Just that, really. I know about medieval standards of beauty a bit, and I know they had a huge thing for blonde women, liked their men bearded, and so on. But I don't know much about the last 500 years or about whether it's different in different bits of Europe. Obviously I guess it must be once you get outside Europe!
But how did people judge what was attractive in a man or a woman?
I know that people must have varied as much as we do but there must also be things we'd think were completely odd to find sexy, but that were attractive back in the day. I know in about 1375 Chaucer has the Wife of Bath say she's attractive because she has a gap in her teeth.
I also wonder how much people genuinely looked very different in the past and now. Of course we are healthier on the whole and I understand we're a bit bigger than women used to be, but I wonder what else has changed.
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How did people decide what was beautiful (male/female) in the past?
157 replies
LRDtheFeministDragon · 29/01/2014 14:25
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