Most of you are sooo pathetic. I can't believe there are still people on here that like thin, narrow, witch-like noses. Don't be so narrow minded, litterally. I mean if Miranda has a broad nose, what to think of an average afro american woman? Miranda's nose might be slightly wider in comparison to Charlize Theron's nose or to Christina Aguilera's nose, her nose is still not to be called wide. If her nose is broad, what's Beyonce's nose to be called? What Christina Milian's nose to be called?
Get a grip people, Miranda has a beautiful baby-like cute nose. It fits her perfectly well. It gives her face a distinct, soft look. I looooove her nose. It's unique, it's cute and it's one of the reasons why VS gave her the job.
I bet Emily has an ugly pointy narrow nose. Miranda's nose is prettier than hers. And I know that without even having seen her.
Many people still don't seem to get that there is not something like 'a perfect nose'. When will it finally get through to you that not everybody thinks the same way you do? When will it finally get through to you that a narrow nose is just as pretty or ugly as a wide nose?
Barbie is boring, people. Barbie is boring.
Gemma Ward is worlds most succesful model at the moment. Look at her nose >>>http://i1.tinypic.com/nqqkp5.jpg<<< , it's not as narrow as Lily Cole's, but she's still more succesful than Lily Cole. She has an exotic, asian like nose and I think it's beautiful. It gives her that babyface, just like it does Miranda. It's just the perfect, moderate nose.
You cannot trust the measurements given by the models/Playboy. It's a well known fact they falsify those measurements for the magazine readers. The measurements used by this study were most likely taken from the magazine and model sites.
I agree on the haircut part... That style isn't doing anything for her. If you were to give her a longer hairstyle and compare her picture next to one that was photoshopped of her with a stronger jawline with the same ordinary style, you'd see that the softer look would more than likely be better.
Awesome!
I have actually done extensive research on belly button preferences and my findings are similar, BUT there is a strong correlation between the shape of one's own umbilicus and the favored shape. this of course does not apply to those with distorted belly buttons who are obviously among the patients seeking reconstructive surgery. i don't have access to the papers but i suppose they did not factor in this correlation?
it explains why the most prevalent form is also the most favored and why women prefer the vertical shape.
Honestly, is this satirical?
Never mind the target audience you propose (LOL), noone who ever wants to be taken seriously is going to want to publish their works in that.
Props on the article/author name combos there, very creative.
I wonder if the same conclusion would be for warmer climes such as Brazil or
Florida(where I live). Men and women enjoy the warm/hot climate year-round,
and I doubt little that wearing a little extra clothing would make either sex more
desireable. Often, even the patio designs plan is annoying.
If you see something continuously for a month, you become desensitized, right?- it's quite obvious, really.
For anyone who reckons 'beauty is in the eye of the beholder' then explain this: David Beckham and Wayne Rooney, both fit world-class athetes, yet all women are agreeing that David Beckham is good-looking yet at the same all agreeing that Wayne Rooney is not particularly good-looking. This shows they are all agreeing on the same thing which contradicts the idea that 'beauty is in the eye of the beholder'.
Physical Attractiveness is both equally important for men and women, the idea that it is only important for women to be good looking is out of date and incorrect. In bird species, it is actually more important for the male to be attractive.
All this largely refers to the physique/morphology of the body (masculine or feminine) and NOT facial attractiveness. The morphology of the body is a direct primary result of androgen:estrogen ratios, HOWEVER, unlike the body, steroids do not exert much influence on how facially attractive a face is, hence why you can get women/men who appear facially attractive despite being masculinsed or femininised.
A good example of this is illustrated at the beautycheck.de website, where on the page entitled 'Social Perception', there are three pictures classed as 'unattractive female faces'. They are feminine and not masculinised, yet do appear to be particulary attractive.
"Men tend to want their partner's physical beauty to last, which means they will select a woman with a thinner frame and lower body fat (signs of a healthy metabolism), smaller breasts and average hips (these would grow and widen after childbirth to a more voluptuous form as she became a mother)"
You're simply wrong here. This sounds to me more of how a women who isn't really blessed with a feminine figure is going to think and say. No heterosexual man is going to go out of his way to want to find a woman with a thinner than usual frame, smaller breasts and smaller hips than they would desire. Your reasons for this are wrong. Women with very feminine and curvy bodies have no more chance of getting "fat" than any other women out there. This reasoning usually comes from the fashion fanatics who want to defend their androgynous idols so I am surprised seeing as how you started expressing yourself as if you are not of that mentality.
Curvy women who become overweight become overweight like any other man or woman. They eat too much and don't try to take care of it. Thinking that a curvy woman's body is not going to last is to have a fantastical mindset of what weight gain is and believe that no one has control of it if you have a certain body type. That is just wrong.
Finally, your use of the word "voluptuous" is used incorrectly. Victoria Secret models, or any models working in fashion, are not voluptuous in any way.
Yes, the women above are attractive. Yes, they would be MORE attractive if they were more feminine. But, the point is that a more masculine woman CAN be more attractive than a feminine woman if she has better bone structure. What makes Megan Fox so attractive and sexy? Her bone structure, not her femininity. The same goes for the other two. Let's look at Charlize theron. So in conclusion, yes if Megan Fox actually had an hourglass figure, and more rounded angles she would probably look better. I just think it comes down to a lot more than just femininity, although femininity combined with good bone structure is what truly makes a woman beautiful. Although the most attractive thing to any male is a woman who takes good care of herself and takes good care of him.
After tons of research, some of which is actually quite interesting and accurate, Erik comes to the conclusion that the following women still pass as feminine and are therefore attractive even though they contradict literally everything he presents as scientific evidence supporting the idea that femininity is the largest contributor to an attractive woman and the desire of any lifetime exclusive heterosexual male.
Angelina Jolie:
Erik has mentioned that although she has sharp facial angles she is feminine anyways. I don't know about that Erik...
Ok, to be fair YOUNG Angelina Jolie:
Megan Fox:
Keeley Hazel:
Idk. I am just confused. Erik doesn't seem to actually like feminine women it seems...
Billy: I am not missing the heart of your argument. If you believe that people are under no obligation to celebrate, accept or even tolerate homosexual marriage, then neither are those the people elect to represent them in government.
The state has no basis to ban same-sex marriage? The issue is not a state ban because we are coming from a scenario where marriage is clearly implicitly defined as a special union between a man and a woman. Some activists want this definition altered; this is not an example of removing a ban but of changing what marriage means. Some legislatures have formally defined marriage as between a man and a woman only in response to homosexual activists getting judges to rule in favor of same-sex marriage, but this is an example of explicitly describing an institution whose long-standing meaning has been implicitly clear all along. Secondly, in a democracy, the state represents the people and has no business to extend marriage to homosexual couples if most people don’t find homosexual relationships on par with their own. In a constitutional republic such as the U.S., there is no argument in the constitution mandating same-sex marriage and hence the state is under no obligation to approve of it, and since the officials are democratically elected they are bound to comply with the wishes of the majority as long as these wishes do not defy the constitution.
