What do you consider to be beautiful?

[Carl East]

This is a general question concerning beauty, and how you would define it in either a man or a woman. For me beauty is many things, but the one that I've looked for in the past is the beauty within. I've known women who were beautiful to behold but who were also horrible people.

So what do you consider as beautiful, where people are concerned?

Carl

 

[Guest]

This is a general question concerning beauty, and how you would define it in either a man or a woman. For me beauty is many things, but the one that I've looked for in the past is the beauty within. I've known women who were beautiful to behold but who were also horrible people.

So what do you consider as beautiful, where people are concerned?

Carl

Family business, my arse!

 

[matriarch]

This is a general question concerning beauty, and how you would define it in either a man or a woman. For me beauty is many things, but the one that I've looked for in the past is the beauty within. I've known women who were beautiful to behold but who were also horrible people.

So what do you consider as beautiful, where people are concerned?

Carl

The soul, the heart, the mind............if they are beautiful, it will show outwardly in some way, whatever the packaging is like.

 

[Guest]

Re: Re: What do you consider to be beautiful?

it will show outwardly in some way

Yes, but it took four bloody years!

 

[NoJo]

This is a general question concerning beauty, and how you would define it in either a man or a woman. For me beauty is many things, but the one that I've looked for in the past is the beauty within. I've known women who were beautiful to behold but who were also horrible people.

So what do you consider as beautiful, where people are concerned?

Carl

Beautiful/Ugly, Sexy/Unsexy, Nice/Horrible are three completely independent dimensions as far as I'm concerned.

I've met (and I'm sure you have too) women who are:

BEAUTIFUL, SEXY and NICE
BEAUTIFUL, SEXY and HORRIBLE
BEAUTIFUL, UNSEXY and NICE
BEAUTIFUL, UNSEXY and HORRIBLE
UGLY, SEXY and NICE
UGLY, SEXY and HORRIBLE
UGLY, UNSEXY and NICE
UGLY, UNSEXY and HORRIBLE.

Carl, here's something I learned a while ago: A lot of words, like "beautiful", "good", "truth", don't have a meaning in the sense you're looking for.

When we call woman A beautiful, and woman B beautiful also, it doesn't follow that there's a quality called "beauty" that they both possess, any more than a Cricket bat and a Cricket ball both have the "quality of Cricketness" in common.

Beauty is a "bundled" term for a bunch of different things. Two beautiful people may have nothing in common in terms of looks, character, etc.

 

[Weird Harold]

So what do you consider as beautiful, where people are concerned?

For me, Beauty is like Obscenity: I can't define it, but I know it when I see it.

The closest I can come to defining it is to say that when everything fits together just right, it's beautiful.

I once knew a pair of identical twin sisters; not even their parents could tell them apart reliably. One was beautiful and the other merely pretty to me and so I could tell them apart when nobody else could. I still can't explain what the difference was, though.

 

[NoJo]

Re: Re: What do you consider to be beautiful?

For me, Beauty is like Obscenity: I can't define it, but I know it when I see it.

The closest I can come to defining it is to say that when everything fits together just right, it's beautiful.

I once knew a pair of identical twin sisters; not even their parents could tell them apart reliably. One was beautiful and the other merely pretty to me and so I could tell them apart when nobody else could. I still can't explain what the difference was, though.

You probably could identify the distinguishing feature if you analysed it, there's no particular mystery there. But you could never convince someone else that one was "really" more beautiful than the other, becuase it's subjective.

 

[gauchecritic]

Re: Re: What do you consider to be beautiful?

I once knew a pair of identical twin sisters; not even their parents could tell them apart reliably. One was beautiful and the other merely pretty to me and so I could tell them apart when nobody else could. I still can't explain what the difference was, though.

I saw an experiment on TV many years ago where they took identical twins and asked a guy which one was more attractive. He picked the one whose eyes, by means of eye drops, widened the pupils (dilated the iris).

Following this logic(?) you could tell them apart by the fact that one of them found you attractive and the other didn't (or less so)

Not that this definitely applies to Harold but it seems that beauty is apparently in the eye of the beholden.

 

[Weird Harold]

Re: Re: Re: What do you consider to be beautiful?

You probably could identify the distinguishing feature if you analysed it, there's no particular mystery there. But you could never convince someone else that one was "really" more beautiful than the other, becuase it's subjective.

That's probably especially true because this was some 40 years ago about the time that I first discovered there was a difference between boys and girls.

Gauche may be right that one of the twins had made the same discovery and was attracted to me.

PS: I'm pretty sure it wasn't a difference inthe eyes though -- I could tell them apart from a distance and from behind, so it was more likely posture or something that made the difference.

 

[brightlyiburn]

I think the guy who was in my Japanese class was beautiful. He had such a breath-taking smile. *sigh*