauty. The website presents a very well explained, in-depth analysis of the subject. However, as mentioned previously, I do have some objections to the conclusions. Please remember that the above website also covers the subject of feminine body build, while this book, and the theory presented herein, deals solely with facial features. Body build is merely one of many secondary factors in mate choice. I believe the website is repeatedly too strict. Sometimes it describes a given model as masculinized, while she only has some masculinized elements in her face. An example of this tendency is the critique of Elle Macphersons beauty. On one hand, I admit that the authors remarks about her body are true. On the other hand, I must say he exaggerated somehow when criticizing her facial features. There may be some masculine elements in her face; but after judging the overall look, one sees she still has a substantially womanish face compared to the rest of the feminine population. I have the impression that the author himself felt that calling her masculinized from head to toe was an exaggeration: However, Elle MacPherson is masculinized from head to toe, though her face is not as masculine as in many other high-fashion models out there. http://www.femininebeauty.info/elle-macpherson-and-monica-ftv-girls Her face is indeed more masculinized than Monicas (unknown model indicated by the author of the website) but still a lot more feminine than the masculinized facial features of Sarah Jessica Parker and others presented in my book as examples of very masculinized womens faces. As can be seen below, Elle MacPherson has finer facial features than Monica, but this should not be assumed to result from greater feminization; Elles finer facial features reflect her being genetically more closer to Northern Europeans than Monica is; Elle clearly has a face that is more masculinized than Monicas. http://www.femininebeauty.info/elle-macpherson-and-monica-ftv-girls With this last remark I can agree: fine facial features (what I refer to as objective beauty) are totally independent of femininity level.

32

In addition, the authors comments on Playboy Playmates seem inaccurate: Now we can figure out the most likely reason behind the masculinization trend among Playboy centerfolds. Hugh Hefner, the ultimate decision maker regarding who gets to be a Playmate, appears to be a bisexual and likes masculinized women. When he founded the magazine, the feminine female form was in the limelight, and Hefner could not have gone against it while he was trying to establish the magazine. In addition, the silicon gel breast implant was not available then, which would be required to add pseudo-femininity to the often naturally small breasts of insufficiently feminine nude centerfolds. Indeed, breast implants have been common among Playmates in recent years. http://www.femininebeauty.info/hugh-hefner If Playboy chose masculinized models only because of Hugh Hefners personal preferences, then the invisible hand of the market would verify such taste. Though Playboy is the most recognizable mens magazine brand in the world, the competition is just waiting to overtake Hefners empire. Thus, the fact that some Playboy Playmates have somewhat masculinized facial features merely reflects various tastes within the male population. The author managed to gather a lot of scientific information on femininity, and was able to present a clear explanation of what a purely feminine face should look like. However, he forgot that a 100% feminine face is something as scarce as hens teeth. Most womens faces have some masculine traits it is normal. Otherwise we would come to extreme conclusions, such as comparing Pamela Andersons face to a transvestites: Look at Fig 2 and ask yourself whether you are looking at a woman, man or transsexual? (one of the remarks by the author of the website). Sure, some parts of her face are masculinized, but what counts is the overall look. We have to remember that the same rule applies to the masculine population. It is very difficult to find a man with purely masculine facial features. The author of Femininebeauty.info also implies that men who find masculinized womens faces attractive may have homosexual inclinations. But that has nothing to do with sexual preferences. In accordance with the HLA, a man who prefers such womens faces over other similarly pretty women probably has an effeminate facial appearance. Other men will also fancy a masculinized womans face, provided it is objectively beautiful. Pam Grier is a valid example. One of the biggest female black sex symbols of all time could not have been promoted exclusively by gays. On the contrary, pursuant to Mannings research quoted in the section Terms defined herein of Chapter 3, and taking into account my theory, men with effeminate faces are rather unlikely to be homosexuals: These data support an association between male homosexuality and high fetal testosterone, claims John T. Manning in his book Digit Ratio: A Pointer to Fertility, Behavior, and Health, Rutgers University Press, 2002. As shown in this book, the faces of heterosexual men and women include various levels of sexual dimorphism. I assume the mentioned association between male homosexuality and high fetal testosterone simply means that those individuals are more likely than others to have such a sexual orientation. But you cannot draw the conclusion that most of them are homosexuals. Some studies demonstrate that people are able to indicate faces of homosexuals with more probability than random guessing:

33

Procedure Study 1A consisted of six conditions based on the presentation time of the photographs. Participants made judgments based on faces they saw for either 33 ms, 50 ms, 100 ms, 6500 ms, 10,000 ms, or at their own self-paced rate (i.e., photos were presented until the participant pressed a response key). Results Sexual orientation was judged from male faces at levels significantly greater than chance in all but the 33 ms condition. Accuracy scores were calculated for each participant by dividing the number of correct classifications by the total number of images. Rule N.O., Ambady N., Brief exposures: Male sexual orientation is accurately perceived at 50 ms, Tufts University, Department of Psychology; revised 27 November 2007, available online 25 January 2008. http://ase.tufts.edu/psychology/ambady/pubs/2008RuleJESP.pdf My guess is that there must be some still-undiscovered cue to sexual orientation in human faces other than sexual dimorphism.

34

Chapter 10 RESULTS OF THE EXERCISE

I am sure you have indicated in group I the following faces as the more feminine ones: set no 1 : Meagan Good (A) set no 2 : Hillary Clinton (B) set no 3 : Katie Holmes (A) set no 4 : Angelina Jolie (A) set no 5 : Monica Bellucci (C) as the most ladylike, Salma Hayek (B) as a little less feminine then Monica, Pam Grier (A) as having the undeniably least neotoneous image.

As for men, the more masculine faces in each set are: set no 1 : Jamie Foxx (B) set no 2 : Bill Clinton (A) set no 3 : Tom Cruise (A) set no 4 : Brad Pitt (A) set no 5 : Vincent Cassel (C) having the most dimorphic face, Edward Norton (B) as a little less manly, Richard Pryor (A) as definitely the least masculine face.

Set no 1 The two black actors are apparently objectively good-looking guys. They knew how to benefit from the symmetry of their facial features, and made great careers in the movie business. Denzels face is almost completely symmetrical, according to a Newsweek article titled The biology of beauty. In terms of facial masculinity they are in perfect contrast to each other: mind the strong, robust face traits of Jamie Foxx, compared to Denzels soft facial bone structure. Denzel Washington, on the contrary, has an overall effeminate look. The only sharper element I was able to find is his nose, which is not that big in comparison with the length of his whole face. Facial dimorphism may be observed after comparing facial proportions. The relative distances between certain elements of the face will substantially differ in case of two subjects marked by a completely different facial dimorphism level: Both have quite high foreheads. The interval between the mouth and eyebrow line is much shorter 35

in the case of Jamie. This means Denzels mouth is lower situated. It makes his whole face look more childlike. I am also sure most of you can see the differences regarding the shape of certain face traits: Jamies deep-set eyes contrast with Denzels big shiny eyes; his eyebrows are lower placed than Washingtons; his whole bone structure appears to be stronger for instance, notice Jamies pronounced brow ridge. Conversely to the masculinized facial features of Pauletta Washington (notice the potent bone structure), Meagan Goods face is made of almost only womanish traits. Small eyes are the only not-so-ladylike element I was able to find in the facial features of Jamies ex-girlfriend. Do you see how compatible Mr. and Ms. Washingtons facial features are? At the same time they differ so much in terms of bone structure hers is quite strong for a woman, and his is delicate compared to the average male skull. Set no 2 This time the rather objectively more handsome man (Bill Clinton) is also the more facially masculine one. Try to imagine Clinton and Laura Bush as a couple. It is a rather difficult task their faces do not match. Both have quite pronounced facial features. The man who ordered the invasion of Iraq in 2003 has very effeminate facial features. The only dimorphic elements you can find in George W. Bushs face are his closely set-together eyes and quite thick eyebrows. On the other hand, his shiny eyes are not an entirely masculine trait, because of their size. Additionally, his brow ridge does not look strong. Compare these features to the small deep-set eyes of former President Clinton. Accordingly, Clintons brow ridge also indicates his face as the more masculine one. Ws nose and chin are not of great size given the length of his whole face. His jawline does not appear particularly strong. The distance between the end of his chin to the mouth is quite short given the length of the whole face counted as the distance between the end of the chin to his hairline. The same distance is much longer in the case of Clinton. Differences in facial dimorphism between these two former US presidents are better seen when we compare the distance between mouth and eye line. At first glance one can see that the distance between Clintons eyes and mouth is much shorter. This makes the whole face look more mature. Now Hillary, despite being called iron lady by many people, has a soft feminine face. This is the best example of what I underlined before in this book: facial masculinity/femininity cannot always be considered as a direct indicator of character or personality.

Set no 3 The young, innocent look of Katie Holmes is, of course, much more ladylike than Jada Pinkett Smiths pretty face wife of Will Smith. Will has a round, handsome, but little masculine face. The facial features that make him so pretty to many women are precisely those that give his face a substantially effeminate look: big, wide set, shiny eyes and high, thin eyebrows. Other similar face traits are: small in proportion to the whole skull chin and nose, modest jawline and tiny cheekbones. Also compare his modest brow ridge to Tom Cruises pronounced brow ridge. In contrast to Wills soft facial features, the face traits of his good friend Tom Cruise seem rugged. The characteristic long nose, as well as deep-set eyes, thick low-placed eyebrows, pronounced 36

jawline and chin contribute to the ultra masculine image of this Hollywood lover in real life husband of Katie Holmes. Set no 4 Recognize the facial patterns in both couples. Here we have two celebrity beauties. The featured famous actresses are completely different in terms of facial appearance. The brunette is an unquestionable sex symbol, just like her husband. Can you find any little dimorphic elements in their faces? The only soft element that you can find in Pitts robust face is his full lips. This corresponds to Angelinas only relatively masculinized face trait, namely a well-shaped jawline. Her characteristic jaw is not that big in proportion to the whole skull size. Hence, this face exudes femininity even with such an at first sight little ladylike element. Evidently, those two complete each other in terms of appearance, just as Brodericks effeminate face best suits the masculinized, beautiful, symmetrical facial features of Sarah Jessica Parker. Contrary to Brangelina, Broderick and Parker have no dimorphic features in their faces Sarah Jessicas facial bone structure is almost stronger than her mans.