So incest is an action but not a protected group, and homosexuality is an identity and a recognized social minority? There are people indulging in homosexual acts who do not identify as homosexual or bisexual. There are social constructionist who believe that homosexuality as in homosexual identity is a 19th century social construction, and they explain previous documentation of homosexual behaviors as action, not identity and not a recognized social minority. The social constructionists are, of course, wrong since there are documented examples of people having identified with their homosexual orientation without encountering the concept of homosexuality (i.e., coming across homosexuals as a recognized taxon or social minority among their peers or in society). Similarly, just because there is no political movement of incest-o-sexuals, it does not mean that there are no incestuous couples out there for whom their incestuous orientation is a major aspect of their identity.
Yes people who wish to commit incest can marry a non-relative but so can homosexuals marry someone of the opposite sex. But those in incestuous love will no more derive marital gratification from marrying someone other than they love than homosexuals will by marrying someone of the opposite sex. In any case my bringing incest into the picture was never meant to be an analogy but was simply to show the absurdity of your consenting adults argument.
Your response to Emily is an egregious straw man. Emily never indulged in a slippery slope argument. Her argument was that there is no entitlement to marry someone you love. In addition, a slippery slope argument is not necessarily a fallacy because there are plenty of scenarios where some changes lead to others.
Regarding haute couture being the standard, the standard that matters with respect to major influence is the ultimate reference clothing standard in social settings (doesn’t include lingerie or swimsuits), and the designers who come up with these clothes will be the trendsetters and those who dictate the norms of the fashion world. Haute couture is the ultimate in clothes for social settings, and yes it is far better than ready to wear clothing because of better materials and custom fitting for the buyers.
There is no contradiction in my saying that most people prefer above average femininity and normal body weights in women and that the thin fashion standard has a negative effect on many women. Controlled laboratory studies that document most people’s preferences shown them a range of physiques; from feminine to masculine and from thin to obese. But when it comes to top models, people are not shown this range. Some people are bound to come to the conclusion that high-fashion model looks must be considered highly desirable by most people or at least those that matter or else these models wouldn’t get to be in their positions, and some would undoubtedly try to acquire such looks even though they, at first, couldn’t understand why people would prefer these looks. Only people with a strong aesthetic sense shared with the majority of humans will immediately reject the notion that there is something desirable about the looks promoted by the high-fashion. People with a weaker aesthetic sense but intrinsic preferences shared with the majority will need to be exposed to the kind of contrast one would encounter in controlled laboratory studies to realize that their own preferences are clearly distinct from the fashion industry’s and realize that this is also true of the majority of people when they are presented with the evidence. One of the goals of this site is to present this contrast to the public though much remains to be done, especially since nudity has to be avoided to make a mainstream presentation, and explain what most people find optimally attractive in women. You will see a mainstream version of this site at some point.
I have not disregarded your primary point about marriage. Today’s justifications about marriage benefits involving issues such as municipal land use and taxes would not apply in the past, but the root reason for the institution of marriage and its attendant celebration of the marriage ceremony and marriage benefits stems from an essential service rendered to society by heterosexual couples, something that has remained unchanged throughout the history of humanity. Homosexual couples don’t render this service to society and there is no reason to assign the same benefits package to homosexual couples as heterosexual couples or to consider homosexual and heterosexual relationships as legally equivalent.
I didn’t say anything about allowing for civil arrangements between homosexual couples. Homosexual couples have recourse to contracts, deeds and trusts even if they don’t have the options of same-sex civil unions or same-sex marriages.
Yes, separate is not equal but equality cannot be demanded when the behaviors and consequences are not equal.
You have presented opposition to same-sex marriage as an example of discrimination based on personal tastes and beliefs, but it is the homosexuals who need to come up with reasons why their relationships should be treated like heterosexual relationships, failing which – and they have failed – they have no basis for making a discrimination claim.
"Hmm," has it ever occurred to you that your strict, high and mighty tastes in "women" are conditioned by the media? How dare you critize a beautiful, natural woman like camille. HOW DARE YOU. You are clearly a dick. It's little wonder you didn't leave your name because if you did I don't think you would ever find any place to put said dick, ever again. Have fun jerking off to porn, idiot.
Are u stupid man ? Feminists cater to all the manliness that you are against, independence, courage, strong libido promiscuity and god knows what, it's a matter of time for them to cater for beards and mustaches
I do not believe there is a reason to believe that women place lower importance on attractiveness, if anything it is the opposite. Since we are mammals we must believe we act accordingly unless there is a strong reason to the contrary. I believe it is culture that conditioned women to underestimate the importance of male attractiveness.
My reasons for such belief are:
1- From what I observe the threshold of attractiveness for women is higher than that for men. Many women (heterosexual women)I know stated that the percentage of beautiful women is much more than that of men.
2- Many men are attracted to the plain looking kind of girl (girl next-door beauty) while most women are only attracted to the exotic model quality male only.
3- There is a research that I once read that concluded that there is a higher correlation between the offspring's attractiveness and father's than if is for the mother's attractiveness. Since it is logical to assume that the direction is to inherit the better qualities than the worse, and the father's attractiveness is inherited instead of the mother's, means the father was the more attractive mate since note long ago (at least not long enough to change that mechanism).
The cause of female mate choice reprioritization is that male's competition on females almost immediately creates chaos and aggression, manifestations that seriously wreck organized sociesites. The replacement of weaker less organized of unorganized societies by more adequate societies came with the accompanying system of mate choice. So it's all been only civilization old or a bit older.
that is stupid, you should at least cover the faces to have a meaningful comparison, a face interfers so much with attractiveness that renders the body insignificant, and all that subconsciously.
You are missing the heart of my argument. I do not believe people opposed to homosexual marriage for whatever reason are obligated to celebrate, accept, or even tolerate it. I believe that the state has no basis to ban it. The difference between incest and homosexuality is clearly defined above, but I will do so again briefly. Incest is an action and not a protected group. Homosexuality is an identity and a recognized social minority. Homosexuals are left with no other avenue for a happy marriage if gay marriage is banned. People who would like to commit incest can still find marital gratification elsewhere. As for the specific sterile brother/sister scenario you presented above. I admit that it is an interesting thought exercise, but it is also a hypothetical that does not present an analogy to same-sex marriage.
