Aesthetic convention can overrule biological health cues in mate preference

Evidence

Once the social repetition of a convention lodges into our habitus, the practice will feel instinctive rather than arbitrary. From here, culture shapes the expression of basic physical needs. The cultural anthropologist Clyde Kluckhohn notes, “Even such apparently biological processes as sneezing, walking, sleeping, and making love are stylized.” Evolutionary biologists often claim health is critical for choosing potential sexual partners. And yet the dominant aesthetic conventions of an era can push men toward women with ostensibly “unhealthy” appearances. Fashion advertisements in the 1990s propagated “heroin chic” by using emaciated models. Today white teeth are a sign of health; many centuries ago, elites in Asia preferred women with blackened teeth. Most people gag at the smell of necrosis—bacteria eating the dead cells of the human body—but during the centuries of foot binding in China, high-status men found an erotic appeal in the rotten odor emanating from women’s tightly bandaged feet. — W. David Marx, Status and Culture, 135

Categorization

• DEEPTHINKING: The foot-binding necrosis detail is a genuinely arresting demonstration that culture can invert the most biologically basic of drives — resists easy summary and lingers.
• XREF: connects to: Forgotten origins make arbitrary conventions feel like nature’s order — W. David Marx, Status and Culture: How Our Desire for…, 131; Status-driven dog breeding now overrides health in perceived beauty — W. David Marx, Status and Culture: How Our Desire for…, 803; Aesthetic judgment is the processing of social relations — Anna Kornbluh, Immediacy, or The Style of Too Late…, 369 (+2 more)

Broader Connections

• Visible physical traits drive essentialist beliefs that link appearance to deeper traits #expands (0.85) — John F. Dovidio, Peter Glick, Laurie A. Rudman, On the Nature of Prejudice, 113
• Aesthetic judgment is the processing of social relations #corroborates (0.75) — Anna Kornbluh, Immediacy, or The Style of Too Late…, 369