Set no 5 At first glance all three dark-haired beauties look quite similar. I did not choose them randomly. The aim was to set together women who do not look that different, due to such easily visible characteristics as hair color, skin tone, size of eyes and shape of eyebrows. Having compared such looking-like hotties, the indication of masculine elements in their faces is facilitated. Those elements make the whole difference. Bellucci is all woman. She has not only a curvy body. Look at her infantlike facial pattern can you find any sharp elements at all? Her oval face is in complete opposition to Pam Griers stunning sharp look. Indicating Monica Bellucci as the most feminine actress was rather obvious. It could have been troublesome to decide between Grier and Hayek, having only frontal view photos. In this pair the difference in facial dimorphism comes down mainly to bone structure. That is when side face photos come in handy. You can see Pams bigger nose and chin (in proportion to whole face length). Also notice her much more prominent cheekbones. In general she has thicker facial bones. So we have Monica Bellucci as an example of a 100% feminine face. On the other end of the axis of facial femininity we find beautiful Pam. Salma Hayek is somewhere between Grier and Bellucci. Closer to Bellucci, I have to conclude by virtue of overall femininity. Monicas life partner, French actor Vincent Cassel, specializes in playing roles of villains. No wonder; with such sharp facial features, evil characters suit him best. Can you find any delicate elements in his extremely masculine face? None, just as there are no masculine elements in Monicas face. If I had to pick the least dimorphic trait of his face, it would be his jaw. Cassel has a strong chin and other typically masculine facial features. Only his jaw is not extraordinarily masculine. Thats good for him. With a squared jaw his whole face would look almost like a caricature. Try to imagine Vincent Cassel and Pam Grier together. Their faces dont match at all. There are just too many sharp lines. Clearly Richard Pryor is his complete opposite. Pryors oval effeminate face composes very well with Griers sharp beauty, even though they do not match in terms of objective 37

attractiveness. Grier was an unquestionable sex symbol in the 70s, while Pryor achieved his celebrity status thanks to a great sense of humor and personality rather than physical attributes. Choosing Cassel as the most masculine face from this set was as easy as picking Bellucci as the most feminine. Edward Norton has softer facial features than Vincent, but certainly his face traits are a lot more masculine than Pryors. The face of the king of comedy is characterized by a big long nose, certainly bigger than Edward Nortons. But that is his one and only masculine trait. Norton, on the other hand, has small, deep-set and closely set-together eyes, and lower eyebrows, all of which combined with a much stronger chin, jawline and smaller lips make his face look a lot more masculine than Pryors. Edwards chin and jaw are indeed a lot bigger take into account the length of his whole face, and the length of Richs face. Proportions matter most. In the exercise, we gauged faces of celebrities (except for set no 2). You may have some remarks about the chosen celebrities. Most of you probably have noticed that the people given as examples of very masculine/feminine celebrities are well known, whereas the ones representing men or women with barely feminine/masculine faces are not so easily recognizable. Well, I was not able to find many celebrities with such small level of facial dimorphism, so I had to mention less famous ones. An actor must be principally expressive, characteristic. The movie world demands men to have a very masculine and women to have a very feminine image. In Hollywood everything must be a little exaggerated. Apparently there are exceptions to this rule for example, Will Smith or Denzel Washington, who are beyond doubt great movie stars. However, they catch up with their beauty and talent. Another thing you may have noticed is that three of the four actors given as examples of celebrities with barely masculine faces are African-Americans (Will Smith, Denzel Washington, Richard Pryor). This is pure coincidence. The HLA is applicable to all races, nationalities and cultures. Jamie Foxx, as said, is an African-American actor with a very pronounced, robust facial appearance. In fact, studies demonstrate that African-Americans have rather higher amounts of testosterone than white Americans: Californian black college students have been shown to have 19% higher mean testosterone levels than white students and 21% higher concentrations of free testosterone (Ross et al. 1986). The differences were somewhat reduced by controlling for lifestyle factors, but overall they remained high and significant. It is likely that African Americans also have higher exposure to prenatal testosterone than Caucasian Americans, and therefore have lower 2D:4D than Caucasians. Manning J.T., Digit Ratio: A Pointer to Fertility, Behavior, and Health, Rutgers University Press, 2002

38

Chapter 11 PHASES OF THE MATING PROCESS

The mating process can be divided into three phases: A) Phase of estimation of the femininity/masculinity of a given face B) Phase of evaluation of objective physical attractiveness C) Phase of evaluation of other factors that are not connected with the appearance of the observed person Both sexes evaluate a potential partner according to the above sequence. The first two phases are about judging the physical attributes of a given individual. The assessment of other factors (character, intelligence, social background, sense of humor) takes more time. The evaluation of facial traits is a process that happens totally subconsciously, and is therefore the first stage. Another point in question is what importance each sex places on each phase. I will cover this topic later, this time using ciphers to order the phases. Phase A The estimation of sex hormone levels takes place within the first seconds of seeing someones face. Studies show that women are able to correctly read the level of testosterone just by looking at a photograph of a mans face (more in Chapter 14 in the section The Ability to Read the Level of Facial Masculinity/Femininity). The HLA claims that not only women possess this ability. For men, the objective beauty of the rated face may interfere with this process. Facial features are a clue to hormone levels. Two men may rate two equally objectively beautiful female faces and have different opinions about which face is sexier. This is, of course, a consequence of my definition of a sexy face (Chapter 7). The sex hormone level evaluation does not depend on our subjective persuasion. It takes place according to the laws of nature. It is the most important phase. Phase B The next phase involves judging someones facial beauty and body build. Generally speaking, it concerns the objective beauty of a given person. In this phase, some processes also happen subconsciously. For instance, an appropriate waist-to-hip ratio makes a womans body attractive. This is not a conscious choice made by the rater; this build has been shown to correlate strongly with general health and fertility. The same can be said with regard to facial symmetry, which probably also correlates with general health (read more in the section Symmetry as a Sign of Objective Beauty in Chapter 14). In the animal world, symmetrical individuals are perceived as more attractive. I believe objective beauty assessment is also in part made consciously. To some extent, the ideal of beauty must be influenced by society. Phase C In contrast to the first two phases, the last one does not concern physical appearance. It relates to all other factors that have any impact on mate choice. Some choices also happen subconsciously. For example, some people think that women choose wealthy men not only to satisfy their own desire for luxury but also in order to feel safer. In such cases women subconsciously think about the wellbeing of future offspring. Similarly, we may explicate the allure of certain character traits, such as selfconfidence or courage. Men see fidelity as a very positive quality in a future spouse, since they fear investing time and money in someone elses offspring. Notwithstanding the above, in this phase most decisions are made consciously, pursuant to our subjective criteria. Sense of humor is highly subjective. Wealth may secure the future of potential offspring. For one woman, though, a wealthy man is someone who has a good stable job, but another wont settle for less than the CEO of a 39

Fortune 500 company. In this phase we also assess someones ethical values, beliefs, social background, education, and manners. Having described the criteria that we use to choose a love partner, I will list them according to their importance. This is where men and women differ drastically. Many of us are not aware of these processes, which is why men and women do not really know what the opposite sex wants. For men the hierarchy of importance of the aforementioned criteria is: 1. The phase of assessment of objective beauty of the woman in question 2. The phase of evaluation of her facial femininity 3. The phase of assessment of other factors that are not connected to physical appearance For women the hierarchy is: 1. The phase of evaluation of the facial masculinity of the man in question 2. The phase of assessment of other factors that are not connected to physical appearance 3. The phase of assessment of his objective beauty Please note that we are discussing the choices of people who are looking for a long-term relationship. It is obvious that someone who is after a one-night stand will place importance just on one factor the potential partners objective beauty. Sometimes the HLA is applicable even in case of people looking for casual encounters. Again, it is the case of picky sought-after women.

40

Chapter 12 THE HLA PICKUP GUIDE

Now that we already know what the Hormonal Law of Attraction is all about, and we are aware of situations when this rule may be interrupted by secondary factors, I will say a few words about its practical application. HLA is knowledge that should be possessed principally by men. Men pursue all objectively attractive women, while women have their types. They instinctively feel the HLA. I realize that for long-term relationships, men also contemplate predispositions other than a sexy physique. The point is that the average man has no clue about chemistry. He reasons that if he can manage to find a woman who matches his dream profile e.g., a beautiful, educated, and outgoing Christian then she will be IT. Therefore, I address this chapter to men. Understanding the HLA and mastering the proper assessment of the facial femininity of the woman we intend to conquer is an extremely helpful skill in the game of love. Actually, when we lack this knowledge our attempts look more like random shots with the hope of hitting any target, instead of courting the woman of our dreams. The first thing we should do is correctly determine the masculinity of our own facial features. ACCENTUATE/HIDE YOUR MASCULINITY If you have come to the conclusion that your facial features are somehow effeminate, you will probably need to accentuate the mannish elements in your face. It wont make you attractive to feminine women, but it sure will improve your image. You see, women worldwide use makeup. In their case the rule is simple: more femininity will improve their looks. When a woman exaggerates makeup, the result doesnt look good because it looks unnatural for her facial features. But if her natural facial features were more feminine it wouldnt make her less attractive. Women paint their eyes and lips. Large eyes and full lips are a sign of femininity. Have you ever seen in any culture women painting their noses? Pale skin is another sign of femininity. There is a reason why women put powder on their faces in the past, not only in our Western culture. Its a universal tendency look at the traditional makeup of a Japanese geisha. Bristle is the masculine equivalent of makeup. With men the situation is slightly more elaborate more masculinity does not always make you look better. So if you feel your facial features may be too masculine, you should avoid making any changes in your image that could amplify your mannish facial traits even more. Lets get into details: a) lose/gain weight If you lose weight, your facial bone structure will be more visible, which will sharpen your overall image. Guys with naturally sharp faces, like Mick Jagger, should gain a couple pounds instead. b) tanned skin Sunbathing may be recommended for those who lack facial masculinity. c) facial hair Any facial hair will add masculinity to your face, just like makeup will make women look only more feminine. A light bristle will definitely give you an overall sharper image. If you have very effeminate facial features, you might consider growing a beard. Your chin and jaw will look bigger. On the flip side, if your facial features are highly masculine shave every day! d) shorten/uncover your forehead A high forehead adds femininity to the face. Generally, women have higher foreheads. If you lack 41

masculinity, you probably have a high forehead, so consider covering it with a fringe or a hat. This is good news for balding men! Mother Nature thought of everything. Balding is usually connected with high amounts of testosterone, so dont be afraid to lose hair. It will only make your already quite masculine face look warmer and more sociable... it will add a little femininity to it. The question of whether bald men are less attractive to women is controversial; there are studies supporting both answers. My hypothesis is that it depends on the facial femininity of the female rater. Therefore, research is inconsistent I doubt any studies made an effort to examine the women whose opinions were gathered. Those very feminine raters will not discriminate against balding men, since lack of hair is a sign of a high testosterone level. The fact that men are so worried about their balding heads is another example of how people predict the other sexs preferences from their own perspective. Apparently a balding woman is a big turnoff for most men, while women on average are far more tolerant of hairless mens heads. A CRUSH ON YOUR COLLEAGUE After the exercise from Chapter 2, after an analysis of the level of femininity of the women you dated in the past, and after examining the features of your own face, you should know more or less where you stand on the axis of facial masculinity. We regularly hear the following story: a guy meets a girl in college or at work. He has a huge crush on her. They are quite close. He is not sure whether she considers him boyfriend material or if she is just being nice to him. He is afraid that making any direct move will destroy their friendship or cause embarrassment, especially if mutual friends or coworkers find out that he was rejected. In such cases the proper estimation of her facial features (HLA or Suzi Malin's matches) will diminish the risk of hearing the unpleasant clich: Lets just be friends. PICKUP LINES There is absolutely no point in using pickup lines they are simply a waste of time. Only men find pickup lines significant. Memorized approaches may be funny and original sometimes, but they have no influence whatsoever on your chances of success. If you have a great sense of humor, you will have plenty occasions to show it. If she rejects you after you say, Hi, how are you doing? she would reject you even after the funniest, most original or touching pickup line. A NUMBERS GAME Another conclusion coming from the HLA is that dating is indeed a numbers game. Gentlemen, unfortunately the odds are against us, and there is nothing we can do to change it, because it is simply human nature. Luckily, we can adapt a strategy that will help us find that winning lottery ticket sooner than those who take their chances blindfolded. My concept proves that clubs, contrary to what some critics say, are a good place to pick up women. Some PUAs advise you to forget clubs and focus on the day game, as they call it. According to their theories, a club is not a very friendly environment in which to meet women, since women are constantly being approached there and tend to develop a negative mindset. That is just another misunderstanding of human nature. Naturally, women realize that such venues are filled with males who are trying to get into their pants. Yet if they find a man with facial features matching their own, they wont care whether they met him in a club, at the office, or even at a morgue. Unless he does something that will kill attraction (read more about this under the section Showing off). Since dating is a numbers game, clubs are one of the best places to approach ladies. Where else in real life (the Internet is unbeatable) will you find so many single women in one spot? Speed dating 42

