To think some people are considered prettier in other countries?

[gwelpe]

In other words, different countries have different beauty standards/preferences, and so some people might be considered more attractive in one country than another.

I was recently on holiday in Jo’burg with some friends (we’re in our 20s), and the amount of interest/attention my naturally blonde friend got was crazy. She said she’d never felt so pretty.

Equally, I went to Stockholm a few years ago and had never felt less attractive… got zero attention!

Yes! This goes back 30 years when i went travelling in Indonesia at 19. I went with 2 girlfriends who were ostensibly more attractive and used to get much more attention in the UK. It was almost bizarre but I suddenly got a lot of attention! I think it was my colouring perhaps (brunette and olive skin, particularly with a tan there). I confess
I loved it, but back to UK and normal business resumed 🤣🤣

It’s definitely a ‘thing’ - I wrote my dissertation on it. It’s quite often to do with the upper classes - so if you live in a country where lower classes work in offices/inside then what’s considered culturally beautiful might be a tan whereas if you live in an agricultural society where the poorer classes might work outside, then pale is considered beautiful.

You can also see it in art history if you look at the changing shape of ‘beautiful’ women in art

Not sure about pretty but as a Scotsman, Asia is always interesting especially Japan.

And also in the US, the number of women there who weirdly have a fetish for a Scotsman. I blame that programme Outlander.

Definitely! One of my close friends at uni was Thai, there was another Thai girl there too. My friend said that in the UK she generally got more attention, but back home in Thailand the other girl would be considered much prettier.

Unfortunately I am yet to discover the country in which I am particularly beautiful!

I get this in a couple of african countries where dark hair and darker skin is the norm, I have dark hair but very pale skin, and it seems to hit a beauty standard there, for example in Egypt, and dubai.

I did have an issue when I was younger, on a work trip, in a very expensive hotel bar, where a local man effectively guessed correctly the most senior man in tne group, also the oldest and pulled him aside and offered to buy me for the night, I work for a large multi national Corporation and it caused some real upset.

the local man, a very wealthy man, assumed as I was the only woman in the group it meant I was paid for. So he offered to pay more than my group had paid. I will add I was sitting in jeans and a t shirt. The manager concerned was utterly horrified and old school gent and explained i was a colleague, he looked nauseous when he explained, as we were all like what was thay about, he didnt even want to say, then did.

rhe local man explained to the senior manager it was my pale skin was very beautiful.

I also had similar in Dubai, also on a work trip, and again it was my pale skin, with dark hair and eyes. I also had some of the local woman in dubai explain to me it was my pale skin was prized. one local man who was supporting us, told me I looked like a local, but a very pale skinned one.

My family is from the med. And there is an an ancestory connection with Africa, on the coast facing the med, ie tunisia, morroco. So there could be something there that people reacted to, where i look like im from that region, but with very pale white skin.

its intersting as in the uk this would be seen as all types of racism, but there it seemed completely acceptable to say, from both men and women. I found it really disconcerting, snd it was wide spread, like people would literally stop and stare at me pointedly, be it in tne airport, the shopping malls or hotel and thought nothing of telling me.

This is also related to how culturally appropriate it is to flirt / give compliments. I feel invisible where I live (northern European country) but much more 'noticed' in Mediterranean countries and even the UK. People where I live just don't give strangers that kind of attention no matter how pretty they are.

Definitely. I was a godess in Turkey where they preferred slightly chubby blondes. My very very skinny sister who is used to being considered the more attractive of us 2 wasn't happy

Absolutely.
I once hosted a group of Japanese teenagers and they kept talking about all the gorgeous men on the streets. Some of the men they pointed out were very average-looking and wouldn't have turned any European woman's head.

I think there are different cultures with different attitudes to approching women. I am from the UK but lived in Paris for a while and I was relentlessly approached and chatted up in Paris by French guys when I felt like I hardly had any interest from men in the UK, conversely French women I've known say that in the UK they felt invisible. I think in the UK like in most northern European countries men don't try to chat up women as much as they do in many other places. I don't think I was more attractive to French men they just more frequently tried their luck or flirted to pass the time of day then men do here I think.

