Ian Blokesworth:

d.travers wrote " I like the Christina Ricci's of the world, with the dark hair and pretty face. "

I'm left wondering how many impressionable young boys were influenced by the physical types depicted in cartoons such as Olive Oil or Snow White. Otherwise, there may simply be a level of attractiveness in a maximization of contrast, as in, black hair and very light skin. If self-similarity has any play sexual attraction, the use of hair lightening agents by women may have the effect of reducing their attractiveness in the eyes of men controlled more strongly by this selection process.

Another major problem is that every time this topic bubbles up, women assume that they have a monopoly on knowledge about all innate male attraction. That's like the average man giving the average woman advice on PMS or what it really feels like to carry a child: they're simply unqualified to do so.

Ian,

About the second part of your post - I've noticed that a lot too. For 30 years stand-up comedians, sitcoms, and commercials have drilled it into everyone's head that men are simple, easy-to-decipher, less selective and less idiosyncratic than women are. Somewhere along the way the cartoonish joke turned into people's actual opinions of who men are - and even a lot of men bought into that too.