is not a bad idea. But trendy clubs are regularly filled with more ladies than those dating events. Well, some of the clubbers, contrary to the speed dating participants, are not single. I guess it all depends on the venue. One could argue (I have admitted it myself in this book) that the HLA will not guide some womens choices with respect to no strings attached relationships. Agreed still, where do you think they are going to look for men? Clubs and the Internet have no competition in terms of both long-term and casual relationships. After gaining some experience you will most likely learn to recognize which ladys type you are. Her attitude will, of course, be a valuable clue the way she looks at you principally, body language, and other things often mentioned by pickup or seduction books. Sometimes this may be misleading, though. A shy girl who fancies you may not give the appropriate signals. A very outgoing womans behavior may be incorrectly interpreted as a sign of romantic interest. It is helpful to follow basic tips given by the HLA or Suzi Malin. Otherwise, you would approach every hot girl you see, like many pickup/seduction guides advise you to do. That would be very absorbing and conversely to what the neo-Casanovas claim not very healthy in terms of your self-confidence. As we all know, beautiful women are very choosy. On the other hand, when you are out there with your buddies, relaxing, having some drinks, detailed examination of facial features is the last thing you want to do before hitting on a girl. Thus, in clubs I advocate a more liberal mindset. That said, I guess I dont have to explain why blind dates are a waste of time and should be avoided. THE MOVE ON RULE The move on rule is one of the most important conclusions of the HLA. Suppose you see a girl for the first time in your life. After you start a conversation, she reacts in a not very receptive way. Simply move on! Chances are marginal that she just had a bad day yet finds you attractive. Otherwise she would have forgotten about her headache for a moment and acted nicely. The most likely explanation is that your face traits are simply not her type. You have just been added to the not boyfriend material category by her subconscious. Dont try to make her change her mind, impress her in any way or make efforts to create attraction in some other weird manner. The best you can achieve with all that mind control subliminal seduction crazy stuff is that you will be classified in the nice/funny/interesting guy category but weirdo category is more probable. If a woman doesnt find you sexually appealing, it doesnt mean you have committed a mistake anywhere at least that does not have to be the case. It doesnt mean you have to improve your looks, sense of humor, social skills, and so on. Sure, improving those areas of your life is a good thing, but the main point is that you dont have to worry that you didnt fit into some girls criteria. SHOWING OFF Buying expensive clothes, watches, or cars just to make a good impression on a potential date is a waste of time and money, provided you are not genuinely interested in motorization or fashion. Sure, a girl wont complain if you drive a Ferrari and wear a suit from Armanis newest collection, but she also wont complain if you drive an ordinary car and wear ordinary clothes. Just make sure not to do something that will embarrass her, something that would be a turnoff the only thing that may KILL attraction. What do I mean by doing something embarrassing? Well, it depends on the woman, the situation, the culture, the social group you two belong to. Certainly there are situations where a good suit, watch, car, or other sign of wealth might be essential. For example, 43

next to you stands another guy who just happens to be her type as well; now she will have to make a decision. The same comments apply to other secondary factors, such as self-confidence, sense of humor, body shape. Our society is pretty materialistic, hence I concentrated on the wealth issue.

44

Chapter 13 OTHER CONCLUSIONS OF THE HLA

GOLD DIGGERS Gold diggers was the first thing that came to my mind when I started writing this chapter. Rich men often feel confused when contemplating whether their other half is with them for real or only after their money. How many men have lost their time and money engaging in relationships with lets face it luxurious prostitutes? How many men have destroyed their relationships by accusing their girlfriends or even wives of having dishonest intentions? It is important to understand one thing a gold digger is a girl who is ONLY after your money. On the other hand, if a girl appreciates your wealth but also finds you cute, that is not the case. It all depends on the mindset you adopt. Imagine that you were an attractive woman, frequently being hit on why would you settle for less? Id bet that many of you would choose a guy you honestly find sexually attractive but also financially stable. The HLA is a great weapon for wealthy men who have this dilemma. If they evaluate their own and their partners face traits, and acknowledge it is clear that they do not completely match, then the answer will be: leave this gold digger. At least if your facial features are effeminate and you are dating a woman with very feminine facial features. After all, Chapter 4 expressly addresses the issue of exceptions to the HLA. Now, if your face traits match, this doesnt mean she has absolutely no dishonest intentions. You have to find out in another manner. In this last case, at least the probability of the worst scenario significantly diminishes. THE WONDERS OF ONLINE DATING Yes, it is all about the looks! But not in the sense society taught us. We should draw the conclusion that the most reasonable way to find a special someone in the global village is through the Internet. We live in fascinating times! Never before in history have we had the chance to meet so many potential partners. Once again I am forced to repeat: dating is indeed a numbers game. The HLA tells us that it is a big mistake not to upload a photo to our online profile. Many users commit this mistake, claiming they are searching for a soul mate rather than someone attracted by their looks. It lies in our nature to consider the image of our potential romantic partners as the most important criteria even for someone who does not place any importance on objective physical attractiveness. Many guys get confused when a woman who states on her online dating profile that looks are not important subsequently asks her admirers to include a photo. The HLA explicates the phenomenon of online dating. For women it takes merely one glimpse at someones photo to ascertain whether this man is boyfriend/husband material. Online dating should not be considered the favorite tool of desperate computer geeks. At the same time we should also know that most of the success stories of people who found their love partners without even seeing their photos (as happens in the romantic comedy Youve Got Mail) are probably fiction. Some people regard such tales as proof of true love. They reckon: since two people fell in love without even seeing each others faces, then it means they found their perfect match and not just another crush. Those people dont comprehend that as human beings we need to find mates who match us biologically. We consist not only from the spirit but also from the body. SCANDALS/AFFAIRS The HLA as well as the concept of visual categories presented in Love at first sight are useful even while discussing scandals. Much gossip about alleged affairs of famous politicians may be 45

verified a good example is the case of the pregnancy of Rachida Dati, a French minister in the cabinet of Nicolas Sarkozy. After Ms. Dati got pregnant in 2008, there were rumors that Jose Maria Aznar, former prime minister of Spain, was the father. To my knowledge Ms. Dati still keeps the identity of her childs father a secret. I have set together photos of these politicians, and the indisputable similarity of their facial features gives food for thought:

PLASTIC SURGERY The HLA is good reason to refrain from doing any serious facial plastic surgery. Rejuvenation is one thing, but correcting the facial features you were born with is a completely other issue. There is a danger that after changing your face traits they will become less or more respectively feminine/masculine than they originally were. In consequence, you will become more attractive to other types of men/women than the ones you subconsciously crave. Obviously your own preferences wont change, since it is something that is programmed in our minds by nature. This will lead you to confusion, and probably unhappiness. MATCHMAKING Matchmaking should be considered a relic of the past that has no use in modern society. It may lead to unhappy marriages especially in cultures where boys and girls are forced by their parents to marry each other. Today some people try to defend this custom by arguing that such couples may find true love after being together for a long time. This is pure nonsense! What are the odds that their parents by accident matched future spouses in accordance with the HLA or Suzi Malin's matches? WOMEN SHOULD BE ACTIVE The HLA gives a tip to women: if you are attractive, and you see a man whom you find attractive approach him! Yes, you heard me right; in such cases it is the female who should be active, not the male, contrary to cultural stereotypes. Am I promoting feminist ideas here? No, not at all. The only reason is that it simply makes more sense. We are rational creatures, and should start to think more rationally about this sphere of our lives as well. Attractive women are the pickiest creatures on this planet. Men pursue beautiful women; consequently, the rational solution is to encourage gorgeous women to approach men. Yes, I know, try to convince a woman that she should perceive love in a rational, cold manner 46

COUPLES FROM THE MOVIE SCREEN The HLA explains why so many couples from the silver screen become couples in real life. Hollywood producers and directors are professionals, who instinctively feel when there is potential for chemistry between certain people. Their job is to give roles to those actors whose combined performances would be perceived as authentic. Sometimes critics say that there was no chemistry between partners in a given movie. This is another good example of what the HLA is all about, and why many other theories misperceive the core of attraction. It is not about the mans/womans attitude, personality, sense of humor, or views on certain topics, because actors only interpret what is written in the script. Hence, it must be their looks that make the difference but not objective beauty, since most of the people in show business are good looking. EXPERIMENT 2.0 No one has tracked social interactions of a large, diversified group of people to check whether the acclaimed theories on sexual attraction bear out. Nowadays, in the world where Big Brother is watching, finally they can be verified. I suggest a reality TV show that would finally solve the greatest mystery of all time: what do women want? - 100 beautiful straight girls: 18-35 years old; all have one thing in common beauty. Everything else differentiates them: height, hair color, race, education, political views, religion, social background, nationality, character, hobbies, IQ; - 100 straight guys: diversified under categories that reflect certain theories on human mating. For example: the rich guy, the hunk, the muscle man, the smart nerd, the party boy, guys trained by different PUAs PUAs representing different schools of seduction and even one gay man who would pretend he is straight, just to establish whether women really appreciate certain traces of character allegedly possessed by gay men. The guys would be given only one task on the show picking up the most women. The girls would not be aware of it. Before starting we would carefully examine every participant from both sexes, from every angle: facial traits, weight, height, views, psychological tests, hormone levels, natural scent, even astrological signs. Every expert could take a closer look at each participant before the competition begins. A large number of participants, and the possibility of observing them 24/7, would make it the most on-point scientific experiment with regard to human mating, and probably a financial success. FACE READING Face reading is based on the correlation between the facial features and the character of a person. Beyond doubt that is what my concept and Suzi Malins theory materially is a form of face reading. The HLA demonstrates that the science of face reading has more applications than people used to think. It makes perfect sense certain chemicals that had an impact on the development of your brain during prenatal life also influenced the shape of your facial features throughout that period. This ancient art has been used by the Chinese since the times of Confucius. Today face reading has been rediscovered by the corporate world. IBM, AT&T, 3M, GE, American Airlines, MCI all these corporate giants have hired face reading expert Mac Fulfer. You can find the CNN and Fortune magazine report on YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d9c5amwriRw). Mac Fulfer is a trial lawyer who applied face reading in jury selection. He also advises companies, teaching this 47

amazing science. One of the possible applications is avoiding employment disputes. Barbara Roberts is another acclaimed face reading expert. Her ideas serve a variety of purposes, from dating to politics. What is important from my perspective: she emphasizes that we have to look at the whole face and not only at one feature.

48

Chapter 14 OVERVIEW OF RECENT STUDIES REGARDING FACIAL ATTRACTIVENESS

We still cant precisely identify what chemicals make us feel attraction for someone. Considering the negative evidence presented in Chapter 5, we may be sure that the shape of our faces decides who will fall for us, and whom we will find attractive. My prediction is that since the sex hormones level, which affects the fetus in the womb, has a massive impact on our facial appearance, those chemicals are probably the true love elixirs. At the same time, the relation between our adult level of sex hormones and our facial attractiveness remains unclear. Below you will find a brief description of some studies that partly confirm the accuracy of the HLA and Suzi Malins ideas. I will also comment, in the light of the HLA, on the most significant research concerning facial attractiveness. THE ABILITY TO READ THE LEVEL OF FACIAL MASCULINITY/FEMININITY The degree of facial dimorphism was found to correlate with levels of sex hormones: ...The relationships found here between oestrogen and appearance in natural images of faces are more important because they are the first evidence for a link between assumed femininity and oestrogen that has previously been assumed in facial attractiveness research. This provides evidence that the sexually dimorphic appearance of female faces is related to oestrogen levels. Smith Law M., Perrett D.I., Jones B.C., Cornwell R.E., Moore F., Feinberg D.R., Boothroyd L.G., Durrani S., Stirrat M., Whiten S., Pitman R., Hillier S., Facial appearance is a cue to oestrogen levels in women, Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 2005 This relation was observed not only in females but also within the male population: Here, we used salivary testosterone assays to investigate the relationship between circulating testosterone and both masculinity and attractiveness of facial appearance by (1) constructing digital composites from the faces of men with high and low testosterone, which were presented using a forced-choice task to subjects and (2) using a forced-choice task in which participants judged the masculinity of pairs of original photographs. Composites from high-testosterone men were judged to be more masculine than those from low-testosterone men. Evidence that hightestosterone composites are considered more attractive than low-testosterone composites was equivocal. The forced-choice task using the original face images indicated that participants identified faces associated with relatively high circulating testosterone as being more masculine than faces of men with lower circulating testosterone. This effect was more pronounced when the faces in the pair were from men who differed greatly in testosterone levels. Penton-Voak I.S., Chen J., High salivary testosterone is linked to masculine male facial appearance in humans, Evolution and Human Behavior, Volume 25, Issue 4, Pages 229-241 Not only sex hormones shape human faces. Men and women are also able to estimate the level of these chemicals by looking at the face of the rated individual: We undertook a pilot study to establish whether or not manipulating sexual dimorphism of 2D shape in our stimuli influenced perceptions of their masculinity. Participants (N=38, all female, age: M=20.15 years, SD=3.92) viewed the 40 pairs of face images and were asked to choose the face in each pair that looked more masculine. For each participant, the order of face pairs was 49