I mentioned the marriage of first cousins because most people would also find that objectionable, but it does not disallow their marriage in many instances, even if they are socially ostracized. First cousins in the U.S. and Western Europe were commonly married until the end of the nineteenth-century whether you believe so or not. In some cases, it was because of geographical isolation, but more often than not it had to do with maintaining the possession of an estate within a family line or the maintenance of nobility.
My response to Emily is not a straw man at all. Her argument is that their is a limit to the entitlement to marriage. If we allow the limit to be moved a little further, we will have to allow it to move even more and so on and so on. She has made a slippery slope argument. I have simply pointed out that moving the limit to include homosexuals is in no way caprious or arbitrary and in no way implies that the limit would eventually move to include bestial or pedophile unions.
Victoria Secret is not haute couture. Neither is the SI Swimsuit Issue or the Miss USA pageant. Haute couture is not the standard. If it were, it wouldn't be haute couture. Haute couture is fashion as art and often avant garde. It is meant to challenge the standard, not represent it. The designers I mentioned may draw ideas from haute couture, but they dull those ideas down so they can have mass appeal. Let me emphasize the "mass" of "mass appeal", meaning the majority of people not only cannot afford haute couture, but does not find it fitting for their wardrobe.
If on the other hand, you meant luxury fashion, which essentially means expensive clothing, like Gucci or Versace, I see little difference in the clothing they design than that by more mainstream designers except the price tag.
However, I know that you are less concerned with the aesthetics of the clothing than you are with the aesthetics of the models. I agree that the standard for beauty set by fashion models is destructive to the self-image of women, but I'm surprised to hear you make this argument. Here is where the circularity comes into effect. If women, like men, judge feminine beauty to be curvier and at a more normal body fat percentage than the typical fashion model, why would they be trying to look like fashion models? Can you explain this contradiction in your argument, or at least, stop ignoring the question in your responses to me? I'll state it again as directly as possible. If men and women are genetically predisposed to prefer a normal body fat percentage and a "feminine" face, how could homosexual fashion designers skew their tastes otherwise? Or, if homosexual fashion designers have skewed the ideal self-image of women, how could it be genetically predetermined? After you answer these questions we can address the issue of the outlet for mainstream feminine beauty.
As for marriage, you have disregarded my primary point. Married couples receive a tax break because as a couple, they consume less municipal, state, and federal services. That is why it is a desirable institution from the perspective of the government and why they promote it. It has nothing to do with children. The tax breaks you get for having children are related to the extra financial demand of raising children and the desire of the state that parents be equipped to meet it. As far as antiquity goes, there were no tax benefits for anything period. Unless of course, you were the one collecting them.
I'm glad to hear you allow for civil arrangements between homosexual couples. I think this is a good option presently as long as it offers commensurate benefits and legal status analogous to marriage. However, separate is not equal and thus I agree with homosexual activists who argue that for the sake of equality, they must be allowed to marry.
Whether you have made a religious argument against same-sex marriage or not, this is the primary mode of opposition, as evidenced by Emily in her posts, not to mention the numerous arguments espoused during the Prop 8 debate. Separation of church and state and the rights of the minority against the tyranny of the majority has everything to do with it, even if you can't see why.
Don't celebrate it and don't accept it. That is your right, and I would fight as vehemently to make sure your rights are not impeded upon as I do to support the cessation of discrimination against homosexuals. Make no mistake, I do not seek to silence or label you for your personal tastes and beliefs (even if I allowed my passions to get the best of me in the past, which I apologized for above). I simply want to point out that you should not be allowed to discriminate against others because of your personal tastes and beliefs.
Billy: Your description of Emily’s argument is an extreme straw man. Emily said, “Gays are not entitled to marry who they love. Then I also want to be able to marry who I love - whether it be a cat, a bird, a child, a Jew etc.” She was pointing out the fallacy of the argument that love entitles one to marry the beloved. You described this as equating homosexuals to sexual predators, which isn’t implied at all.
The gold standard or the most coveted of fashion world products is haute couture or high fashion, something meant for the elite. You are naming successful mass marketing fashion designers such as Ralph Lauren, Calvin Klein and Tommy Hilfiger, but they don’t cater to the rich. Even low class people can afford their clothes with not much money to save. Look at the big names in high fashion and you will see that homosexuals dominate and they are the ones who set the standards. Besides, there is no way that Calvin Klein is exclusively heterosexual.
Regarding the designers turning on or off the consumers, the main issue is what they do with respect to their products. They are turning on the consumers with their merchandize, just not with their models, and since they have virtually no competition, they can get away with their choice of models.
Why does the issue of gay fashion designers setting the model standards matter to me? Their choices are not just limited to high-fashion models, but they have brought lingerie models and beauty pageant contestants more in line with their tastes. There is no mainstream outlet for feminine beauty appreciation. There are also other issues such as the negative health behaviors resulting from many girls and women trying to acquire the thinness of high-fashion models. Belief in such impacts does not contradict my belief in homosexuals being born that way.
Your belief that the designers select their models to cater to the current aesthetic tastes of the consumers is abundantly falsified by a great deal of studies showing the general public strongly preferring above average femininity and normal body weight in women; these studies are described all over this site.
Again, I have made no circular arguments. If I decided on a conclusion beforehand and then went about finding evidence for it, then it could be that by chance, luck or guesswork I arrived at the correct conclusion and then found evidence for it. So accusing me of doing this does not help your argument. You have to show why the conclusion doesn’t follow from the evidence or that there is an alternative conclusion that explains the data in a more comprehensive and better manner.
There is nothing fallacious about my argument about the social goods associated with opposite-sex marriage being the reason for marriage benefits. Marriage between a man and a woman has long been recognized as a desirable institution that should be promoted. The current legal benefits associated with it do not stem from overall consumption of land and utilities but are extensions of legal benefits and responsibilities associated with the institution of marriage in previous generations … going back to antiquity. What lies at the root of the benefits-responsibilities package? I already mentioned it; it is the societal value of raising children conceived in a loving relationship by parents in a long-term-stable relationship, an issue that is not applicable to homosexual couples.
Yes, opposition to same-sex marriage comes from many religious quarters, but opposite-sex marriage is not a religious institution in many nations even though religions concern themselves with marriage. There are plenty of religious arguments against same-sex marriage but a few in favor also. And I didn’t give you religious arguments against same-sex marriage. So opposing same-sex marriage has nothing to do with separation of Church and State or the tyranny of the majority in Western nations. In the U.S. and many other nations, most people don’t have a problem with homosexuals cohabiting and some sort of legal recognition of same-sex relationship, but homosexuals are not justified in having heterosexuals accept homosexual relationships as equivalent to heterosexual relationships and can’t describe this as some sort of tyranny. People are under no obligation to consider sexual relationships they find alien and disgusting equivalent to their own sexual relationships.
