Does Plastic Surgery Actually Make You More Attractive?

Is anti-ageing wellness the same as looking attractive? Not according to a new study, as researchers have found that even though facial plastic surgery may turn back the hands of time, it may not, alas, also boost your attractiveness.

 

For the study, which only involved 50 participants, the researchers showed the volunteers photos of 49 patients either before or after facial plastic surgery. The participants were asked to guess the age of each patient, as well as subjectively ranking their attractiveness. The results of the study revealed that while surgical intervention did indeed manage to shave a few years off the patients’ perceived ages, it did nothing to boost anyone’s overall level of attractiveness. According to study lead author Dr. Joshua Zimm, an attending surgeon at Lenox Hill Hospital and Manhattan Eye, Ear and Throat Institute of North Shore-LIJ Health System in New York City, the issue here is that patients’ expectations don’t match up with how the surgery will actually affect their wellbeing.

 

‘When we’re doing this kind of surgery I’m telling patients that they’ll look fresher, more energetic and less tired, and we have some data in the literature that indicates you will look younger, as we found,’ Zimm notes. ‘But clearly I cannot say that they will look more attractive.’ However, Zimm is quick to point out that the findings are based on the work of just one surgeon – maybe the 49 patients should have gone to someone else! – and there are also limitations to the design of the study. ‘This is not the final word on the subject,’ Zimm assures. ‘But certainly I think you can take away from this that if you’re looking to have aesthetic facial surgery to look younger, we’ve shown that you will. Beyond that … it is not clear that everyone will definitely look more attractive.’

 

For the study, which was published in the online edition of the journal JAMA Facial Plastic Surgery, the team of researchers focused on certain clients at a Toronto private-practice facility. Between 2006 and 2010, all of the clients had either had a face lift, neck lift, upper or lower eyelid lift, or brow-lift, and they were all between the ages of 42 and 73 years old. The researchers took facial photos – in which makeup and jewellery were forbidden – both before and six-months after the surgery. The patients were also banned from having additional cosmetic procedures (such as Botox injections or laser skin resurfacing) between the before-and-after photo sessions. The raters only ever saw a pre-surgery or a post-surgery photo of a particular patient – never both.

 

Zimm asserts that the findings do not accurately portray how your friends and relatives might react to any surgery you might have, as they will have a very clear frame of reference for assessing both age and beauty. He adds that the researchers may have created a ‘kind of subconscious attractiveness bias’ by asking the raters to assess age and attractiveness at the same time. However, he comments, ‘At the end of the day the goal is to make people happy, so we have to know what’s possible in order to determine if any particular patient is someone I can help.’

 

However, Dr. Laurie Casas, a senior clinician educator at the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine, who was not involved in the study, argues, ‘Certainly when I see a new patient I have to decide if what the patient is after is achievable or even realistic. And it’s a very complex process because the perception of beauty has to be evaluated by both the surgeon and the patient. The end game is that they want to look more attractive, but this study doesn’t get me anywhere with that process because it’s impossible to make any sense out of the data. It’s totally subjective, so the results have no meaning.’

Categories: Attractiveness, facial plastic, patient, Patients, plastic surgery, Research, study, surgery

Warning: Plastic Surgery Doesn’t Make You More Attractive

When it comes to anti-aging, plastic surgery is usually seen as the last resort – the trump card when all other methods don’t seem to be working anymore. Although there are ways in which plastic surgery can negatively affect your wellness and wellbeing, it has generally been considered effective. A new study, however, that has just been published in the Journal of the American Medical Association has found that whilst plastic surgery can visually reverse the signs of aging, it cannot increase attractiveness.

 

The researchers were surprised to find that there were no statistically significant improvements in attractiveness amongst those who had had facial plastic surgery. They looked at date from 37 women and 12 men aged 42 to 73 who had had procedures affecting the face, such as facelifts, brow lifts and neck lifts, and these people were photographed before and after their surgery.

 

As part of the research, a team of 50 ‘raters’ was recruited, and these were randomly assigned to a rating group. The groups were then shown around 200 photographs of the participants, both before and after their facial surgery. The raters had to note how old they thought each patient was, and rate their attractiveness using a score from 1 to 10.

 

After surgery, patients were rated on average as being 3.1 years younger, but their attractiveness ratings didn’t change. Around 75 percent of the people in the study were rated between a 4 and a 7 in terms of looks, and the numbers did not change much between their pre and post-operative pictures. Contrary to what you might expect, nobody jumped up from (say) a 4 to a 9 as a result of their facial surgery.

