Conversations surrounding topics of beauty and desire are always circular. It is easy to accuse the other party of having their standards of beauty be the result of social engineering, but the accusation can always go both ways (no matter if it is true or not).

Hierarchies always form, and especially so around sex, because sex and procreation are some of the few topics in which it is increasingly difficult to obfuscate the difference between one's stated and revealed preference due to the skin-in-the-game that is required for both of these topics. There are such high opportunity costs associated with these decisions, and your pick of mate speak louder than the words you say regarding what you look for in a mate.

An emergent order is always created in these fields. Look at tinder data, okcupid data. It maps on to the Pareto principle almost seamlessly: the top 20% of men are having 80% of the sexual encounters that are attributable to all men. Just look at the whole West Elm Caleb thing. The majority of women are sharing a minority of men, the top selection. Or you can see it as these men having their pick of the litter and these women are willing to wait. This is an emergent order. No one is telling these men and women that they have to do act in this way.