DC2 had queues of people waiting to photograph them in Tiannamen Square, aged about 12 🤣

I think there are some carribean countries where having curves and being overweight with it is considered more attractive than being slender.

Assume you're joking but if it were real I would say

Stockholm or Copenhagen
Slovakia
Brazil

Those are places where the average gorgeousness of people is off the charts so I think then people are more immune to it

I'm a redhead and have definitely been treated differently in different countries. I'm not sure I'd say it is necessarily anything to do with beauty (though obviously different cultures do have different views about that) but there's definitely a curiosity about the unfamiliar. In one place in India I took to wearing a head scarf because so many people, children and adults, wanted to touch my hair and it felt quite invasive after a while. I presume they thought I was weird rather than beautiful though.

OP - yes. I have a friend who struggled to get dates in the UK as she was considered big by British standards (size 18-20). She moved to a place in Africa and was inundated with dates as her look aligned much more with their cultural beauty ideals.

I remember watching an episode of Unreported World in Mauritania where they fed up young girls to make them put on weight and be more marriageable.

"The Channel 4 documentary series Unreported World investigated the extreme tradition of force-feeding young girls in Mauritania. In the episode titled "Forced to Be Fat," reporters uncovered how families force-feed girls as young as 5 up to 10,000 calories a day because larger sizes are traditionally seen as wealthy, beautiful, and highly marriageable"

Sure, but different cultures have different ideals of beauty and are sometimes attracted to types that look very different to the ‘home’ look. My mother, a white Irishwoman, adores the look of people with complexions she terms ‘sallow’ — by which she means ‘not pinkish, tans easily’ (comparatively rare in Ireland — common in the Mediterranean or South America). I’ve often had to point out to olive-skinned friends that ‘sallow’ when said by older Irish people is intended as a compliment, and not as a suggestion they look sickly or yellowish or Severus Snape-ish!

Conversely, I don’t get Paul Mescal as international sex symbol, even mediated via Connell Waldron. To me he’s an averagely pleasant-looking Irish guy of a widespread type. I went out with several versions of him in my teens. But I assume he appeals to people from other cultures where his look is less usual.

Yes it is about that. Im a history geek - hundreds of years ago the serfs would be in the fields working all day, and hunger was an issue - so thin and tanned = undesirable. Fatness and paleness was considered beautiful because only the rich could achieve it. Amazing hey how things turn on their head.

My little tit-bit - Im mad curly red head with green eyes and loads of freckles. Im either blue or burnt to a crisp. 51 now and growing up considered ugly. Got to 20 then considered a looker, which was awesome. When I was dating recently the red hair and green eyes was considered a plus so that was nice. In meditteranean countries though, especially as a teen, I was considered beautiful and was actively chased down the street and pursued by the local (gorgeous) boys. I bloody loved it. At the time I was not remotely popular at school/college - I was the ugly ducking, so I was thrilled. I do think times are changing though with my colouring - its not considered disgusting like it was when I was mid-teens.

I think it’s difference a lot of the time. We were in Louvre with ds when he was two, he had that very white blond tightly curled hair that some preschoolers have combined with very pale skin, we had to practically fight off Japanese tourists who kept trying to pick him up and have their photo taken with him. It was very disconcerting.

I have heard that they don't like thin women and big is considered beautiful. How marvellous!

LOL. Because people talk to each other. For example women in Vietnam were wildly complimentary about my (daywalker white) skin but I was laughed at when I tried to buy a bra.

In Africa I got lots of compliments about my (big) arse. Mainly in the form of 'white women don't normally have a butt, just flat back there' from women. Same in the Caribbean.

Lots of interesting talk with my Latina friends about being 'too tall' - bad, but blonde - good.

Of course there are also behavioural things. You get props for being stoic in Australia, being able to dance in Mexico, being respectful in Mongolia, being able to take a joke in the UK.

But if beauty standards didn't differ, it would be a very strange world. They differed over time in the UK.

I'd agree it's true. I did a dissertation on colourism and studies have shown that in some countries, people with fairer skin are considered more attractive than those with dark skin. That's what led to skin lightening creams becoming so popular, particularly in India and some African countries.

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.

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.

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.

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