Cats, dogs, bears, owls, weasels. Most of them could seriously injure/kill an average human with minor difficulty and yet we find them adorable?
Does not compute.
We’re predators ourselves, so if we couldn’t find predatory aspects (large, forward-facing eyes, for example) to be cute our babies would get left on hillsides.
It’s not something I’d generally consider to be one of my kinks, but I remember one time noticing a girl I know has somewhat more prominent than average canine teeth. Not ridiculously exaggerated vampire fangs or anything, definitely within the range of normal variation of the human species, but towards the upper end of that range, just a tiny bit longer and pointier than most.
And that did something for me. Like the primal reptilian part of my brain was saying “yesss, now there’s a female you can go and hunt mammoths with”
It surely didn’t hurt that she is otherwise very conventionally attractive, but in that moment it wasn’t the great tits, ass, pretty face, blue eyes, long blonde hair, etc. that caught my eye, it was those carnivore teeth.
She’s also been an on-again/off-again vegetarian as long as I’ve known her, and has expressed some interest in hunting, so I think her own lizard-brain also seems to have some strong thoughts on the matter.
I discovered this about myself fairly recently, but I’m never really attracted to a woman unless I’m also at least a little bit scared of her.
on the opposite end of the scale, ive always found buckteeth super adorable. Like, cmon little beaver creature, let’s find you a piece of wood to chew on and cuddle
“wood”
Don’t recommend that line of thought unless you enjoy your weenie being chewed off.
maybe just chewed on
“chew”
somewhat more prominent than average canine teeth
this is definitely a “thing”
“Where’s the baby!?”
“Gone. Reduced to atoms.”
Still kinda wild to me that our preservation instincts can be overridden by something that doesn’t resemble a human in any way outside of a few features.
It’s because they evolved to hack our brains, and our brains evolved to be hacked by their smells / sounds / features. ‘Natural selection for reproductive fitness’ is a harsh mistress.
To be fair, our ancestors, evolutionary speaking, didnt resemble us that much if you go back far enough. A system that just considers a few key features a “child to be protected” is probably more adaptable than if every change in appearance had to be accompanied with a corresponding mutation to whatever gives us our mental picture of what our young should look like, for them to still get taken care of.
I like spiders. wait fuck they are predators too. the only animal which I can think of that aren’t, are fish, and heck yeah, one of my favorite animals IN THEORY but they just suck, I mean they are in the water, how will you cuddle or form a bond, you will drown upon entering the fish’s dome, it will suffocate upon entering your world. it is an impossible relationship, it cannot be. I want floating fish in air, can someone engineer this
We naturally find baby-like features cute, such as:
- chubbiness
- big eyes
- small size (this doesn’t always apply ofc)
- cute noises (such as meowing in cats or babbling in babies)
- last but not least, fluffiness. Modern human babies are hairless, yes, but personally I think this is some kind of ‘fossil trait’ (yes I just made that term up) because we evolved from animals that used to be more fluffy. Besides, fluffiness often makes an animal more round, thus adding to the chubbiness factor.
Now, let’s take a look at this pomerian:
This is a predator, yes, but way too small (and docile since this pom is a domesticated anomal) to pose a threat to a human, and who could be scared of that adorable little guy?
This has everything a cute animal needs: it’s small, has round black eyes, and is very fluffy, which makes it look round and be a nice cuddle buddy. So your brain goes “ooh, little baby! I must protect and cherish it!”, and boom, pet.
That being said, the human brain is a complex and really weird thing, lots of things we do don’t make any sense.
Brb getting killed by a weasel
we are configured to find child-like things cute, and they theyre appearance throws a lot of that at us.
owls have giant, child-like eyeballs. bears have roly-poly bodies…
If not friend, why friend shaped?
Ask Little Red Riding Hood.
“Why such big teeth?” “To better eat you.”
I suspect that there’s a relationship between cute and being eaten by the parents of cute.
I used to be really squeamish about snakes, but we adopted a surrendered Columbian red-tailed boa and love her so much. She’s incredibly sweet and very smart and curious. (Okay kinda dumb in many other ways lol)
The only time she’s bitten us was if she got confused and missed her strike when we were trying to feed her (frozen) rats.
I think predators tend to require more smarts, and fat builds better brains, and prey tend to be rich in fat.
So naturally, I think we find things that problem solve and play and exhibit curiosity to be cute.
