askchapo

I think kinksters in general show us that attraction is probably something more emergent and not something that springs directly from some kind of ingrained template. Like obviously something deep and fundamental plays a role but my own unqualified opinion is that what a person finds attractive is likely a the result of a meeting point between something sort of highly specific and "elemental" (me like smooth, me like rough, me like curve, me like firm/soft, etc) and stuff you come understand about the world around you (me like people who remind me of that way the person looked in that one movie, me like people who seem smart, me like people who seem in charge or would trust me, etc).

I also think the degree to which each of those "halves" of the equation has weight is also different from person to person, like one person might need nothing more than the right texture to feel attracted, while another needs a very specific perceived "type" of person in a very specific context to feel really attracted.