[ben_w]

> what body shapes should be considered more desirable for a mate out of an infinite variety of shapes.

However this specifically works in humans — and considering the diversity of actual human preferences includes, amongst many other things, non-existant dragons* — the first I heard of the term "superstimulus" was with the example of certain beetles that kept trying to copulate with beer bottles:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supernormal_stimulus

* Humans must have something guiding us, or we'd all be (a) bisexual and (b) equally often aroused by dragons as by those we could actually have a child with; the fact that dragons happen at all is simply an indication that our brains are likely using a very simple set of heuristics to get there, and simple heuristics is totally a thing that DNA could encode

[thrw42A8N]

Often human sexuality is rooted in power dynamics and these things are associations. I certainly am attracted to powerful women wearing whatever style of clothing my primary school teacher had...

[ben_w]

Power is one of many aspects of human sexuality, but it's also part of much broader human social dynamics, and I have not seen evidence that power dynamics are unusually predominant in sexual vs non-sexual relationships.

[thrw42A8N]

I wouldn't say it's predominant. It just influences it, and for some people it's all about that and much less about anything like appearance or the sex itself.