Regarding incest, the example I gave you was a brother and sister (immediate relative), not first cousins. My example makes it clear that the consenting adults argument is useless. In any case, I don’t think that first cousin marriages have been very common in the U.S. or Western Europe until the 19th century. Regarding prosecution of incest, what would happen when people find out that a consenting adult couple is indulging in brother-sister or mother-son or father-daughter incest? Most people will be disgusted and the couple in question can expect ostracism at the very least if not legal prosecution, i.e., some type of persecution.
Disallowing same-sex marriage does not violate the inalienable right to the pursuit of happiness for homosexuals because they are free to cohabit, maintain a relationship with mutually agreed upon terms of responsibilities and obligations, and take advantage of legal tools such as contracts, deeds and trusts to assign their partners various rights and benefits. Aside from this, if it makes homosexuals unhappy that heterosexuals don’t find homosexuals relationships equivalent to heterosexual ones, so be it because, again, people are under no obligation to find disgusting behaviors socially acceptable and assign the practitioners the same benefits package they would give themselves. The institution of marriage is strongly associated with what most people consider socially acceptable and desirable. Homosexual couples have no claim to belong to this institution because most people find homosexual behavior disgusting.
Again, impeding the rights of others is a non issue. Homosexuals don’t have to harm heterosexuals in order to be denied same-sex marriage; they just have to have no reasons to belong to the institution of marriage.
Emily's post on 6/6/2009 compared homosexuality to bestiality and pedophilia. An argument that we do not allow legal unions between humans and animals or humans and children is no argument against a marriage between same sex partners because they are not analogous situations for the reasons I listed above, and yes, it is offensive, not because I am looking for a reason to be offended, because it equates homosexuals to sexual predators.
Even if you can verify that homosexual men dominate the top of the fashion industry, which I do not believe you can considering names like Ralph Lauren, Calvin Klein, Tommy Hilfiger, Donna Karen, Anne Klein, and so on and so on (and yes I am aware of your diatribe on the male names I have listed and it doesn't hold water. Just like the males in the study you list, at least 2 of the 3 males listed above claim that they are completely straight and the other one has been a little ambiguous on the issue), you still cannot verify that homosexual male taste dominates the fashion industry. You have assumed that homosexual men will choose to represent their own tastes in this industry because they can (I will concede for the sake of argument that you have not claimed they push their taste intentionally), but as I have demonstrated, this is your assumption and not a very good one at that. It would be more logical to assume that if you turn off your consumers, your industry will fail. We have not observed this, so it is likely that the designers are doing something right and turning on their consumers (both male and female). Could I be wrong? Certainly, but then again so could you. My point is that you have not proved anything. And besides, if consumers are simply purchasing the items despite their objections to the models, who cares? In that case, their tastes are not having a social impact. 80% of men are still heterosexual, they are not being influenced by homosexual designers, and they are not being brainwashed by androgynous models paraded in front of them, so why does it matter so much to you? Obviously, you do believe that their is a social impact, but your other arguments contradict this belief. You believe that male sexual preferences are biologically determined (like the hip-to-waist ratio, jaw line, length of face, etc.) and stable, and you believe that 80% of the male population are lifetime exclusive heterosexuals. So who cares about an ineffectual aesthetic movement? I on the other hand believe that the fashion industry selects their models to respond to the current aesthetic tastes and trends, and their success demonstrates their efficacy. That's an inductive argument, one that starts with what is observable and moves to a conclusion. Yours is tautological. You have a conclusion in mind, and you select what to observe in order to "prove" it.
As for your argument about the social good of heterosexual unions being the reason for benefits. Completely fallacious. Married couples receive a whole additional set of benefits for having children. They receive benefits for marriage because they have created a legally unified household, and therefore, their overall consumption of land, utilities, and most importantly, municipal, state, and federal services has decreased. The same is true of homosexual cohabitation, but they receive no benefits. The reason gay marriage is not allowed is not because they cannot have children, it is because of a religious moral order that finds it objectionable. I believe you are free to find it objectionable, but I also believe that in the U.S. the church and state are separate and the tyranny of the majority shall not be allowed to impede the rights of the minority.
As for the incestuous but sterile couple, that is another issue all together. I admit, I do not like the idea, but up until the end of the nineteenth century, marriages between first cousins were very common in Western Europe and the U.S., and as the following article demonstrates (http://archives.cnn.com/2002/LAW/04/columns/fl.grossman.incest.04.09/) this is not as certain an issue today as you seem to think. Furthermore, incestuous marriages are not prosecuted, at least not in the majority of states, the marriage is just null, and incestuous sexual activity is targeted to very specific instances and treated very differently in each state. This is more of a thought exercise though, because incest is an action not an identity and incestuous but sterile couples are not a recognized social group. People can be prevented from engaging in incest without being prevented from any couplings whatsoever. Homosexuals are not told that they simply are not allowed to marry this particular person, but that they are not allow to marry anyone who is of the same sex. For them, that is everyone they could marry happily, and this violates their inalienable right to the pursuit of happiness. By the way, the Declaration of Independence does not say you have an inalienable right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness as long as you are performing a social good. You are simply restricted from impeding the rights of others, and homosexual marriage would not impede the rights of anyone else.
I see your point about giselle and other VS models being overly masculine and unsuitable for lingerie modeling but I don't understand why you are comparing them to models that are even less attractive and more average looking? Shouldn't you be comparing them to women that heterosexual men are KNOWN to find attractive such as porn stars rather than trying to tell others what they SHOULD find attractive based on your own opinions? The majority of the women you compare VS models to do not look like they know what exercise or a healthy diet is, and many are overweight. They are also very trashy, and have no style or class. My friends and my boyfriend agree. We are European so our opinion of what is attractive may be different than the opinions of Americans. Is it just an American thing where the majority of people are generally overweight/ inactive so they prefer others of the same physique as well? You claim that the reason why the VS girls are lingerie models is because homosexuals run the fashion business, however, those involved in manufacturing adult movies are not gay and have to know what men want in order to sell their videos. For example Digital playground manufactures adult movies for lifetime heterosexual men and their adult film stars do not look anything like Grace or many of the other models you feature above. Lets take a look at the Pirates XXX cast: Jesse Jane, Carmen Luvana, Devon. All these women are very feminine, but are also toned and are very fit at the same time (rather than being flabby and overweight like your choice of models such as Grace). Porn stars are not my preference at all, but i can see how men would find them attractive. On the other hand, i cannot understand how men would find women like grace attractive whatsoever.
Most of you are sooo pathetic. I can't believe there are still people on here that like thin, narrow, witch-like noses. Don't be so narrow minded, litterally. I mean if Miranda has a broad nose, what to think of an average afro american woman? Miranda's nose might be slightly wider in comparison to Charlize Theron's nose or to Christina Aguilera's nose, her nose is still not to be called wide. If her nose is broad, what's Beyonce's nose to be called? What Christina Milian's nose to be called?
