Cute Girls or Sexy Girls? (Anime intended for now)

Cute Girls or Sexy Girls?"

I'll go for both

My 2 cents. Cute vs sexy is not an age thing, you have the capacity to like both at any age (after you start puberty, before that presumably you don't understand the concept of "sexy"). As evidence for this claim I ask you to think about how you may have felt about a potential teenage crush. This might not be a universal experience, but at least in the rare instances that I've had a crush on someone, it was not really sexual, its more like a pure infatuation. But of course simultaneously, there may be other girls that you find attractive in a sexual way, but the crush is different somehow.

Now one thing I don't know is whether both feelings can come from the same person, I have heard that apparently its very rare, and that its just one of those unrealistic expectations we've built up that one person can be everything at once (your smoking mistress, a good mother, loving and caring housewife etc. ) but I guess it doesn't really matter for this point.

All that being said, I think generally speaking cute beats sexy, because you form more of an attachment to cute things. That being said, most characters have a little bit of both in them and there are other factors at play as well such as personality and what happens in the story so its hard to really say.

@Anjuro This is really well stated and I agree. It's interesting to think about the difference between those feelings and it's definitely possible to get both from the same person because I've felt that way before but I couldn't tell you why. I think being able to see those different aspects in a person makes them more suitable as a partner, though.

On the main topic, my preference is cute for sure, but cute can be sexy with the right situation/clothing/etc.

@SawronZXZ It is certainly interesting. It's kinda hard to quantify because how you view that person is in constant flux. A crush is fundamentally a feeling that cannot be maintained as you enter a relationship with someone, because on some level it feeds off the expectations of what that person is like in your mind and not what they are actually like. So I think as you get to know them better your feelings towards them coalesce to either romantic or sexual attraction (or perhaps they vanish entirely as you realize the person was not who you thought they were). I think perhaps there is a sort of hierarchy here where romantic attraction can be translated to sexual attraction but not the other way around (I am kinda using romantic feelings as a stand in for "cute", I know its not exactly the same thing, but I think its kind of in the same zip code so to speak).

But I do think there must be some conflict between cute and sexy. Like for example, I feel like a person that is sexual to you demands respect, in some way you have acknowledged them, whereas viewing them as cute is a more noncommittal form of attraction, in a way you may not be taking them so seriously. As an imperfect analogy, I kinda view it as the difference between how you treat your child/pet vs your lover, I suppose in that case the lover is an equal whereas the child/pet is someone lower in the hierarchy so to speak, but I do think that fundamentally you cannot view a cute person the same as a sexy person.

@Anjuro uhh, my friend.... This post was intended as an anime centered one, so to speak.
But I actually agree, tho. Of course, as my stance, I think that Cuteness is something that arises from the feeling of a need to protect someone, which is totally different from its Sexual counterpart, which promotes unleashing your inner carnal desires over someone else. They may have the same feeling, but most commonly it isn't and thus a commonly accepted practice is to suppress that desire within yourself and wait until it extinguishes. Its debatable whether this practice is correct or not, however. (and not downright wrong)
We know that both can overlap in theory, but as I think that is not the case. At a single point in time, you cannot think of someone as both; u always choose one. (almost like those instantaneous and average things in physics lol) As for long term, u decide for yourself how you view that person. And if you think its a 50-50, cuteness wins since you don't want to feel complicated and have doubts within yourself, and since thoughts of the second emotion are basically condemned by the society, you go with the first option. ---Anomalies Always Exist---
It can also be interpreted as Cuteness is something which can be linked to a purer form of Love. Of course, ugly turns are something that can surface anywhere, but the base form is undoubtably pure.

Thats how I view them, at the very least.

Says 2 tendencies but mentions three. It's sus that you say it changed your views "forever". It sounds like horseshit to me.

@Anjuro I don't necessarily agree with you here. In my experience if I'm genuinely interested beyond what someone looks like even as a crush the feelings increase after getting to know them. There is something to be said for the "honeymoon phase" of relationships, sure but that doesn't necessarily mean your feelings will transform into one or the other. I would argue it's actually more common to start as a physical attraction and then in the course of getting to know someone romantic feelings start to develop, but I believe these feed into and enhance each other rather than competing (assuming you keep developing the connection with that person in a positive way and the people are compatible). I know you use romantic in place of cute here, but cute can mean different things and I don't think a romantic attraction should be equated to something that tends to be more physically centered (the idea of "cute or "sexy").