I dunno, lotsa “prey animals” are cute too but maybe it’s in other ways? Haha
It depends on the predator. Very few people call snakes or spiders cute, them being the two animals with phobias topping every list of phobias (going so far as to inspire notions that fear of them are biologically imprinted in our psyche). Maybe it’s the venom.
The venom is secondary. The primary reason is that our sleeping state provides the conditions of a good sanctuary for them, so they often get close in order to rest or nest and everyone gets spooked once we wake up.
To snakes, we’re warm and provide shelter.
To spiders, our open mouths, ears or even nose are hidey-holes that provide near perfect conditions for them to rest in or ambush prey.
Which is why waking up and finding them around is very traumatizing and often startles them into retaliating for self-defense.
You just listed a bunch of mammals, not a representative sample of predators. You think lobsters and spiders are cuter than cuter than deer and koalas?
edit: oops, 4 mammals and a bird
Good point.
Which raises another paradox: attractive does not seem to be a proxy for appetizing.
At least for most people. Personally I find lobsters creepy as hell and would never even touch one much less eat it.
Spiders of the sea. Crabs too. I wouldn’t want to touch one that wasn’t cooked.
Although I find the comparison discomforting to think about, the sea spiders both go well with butter and are generally regarded as delicious.
That introduces the question: if there were a land spider large enough to nullify the risk/reward/deliciousness equation, would I give it a try? My gut answer is no, but I think the realistic answer is, “I’ll wait and see what my fellow apes do with it first. If they have any good recipes, probably yes.”
Fascinating subject. I seem to be out of the ordinary here. To me it is completely unignorable that crustaceans are arthropods, i.e., close cousins of insects and spiders, which I would never be able to eat. Ergo, I find the idea of eating crabs and lobsters and shrimps just as gross as the idea of eating tarantulas and would never touch any of them.
Similarly, it is completely obvious to me that rats and mice are close cousins of hamsters and squirrels. Hence I find them all equally cute and cuddly.
My guess is that my mind is abnormally literal. In other words I’m probably a bit autistic. Most people are just more socially conditioned than me. Waiting to see what their fellow apes do first, as you put it.
What’s funny is that I also think I’m on the spectrum.
And to continue the conversation - my husband and I have been talking about visiting a South American country this summer where roasted guinea pig is on the menu. I honestly think I could give it a try even though I try to save any mice that my cats corner.
Food choices are both weird and personal. I’ll always respect that.
Yeah I could eat guinea pig. At a pinch.
I read once that all mammal flesh is roughly indistinguishable in texture and taste. Yes, including humans. Chimps think nothing of chowing on monkeys. The reality is that we’re all extremely close cousins.
It’s basically all just culture, as you say. Enjoy your guinea-pig stew.
Humans are relatively defenseless but specialize in child rearing.
This gives us an advantage in taking pets. If you’re gonna form a bond with an animal it’s better if that animal is a predator because they can fight more effectively.
It makes more sense to give scritchy-witchies to a grizzly-wizzly than to a bunny-wun.
Excellent question! I was pondering exactly this conundrum just the other day while watching a snow leopard on BBC Earth. That thing would rip your face off but wow, what a gorgeous beast! I almost ache to pet it.
Actually my pondering went even further. Not only are cats and owls and bears cute, they are much cuter than than our cousins the primates. And it get worse! I for one find that monkeys are cuter than apes, and that our closest cousins the chimpanzees are really pretty fugly indeed. Even the babies. Maybe especially the babies.
What a weird world.
It’s a bit like how people closely related to you are not attractive.
Except in Alabama
I think it’s more like an uncanny valley phenomenon. Or it could be that humans are largely neotenous and other primates haven’t developed that trait, so they remind us of old, or diseased members of our own species at a unconscious level.
Or it could be both. Strange hairy men that live in the woods? Avoidance response activated.
Yep, that’s the self-domestication thesis. Humans have selected themselves to look young and inoffensive, a bit like how they transformed wild ox into cows and wolves into, uh, poodles.
It definitely explains the ape paradox.
Ha. Except, jokes aside, I’m not sure it’s true. Obviously this is getting into dangerous territory but, as I understand it, people do tend to go for their own ethnic group disproportionately.
Then again, sexual attraction does seem to be qualitatively different. After all, that snow leopard would go straight to the friend zone if you know what I mean.