fully randomized, as was the side of the screen on which any given image was shown. Note that the two-alternative forced-choice method that we used to assess perceptions of masculinity produces a single face in each participant (the portion of trials on which the more masculine face in each pair was chosen). One sample t-tests confirmed that would be predicted by chance for both male (t(37)=10.52, p<0.001; M=0.87, SE=0.03) and female faces (t(37)=13.87, p<0.001; M=0.84, SE=0.03), confirming that our image manipulation influenced perceptions of facial masculinity in the predicted way (see also DeBruine et al., 2006). Welling L.L.M., Jones B.C., DeBruine L.M., Conway C.A., Smith Law M.J., Little A.C., Feinberg D.R., Sharp M.A., Al-Dujaili E.A.S., Raised salivary testosterone in women is associated with increased attraction to masculine faces, Hormones and Behavior 52 (2007) 156-161 The last two experiments involved circulating (not prenatal) testosterone and composites. However, it is worth noting some common findings with my theory (in connection with Mannings findings). You need only to glimpse at someones face to gauge the sex hormones level that affected that person throughout prenatal life, and is responsible for that persons facial dimorphism. During social interactions this gauging happens subconsciously within the first few seconds of seeing someone. THE NEED TO ANALYZE BOTH SIDES OF THE EQUATION We have to take into account both sides of the equation all researchers quoted in this chapter failed to comply with this requirement. They examined the level of sex hormones only in one sex. In the majority of cases, male participants testosterone level had been measured. Afterward, female volunteers were asked to judge those male faces. Various techniques were used. But in all experiments the researchers put the answers of the raters in one box, and took the average. The sex hormones level of the rating participants was not measured, or in other cases for example, in Jones and DeBruines experiment (Raised salivary testosterone in women is associated with increased attraction to masculine faces, Hormones and Behavior, 2007) the sex hormones level of female participants was measured; however, the rated faces were composites generated by a computer. Although some researchers reached the conclusion that the raters should also be examined (Perhaps consideration of the interactions between the properties of both the raters and multiple cues within the faces to be judged will be necessary in order to provide a fuller understanding of attractiveness judgements in our own species Penton-Voak I.S., Jones B.C., Little A.C., Baker S., Tiddeman B.P., Burt D.M., Perrett D.I., Symmetry, sexual dimorphism in facial proportions and male facial attractiveness, School of Psychology, University of St Andrews), so far there has been no such experiment. The raters faces should be carefully taken apart so that the subjective taste of each individual could be revealed and studied. In addition, I believe that prenatal levels of sex hormones should also be established the 2nd to 4th digit ratio method could be used. Interestingly, one group of scientists was very close to revealing the essence of the HLA. They pointed to the subjective character of what is attractive to women in mens faces as far as facial dimorphism is concerned: We also show that womens preferences for masculine male faces are positively related to ratings of the masculinity of their actual partner and their ideal partner. Correlations with partner masculinity were independent of real and ideal partner age, which were not associated with facial masculinity preference.... This suggests that the differences in general preference for masculinity in male faces found in various studies are more likely to result from individual differences among the participants than from 50

differences in the techniques used to manipulate facial masculinity.... Here we also demonstrated that preferences for facial masculinity are predicted by stated preference for masculinity in an ideal partner and also by an actual partners rated masculinity. DeBruine L.M., Jones B.C., Little A.C., Boothroyd L.G., Perrett D.I., Penton-Voak I.S., Cooper P.A., Penke L., Feinberg D.R., Tiddeman B.P., Correlated preferences for facial masculinity and ideal or actual partners masculinity Regrettably, DeBruine, Jones et al. did not investigate the most important issue; namely, the sources of individual variation in preferences for masculinity. Once again, the mechanism behind the No Such Couple Paradox was not unveiled, because the faces of only one group of volunteers were rated: 2. MATERIAL AND METHODS (a) Stimulus manufacture six individual male faces (ages 1719) were masculinized and feminized using prototype-based computer graphic transformations (Tiddeman et al. 2001). Faces were transformed in shape (sexual dimorphism and pubertal development methods) or shape, colour and texture (perceived masculinity method) relative to the differences between two composite prototype faces, one masculine and one feminine. (c) Participants Participants in the preference test were 124 women (a subset of the 324 women who completed the masculinity preference test reported previously) between the ages of 16 and 30 (mean ageZ21.9, s.d.Z3.51), who reported a heterosexual preference and completed a questionnaire about partner preferences. (d) Procedure Facial masculinity preference was assessed using a two alternative forced choice paradigm, where the masculinized and feminized versions of one face identity were presented on a computer screen at the same time and participants were asked to indicate which was the more attractive by clicking on the face. THE NEED TO INCLUDE A LARGE NUMBER OF PARTICIPANTS IN THE EXPERIMENT You probably have heard that there are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics. This is true when we formulate very specific conclusions based on studies of small numbers of volunteers, and even more so in the case of such a complex issue as human mating. Another reason the HLA has not been discovered before is the small amount of participants of many experiments conducted so far in this field (commonly 15-50), which leads to ambiguous results, unlike the HLA, which relies on celebrity couples worldwide. It is necessary that a large number of volunteers participate in the study, so that the test will cover individuals with various levels of sex hormones. Under such conditions a girl with a substantially masculinized face, for example, has the chance to rate a barely dimorphic mans face as well, and not only the most typical masculine or medium masculine mens faces. To make the study even more representative, participants should also be differentiated in the category of objective beauty. Beauties will include not only the most common feminine faces but also this groups rare masculinized ladies. Otherwise we will come to very general conclusions, half-truths, such as claiming that facial femininity always equals beauty in the case of women: 51

(ii) Composite faces The high oestrogen face was rated as much more feminine, attractive and healthy than the low reproductive hormone face (all tO6.31, p!0.001, d.f.Z20) using a one-sample t-test on strength of preference. Smith Law M., Perrett D.I., Jones B.C., Cornwell R.E., Moore F., Feinberg D.R., Boothroyd L.G., Durrani S., Stirrat M., Whiten S., Pitman R., Hillier S., Facial appearance is a cue to oestrogen levels in women, Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 2005 SYMMETRY AS A SIGN OF OBJECTIVE BEAUTY For the reasons expressed in the following studies, I assumed in this book that objective facial beauty is substantially correlated with the symmetry level of a given face: Symmetry may act as a marker of phenotypic and genetic quality and is preferred during mate selection in a variety of species. Measures of human body symmetry correlate with attractiveness, but studies manipulating human face images report a preference for asymmetry. These results may reflect unnatural feature shapes and changes in skin textures introduced by image processing. When the shape of facial features is varied (with skin textures held constant), increasing symmetry of face shape increases ratings of attractiveness for both male and female faces. These findings imply facial symmetry may have a positive impact on mate selection in humans. Perrett D.I., Symmetry and human facial attractiveness, Evolution and Human Behavior, Volume 20, Issue 5, Pages 295-307 Evolutionary, as well as cultural, pressures may contribute to our perceptions of facial attractiveness. Biologists predict that facial symmetry should be attractive, because it may signal mate quality. We tested the prediction that facial symmetry is attractive by manipulating the symmetry of individual faces and observing the effect on attractiveness, and by examining whether natural variations in symmetry (between faces) correlated with perceived attractiveness. Attractiveness increased when we increased symmetry, and decreased when we reduced symmetry, in individual faces (Experiment 1), and natural variations in symmetry correlated significantly with attractiveness (Experiments 1 and 1A). Perfectly symmetric versions, made by blending the normal and mirror images of each face, were preferred to less symmetric versions of the same faces (even when those versions were also blends) (Experiments 1 and 2). Similar results were found when subjects judged the faces on appeal as a potential life partner, suggesting that facial symmetry may affect human mate choice. We conclude that facial symmetry is attractive and discuss the possibility that this preference for symmetry may be biologically based. Rhodes G., Proffitt F., Grady J.M., Sumich A., Facial symmetry and the perception of beauty, Psychonomic Bulletin & Review 1998, 5 (4), 659-669 Considering the HLA, we should keep in mind that people perceive facial beauty, and that is something of an objective nature. Ultimately, as mentioned, this aesthetic sense is shared by both sexes. We are also able to distinguish subjective beauty, so to say. Beyond a doubt, individuals have their unique preferences for certain facial features. In this last case we are dealing with sexual attraction, which is of subjective character in womens case. I predict that women are able to admit that a given mans face is beautiful, and at the same time honestly claim the face is not sexually attractive. Although I am aware that symmetrys influence on the perceived facial beauty may be more complicated (as contemplated in Chapter 7s Sex appeal versus beauty), the said assumption should serve for the purpose of analyzing the main subject of this book sexual attraction. 52

VISUAL APPEAL IS NOT ONLY ABOUT SYMMETRY Many studies led to this implication. Researchers could not establish precisely what this other element contributing to facial attractiveness was. Experiments regarding facial masculinity/femininity did not yield consistent results. The notion of another cue to facial attractiveness is consistent with my predictions: Using photographs of mens faces, for which facial symmetry had been measured, we found a relationship between womens attractiveness ratings of these faces and symmetry, but the subjects could not rate facial symmetry accurately. Moreover, the relationship between facial attractiveness and symmetry was still observed, even when symmetry cues were removed by presenting only the left or right half of faces. These results suggest that attractive features other than symmetry can be used to assess phenotypic condition. We identified one such cue, facial masculinity (cheek-bone prominence and a relatively longer lower face), which was related to both symmetry and full- and half-face attractiveness. Scheib J.E., Gangestad S.W., Thornhill R., Facial attractiveness, symmetry and cues of good genes It was recently proposed that symmetry is not a primary cue to facial attractiveness, as symmetrical faces remain attractive even when presented as half faces (with no cues to symmetry). Facial sexual dimorphisms (masculinity) have been suggested as a possible cue that may covary with symmetry in men following data on trait size/symmetry relationships in other species. Here, we use real and computer graphic male faces in order to demonstrate that (i) symmetric faces are more attractive, but not reliably more masculine than less symmetric faces and (ii) that symmetric faces possess characteristics that are attractive independent of symmetry, but that these characteristics remain at present undefined. Penton-Voak I.S., Jones B.C., Little A.C., Baker S., Tiddeman B.P., Burt D.M., Perrett D.I., Symmetry, sexual dimorphism in facial proportions and male facial attractiveness, School of Psychology, University of St Andrews THE AVERAGENESS HYPOTHESIS Some academics hypothesize that in terms of beauty it is not only symmetry that is relevant but also the perceived averageness, which increases the attractiveness of the rated face. In his preference test Rhodes discovered that increasing the averageness of face images while holding symmetry constant increased the attractiveness of those faces (Rhodes G., Yoshikawa S., Clark A., Lee K., McKay R., Akamatsu S., Attractiveness of facial averageness and symmetry in nonwestern cultures: In search of biologically based standards of beauty, Perception, 30, 611-625, 2001). Meanwhile, Valentine found that increasing the averageness of profile views of faces that have no bilateral axis of symmetry increased their attractiveness (Valentine T., Darling S., Donnelly M., Why are average faces attractive? The effect of view and averageness on the attractiveness of female faces, Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 11, 482-487, 2004). Collectively these findings suggest that preferences for averageness in facial features are not caused by symmetry preferences alone (Rhodes G., The evolution of facial attractiveness, Annual Review of Psychology, 57, 199-226, 2006). What is the relation between symmetry and averageness? Our findings for stronger averageness preferences when both symmetry and averageness are manipulated than when averageness alone is manipulated suggest that symmetry contributes to the 53

