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There is so much confusion at gaming tables over the conflation of physical attractiveness with how charismatic someone is. I've discussed this at length with experienced gamers who playtest for multiple companies and my opinion has only become firmer that these are two different stats.

The Star Wars Saga book tried to explain to players that charisma can mean either, or, or a combination of both. That seems to be how all the systems that conflate the two try to operate. Well, it's very very messy.

Just have two separate stats. Problem solved!

Some of the most charismatic people in history were quite ugly but beauty is also important to have as a stat because it can make a big difference in terms of how people relate to someone.

...

What happens when you have an 18 charisma and you're ugly? What happens when you have an 18 charisma and you're gorgeous AND charismatic? What happens when you have an 18 charisma and you're really gorgeous but not very talkative? It doesn't seem reasonable to say that the second case should have a higher charisma just because both qualities are equally high, but it also doesn't seem reasonably to treat that person as being equivalent to someone with only one quality at that level. And that is just talking about stats. When it comes to role-playing it's a big mess because the two can be mutually exclusive or not.

It's too messy. While beautiful people are treated better in general, that isn't enough to put beauty and charisma together. A certain German leader, for instance, was very charismatic and also not at all good-looking. There are many more examples. Intimidate rarely is about how beautiful someone is, although there are cases.

Plus, it would be nice to have mechanics for a beautiful character who isn't a face type. A quiet beauty. As it stands now, you're wasting your stat points in the point buy because there's no reward for being beautiful and quiet if you roleplay diplomacy as being about back and forth talk (and bluff as mainly about talk rather than distracting someone with looks -- although bluff is a bit easier to conflate with). An exception would be a sorcerer who doesn't bother with skill points, but even then having such a high charisma makes putting something into face skills seem worth it — at least diplomacy or bluff.

With things like Arshea (and the description of Calistria in male form) it seems like attempts to make beautiful maleness keep resulting in somewhat masculine women.

Male beauty and female beauty are not really on the same continuum. Masculine women are not the most beautiful possibility of masculinity, at least if you're a gay male like I am.

Beautiful maleness, though, is about the qualities of the male body that are specifically attractive. That is quite different from looking at a female body and trying to add a bit of masculinity to it because you think that the female body is the best and thus the compromise is to decorate it a bit with some masculine touches. Generally, what you instead do is start with the male body and add a bit of "femininity" to it — like pretty eyes, a pretty smile, a pretty boyish face, a hairless chest, a swimmer's build (although with a bit more body fat than a pro swimmer has), a nice male-shaped rear, etc.

It is true, to an extent, that beauty is subjective. But, there are also genetic instinctual aspects that are tied to our sexual orientation. Gay men do not find women to be the most beautiful just like heterosexual men don't find men to be the most beautiful. I hope artists and writers will keep this in mind when trying to appeal to gay gamers, women, and heterosexual men who want to try something different when designing new things for Pathfinder like Arshea. Arshea is positive step, but one that really is more ideal for a lesbian, a transgendered person, or similar.

I really like that Pathfinder is branching out, away from the tedious hulking mechanical gruff/fierce uber-male killing machine and sexpot barely clothed female dichotomy. But, please don't forget that there are really hot guys who look like guys, too. Where's our God?

And, no, Cayden Cailean doesn't make the cut. He's designed more for a heterosexual guy's ideal of a variant of manliness.