Gentlemen do not just prefer blondes, but lighter-skinned women in general, a study has suggested.

Scientists looking into attractiveness in men and women suggest that men from all races find fairer-skinned woman most alluring, while women are the polar opposite and favour darker, brooding men.

They said the attraction is driven by preferences based on moral assumptions.

Men are subconsciously attracted to fairer-skinned icons such as Nicole Kidman or Kylie Minogue because of the skin tone's association with innocence, purity, modesty, virginity, vulnerability and goodness.

Women, on the other hand, pick men with darker complexions - such as film stars Johnny Depp, Colin Farrell or Jamie Foxx - because these are associated with sex, virility, mystery, villainy and danger.

The latter two actors were paired together in the recent Miami Vice movie, which topped the box office on both sides of the Atlantic despite lukewarm reviews.

Academics at the University of Toronto in Canada say their study proves the fair maiden of myth has a basis in scientific reality.

They studied more than 2,000 advertising photographs and found that the skin of white women was 15.2 per cent lighter than the skin of white males, and the skin of black women 11.1 per cent lighter than the skin of black men.

Dr Shyon Baumann, a sociologist involved in the study, said: "What the research shows is that our aesthetic preferences operate to reflect moral preferences.

"Within our cultures we have a set of ideals about how women should look and behave."

"Lightness and darkness have particular meanings attached to them and we subconsciously relate those moral preferences to women."

In effect, men drawn to darker looking women--such as actress Monica Bellucci--are expressing a preference for danger.

Dr Baumann said this appreciation of a darker complexion in women is "less common" but "appears to coexist with a view of such women as more overtly sexual.

一項研究表明，男士不只青睞皮膚白皙、金發碧眼的女性，總的來說，他們對淺膚色的女性都比較感興趣。

科研人員對男性和女性的吸引力特征進行探究后發現，所有種族的男性都認為膚色較淺的女性最具吸引力，而女性的觀點則正好相反，她們更青睞膚色黝黑的深沉男士。

研究人員稱，這種喜好取決于對異性的道德假定偏好。

男性潛意識里更青睞皮膚白皙的女明星，比如妮可·基德曼、凱莉·米洛，因為這種膚色讓人聯想到天真、單純、端莊、純潔、柔弱和善良。

然而，女性則更青睞膚色較深的男性，比如影星強尼·戴普、柯林·法勒爾和杰米·福克斯，因為這樣的膚色給人一種性感、陽剛、神秘、邪惡和危險的感覺。

柯林·法瑞爾和杰米·福克斯聯合主演的影片《邁阿密風云》盡管得到的評價并不高，但它在大西洋兩岸均取得了票房冠軍的好成績。

加拿大多倫多大學的研究人員稱，該研究證明傳說中的窈窕淑女是有現實的科學依據的。

研究小組成員之一、社會學家施恩·鮑曼恩說：“研究表明，我們的審美喜好能反映出我們的道德喜好。”

“我們的文化中存在一套有關女性外表和舉止的完美典范。”

“因此，膚色深淺也被賦予了特殊含義，我們潛意識里會將那些道德喜好與女性聯系在一起。”

實際上，有的男性喜歡像女影星莫妮卡·貝魯奇這種深膚色的女性，這說明他們偏愛危險感。

鮑曼恩說，喜歡深膚色女性的人“并不多見”，但同時有觀點認為，“這種膚色的女性顯得更加性感”。