Get a grip people, Miranda has a beautiful baby-like cute nose. It fits her perfectly well. It gives her face a distinct, soft look. I looooove her nose. It's unique, it's cute and it's one of the reasons why VS gave her the job.
I bet Emily has an ugly pointy narrow nose. Miranda's nose is prettier than hers. And I know that without even having seen her.
Many people still don't seem to get that there is not something like 'a perfect nose'. When will it finally get through to you that not everybody thinks the same way you do? When will it finally get through to you that a narrow nose is just as pretty or ugly as a wide nose?
Barbie is boring, people. Barbie is boring.
Gemma Ward is worlds most succesful model at the moment. Look at her nose >>>http://i1.tinypic.com/nqqkp5.jpg<<< , it's not as narrow as Lily Cole's, but she's still more succesful than Lily Cole. She has an exotic, asian like nose and I think it's beautiful. It gives her that babyface, just like it does Miranda. It's just the perfect, moderate nose.
You cannot trust the measurements given by the models/Playboy. It's a well known fact they falsify those measurements for the magazine readers. The measurements used by this study were most likely taken from the magazine and model sites.
I agree on the haircut part... That style isn't doing anything for her. If you were to give her a longer hairstyle and compare her picture next to one that was photoshopped of her with a stronger jawline with the same ordinary style, you'd see that the softer look would more than likely be better.
Awesome!
I have actually done extensive research on belly button preferences and my findings are similar, BUT there is a strong correlation between the shape of one's own umbilicus and the favored shape. this of course does not apply to those with distorted belly buttons who are obviously among the patients seeking reconstructive surgery. i don't have access to the papers but i suppose they did not factor in this correlation?
it explains why the most prevalent form is also the most favored and why women prefer the vertical shape.
Honestly, is this satirical?
Never mind the target audience you propose (LOL), noone who ever wants to be taken seriously is going to want to publish their works in that.
Props on the article/author name combos there, very creative.
Mixing race tends to increase facial attractiveness because increases the level of heterozygosity in the gemone.
I wonder if the same conclusion would be for warmer climes such as Brazil or
Florida(where I live). Men and women enjoy the warm/hot climate year-round,
and I doubt little that wearing a little extra clothing would make either sex more
desireable. Often, even the patio designs plan is annoying.
If you see something continuously for a month, you become desensitized, right?- it's quite obvious, really.
For anyone who reckons 'beauty is in the eye of the beholder' then explain this: David Beckham and Wayne Rooney, both fit world-class athetes, yet all women are agreeing that David Beckham is good-looking yet at the same all agreeing that Wayne Rooney is not particularly good-looking. This shows they are all agreeing on the same thing which contradicts the idea that 'beauty is in the eye of the beholder'.
What you mean by 'child features'? thats just lack of prominent zygomatic bones, especially the zygomatic process.
Physical Attractiveness is both equally important for men and women, the idea that it is only important for women to be good looking is out of date and incorrect. In bird species, it is actually more important for the male to be attractive.
yet do NOT appear to be particulary attractive.
All this largely refers to the physique/morphology of the body (masculine or feminine) and NOT facial attractiveness. The morphology of the body is a direct primary result of androgen:estrogen ratios, HOWEVER, unlike the body, steroids do not exert much influence on how facially attractive a face is, hence why you can get women/men who appear facially attractive despite being masculinsed or femininised.
A good example of this is illustrated at the beautycheck.de website, where on the page entitled 'Social Perception', there are three pictures classed as 'unattractive female faces'. They are feminine and not masculinised, yet do appear to be particulary attractive.
Link:
http://www.uniregensburg.de/Fakultaeten/phil_Fak_II/Psychologie/Psy_II/beautycheck/english/sozialewahrnehmung/sozialewahrnehmung.htm
Several of your points are inaccurate:
"Men tend to want their partner's physical beauty to last, which means they will select a woman with a thinner frame and lower body fat (signs of a healthy metabolism), smaller breasts and average hips (these would grow and widen after childbirth to a more voluptuous form as she became a mother)"
You're simply wrong here. This sounds to me more of how a women who isn't really blessed with a feminine figure is going to think and say. No heterosexual man is going to go out of his way to want to find a woman with a thinner than usual frame, smaller breasts and smaller hips than they would desire. Your reasons for this are wrong. Women with very feminine and curvy bodies have no more chance of getting "fat" than any other women out there. This reasoning usually comes from the fashion fanatics who want to defend their androgynous idols so I am surprised seeing as how you started expressing yourself as if you are not of that mentality.
Curvy women who become overweight become overweight like any other man or woman. They eat too much and don't try to take care of it. Thinking that a curvy woman's body is not going to last is to have a fantastical mindset of what weight gain is and believe that no one has control of it if you have a certain body type. That is just wrong.
Finally, your use of the word "voluptuous" is used incorrectly. Victoria Secret models, or any models working in fashion, are not voluptuous in any way.
Yes, the women above are attractive. Yes, they would be MORE attractive if they were more feminine. But, the point is that a more masculine woman CAN be more attractive than a feminine woman if she has better bone structure. What makes Megan Fox so attractive and sexy? Her bone structure, not her femininity. The same goes for the other two. Let's look at Charlize theron. So in conclusion, yes if Megan Fox actually had an hourglass figure, and more rounded angles she would probably look better. I just think it comes down to a lot more than just femininity, although femininity combined with good bone structure is what truly makes a woman beautiful. Although the most attractive thing to any male is a woman who takes good care of herself and takes good care of him.
After tons of research, some of which is actually quite interesting and accurate, Erik comes to the conclusion that the following women still pass as feminine and are therefore attractive even though they contradict literally everything he presents as scientific evidence supporting the idea that femininity is the largest contributor to an attractive woman and the desire of any lifetime exclusive heterosexual male.
Angelina Jolie:
Erik has mentioned that although she has sharp facial angles she is feminine anyways. I don't know about that Erik...
Ok, to be fair YOUNG Angelina Jolie:
Megan Fox:
Keeley Hazel:
Idk. I am just confused. Erik doesn't seem to actually like feminine women it seems...
Billy: I am not missing the heart of your argument. If you believe that people are under no obligation to celebrate, accept or even tolerate homosexual marriage, then neither are those the people elect to represent them in government.