attractiveness of faces. Benedict C.J., DeBruine L.M., Little A.C., The role of symmetry in attraction to average faces, Perception & Psychophysics, Volume 69, Number 8, November 2007, pp. 1273-1277(5) The HLA is a further illustration of the role of averageness shown in the above quoted works. Symmetry is simply what I refer to throughout this book as objective beauty. So DeBruine is correct in claiming that symmetry contributes to the attractiveness of faces. The averageness hypothesis is a rational consequence of the HLA. All the above studies were based on the examination of average ratings of faces included in a given test. As a consequence, the averagelooking faces should have achieved the best scores. It is not averageness per se that makes a face attractive but rather the amount of sex hormones it indicates. Such average faces have better chances to be found attractive by a larger group of raters than, e.g., an extremely masculine face. In this last case odds are very slim that the majority of female raters participating in the preference tests had extremely feminine faces. THE RELATION BETWEEN PERCEIVED MASCULINITY OR FEMININITY AND FACIAL ATTRACTIVENESS Many theories on attraction propose that there is a link between the level of sex hormones and facial attractiveness (quoted above, Facial attractiveness, symmetry and cues of good genes, Joanna E. Scheib, Steven W. Gangestad, Randy Thornhill); others show there is no connection between these factors (Testosterone increases perceived dominance but not attractiveness in human males, John P. Swaddle and Gillian W. Reierson, Biology Department, College of William & Mary, Williamsburg, Virginia; or quoted above, High salivary testosterone is linked to masculine male facial appearance in humans, I. Penton-Voak, J. Chen, Evolution and Human Behavior, Volume 25, Issue 4, Pages 229-241). Some studies of the first group suggest that masculinity in a mans face is correlated with health or age. Hence, it increases facial attractiveness. Others believe femininity is actually more appealing to the female sex, since such faces indicate certain positive traces of character: The multiple motive hypothesis of physical attractiveness suggests that women are attracted to men whose appearances elicit their nurturant feelings, who appear to possess sexual maturity and dominance characteristics, who seem sociable, approachable, and of high social status. Cunningham M.R., Barbee A.P., Pike C.L., What do women want? Facialmetric assessment of multiple motives in the perception of male facial physical attractiveness, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1990 Jul; 59(1):61-72, Department of Psychology, University of Louisville, Kentucky The role of facial masculinity in attractiveness judgements is disputed. Cunningham et al. (1990) and Grammer & Thornhill (1994) used facial measurements and found a female preference for large jaws in males. Masculine features, such as a large jaw and a prominent brow ridge, are also reliably associated with ratings of dominance in photographic, identikit and composite stimuli by male and female raters (McArthur & Apatow 1983^1984; McArthur & Berry 1987; Berry & Brownlow 1989; Berry & Wero 1993; Perrett et al. 1998). Facial dominance appears to correlate with status in some human hierarchies (Mueller & Mazur 1997) and facial dominance in adolescent males is associated with an earlier age at first copulation (Mazur et al. 1994). Nonetheless, the relationship between facial dominance and attractiveness is unclear some studies find a positive relationship (Keating 1985) while others find the opposite (McArthur & Apatow 1983^1984; Berry & McArthur 1985; Perrett et al. 1998). Other studies propose that a mixture of masculine and feminine traits are found attractive (Cunningham et al. 1990) or that 54

preferences for masculinity or femininity vary across the menstrual cycle as a function of the probability of conception (Penton-Voak et al. 1999; Penton-Voak & Perrett 2000). Penton-Voak I.S., Jones B.C., Little A.C., Baker S., Tiddeman B.P., Burt D.M., Perrett D.I., Symmetry, sexual dimorphism in facial proportions and male facial attractiveness, School of Psychology, University of St Andrews According to the HLA, the level of sex hormones is strictly correlated with facial attractiveness. Yet only subjective facial attractiveness that is associated with the sex hormones level of the rater. The authors of the research mentioned in the beginning of this section (Testosterone increases perceived dominance but not attractiveness in human males) in a certain way were correct. Lets take a look at the methodology of their preference test: 2. MATERIAL AND METHODS We took digital photographs of 21 male Caucasians faces in a (right-side) profile and face-on orientation to the camera. Models were 1821 years old, had short hair, lacked beards or moustaches, were not wearing jewellery, and were told to adopt a neutral facial expression while sitting for the photographs. Photographs were taken in standardized lighting conditions against a common background. We compared how facial structure changes with natural levels of testosterone during puberty, and in delayed puberty boys treated with low-dose testosterone (Verdonck 1997; Verdonck et al. 1999) to create vectors of facial trait changes that represent realistic variation in plasma testosterone influencing facial bone growth fields (Enlow 1990; Silveira et al. 1992). This resulted in 21 representations of a single face that ranged from the low treatment to the high treatment with equal warp differences between all images, and where the median face was the control (i.e. non-manipulated face). Thirty females, age 1821 years old, viewed each of the 42 sequences on a computer screen. Subjects were asked to choose the most sexually attractive, and most physically dominant looking, face in each sequence. One of the experimenters advanced (or went back through) the slides at a regular pace of one slide Proc. R. Soc. Lond. B (2002) approximately every 0.5 s. The study does not say anything about the method of choosing those 30 female participants. Assuming that they were chosen randomly which would be the fairest thing to do their level of prenatal sex hormones and connected facial femininity should reflect the average level of facial dimorphism in the female population. It could be somehow twisted, though. Thirty participants is not a large representative number. Anyway, this fact explains why the results showed that: The frames chosen by females as being most attractive, for both face-on and profile views, were faces with testosterone expression very similar to that of the non-manipulated face. It is very unlikely that the majority of the female participants had, for instance, very feminine faces, which would make them choose as the most attractive the face manipulated in a way to reflect the highest testosterone treatment. Thus, the majority simply chose the testosterone expression very similar to that of the non-manipulated face. The HLA presents a much more optimistic view of human nature than the one allegedly uncovered by the cited research. We live in a world where facial features shaped by whatever amounts of sex hormones are attractive to someone out there. Luckily, we do not pursue the same type of physical appearance. Although my guess is that some types of faces may be more beneficial, any type of face is attractive to someone out there. Which types of facial features may be privileged? I suppose those 55

faces indicating a medium level of sex hormones, since there is a larger amount of people who will find them attractive. Perhaps this explains the exceptions to the HLA noted in Chapter 4. Such individuals are compatible to more types of faces than those extremely or barely dimorphic ones: Those multiple motives may cause people to be attracted to individuals who display an optimal combination of neotenous, mature, and expressive facial features, plus desirable grooming attributes. Three quasi-experiments demonstrated that men who possessed the neotenous features of large eyes, the mature features of prominent cheekbones and a large chin, the expressive feature of a big smile, and high-status clothing were seen as more attractive than other men. Further supporting the multiple motive hypothesis, the 2nd and 3rd studies indicated that impressions of attractiveness had strong relations with selections of men to date and to marry but had a curvilinear relation with perceptions of a baby face vs. a mature face. Cunningham M.R., Barbee A.P., Pike C.L., What do women want? Facialmetric assessment of multiple motives in the perception of male facial physical attractiveness, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1990 Jul; 59(1):61-72, Department of Psychology, University of Louisville, Kentucky The above mentioned combination of neotoneous features of large eyes and the mature features of pronounced cheekbones and chin is nothing more than a sign of a medium-high amount of testosterone. Obviously, there are other characteristics that contribute to an overall masculine or womanish appearance. We have to recall that the sole component of large eyes does not make a face effeminate. This is still a very masculine face, if the majority of other elements are dimorphic. The fact that in the foregoing experiments impressions of attractiveness had a curvilinear relation with perceptions of a baby face vs. a mature face is in line with the HLA. Attractiveness is a very subjective quality, since to a significant extent it depends on the amount of sex hormones that affected the rater during prenatal life. Thus, a woman with not very feminine facial features probably wont perceive an effeminate mans face as infantlike. It would be contrary to her subconscious feeling the one that whispers to her ear that the observed face is sexy. My opinion on the beneficial character of a medium amount of sex hormones corresponds to the theory that average is attractive, expressed by many authors: Here we demonstrate that increasing averageness of 2D face shape independently of symmetry is sufficient to increase attractiveness, indicating that preferences for symmetry cannot solely explain the attractiveness of average faces. Benedict C.J., DeBruine L.M., Little A.C., The role of symmetry in attraction to average faces, Perception & Psychophysics, Volume 69, Number 8, November 2007, pp. 1273-1277(5) As a matter of fact, it is not only symmetry but also an adequate level of masculinity or femininity that makes a face attractive. Although average faces are more symmetric and have smoother skin than individual faces, these attributes alone do not account for the attractiveness of average faces, as preferences for average shape remain when these factors are controlled (Little & Hancock, 2002; Rhodes et al., 1999; Valentine et al., 2004). The attractiveness of average faces may be a functionless byproduct of the visual system or it may be the result of adaptive preferences. Facial averageness may signal genetic heterozygosity, a predictor of a strong immune system, which from an evolutionary perspective will be attractive in potential mates (Rhodes, Harwood, Yoshikawa, Nishitani, & McLean, 2002; Thornhill & Gangestad, 1993). DeBruine L.M., Jones B.C., Unger L., Little A., Feinberg D.R., Dissociating averageness and at56

tractiveness: Attractive faces are not always average Above I speculated on the advantages of possessing average facial features. On the other hand, it also depends on what mate qualities someone is after. Attractive women are statistically (not all of them!) very feminine, as far as facial appearance is concerned. This would imply that if a man wants to find a dazzling mate, then a high prenatal concentration of testosterone will be helpful in adult life: When characteristics that are known to be attractive became less prototypical in our experiment (i.e. after exposure to unattractive faces), these same attractive characteristics were judged as more attractive. As our results show, under certain conditions averageness and attractiveness can be differentiated or even independent. Therefore, studies using visual adaptation paradigms should explore the differential effects of exposure to faces on all attributions of interest and not infer increased attractiveness from increased normality or vice versa. DeBruine L.M., Jones B.C., Unger L., Little A., Feinberg D.R., Dissociating averageness and attractiveness: Attractive faces are not always average HIGH AMOUNT OF SEX HORMONE AND HEALTH Another issue which is connected with the previous section is whether a substantial amount of sex hormones is associated with health. This premise was popularized by authors who believe that remarkably masculine or feminine faces are more attractive the so-called good-genes theory. Other authors propose that masculinity is attractive when certain other conditions are met: Secondary sexual characteristics may indicate quality of the immune system and therefore a preference for masculinity may confer genetic benefits to offspring; however, high masculinity may be associated with costs of decreased paternal investment. The current study examined womens preferences for masculinity in male faces by using computer graphics to allow transformation between feminine and masculine versions of individual male faces. We found that preferences for masculinity are increased when women either have a partner or are considering a short-term relationship. Little A.C., Jones B.C., Penton-Voak I.S., Burt D.M., Perrett D.I., Partnership status and the temporal context of relationships influence human female preferences for sexual dimorphism in male face shape, The Royal Society, 25 April 2002 Some hypothesize that although high testosterone indicates health, it also increases the probability of infidelity. Therefore, they reason, men with masculine faces are chosen by attractive women, who dare to take the risk. They feel more confident than less attractive ones: High quality women may be more attracted to markers of quality in men because their own high quality means that lower parental investment (or even desertion) is less detrimental. Alternatively, high quality men may be more willing to invest (or not desert) high quality women compared with lower quality women. Conversely, women who perceive themselves as less competitive in the mating market may lack preferences for cues to good genes or actively prefer cues to direct benefits (such as parental investment) in faces. Such market forces have been shown to influence men and womens behavior when seeking a romantic partner (Pawlowski & Dunbar, 1999). Penton-Voak I.S., Little A.C., Jones B.C., Burt D.M., Tiddeman B.P., Perrett D.I., Female Condition Influences Preferences for Sexual Dimorphism in Faces of Male Humans (Homo sapiens), University of St Andrews Rather the results of the study may suggest that individuals without partners and those looking 57

