Dasha,
I openly admit that I can't remember having checked out a handsome man for "pure aestetic value". Seeing someone beautiful is always accompanied by feeling, a woman is a not a museum piece.
Any of you guys ever looked at a woman for her "aestetic value"? ; )
Yes, you can look at someone and feel affection instead of lust, but people made of flesh and blood are not and should not usually be comtemplated for their "value".

I don't think I am a shallow person at all, and I have PLENTY of times checked out both men and women and was pleased by the act of appreciating their purely physical traits. There. I said it. I don't believe that I was denigrating their overall value or cheapening human interaction.

Of course sometimes the moment comes when said Adonis or Aphrodite opens their mouth and that moment is gone. :)

Sure, inner beauty makes all the difference and that is what I fall in love with. But ain't nuthin' wrong with appreciating a pleasantly proportional curve.

i feel sorry for those whom cannot identify with admiration/observation in it's pure form, and have to associate it with some ego manifestation. i love to admire the human form like i would a flower or rock. i find myself, in the gymstitution(one of the only institutions HUman should have by the way) 'checking out' dudes all the time, and i am so totally not homosexual (though i feel this limits my compositiveness as a human). furthermore there are women i love to look at whom have no sexual attraction from me, but every curve and crevasse i would love to inspect thoroughly.
and, why, just the other day i was looking at an abnormal(to me) penis in the locker room and was mulling over how it might be one or maybe many women's delight and could not help but inspect the thing, mulling over my knowledge and reflection upon biological circumstance with regard to female orgasm(the greatest phenomena on earth)- tthe subject had a penis head 3 fold in proportion to the shaft of any i'd ever seen; swoon ladies!
moreover dasha,
though the feminine power seems neglected and is most certainly suppressed throughout modern civilization, the elite, wielding the actual protocols for the general population most vehemently worship the goddess entity and regard it in fear. thus it's perpetrated assault upon we who would use it to empower ourselves.
isis forever!
-k

Alright.... having just read this whole page, one thing seems to be very clear to me... as it should be clear and I'm thinking it is to everyone else as well...

While there are some that don't agree on how to view the asthetic value of another human/spiritual being, we all perform this "wonderment of the mind" in our own ways... We are all individuals, therefore we all see differently and think differently, thus we see the human form differently and in all it's different qualities as well... how is one person's way of seeing "wrong" from anothers, and when was it for us to decide that the way others see things is wrong just because it is different from our own?

I can see beauty within and without a person, no matter their gender, age, hair color and all of those silly details our culture likes to have us believe are important... It is not on a sexual level, it is on a level of complete admiration and awe of the creational force that is within us all... when you make it into something negative, then it becomes just that...

If for one person looking at someone without the boundaries of three-dimensionally-conditioned eyes and seeing the *whole person* ie spirit, aura, conscious mind, physical form, Universal Identity etc., is how you look at another.... and it sounds like most of you *see* this way... then how is that wrong/negative?

As an artist you have to look at the value of everything, and find what everyone else has missed... so it is true when looking on another person... what is the one thing that no one else notices that is truly spectacular? To see these qualities and admire them is focusing on the purity in "it's" form... the purity in this instance would be the human physical self...
Again it is only negative if you manifest it as such.... I have a hard time with the idea that the human body in all it's beauty-> in, out and around, should not be appreciated... I work with bodies everyday and am always awed at how negative our perception of our physical selves can be... that is part of my job, to facilitate a person's ability to re-unite the physical self with mind and spirit... I couldn't ask for a better job!