The state has no basis to ban same-sex marriage? The issue is not a state ban because we are coming from a scenario where marriage is clearly implicitly defined as a special union between a man and a woman. Some activists want this definition altered; this is not an example of removing a ban but of changing what marriage means. Some legislatures have formally defined marriage as between a man and a woman only in response to homosexual activists getting judges to rule in favor of same-sex marriage, but this is an example of explicitly describing an institution whose long-standing meaning has been implicitly clear all along. Secondly, in a democracy, the state represents the people and has no business to extend marriage to homosexual couples if most people don’t find homosexual relationships on par with their own. In a constitutional republic such as the U.S., there is no argument in the constitution mandating same-sex marriage and hence the state is under no obligation to approve of it, and since the officials are democratically elected they are bound to comply with the wishes of the majority as long as these wishes do not defy the constitution.
So incest is an action but not a protected group, and homosexuality is an identity and a recognized social minority? There are people indulging in homosexual acts who do not identify as homosexual or bisexual. There are social constructionist who believe that homosexuality as in homosexual identity is a 19th century social construction, and they explain previous documentation of homosexual behaviors as action, not identity and not a recognized social minority. The social constructionists are, of course, wrong since there are documented examples of people having identified with their homosexual orientation without encountering the concept of homosexuality (i.e., coming across homosexuals as a recognized taxon or social minority among their peers or in society). Similarly, just because there is no political movement of incest-o-sexuals, it does not mean that there are no incestuous couples out there for whom their incestuous orientation is a major aspect of their identity.
Yes people who wish to commit incest can marry a non-relative but so can homosexuals marry someone of the opposite sex. But those in incestuous love will no more derive marital gratification from marrying someone other than they love than homosexuals will by marrying someone of the opposite sex. In any case my bringing incest into the picture was never meant to be an analogy but was simply to show the absurdity of your consenting adults argument.
Your response to Emily is an egregious straw man. Emily never indulged in a slippery slope argument. Her argument was that there is no entitlement to marry someone you love. In addition, a slippery slope argument is not necessarily a fallacy because there are plenty of scenarios where some changes lead to others.
Regarding haute couture being the standard, the standard that matters with respect to major influence is the ultimate reference clothing standard in social settings (doesn’t include lingerie or swimsuits), and the designers who come up with these clothes will be the trendsetters and those who dictate the norms of the fashion world. Haute couture is the ultimate in clothes for social settings, and yes it is far better than ready to wear clothing because of better materials and custom fitting for the buyers.
There is no contradiction in my saying that most people prefer above average femininity and normal body weights in women and that the thin fashion standard has a negative effect on many women. Controlled laboratory studies that document most people’s preferences shown them a range of physiques; from feminine to masculine and from thin to obese. But when it comes to top models, people are not shown this range. Some people are bound to come to the conclusion that high-fashion model looks must be considered highly desirable by most people or at least those that matter or else these models wouldn’t get to be in their positions, and some would undoubtedly try to acquire such looks even though they, at first, couldn’t understand why people would prefer these looks. Only people with a strong aesthetic sense shared with the majority of humans will immediately reject the notion that there is something desirable about the looks promoted by the high-fashion. People with a weaker aesthetic sense but intrinsic preferences shared with the majority will need to be exposed to the kind of contrast one would encounter in controlled laboratory studies to realize that their own preferences are clearly distinct from the fashion industry’s and realize that this is also true of the majority of people when they are presented with the evidence. One of the goals of this site is to present this contrast to the public though much remains to be done, especially since nudity has to be avoided to make a mainstream presentation, and explain what most people find optimally attractive in women. You will see a mainstream version of this site at some point.
I have not disregarded your primary point about marriage. Today’s justifications about marriage benefits involving issues such as municipal land use and taxes would not apply in the past, but the root reason for the institution of marriage and its attendant celebration of the marriage ceremony and marriage benefits stems from an essential service rendered to society by heterosexual couples, something that has remained unchanged throughout the history of humanity. Homosexual couples don’t render this service to society and there is no reason to assign the same benefits package to homosexual couples as heterosexual couples or to consider homosexual and heterosexual relationships as legally equivalent.
I didn’t say anything about allowing for civil arrangements between homosexual couples. Homosexual couples have recourse to contracts, deeds and trusts even if they don’t have the options of same-sex civil unions or same-sex marriages.
Yes, separate is not equal but equality cannot be demanded when the behaviors and consequences are not equal.
You have presented opposition to same-sex marriage as an example of discrimination based on personal tastes and beliefs, but it is the homosexuals who need to come up with reasons why their relationships should be treated like heterosexual relationships, failing which – and they have failed – they have no basis for making a discrimination claim.
"Hmm," has it ever occurred to you that your strict, high and mighty tastes in "women" are conditioned by the media? How dare you critize a beautiful, natural woman like camille. HOW DARE YOU. You are clearly a dick. It's little wonder you didn't leave your name because if you did I don't think you would ever find any place to put said dick, ever again. Have fun jerking off to porn, idiot.
Camille is a beaut. :)
Are u stupid man ? Feminists cater to all the manliness that you are against, independence, courage, strong libido promiscuity and god knows what, it's a matter of time for them to cater for beards and mustaches
I do not believe there is a reason to believe that women place lower importance on attractiveness, if anything it is the opposite. Since we are mammals we must believe we act accordingly unless there is a strong reason to the contrary. I believe it is culture that conditioned women to underestimate the importance of male attractiveness.
My reasons for such belief are:
1- From what I observe the threshold of attractiveness for women is higher than that for men. Many women (heterosexual women)I know stated that the percentage of beautiful women is much more than that of men.
2- Many men are attracted to the plain looking kind of girl (girl next-door beauty) while most women are only attracted to the exotic model quality male only.
3- There is a research that I once read that concluded that there is a higher correlation between the offspring's attractiveness and father's than if is for the mother's attractiveness. Since it is logical to assume that the direction is to inherit the better qualities than the worse, and the father's attractiveness is inherited instead of the mother's, means the father was the more attractive mate since note long ago (at least not long enough to change that mechanism).
The cause of female mate choice reprioritization is that male's competition on females almost immediately creates chaos and aggression, manifestations that seriously wreck organized sociesites. The replacement of weaker less organized of unorganized societies by more adequate societies came with the accompanying system of mate choice. So it's all been only civilization old or a bit older.
that is stupid, you should at least cover the faces to have a meaningful comparison, a face interfers so much with attractiveness that renders the body insignificant, and all that subconsciously.
Erik,
You are missing the heart of my argument. I do not believe people opposed to homosexual marriage for whatever reason are obligated to celebrate, accept, or even tolerate it. I believe that the state has no basis to ban it. The difference between incest and homosexuality is clearly defined above, but I will do so again briefly. Incest is an action and not a protected group. Homosexuality is an identity and a recognized social minority. Homosexuals are left with no other avenue for a happy marriage if gay marriage is banned. People who would like to commit incest can still find marital gratification elsewhere. As for the specific sterile brother/sister scenario you presented above. I admit that it is an interesting thought exercise, but it is also a hypothetical that does not present an analogy to same-sex marriage.