for men for long-term relationships prefer greater femininity, and hence positive personality attributes, in men. Little A.C., Jones B.C., Penton-Voak I.S., Burt D.M., Perrett D.I., Partnership status and the temporal context of relationships influence human female preferences for sexual dimorphism in male face shape, The Royal Society, 25 April 2002 The principal aim of this study was to replicate and extend Little et al.s (2001) study of preferences that appeared to demonstrate condition-dependent mate choice in women. Following the findings of this earlier study, we predicted that two measures of female mate value would predict womens preferences for masculinity in male faces. Consistent with this prediction, the current study demonstrates that both self-measured WHR (author: waist to hip ratio) and otherrated attractiveness are related to individual womens preferences for masculinity in male faces. Women rated low in facial attractiveness by others and women with a high WHR (author: unattractive body) preferred more feminine faces in the context of a long-term relationship. Penton-Voak I.S., Little A.C., Jones B.C., Burt D.M., Tiddeman B.P., Perrett D.I., Female Condition Influences Preferences for Sexual Dimorphism in Faces of Male Humans (Homo sapiens), University of St Andrews This research investigated the partner characteristics that are attributed to male facial masculinity, and how these characteristics compare to those attributed to increased age or health in faces. We found that masculinity is perceived as reflecting heightened dominance, but reduced suitability as a long-term partner. This is concordant with previous studies and supports the proposal that a masculinity preference could reflect attraction to dominance rather than immunocompetence. Boothroyd L.G., Jones B.C., Burt D.M., Perrett D.I., Partner characteristics associated with masculinity, health and maturity in male faces, www.sciencedirect.com, 2007 High mate value individuals are the ones that can afford to be choosy: they are probably in a relationship with the partner of their first choice, and therefore would profit less and potentially lose more if they were to pursue another mate. Therefore their satisfaction might reflect the quality of their primary mate (and possibly a psychological mechanism which prevents them from engaging in costly adulterous behavior). Hromatko I., Tadinac M., Prizmim H., Womens Hormonal Status and Mate Value Influence Relationship Satisfaction and Perceived Male Attractiveness, University of Zagreb, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences Department of Psychology

In the above data there is no evidence against the HLA. The view that attractive women tend to choose masculine men as their partners may be explained in light of my theory: the majority of attractive women have feminine faces. This is the reason why they pick men with faces indicating high testosterone levels. Yet not all attractive women choose masculine men this finding alone overthrows such theories, and also explains why not all experiment results are consistent in this matter. The second and the third of the quoted works introduce the division between long-term and short-term relationships, which is discussed in the respective section below (Long-term vs. shortterm relationship). Many studies reveal that there is no direct connection between perceived masculinity and health: Facial masculinity has been proposed as a possible indicator of good genes, as masculine secondary sexual traits develop at puberty under the influence of sex steroids and hence may 58

function as an honest signal (Thornhill & Gangestad, 1999). Although some studies find support for female preferrences for facial masculinity, several studies do not (for a review, see Penton-Voak & Perrett, 2001). For example, computer graphic studies using controlled manipulation of facial characteristics indicate that masculine faces are perceived as possesing negative personality traits and are not clearly preferred over more feminine male faces, which are seen as possessing prosocial, desirable personality characteristics (Perrett et al., 1998). In the light of these conflict findings, it appears that good genes models cannot completely account for female judgements of male facial attractiveness. Penton-Voak I.S., Little A.C., Jones B.C., Burt D.M., Tiddeman B.P., Perrett D.I., Female Condition Influences Preferences for Sexual Dimorphism in Faces of Male Humans (Homo sapiens), University of St Andrews These studies investigated the proposal that attraction to facial masculinity could be due to either an attraction to advertised immunocompetence or a by-product of attraction to maturity. There is little evidence in this study to support Immunocompetence explanation of female attraction to facial masculinity. Neither stimulus set showed any correlation between masculinity preferences and preferences for apparent health, and increasing facial masculinity did not increase perceived health (although healthier faces did not look more masculine). This does not rule out a link between masculinity and real or underlying health, but these results suggest apparent health is of limited importance in masculinity preferences with regard to facial shape. Given these results, the question is raised as to the validity of theories relying on good-genes explanations of attraction to facial masculinity.... Collectively our findings suggest that the assumption that a preference for masculinity in males is due to a preference for immunocompetence should be treated cautiously; the present data fail to support this view. Indeed, there is also lack of strong evidence for a link between testosterone and immune function in humans (Angele & Faist, 2000) and mammals in general (Roberts, Buchanan & Evans, 2004). Facial attraction researchers should perhaps consider alternative advantages and disadvantages of facial masculinity, such as dominance and sexy-sons, versus paternal investment. Boothroyd L.G., Jones B.C., Burt D.M., Cornwell R.E., Little A.C., Tiddeman B.P., Perrett D.I., Facial masculinity is related to perceived age but not perceived health, Evolution and Human Behavior 26 (2005) And again the already quoted above conclusion from Boothroyd et al: We found that masculinity is perceived as reflecting heightened dominance, but reduced suitability as a long-term partner. This is concordant with previous studies and supports the proposal that a masculinity preference could reflect attraction to dominance rather than immunocompetence. Boothroyd L.G., Jones B.C., Burt D.M., Perrett D.I., Partner characteristics associated with masculinity, health and maturity in male faces, www.sciencedirect.com, 2007 It is also worth noting that some studies on the connection between facial dimorphism and health condition of a given individual expressly questioned other research in this scope: Although Rhodes, Chan, Zebrowitz, and Simmons (2003) observed no significant association between incidence of past health problems and femininity in women's faces, Thornhill and Gangestad (2006) found that feminine facial proportions were negatively associated with incidence of past health problems in women. Jones B.C., DeBruine L.M., Little A.C., Conway C.A., Welling L.L.M., Smith F., Sensation seeking and mens face preferences, School of Psychology, University of Aberdeen, Scotland, UK and School of Psychology, University of Stirling, Scotland 59

The HLA neither provides evidence for nor rules out any association between health and high amount of sex hormones. However, after taking the quoted studies into consideration, you can see that it is more likely that the amount of sex hormones is not connected with health. Ultimately, in conformity with the HLA, there are no better or worse faces in terms of perceived femininity or masculinity. All types of faces are attractive to some people; hence we may say we are all equally attractive and yet different at the same time. THE USE OF COMPOSITE FACES Most of the experiments contradicting the HLA involved composite faces generated by morph programs or other techniques. I am aware that many authors relied on composite faces only to isolate the effect of testosterone or other hormones. When using composite faces, they analyzed exactly the same facial features, and only changed certain characteristic facial elements in order to add or decrease masculinity, for instance. Otherwise their work could be accused of being biased, since one could point out that different ratings of attractiveness are a result of different shapes of facial features and not different levels of sexual dimorphism. Nonetheless, I sustain my claims since the No Such Couple Paradox is evidenced by extreme examples very and barely dimorphic faces. What are the odds that no such couple exists in the world, if my theory was not correct? The use of composites has a major drawback: we highly limit the choices of our raters compared to reallife partner choice. Such faces may also be considered unnatural by the raters. Moreover, studies listed in section Facial resemblance below also brought results in line with the HLA: volunteers judged the similarity of facial features of real-life couples with far greater accuracy than random guessing. Such studies are very difficult to question, contrary to composite faces experiments. LONG-TERM VS. SHORT-TERM RELATIONSHIP Numerous studies involving facial attractiveness pivot on the impact of the character of relationship pursued by women on their mate choices. Their results allegedly show that the character of relationship pursued has a major influence on perceived attractiveness of the rated mens faces: A further illustration of varying preferences that can be interpreted in terms of a conditional strategy demonstrated that women who consider themselves physically attractive show a greater preference for two proposed markers of phenotypic and genotypic quality in male faces: masculinity and symmetry (Litle, Burt, Penton-Voak, & Perrett, 2001). The increased preference for masculine faces was seen only when women with high self-rated attractiveness were judging in the context of a long-term relationship. In short-term relationships, no effects of attractiveness were found, possibly as facial cues to parental investment are less important to such judgments. If selfrated female attractiveness can be considered a measure of actual viability, these preferences could be considered analogous to varying preferences found in other species (e.g., Bakker et al., 1999). Clearly, in humans, the outcomes of social interactions are likely to influence preferences some characteristics will increase demand for a particular individual as a mate, improving their market value (Pawlowski & Dunbar, 1999). Penton-Voak I.S., Little A.C., Jones B.C., Burt D.M., Tiddeman B.P., Perrett D.I., Female Condition Influences Preferences for Sexual Dimorphism in Faces of Male Humans (Homo sapiens), University of St Andrews The foregoing findings have nothing to do with facial cues to parental investment or market forces. In the context of a long-term relationship, individuals from both sexes physically attractive and unattractive will usually show preference for one type of face (the one that matches their own in accordance the HLA). Then why did the previously cited study show that The increased preference for masculine faces was seen only when women with high self-rated 60

attractiveness were judging in the context of a long-term relationship? It is all a result of the methods used in such experiments. Most of them take the average of the results produced in the experiments conducted with various participants, and on the basis of such average phrase their theory. It is obvious that the majority of women by definition possess feminine faces. Physically attractive women tend to have very feminine faces. That is why when preferences are calculated by averaging, the results are that high quality women pursue masculine faces. Yet these results provide no evidence in support of any market forces theory. We may also find physically attractive women with masculinized facial features (e.g., Kate Moss), who do not pursue only pronounced, rugged faces in their potential partners. The authors of the quoted article, when conducting their own experiment, also took the average of many preferences instead of examining and comparing each participants answers individually: Results Overall Preferences for Sexual Dimorphism in Male Faces Masculinity-femininity preferences were calculated by averaging the mean preference across each of the six continua.... Penton-Voak I.S., Little A.C., Jones B.C., Burt D.M., Tiddeman B.P., Perrett D.I., Female Condition Influences Preferences for Sexual Dimorphism in Faces of Male Humans (Homo sapiens), University of St Andrews In another study, once again conclusions were formulated after examining the participants preferences with regard to composite faces: 2. METHODS (a) Participants One hundred and fifty eight females, aged between 16 and 39 years (mean age = 21.7, s.d. = 4.8) took part in the experiment. The experiment was administered over the Internet. All participants were volunteers and were selected for reporting to be heterosexual and less than 40 years old. (b) Stimuli Five interactive face sequence trials were constructed using composite faces made from five groups of male and female faces. Each group of faces contributed to a single sequence trial and was made up of about 20 male and 20 female facial images of young adults in a neutral pose.... 4. DISCUSSION The current study shows that human females have different preferences for femininity in male faces in relation to both the temporal context of the relationship they are assessing males for and in relation to their current partnership status. It was found that women showed a higher preference for male face masculinity when judging for short-term relationships than when judging for long-term relationships. Little A.C., Jones B.C., Penton-Voak I.S., Burt D.M., Perrett D.I., Partnership status and the temporal context of relationships influence human female preferences for sexual dimorphism in male face shape, The Royal Society, 25 April 2002 One could respond to my objections concerning the use of composite faces by pointing to the fact that various studies showed that certain preferences depend on the character of the relationship pursued, e.g.: As in the study by Little et al. (2001), it is clear that the relationship context is of primary importance to these shifts in womens preferences. The long-term/short-term distinction is controversial in research in human mating, as many short-term relationships develop into long61