 

For this reason, most cosmetic surgeons use phrases such as ‘refreshed’ or ‘less tired’ when describing the results patients can experience, and steer clear of claiming to improve attractiveness.

Categories: attractive, Attractiveness, facial, facial surgery, nbsp, plastic, plastic surgery, surgery, surgery nbsp

Are We Sexually-Attracted to Voices?

When we are looking for a partner, whether for sexual or emotional attachment, we look for the many ways in which they can be appealing to us. Sometimes, it’s those cheeky locks of hair over a woman’s shoulders. Sometimes it’s the intensity in a man’s gaze. Others, it could be a matter of body shape; but what if we took into account how a person sounds as well?

It is no secret that women prefer men with deep voices, whilst men prefer women with high, youthful tones, but a paper published by PLOS ONE has taken it one step further.

According to a research group led by Yi Xu, the preference is due to body size.

Amongst a group of 32 participants, female voices with a high pitch were thought to have smaller body sizes, which in turn, was deemed attractive by male listeners.

Contrary to that, the sounds of a deep, throaty male voice suggested that the man had a large frame, considered more attractive when the voice had a certain “breathiness” to it, suggesting a reduced amount of aggression.

The research was done by manipulating computer-generated voices. Participants were asked to listen to a variety of phrases spoken. Each time, the voice pitch, rise-and-low frequencies and other traits were edited so that participants could pick a preference.

The men preferred the high-pitch, which suggested a smaller female – to a point. Any higher and the voice was deemed unattractive.

Similarly, female participants were given the same test, but this time, the male voice was given the trait of supposed “breathiness”, which apparently took the edge off a male voice. It kept the suggested nature of a man with a large frame, but took away the aggression that seemed to be in-tow. Additionally, male voices with “breathiness” sounded happier.

Whether or not the findings are substantial, it all points towards the idea of ideal figures to pass along one’s genes. The primal instinct to reproduce is an intriguing one, as is the capacity to attract the sexes.

Of course, life is getting more complicated, with primal urges taking a back seat to let emotions, enjoyment and dating swing into high tide.

Rather fun, in hindsight.

Are We Sexually-Attracted to Voices?

Categories: Attractiveness, evolution, genetics, sexual health, Voices

Study Finds Large Penis Makes Men More Attractive to Women

If a woman is deciding if she wants to have sex with you, your penis size may be a determining factor. This is according to a study published in the Proceedings of National Academy of Science (PNAS) journal, which found that women rate men with larger penises as more attractive – sorry guys.

The University of Ottawa researchers used data from a large study of Italian men to create 343 computer-generated male figures varying in (flaccid) penis size, as well as in height and shoulder-to-hip ratio, but features such as facial attractiveness and hair were deliberately omitted from the graphics. The researchers then asked a group of 105 young Australian women to rate each image on sexual attractiveness.

On the whole, the women rated narrow hips and broad shoulders as attractive, but larger penis sizes were the most strongly linked to high attractiveness scores. According to lead researcher Brian Mautz, ‘We found that flaccid penis size had a significant influence on male attractiveness. Males with a larger penis were rated relatively more attractive.’ An observation by Dr Mautz is what inspired the study; the human penis is significantly longer than it needs to be to perform its primary biological role of reproduction.

The Independent surmised that the evolution in the size of penises ‘is in fact the result of many generations of prehistoric women choosing well-endowed men.’ However, Dr Mautz said, ‘Our results show that present-day females rate larger penises as more attractive, but it is hard to infer anything much beyond that. Part of the reason is because of clothing – it does complicate the situation.’

So where does that place the sexual wellbeing of the average British man? According to the study, British men rank 78th out of 113 nationalities in the table of average penis lengths. Republic of Congo men are among those with the largest penises, with an average of 7.1in, British men come in just under the Germans, who are in line with the European average of 5.7in. When you take the other continents out of the picture, at 6.5in Icelanders are the best endowed in Europe and the Irish are the second smallest at 5.03in, with Romanians bringing up the rear at 5.01in.

 

Study Finds Large Penis Makes Men More Attractive to Women

Categories: attractive, Attractiveness, british men, dr mautz, flaccid penis, penis, Penis Size, Research, study, Women