I mentioned the marriage of first cousins because most people would also find that objectionable, but it does not disallow their marriage in many instances, even if they are socially ostracized. First cousins in the U.S. and Western Europe were commonly married until the end of the nineteenth-century whether you believe so or not. In some cases, it was because of geographical isolation, but more often than not it had to do with maintaining the possession of an estate within a family line or the maintenance of nobility.
My response to Emily is not a straw man at all. Her argument is that their is a limit to the entitlement to marriage. If we allow the limit to be moved a little further, we will have to allow it to move even more and so on and so on. She has made a slippery slope argument. I have simply pointed out that moving the limit to include homosexuals is in no way caprious or arbitrary and in no way implies that the limit would eventually move to include bestial or pedophile unions.
Victoria Secret is not haute couture. Neither is the SI Swimsuit Issue or the Miss USA pageant. Haute couture is not the standard. If it were, it wouldn't be haute couture. Haute couture is fashion as art and often avant garde. It is meant to challenge the standard, not represent it. The designers I mentioned may draw ideas from haute couture, but they dull those ideas down so they can have mass appeal. Let me emphasize the "mass" of "mass appeal", meaning the majority of people not only cannot afford haute couture, but does not find it fitting for their wardrobe.
If on the other hand, you meant luxury fashion, which essentially means expensive clothing, like Gucci or Versace, I see little difference in the clothing they design than that by more mainstream designers except the price tag.
However, I know that you are less concerned with the aesthetics of the clothing than you are with the aesthetics of the models. I agree that the standard for beauty set by fashion models is destructive to the self-image of women, but I'm surprised to hear you make this argument. Here is where the circularity comes into effect. If women, like men, judge feminine beauty to be curvier and at a more normal body fat percentage than the typical fashion model, why would they be trying to look like fashion models? Can you explain this contradiction in your argument, or at least, stop ignoring the question in your responses to me? I'll state it again as directly as possible. If men and women are genetically predisposed to prefer a normal body fat percentage and a "feminine" face, how could homosexual fashion designers skew their tastes otherwise? Or, if homosexual fashion designers have skewed the ideal self-image of women, how could it be genetically predetermined? After you answer these questions we can address the issue of the outlet for mainstream feminine beauty.
As for marriage, you have disregarded my primary point. Married couples receive a tax break because as a couple, they consume less municipal, state, and federal services. That is why it is a desirable institution from the perspective of the government and why they promote it. It has nothing to do with children. The tax breaks you get for having children are related to the extra financial demand of raising children and the desire of the state that parents be equipped to meet it. As far as antiquity goes, there were no tax benefits for anything period. Unless of course, you were the one collecting them.
I'm glad to hear you allow for civil arrangements between homosexual couples. I think this is a good option presently as long as it offers commensurate benefits and legal status analogous to marriage. However, separate is not equal and thus I agree with homosexual activists who argue that for the sake of equality, they must be allowed to marry.
Whether you have made a religious argument against same-sex marriage or not, this is the primary mode of opposition, as evidenced by Emily in her posts, not to mention the numerous arguments espoused during the Prop 8 debate. Separation of church and state and the rights of the minority against the tyranny of the majority has everything to do with it, even if you can't see why.
Don't celebrate it and don't accept it. That is your right, and I would fight as vehemently to make sure your rights are not impeded upon as I do to support the cessation of discrimination against homosexuals. Make no mistake, I do not seek to silence or label you for your personal tastes and beliefs (even if I allowed my passions to get the best of me in the past, which I apologized for above). I simply want to point out that you should not be allowed to discriminate against others because of your personal tastes and beliefs.
Billy: Your description of Emily’s argument is an extreme straw man. Emily said, “Gays are not entitled to marry who they love. Then I also want to be able to marry who I love - whether it be a cat, a bird, a child, a Jew etc.” She was pointing out the fallacy of the argument that love entitles one to marry the beloved. You described this as equating homosexuals to sexual predators, which isn’t implied at all.
The gold standard or the most coveted of fashion world products is haute couture or high fashion, something meant for the elite. You are naming successful mass marketing fashion designers such as Ralph Lauren, Calvin Klein and Tommy Hilfiger, but they don’t cater to the rich. Even low class people can afford their clothes with not much money to save. Look at the big names in high fashion and you will see that homosexuals dominate and they are the ones who set the standards. Besides, there is no way that Calvin Klein is exclusively heterosexual.
Regarding the designers turning on or off the consumers, the main issue is what they do with respect to their products. They are turning on the consumers with their merchandize, just not with their models, and since they have virtually no competition, they can get away with their choice of models.
Why does the issue of gay fashion designers setting the model standards matter to me? Their choices are not just limited to high-fashion models, but they have brought lingerie models and beauty pageant contestants more in line with their tastes. There is no mainstream outlet for feminine beauty appreciation. There are also other issues such as the negative health behaviors resulting from many girls and women trying to acquire the thinness of high-fashion models. Belief in such impacts does not contradict my belief in homosexuals being born that way.
Your belief that the designers select their models to cater to the current aesthetic tastes of the consumers is abundantly falsified by a great deal of studies showing the general public strongly preferring above average femininity and normal body weight in women; these studies are described all over this site.
Again, I have made no circular arguments. If I decided on a conclusion beforehand and then went about finding evidence for it, then it could be that by chance, luck or guesswork I arrived at the correct conclusion and then found evidence for it. So accusing me of doing this does not help your argument. You have to show why the conclusion doesn’t follow from the evidence or that there is an alternative conclusion that explains the data in a more comprehensive and better manner.
There is nothing fallacious about my argument about the social goods associated with opposite-sex marriage being the reason for marriage benefits. Marriage between a man and a woman has long been recognized as a desirable institution that should be promoted. The current legal benefits associated with it do not stem from overall consumption of land and utilities but are extensions of legal benefits and responsibilities associated with the institution of marriage in previous generations … going back to antiquity. What lies at the root of the benefits-responsibilities package? I already mentioned it; it is the societal value of raising children conceived in a loving relationship by parents in a long-term-stable relationship, an issue that is not applicable to homosexual couples.
Yes, opposition to same-sex marriage comes from many religious quarters, but opposite-sex marriage is not a religious institution in many nations even though religions concern themselves with marriage. There are plenty of religious arguments against same-sex marriage but a few in favor also. And I didn’t give you religious arguments against same-sex marriage. So opposing same-sex marriage has nothing to do with separation of Church and State or the tyranny of the majority in Western nations. In the U.S. and many other nations, most people don’t have a problem with homosexuals cohabiting and some sort of legal recognition of same-sex relationship, but homosexuals are not justified in having heterosexuals accept homosexual relationships as equivalent to heterosexual relationships and can’t describe this as some sort of tyranny. People are under no obligation to consider sexual relationships they find alien and disgusting equivalent to their own sexual relationships.