term relationships and the motivations and expectations at the start of relationships may change over time. Although we accept that the distinction between the two relationship types is not a precise definition, it should be noted that in a number of experimental situations, women have shown different preferences when cued to long- or short-term contexts (e.g., Penton-Voak et al., 1999). Additionally, the differences between preferences in long- and short-term contexts are consistent with a status dependent trade-off for good genes against expected paternal investment in humans. Less attractive women (either bodily or facially) seem to change their preferences when choosing partners for a long-term relationship. Penton-Voak I.S., Little A.C., Jones B.C., Burt D.M., Tiddeman B.P., Perrett D.I., Female Condition Influences Preferences for Sexual Dimorphism in Faces of Male Humans (Homo sapiens), University of St Andrews My criticism of such ideas is not concentrated solely on the issue of composite faces. I sustain my doubts also on the ground that all such studies illustrate purely hypothetical speculations, in comparison to analysis of actual couples. For instance, in the last quoted paper, the researchers in fact limited the female participants opinion to judgments of about 200 faces. In the study titled Partnership status and the temporal context of relationships influence human female preferences for sexual dimorphism in male face shape, participants had even fewer faces to choose from: The final stimuli were five interactive tests which allowed for the on-screen transformation of a composite male face between a masculinized and feminized version of itself. That is nothing compared to the variety of facial features found in real life. The researchers summarized their results as follows: It should be noted that the results of the study may not reflect that females with a partner or females rating for short-term relationships prefer masculinity; rather the results of the study may suggest that individuals without partners and those looking for men for long-term relationships prefer greater femininity, and hence positive personality attributes, in men. Little A.C., Jones B.C., Penton-Voak I.S., Burt D.M., Perrett D.I., Partnership status and the temporal context of relationships influence human female preferences for sexual dimorphism in male face shape, The Royal Society, 25 April 2002 If the above observations are accurate, why do a bewildering number of exceptionally attractive actresses choose men with very masculine facial features as their husbands or long-time partners? Just a few couples for the sake of example: Jessica Alba and Cash Warren Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt Monica Bellucci and Vincent Cassel Katie Holmes and Tom Cruise Diane Lane and Josh Brolin Bridget Moynahan and Tom Brady Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck Demi Moore and Bruce Willis Kelly Preston and John Travolta Kim Basinger and Alec Baldwin Annette Bening and Warren Beatty Kelly Brook and Jason Statham 62

Do I have to point out that the listed women happen to be very feminine in terms of facial appearance? Examples include very beautiful and successful women, who plainly could easily find longtime partners with less dimorphic faces, if only they wanted to. Some research reveals that a high amount of testosterone is connected with infidelity. Although the HLA itself does not provide any evidence for or against this premise, I think that there may be some connections between these issues. We have to be cautious because we are dealing with a generalization. This notion is often mentioned as a justification of the alleged preference for effeminate faces in case of long-term relationships. I believe in such predispositions in the case of very masculinized males. On the other hand, I am also sure that a pretty, very feminine woman will never be attracted to a man with a very low amount of fetal testosterone, even if she desperately seeks a long-term relationship: No Such Couple Paradox! FACIAL RESEMBLANCE In the below cited paper Lisa DeBruine described two experiments that were aimed to reveal the impact of facial resemblance on attractiveness of the studied face. The research relied on composite faces, and brought results in general confirming the self seeking like hypothesis: Experimentally manipulated facial resemblance to self influences the perceived attractiveness of faces. Although same-sex and other-sex self-resembling transforms were produced by identical image manipulation techniques, attractiveness was enhanced for same-sex faces to a much greater extent than for other-sex faces. DeBruine L.M., Facial resemblance increases the attractiveness of same-sex faces more than other-sex faces, McMaster University Another study in this respect yielded results showing that facial resemblance has a negative effect on sexual attractiveness. The title of this paper says it all: Trustworthy but not lust-worthy: context-specific effects of facial resemblance, Lisa M. DeBruine, Department of Psychology, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada The results were unequivocal: 2. RESULTS Compared with controls, participants judged their own transformed image as more trustworthy (Z143Z2.42, pZ0.008), equally attractive for a long-term relationship (Z143Z0.05, pZ0.481) and less attractive for a short-term relationship (Z143ZK2.04, pZ0.021). However, it is worth noting that contrary to the studies described in the section The self seeking like hypothesis of Chapter 4, where actual faces were rated, in this experiment composite faces were used:

1. METHODS (a) Participants Participants were 66 male and 78 female undergraduate students enrolled in an introductory psychology course (mean ageZ19.1 years, s.d.Z2.3). 63

 All participants in a testing unit viewed the same set of nine images, which included one selfresembling face for each participant in the testing unit. For the nine testing units with fewer than nine participants (6 with 8 participants and 1 each with 6, 5 and 4 participants), images of unknown persons of the same sex and same phenotypic category as the participants were added to equate the number of images seen by each participant. (b) Stimuli Stimuli were constructed in a manner identical to DeBruine 2004b using computer graphic methods described in detail in Tiddeman et al. (2001). In brief, composite faces were created by averaging the shape and colour of 20 individual images (of participants in a previous experiment) for each combination of sex and phenotypic category. Each participants image was used to transform the other-sex composite face of the same phenotypic category. The shape of each face was delineated using 179 facial landmarks. Transforms were made by calculating the shape differences between the participants face and the same-sex composite face and applying 50% of this difference to the other-sex composite face (figure 1). Resemblance was subtle and at debriefing no participants reported correctly detecting the nature of the manipulation. Conversely to studies that used composite faces, the following relied on evaluation of facial features of real couples, and reported facial resemblance in romantic partners:

Married couples resemble each other to the extent that their faces can be correctly matched by strangers, Griffiths R.W., Kunz P.R. Facial resemblance in engaged and married couples, Hinsz V.B., Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, Vol. 6, No. 2, 223-229, 1989 Assortative mating: a study of physiognomic homogamy, Griffiths R. & Kunz P., 1973, Social Biology, 20, 448453 Convergence in the physical appearance of spouses, Zajonc R.B., Adelmann P.K., Murphy S.T. & Niedenthal P.M., 1987, Motiv. Emotion 11, 335346 Sexual imprinting in human mate choice, Bereczkei T., Gyuris P. & Weisfeld G.E., 2004, Proceedings of the Royal Society, B, 271, 11291134 Homogamy, genetic similarity, and imprinting; parental influence on mate choice preferences, Bereczkei T., Gyuris P., Koves P. & Bernath L., 2002, Pers. Individ. Dif., 33, 677690

Research on partners resemblance featuring composite faces did not include the effects of facial dimorphism in the created models. Furthermore, as explained in the section above, research using composite faces is in general dubious. All other studies in this area only confirm Suzi Malins observations. The question remains about the reasons for such tendency in human couples. Some studies indicated the possible role of similar characters of partners, which through the years made their facial features look alike. The assumption was that those couples tend to mimic each others expressions Zajonc and others came to such conclusions in the paper listed above. It could be a valid explanation of development of similar aging and muscle contraction patterns in their faces. 64

This speculation cannot justify remarkably similar proportions of bone structure. A much more probable scenario is that all those experiments illustrate a condition precedent mate choice in the human species. In the above mentioned study, Hinsz determined that striking facial resemblance is evident also among young engaged couples, who havent married yet. The HLA complements these findings. Theoretical justification of the shown similarities is elaborated in the study of Liliana Alvarez: Abstract: Theoretical studies suggest that mating and pair formation is not likely to be random. Computer simulations suggested that sex among genetically complex organisms requires mate choice strategies for its evolutionary maintenance, to reduce excessive genetic variance produced by out-crossing. One strategy achieving this aim efficiently in computer simulations is assortative mating modeled as self seeking like. Another one is selection of good genes. Assortative mating increases the probability of finding a genetically similar mate, without fomenting inbreeding, achieving assortative mating without hindering the working of other mate selection strategies which aim to maximize the search for good genes, optimizing the working of sex in evolutionary terms. Here we present indirect evidence that in a significant proportion of human reproductive couples, the partners show much higher facial resemblances than can be expected by random pair formation, or as the outcome of matching for attractiveness or the outcome of competition for the most attractive partner accessible, as had been previously assumed. The data presented is compatible with the hypothesis derived from computer simulations, that human mate selection strategies achieve various aims: self seeking like (including matching for attractiveness) and mating with the best available genes. Alvarez L., Jaffe K., Narcissism guides mate selection: Humans mate assortatively, as revealed by facial resemblance, following an algorithm of self seeking like, Evolutionary Psychology humannature.com/ep 2004. 2: 177-194, Universidad Simn Bolvar, Caracas, Venezuela

65

Chapter 15 SO WHAT DO WOMEN WANT AFTER ALL?

According to the idiom, the exception proves the rule. In theory a gorgeous woman may one day decide to try dating men who are not her type. In this case she will pick other mating criteria. This scenario is far more probable when a woman looks for casual dates. But it will not last long, because the Hormonal Law of Attraction is about a drive that men and women follow subconsciously. It has a very strong impact on all human beings; we cannot resist it in the long run. Eventually, this woman will change her mind. She again will start dating men who match her hormonal matrix. Another situation where exceptions are possible has already been addressed in Chapter 4: women may engage in relationships with men that do not conform to the HLA, because of other qualities they appreciate in those men. However, the HLA can be circumvented only in a certain scope No Such Couple Paradox! A HARD TO OBSERVE RELATIONSHIP Why hasnt this simple theory been discovered before? At first glance, the fastest way to provide evidence for the HLA would be an experiment involving assessment of facial features of volunteer couples by other participants, similar to those described in Chapter 14. The couples should include people with various combinations of genes. My prediction is that it would take more than a hundred couples to achieve a representative sample, where beauty and sexual dimorphism appear in every possible configuration, so the No Such Couple Paradox could be observed. Otherwise, the rare yet symptomatic case of a beautiful and very masculinized womans face would probably not be covered by the study, and the research would demonstrate that attractive women prefer masculinized mens faces. Human beings like to think that sexual attraction is complicated. We all want some deeper meaning. It is hard for us to accept that our looks govern this most intimate area of life. Sure, there are some deeper reasons, but only once you have already found that visually compatible person. PRACTICAL APPLICATION One could suggest that the HLA is a theory that is concerned principally with examining the choices of attractive women. Not at all! The book features examples of celebrity couples only because their biographies and photos are widely available online. I chose the point of view of beautiful women only for the purpose of conducting certain experiments or making certain hypothetical analyses: to extract the core of sexual attraction. Take a look at your friends and their love partners. I bet you will see the visual triggers of attraction at work. In case of women other than the very attractive, exceptions to the HLA may arise. An unattractive woman could agree to date a man who does not match her under the HLA for a short period of time, just to build up her self-esteem. This man would engage in such a relationship in a situation where there was a very limited number of single women. This would happen only very rarely. Today, when most people live in huge urban areas, physically unattractive females have no problems meeting men who possess face traits compatible with their own. MATING STRATEGIES Why does society fail to recognize that for both sexes the first attraction trigger is purely visual? After all, this fact was established by: the No Such Couple Paradox 66

