The Fatal Attractiveness of a Symmetrical Body

Have you ever fallen for a femme fatale with long legs? What kind of body is actually sexy and attractive? Does it really matter that the body is symmetrical or not?

The research about a symmetrical body

Dr. William Brown from the University of Brunel found out the following: skinny women with long legs, just the right curve of the spine (in the shape of an S) and big breasts are supposedly the most attractive. Women with curves, like Scarlett Johansson and Marilyn Monroe. They are wonderful, but rest assured that you can also be attractive to many people.

They reaffirmed their findings with the fact that Olympic winner Michael Phelps has the optimal proportions between the lower and upper part of his body, meaning the legs and the body. British actor Christian Bale and Clive Owen belong in the same category. Scientists give a lot of importance to the above mentioned proportions and if this is true for men, it is even more so for women. You know that throughout the history most of the discussions and thoughts on ideal proportions were applied only to females, but they exist for men as well.

Men’s bodies are scrutinized, but not in the way of “more muscles is better”, but it is about having an optimal proportion between the structure of the shoulders, chest and length of the legs or in other word a symmetrical body. Muscle mass itself does not mean all that much if it is not distributed correctly. It is good to remember this every time someone tries to convince you to the contrary.

What kind of a body is attractive?

Dr. Brown and his research team used a 3D optical scanner in the research. They used it to create physical images of 77 people, half of them male. They gave some volunteers the assignment to assess the physical attributes of the opposite sex or, in other words, their attractiveness. They used black and white images and the bodies had no head. Both men and women assessed symmetrical bodies more positively than the ones slumped to one side. As an example of an unsymmetrical body they used Ronnie Corbett, and named body height as a key missing element.

A symmetrical body is a sign of good genes

This conclusion is surprising. The research team claims that we know and choose a long-term partner based on intuition because we can intuitively assess the success rate of having children with a certain person. The research placed a great deal of importance on a symmetrical body, which proves the quality of genes and a partner’s ability to reproduce. Of course there are more obvious signs than the precise assessment of a physical image, but maybe you will decide for a relationship just because of that.

Dancers have a more symmetrical body

As a curiosity, he also said that dancers have more symmetrical bodies than people who do not dance. These are the findings of his earlier results, as is the thought that a female shaped like a sand clock is still seen as divine. Even though a symmetrical body is important, men still place more importance on breasts – a link to life, one could say. We used to suck them diligently as children and are drawn to them as adults. This is a bond that lasts forever ...

It appears that a symmetrical body is a difficult phenomenon to observe. Because it is not all that easy to detect it, evolution created more obvious signals, like having wide shoulders, having a thin waste line and having subtle dance moves, which shows your quality.

Would you like to know which personal characteristics make us most attractive? Read the article.