Gentlemen do not just prefer blondes, but lighter-skinned women in general, a study has suggested.
Scientists looking into attractiveness in men and women suggest that men from all races find fairer-skinned woman most alluring, while women are the polar opposite and favor darker, brooding men.
They said the attraction is driven by preferences based on moral assumptions. Men are subconsciously attracted to fairer-skinned icons because of the skin tone’s association with innocence, purity, modesty, virginity, vulnerability and goodness. Women, on the other hand, pick men with darker complexions because these are associated with sex, virility, mystery, villainy and danger.
Academics at the University of Toronto in Canada say their study proves the fair maiden of myth has a basis in scientific reality. They studied more than 2,000 advertising photographs and found that the skin of white women was 15.2 per cent lighter than the skin of white males, and the skin of black women 11.1 per cent lighter than the skin of black men.