Regarding incest, the example I gave you was a brother and sister (immediate relative), not first cousins. My example makes it clear that the consenting adults argument is useless. In any case, I don’t think that first cousin marriages have been very common in the U.S. or Western Europe until the 19th century. Regarding prosecution of incest, what would happen when people find out that a consenting adult couple is indulging in brother-sister or mother-son or father-daughter incest? Most people will be disgusted and the couple in question can expect ostracism at the very least if not legal prosecution, i.e., some type of persecution.
Disallowing same-sex marriage does not violate the inalienable right to the pursuit of happiness for homosexuals because they are free to cohabit, maintain a relationship with mutually agreed upon terms of responsibilities and obligations, and take advantage of legal tools such as contracts, deeds and trusts to assign their partners various rights and benefits. Aside from this, if it makes homosexuals unhappy that heterosexuals don’t find homosexuals relationships equivalent to heterosexual ones, so be it because, again, people are under no obligation to find disgusting behaviors socially acceptable and assign the practitioners the same benefits package they would give themselves. The institution of marriage is strongly associated with what most people consider socially acceptable and desirable. Homosexual couples have no claim to belong to this institution because most people find homosexual behavior disgusting.
Again, impeding the rights of others is a non issue. Homosexuals don’t have to harm heterosexuals in order to be denied same-sex marriage; they just have to have no reasons to belong to the institution of marriage.
Erik,
Emily's post on 6/6/2009 compared homosexuality to bestiality and pedophilia. An argument that we do not allow legal unions between humans and animals or humans and children is no argument against a marriage between same sex partners because they are not analogous situations for the reasons I listed above, and yes, it is offensive, not because I am looking for a reason to be offended, because it equates homosexuals to sexual predators.
Even if you can verify that homosexual men dominate the top of the fashion industry, which I do not believe you can considering names like Ralph Lauren, Calvin Klein, Tommy Hilfiger, Donna Karen, Anne Klein, and so on and so on (and yes I am aware of your diatribe on the male names I have listed and it doesn't hold water. Just like the males in the study you list, at least 2 of the 3 males listed above claim that they are completely straight and the other one has been a little ambiguous on the issue), you still cannot verify that homosexual male taste dominates the fashion industry. You have assumed that homosexual men will choose to represent their own tastes in this industry because they can (I will concede for the sake of argument that you have not claimed they push their taste intentionally), but as I have demonstrated, this is your assumption and not a very good one at that. It would be more logical to assume that if you turn off your consumers, your industry will fail. We have not observed this, so it is likely that the designers are doing something right and turning on their consumers (both male and female). Could I be wrong? Certainly, but then again so could you. My point is that you have not proved anything. And besides, if consumers are simply purchasing the items despite their objections to the models, who cares? In that case, their tastes are not having a social impact. 80% of men are still heterosexual, they are not being influenced by homosexual designers, and they are not being brainwashed by androgynous models paraded in front of them, so why does it matter so much to you? Obviously, you do believe that their is a social impact, but your other arguments contradict this belief. You believe that male sexual preferences are biologically determined (like the hip-to-waist ratio, jaw line, length of face, etc.) and stable, and you believe that 80% of the male population are lifetime exclusive heterosexuals. So who cares about an ineffectual aesthetic movement? I on the other hand believe that the fashion industry selects their models to respond to the current aesthetic tastes and trends, and their success demonstrates their efficacy. That's an inductive argument, one that starts with what is observable and moves to a conclusion. Yours is tautological. You have a conclusion in mind, and you select what to observe in order to "prove" it.
As for your argument about the social good of heterosexual unions being the reason for benefits. Completely fallacious. Married couples receive a whole additional set of benefits for having children. They receive benefits for marriage because they have created a legally unified household, and therefore, their overall consumption of land, utilities, and most importantly, municipal, state, and federal services has decreased. The same is true of homosexual cohabitation, but they receive no benefits. The reason gay marriage is not allowed is not because they cannot have children, it is because of a religious moral order that finds it objectionable. I believe you are free to find it objectionable, but I also believe that in the U.S. the church and state are separate and the tyranny of the majority shall not be allowed to impede the rights of the minority.
As for the incestuous but sterile couple, that is another issue all together. I admit, I do not like the idea, but up until the end of the nineteenth century, marriages between first cousins were very common in Western Europe and the U.S., and as the following article demonstrates (http://archives.cnn.com/2002/LAW/04/columns/fl.grossman.incest.04.09/) this is not as certain an issue today as you seem to think. Furthermore, incestuous marriages are not prosecuted, at least not in the majority of states, the marriage is just null, and incestuous sexual activity is targeted to very specific instances and treated very differently in each state. This is more of a thought exercise though, because incest is an action not an identity and incestuous but sterile couples are not a recognized social group. People can be prevented from engaging in incest without being prevented from any couplings whatsoever. Homosexuals are not told that they simply are not allowed to marry this particular person, but that they are not allow to marry anyone who is of the same sex. For them, that is everyone they could marry happily, and this violates their inalienable right to the pursuit of happiness. By the way, the Declaration of Independence does not say you have an inalienable right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness as long as you are performing a social good. You are simply restricted from impeding the rights of others, and homosexual marriage would not impede the rights of anyone else.
I see your point about giselle and other VS models being overly masculine and unsuitable for lingerie modeling but I don't understand why you are comparing them to models that are even less attractive and more average looking? Shouldn't you be comparing them to women that heterosexual men are KNOWN to find attractive such as porn stars rather than trying to tell others what they SHOULD find attractive based on your own opinions? The majority of the women you compare VS models to do not look like they know what exercise or a healthy diet is, and many are overweight. They are also very trashy, and have no style or class. My friends and my boyfriend agree. We are European so our opinion of what is attractive may be different than the opinions of Americans. Is it just an American thing where the majority of people are generally overweight/ inactive so they prefer others of the same physique as well? You claim that the reason why the VS girls are lingerie models is because homosexuals run the fashion business, however, those involved in manufacturing adult movies are not gay and have to know what men want in order to sell their videos. For example Digital playground manufactures adult movies for lifetime heterosexual men and their adult film stars do not look anything like Grace or many of the other models you feature above. Lets take a look at the Pirates XXX cast: Jesse Jane, Carmen Luvana, Devon. All these women are very feminine, but are also toned and are very fit at the same time (rather than being flabby and overweight like your choice of models such as Grace). Porn stars are not my preference at all, but i can see how men would find them attractive. On the other hand, i cannot understand how men would find women like grace attractive whatsoever.
Very interesting article.
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