As for your second point, there is at least a difference between the two, but I don't agree either that cute is more noncomittal (sexual interest can be just as noncomittal, if the person is not interested in anything besides that). I think of them as different but equal forms of attraction (aesthetic vs sexual). It's easily possible to trend in either direction based on clothing, for example. Black lace lingerie vs a nightgown, or bikini armor vs a fancy dress. These slightly change your perception of a person to trend in a certain direction. So I would ask this: take a character you think is "sexy," and put them in a traditionally "cute" outfit. Do you lower them in the hierarchy of your mind? If anything I think it just deepens the appreciation that I have for them.

@SawronZXZ Well I am coming at this from a point of view of relative ignorance, I just find it very hard to conceptualize feeling both at the same time because I feel like there is some conflict between the 2. If we are talking more about romantic vs sexual attraction, ignoring cuteness for the time being, I think you are right that a common way it happens is first you have the sexual attraction and then you get the romance down the line. To be honest, I simply don't know what the truth is, but it is often joked about that "the day you get married is the last day you'll have sex in your life", which is a whole other can of worms but in my mind I have kinda of gotten the impression that there is an antagonistic relationship between sexual attraction and long term bonding. For example, I often hear that spontaneity and excitement is important to maintain a successful sex life, and that does almost seem like the opposite of long term bonding, a state where after a while you know your partner better than they know themselves and things are quite predictable. It must be stressed, this discussion is above my paygrade lol, I don't know what I'm talking about, this is some vibe based pseudoscience and guesswork.

Getting back to the cuteness vs sexual attraction point, I think maybe non-commital is not really the right word here. I couldn't really come up with the word I wanted, maybe "casual" is closer to what I was looking for. Like basically what I'm saying is in some way when a person comes along that ticks all the right boxes for you sexually you cannot help but take them seriously, but a cute person is kinda just someone that is nice to look at. Btw, I am trying to isolate the personal bonding aspect from that statement, I'm not going so far as to say its physically impossible to take a cute person seriously or that if the sexy person tells you they are an antivaxxer flat earther that your opinion of them won't diminish, in my opinion that's besides the point. The way I am thinking about it, you have a biological desire to find a mate, that is why on some level finding someone who you view as sexually attractive is a big deal, whereas there's not really a biological protocol when it comes to cute people, generally speaking cute things are defined by juvenile characteristics, so there is an inherent association between cuteness and immaturity.

So I have to disagree with you on the point that the two attractions are equal, however, I think you are also confusing the point by referring to cute attraction as aesthetic attraction, because I actually agree that aesthetic attraction is equal to sexual attraction at least on a surface level (probably it depends a lot on the persons priorities which is going to be prioritized).

I think you raise an interesting point with the clothing. The part I am sort of mulling over here is whether there is a difference between inherent sexiness/cuteness vs artificial ones e.g. due to make-up, clothes etc. I'm inclined to believe that there is, and that by and large, only the inherent aspects matter for your ultimate perception of that person. If I take a character that I consider sexy and put them in a cute outfit, like say one of those super baggy clothes, I don't think that changes my perception of them (although I think I would have no trouble saying they look cute), conversely I find it hard to imagine a cute character becoming sexy based on something extraneous like clothes and makeup, call me crazy, but I'm not even sure they become sexier as a result, maybe its a case by case thing but hearkening back to what I said about there being a cute<sexy hierarchy where sexy things can be cute but not the other way around, I think once you deem that someone is not sexually attractive, its very hard to overturn that verdict. But I think this thought experiment does clearly show that the two feelings can coexist at the very least. This is sort of starting to smell like a fidelity issue, i.e. the concepts are more complex than just "cute" and "sexy" and so when you start thinking about them deeply you sometimes come to contradictory conclusions, exactly because the model of understanding them is too simplistic.