[mtts]

It's "already obvious" because women do, in fact, go for attractive men (witness the swooning your wife or girlfriend does whenever there's a picture of George Clooney, Brad Pitt or Johnny Depp around). They find them sexually attractive, just like men find pretty women sexually attractive.

What confuses your argument is that women also tend to go for long term relationships with men that are high status and in such cases seem to place less importance on looks.

This leads to situations where the wife of a scrawny and unnatractive alpha male (the emperor of Rome, say) will bear children who bear a suspicious resemblance to a particularly hunky albeit lower status male from her surroundings (a beefy member of the Praetorian guard, say).

Which is exactly what this paper is saying: women differentiate between sexual attractiveness and desirability for marriage, but when it comes to judging sexual attractiveness, looks win out.