To think some people are considered prettier in other countries?

In your 50s and married, you say? Oh dear, no wonder. They call us the invisible ones…

Novelty just means being different or unusual in a place - sometimes it can be attractive, sometimes it is just interesting, it doesn't always equal attraction - why would it? Hip to waist ratios that are considered optimum vary from country to country - there is no 'one' ratio that is considered the most attractive. Hair doesn't get darker with age - unless you're talking about juvenilia - we all end up with white or silver hair don't we? Which tends to be lighter shades the last time I looked.

@Brenzaida
The 'sallow' comment from Irish women is familiar. We took our toddler ds to visit DHs irish relatives for the first time and two aunties separately said ds looked 'sallow'. Ds takes after one of my relatives and has got naturally olive skin unlike DH and me. I was slightly annoyed at the word sallow but realised later that it means something different in England and ireland.

I think people see threads in the Similar threads section and click on them.

@cattykinns you and me both, sister

😀

i have logged on just to also say Mauritania! I’ve told my chap that if we ever split, I’m heading there with a suitcase of Gregg’s finest and will wait to be swept off my (fat) feet.

Timothee Chalemet maybe but the rest? Come on now.

In India, being chubby is a sign of prosperity (basically you can afford to eat well).

While true that beauty standards are geography specific why was this zombie thread raised up

Couldn’t agree more
see also
Ryan Gosling
Tom Hiddleston
Idris Elba
Timothee Chalamet

Incredibly ordinary looking men. Nothing wrong with that and some of them are good actors. But no better looking than average non celebrity men, yet are being given major heartthrob status.

I am tall and overweight and used to holiday in the Caribbean every year as had a friend living there. The friends I travelled with always said they felt invisible as everywhere we went I was chatted up and they were ignored.

When I was in rural Philippines- I made a child cry because he thought I was a ghost.

On the same trip, teenagers waved at me in the mall, because they thought I was Gwynth Paltrow. I am 5 foot but I did have long blonde hair!

But novelty is attractive. Attraction is mostly evolutionary. So novelty makes healthy children and avoids inbreeding. A good hip to waist ratio is both attractive and a good indicator of disease resistance. We tend to like youth so light hair is often 'attractive' because hair gets darker with age. And so on. And then there's location specific things.

I would go for Mel Gibson as William Wallace any day 🥰

A friend and I traveled around India when we were 21 (more than 30 years ago). I was very slim at the time - my friend was a little chubby - and, unlike at home, she got a lot more attention than I did.

Entirely this! My dad used to live in Uganda and I wasn't any more pretty or exciting than the average bear - I just looked very different to most people. Novelty not attractiveness.

I have skin so white that it's practically pale blue, very dark hair (although the grey is taking over) and very light green / grey eyes with dark lashes and brows.

My colouring is quite unusual in the UK, but I had a particularly splendid time being cooed over in East / South East Asia.

My red hair was definitely considered more attractive when I was in the US. And indeed a lot of places outside the UK.

Well its relative isn't it? So..my house?😊

It’s a standing joke in our family that I am “hot in London “

I would say I look fairly unapproachable as I have zero interest in romantic relationships, but every time I go to London I get hit on left right and centre.

It really is bizarre. Still thankfully an invisible sixty year old on the south coast!!

Yes… weirdly I am considered very attractive to many Chinese people both men and women!!

When i travelled in Cuba in the 90s. I was with my friend who is very, very overweight (like 25 stone). She absolutely loved all the attention she got as it was all very positive. My skinny arse was not appreciated at all.

As someone that absolutely hates getting male attention, unless I instigate it, it was perfect for me.

Other things deemed as sexy was weirdly hairy thighs.

At the time, bums were not a thing at all in the UK and it was all about boobs. So going to a country where is all about bum was quite a good lesson in not giving a fuck what was supposed to be culturally appealing.

Even in the UK what is supposedly attractive has been altered in my lifetime. I have taught my daughter to ignore all the hype forced upon us by the media about what is meant to be attractive and the shallow men (and women) that fall for such trends.

Even in London I get chatted up in Turkish, Arabic and Farsi. I have very dark hair and eyes but very pale olive skin. I agree with Gingerbread987 it is probably due to class. I am not Blonde or blue eyed so in this case it isn't driven by novelty. Although novelty is probably also a factor and its often stated that Blonde women get a lot of attention in countries where few women are blonde.

I have been asked many times if I am Iranian. I do have ME heritage but not Iranian. I do though think there is a slight difference in the rich western cultures whereby attraction does not seem to be driven by novelty but by hegemonic ideas that can probably be better understood historically around childhood and youth. In Europe we had a fairly recent history of short painful lives, child marriage, death in child birth. Patriarchal cultural norms persist, even if class is the issue that all other identities coalesce around under capitalism. The fashion for shaving, blonde hair and blue eyes, and our ideals around femininity are (unfortunately) to do with how male brains in our culture unconsciously equate attraction with youthfulness or even child like qualities. Women with dark hair and eyes have in European culture been though of as "Women" not girls, or as witches.

This is the thing, I’ve been to loads of places where I’ve got loads of attention because I’m white, blonde and scream ‘TOURIST’ 😂 . I also find some countries the culture is just more open and so men are more flirtatious than they are in the UK or places like Sweden, Norway etc.