 Suzi Malins research experiments listed in Chapter 14 (section Facial resemblance) Helen Fishers theories to some extent if we consider that facial proportions are correlated with sex hormones So, why doesnt society recognize that the first attraction trigger is purely visual? Probably because in the case of women the pattern is not so clear as when observing mens decisions, which are mainly guided by the womans objective beauty. The vast majority of women are reluctant to admit that they were tempted by looks in the first place. Attraction ignites within the first few seconds and then other factors gain importance. Many women may have genuinely not noticed the first visual attraction trigger. Other women dont consider it a good reason to feel emotions for someone. They need something more romantic. Those few who focus mainly on the visual appeal are concentrated on objective beauty. If you are a man and have trouble in understanding the feminine approach to dating, ask yourself this question: Imagine you could have any woman you want, under one condition: after you chose her, you have to stay with her for the rest of your life. This book is about visual appeal, so lets focus on this aspect. Which woman would you choose in terms of facial appearance? Simply the prettiest you could find? I bet not. I am sure you would choose a woman who is your type. Apart from being objectively beautiful, she would have that special something written in her face. Why am I posing this purely hypothetical scenario? So that you can enter the mind of an attractive woman. Because the above situation is typically the place every beautiful woman finds herself: 1. She is gorgeous, so she can have any man; 2. She is a woman, and according to the evolutionary point of view women have completely different mating strategies. They are the ones who get pregnant, so they subconsciously pursue a long-term commitment. Even though today there are all kinds of contraception methods available, many women are financially independent, and single mothers are in a far better situation than their female ancestors, the idea of finding a long-term partner is coded in womens DNA. BALANCE OF THE GENES Liliana Alvarezs Self Seeking Like strategy in fact comes down to selecting good genes the ones a particular individual lacks. Contrary to many scientific views, the amount of sex hormones is neither an advantage nor a drawback. It is simply another factor that differentiates human individuals, like hair color. My guess is that the HLA is a mechanism created by nature to keep the balance of the genes in the human population. As explained in Chapter 3, our facial features are shaped to a significant extent during prenatal development. Imagine a world where the HLA didnt have any influence on human mating: A man whose traits developed under low testosterone levels could marry a woman with a very high level of female sex hormones. Their offspring would have feminine facial appearance. Their son could marry a woman who has very feminine facial traits. Their offspring would be exposed to hormones related to feminine facial features, and so on. Each generation of this family would be affected by more and more prenatal estrogen (in the case of females) or less and less prenatal 67

testosterone (in the case of females). In our world, where the HLA governs human mating, such scenarios may also take place because of arranged marriages, rape, prostitution, and other situations where two people have sex without feeling mutual attraction. However, these are rare cases compared to the dominant one, where people choose individuals they consider attractive as their longtime partners, individuals whose genes complement their genotype. My ideas are again concordant with Dr. Fishers theory: My hypothesis is that were unconsciously drawn to chemical personalities that compliment our type, and it has a genetic purpose, Dr. Fisher said. It means that were pooling our genes to raise more healthy babies. Is the Right Chemistry a Click Nearer? Rachel Lehmann-Haupt http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/12/fashion/sundaystyles/12chemistry.html POINT OF VIEW DEPENDS ON VIEWING POINT Men and women tend to commit the same mistake when it comes to dating: they both assume that the opposite sex uses the same criteria for choosing partners as their own. As a consequence, men often assume they dont have a chance with an attractive woman, since they are not exceptionally good-looking. Some men who want to verify their views try to pick up an alluring woman. Most often, they are rejected. Simple math tells us that it is a lot more probable that the woman you just met in a bar does not match your face traits. Additionally, if the woman is attractive, we have the answer to the question that men around the world ask themselves so often: Why is it so hard to pick up an attractive woman? The odds are simply against us. So, going back to the gentleman from the above example: he is rejected. It only assures him that he is not handsome enough to pick up a hot woman. Only the most persistent men try again. Encouraged by the success of other not-particularly handsome men, many of them eventually succeed as well. Only a few from this small group experience what alcoholics refer to as a moment of clarity: a moment when they realize that they have managed to pick up an attractive woman only because she was receptive from the very beginning. Now, lets switch perspectives. A woman tries to conquer a particular man. She feels a strong pull toward him, which she cannot explain. It seems facial traits are not a very romantic reason. She will try coming up with reasons for that feeling by recalling his other attributes, such as a sense of humor, personality, or intelligence. Unfortunately, sometimes she finds that he is not interested. She cannot understand it: Why? There is chemistry between us! I know it! I can feel it! She cannot see that she is simply not objectively physically or intellectually attractive enough for him. Such situations are not uncommon. It is so difficult for us to perceive the world from the perspective of another human being, especially if that person is of the opposite sex.

68

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Alvarez L., Jaffe K., Narcissism guides mate selection: Humans mate assortatively, as revealed by facial resemblance, following an algorithm of seeking like, Evolutionary Psychology humannature.com/ep 2004. 2: 177-194, Universidad Simn Bolvar, Caracas, Venezuela Benedict C.J., DeBruine L.M., Little A.C., The role of symmetry in attraction to average faces, Perception & Psychophysics, Volume 69, Number 8, November 2007, pp. 1273-1277(5) Bereczkei T., Gyuris P., Koves P., Bernath L., Homogamy, genetic similarity, and imprinting; parental influence on mate choice preferences, 2002, Pers. Individ. Dif., 33, 677690 Bereczkei T., Gyuris P., Weisfeld G.E., Sexual imprinting in human mate choice, 2004, Proceedings of the Royal Society, B, 271, 11291134 Boothroyd L.G., Jones B.C., Burt D.M., Cornwell R.E., Little A.C., Tiddeman B.P., Perrett D.I., Facial masculinity is related to perceived age but not perceived health, Evolution and Human Behavior 26 (2005) Boothroyd L.G., Jones B.C., Burt D.M., Perrett D.I., Partner characteristics associated with masculinity, health and maturity in male faces, www.sciencedirect.com, 2007 Cunningham M.R., Barbee A.P., Pike C.L., What do women want? Facialmetric assessment of multiple motives in the perception of male facial physical attractiveness, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1990 Jul; 59(1):61-72, Department of Psychology, University of Louisville, Kentucky 40292 DeBruine L.M., Facial resemblance increases the attractiveness of same-sex faces more than other-sex faces, McMaster University DeBruine L.M., Trustworthy but not lust-worthy: context-specific effects of facial resemblance, Department of Psychology, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada DeBruine L.M., Jones B.C., Little A.C., Boothroyd L.G., Perrett D.I., Penton-Voak I.S., Cooper P.A., Penke L., Feinberg D.R., Tiddeman B.P., Correlated preferences for facial masculinity and ideal or actual partners masculinity DeBruine L.M., Jones B.C., Unger L., Little A., Feinberg D.R., Dissociating averageness and attractiveness: Attractive faces are not always average Fink B., Grammer K., Mitteroecker P., Gunz P., Schaefer K., Bookstein F.L., Manning J.T., Second to fourth digit ratio and face shape, Proceedings of the Royal Society Griffiths R.W., Kunz P.R., Assortative mating: a study of physiognomic homogamy, 1973, Social Biology, 20, 448453 Griffiths R.W., Kunz P.R., Married couples resemble each other to the extent that their faces can be correctly matched by strangers Hinsz V.B., Facial resemblance in engaged and married couples, Journal of Social and Personal 69

Relationships, Vol. 6, No. 2, 223-229, 1989 Hromatko I., Tadinac M., Prizmim H., Womens Hormonal Status and Mate Value Influence Relationship Satisfaction and Perceived Male Attractiveness, University of Zagreb, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences Department of Psychology Jones B.C., DeBruine L.M., Little A.C., Conway C.A., Welling L.L.M., Smith F., Sensation seeking and men's face preferences, School of Psychology, University of Aberdeen, Scotland, and School of Psychology, University of Stirling, Scotland Little A.C., Jones B.C., Penton-Voak I.S., Burt D.M., Perrett D.I., Partnership status and the temporal context of relationships influence human female preferences for sexual dimorphism in male face shape, The Royal Society, 25 April 2002 Malin S., Love at First Sight: Why You Love Who You Love, Dorling Kindersley 2004 Manning J.T., Digit Ratio: A Pointer to Fertility, Behavior, and Health, Rutgers University Press, 2002 Manning J.T., Scutt D., Wilson J., Lewis-Jones D.I., The ratio of 2nd to 4th digit length: a predictor of sperm numbers and concentrations of testosterone, luteinizing hormone and oestrogen, 1998 Penton-Voak I.S., Chen J., High salivary testosterone is linked to masculine male facial appearance in humans, Evolution and Human Behavior, Volume 25, Issue 4, Pages 229-241 Penton-Voak I.S., Jones B.C., Little A.C., Baker S., Tiddeman B.P., Burt D.M., Perrett D.I., Symmetry, sexual dimorphism in facial proportions and male facial attractiveness, School of Psychology, University of St Andrews Penton-Voak I.S., Little A.C., Jones B.C., Burt D.M., Tiddeman B.P., Perrett D.I., Female Condition Influences Preferences for Sexual Dimorphism in Faces of Male Humans (Homo sapiens), University of St Andrews Perrett D.I., Symmetry and human facial attractiveness, Evolution and Human Behavior, Volume 20, Issue 5, Pages 295-307 Rhodes G., The evolution of facial attractiveness, Annual Review of Psychology, 57, 199-226, 2006 Rhodes G., Proffitt F., Grady J.M., Sumich A., Facial symmetry and the perception of beauty, Psychonomic Bulletin & Review 1998, 5 (4), 659-669 Rhodes G., Yoshikawa S., Clark A., Lee K., McKay R., Akamatsu S., Attractiveness of facial averageness and symmetry in nonwestern cultures: In search of biologically based standards of beauty, Perception, 30, 611-625, 2001 Rule N.O., Ambady N., Brief exposures: Male sexual orientation is accurately perceived at 50 ms, Tufts University, Department of Psychology; revised 27 November 2007, Available online 25 70

January 2008 http://ase.tufts.edu/psychology/ambady/pubs/2008RuleJESP.pdf Schaefer K., Fink B., Grammer K., Mitteroecker P., Gunz P., Bookstein F.L., Female appearance: facial and bodily attractiveness as shape, Psychology Science, Volume 48, 2006 (2), p. 187 204 Scheib J.E., Gangestad S.W., Thornhill R., Facial attractiveness, symmetry and cues of good genes Smith Law M., Perrett D.I., Jones B.C., Cornwell R.E., Moore F., Feinberg D.R., Boothroyd L.G., Durrani S., Stirrat M., Whiten S., Pitman R., Hillier S., Facial appearance is a cue to oestrogen levels in women, Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 2005 Swaddle J.P., Reierson G.W., Testosterone increases perceived dominance but not attractiveness in human males, Biology Department, College of William & Mary, Williamsburg, Virginia Welling L.L.M., Jones B.C., DeBruine L.M., Conway C.A., Smith Law M.J., Little A.C., Feinberg D.R., Sharp M.A., Al-Dujaili E.A.S., Raised salivary testosterone in women is associated with increased attraction to masculine faces, Hormones and Behavior 52 (2007) 156-161 Valentine T., Darling S., Donnelly M., Why are average faces attractive? The effect of view and averageness on the attractiveness of female faces, Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 11, 482-487, 2004 Zajonc R.B., Adelmann P.K., Murphy S.T., Niedenthal P.M., Convergence in the physical appearance of spouses, 1987, Motiv. Emotion 11, 335346

71

OTHER SOURCES
Fisher H., all her works featured on Chemistry.com Geoffrey Cowley, The biology of beauty, Newsweek, June 3, 1996 v127 n23 p60(7) Gordon J., The appeal of baby-faced men, 24 November 2006 http://www.mailonsunday.co.uk/pages/you/article.html?in_article_id=418449&in_page_id=1908 Gruendl M., Institute for Psychology, University of Regensburg, Germany http://www.uni-regensburg.de/ Fakultaeten/phil_Fak_II/Psychologie/Psy_II/beautycheck/english/kindchenschema/kindchenschema.htm Holland E. webmaster, femininebeauty.info Lehmann-Haupt R., Is the Right Chemistry a Click Nearer? http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/12/fashion/sundaystyles/12chemistry.html Neumann K.D., Are Certain Types Destined To Date? Chemistry.com Basic instinct: Women take just three minutes to make up their mind about Mr Right, Daily Mail Reporter http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1340868/Basic-instinct-Women-just-minutes-make-mind-Mr-Right.html?ito=feeds-newsxml#

72