Is there any truth to Scandinavian women being gorgeous because the Vikings only brought back the hot women from their pillages?

by jorvid

Recent post on /r/Showerthoughts brought this up, was wondering if there is any actual proof for this? On average Sweedish girls do seem to be much more attractive than English girls.

Aethelric

I feel fairly confident writing this off, even without digging too deeply into the specifics of history.

Why? Simply, "gorgeous" is not a constant, and is in fact a constructed and mutable idea. Even if Scandinavian women do in fact match current Western standards of beauty better than others (which is unproven as far as I am aware), the features that we consider attractive today would likely not be read as equally beautiful to Europeans just a century ago, much less a millennium ago.

Perhaps someone with specialization in Norse history can attack the specific historical issues, but I don't think the idea itself holds any logical water in the first place.

Searocksandtrees