What factors do you think have influenced who you find physically attractive?

My dna and my area’s examples.

I don’t even know my half-sibs well and we all married men with somewhat similar appearances and traits. Pretty wild.

I have no idea why I am attracted to curvy, pale-redheads, with nice legs, big brains, and the ability to bake homemade, chocolate chip cookies (with walnuts) — but there ya have it.

Physically it’s symmetry. As long as the parts are balanced and put together nicely I’m attracted a little. What drives me wild is a confident, impish, fun person. If she has a confidence and a sense of humor I’m hers.

@cookieman Not short dumpy birds with flippers who can bake??

I have always been very discriminating in who I find attractive and intelligence and humor is at the top of my list, media, movies, etc. have had little influence.
My ex husband was attractive but a terrible match on a mental level for me.
Now that I have divorced and done a boatload of personal growth work and studied personalty theory I now know that I need a mind mate not just a physical help mate.
The dating pool is woefully short on intelligent men that are not intimidated by bright, outspoken and humorous woman.

Smile, eyes, skin… oh, and I love natural salt & pepper hair.

I’m sapiosexual. I cannot find anyone attractive until I’ve determined their intelligence or creativity.

Seriously.

Also, @cookieman, how you doin’? * wink *

Like @Coloma , not many guys float my boat. The ones that do are all the same, not very tall, brown hair, brown eyes, self-confident and playful with a youthful face, muscular, not skinny or chubby. My dad was only average height and had brown hair and eyes. He is really not an extrovert, but he is a teaser, and I like that. Every guy that I have ever been attracted to fits this description: Davy Jones, Jack Wild, all my high school boyfriends, and my husband.

Cartoons and comic books. I wanted for a time a super solder stay at home mom, who moonlights as a professor of general studies. Between 25 – 40 years old.

I’ve always liked quirky people. So I can’t say media, family or my peers influenced me, I’m just a strange bird. I love a persons mind, and heart, throw in a great SOH and I will tear my knickers off for them.

SOH?

Estrogen, testosterone and pheromones.

Sense Of Humour

^^ If you were asking me, that is.

I was , Lorna. Thanks.

This doesn’t really bear out in my dating history, but I’m attracted to thoughtful, world-weary types. Like, someone who has seen plenty of what life has to offer, and been disappointed often, but strikes a balance between cynicism and hopefulness. And most importantly, they’ve learned from all of it and every experience has deepened them. You can sometimes spot these people from their facial expressions or body language- they’re reserved, but you can almost see the wheels turning in their heads as they process everything around them.

That’s a total non-answer, sorry. The physical aspect of it is a vague, know it when you see it kind of thing. They’re usually the person standing around awkwardly at a party when everyone else is having fun. As for where it comes from, and what shaped it? No clue.

My notion of who is attractive has matured over the years. Initially a preference based on those who looked like those of my ethnocultural group was more important. As I matured, I found that good character and a good sense of humour came to define whom is attractive.

As an old friend of mine once pointed out, the only good thing that can be said about getting older is that not only are the women good looking but so do their mothers. ‘Course, we were in our forties when he said it and at some point, not to long after that, it becomes them, their mothers and their grandmothers so it is all good.

I have always been attracted to people wearing glasses, and I prefer how I and my friends look with glasses to without. Several year ago it occurred to me that both my parents had glasses when I was born, and my elder siblings got glasses in elementary school, so nearly everyone I looked at in my formative years had glasses.

@LornaLove @janbb haha, I thought it was Set Of Hands! Which definitely attracts me…

Seeing we are speaking of influence and not the actual attributes, I would say the influence on what I found physically attractive in females is female skaters and gymnast.