That reminds me Erik- you mention how robustness shouldn't be confounded with feminization. I've always suspected this, but I've never fully noticed it until recently when you pointed it out. It comes back to that one white nationalist blog that prompted me to write to you- he made that mistake, which led him to dismiss nearly all non-white females as hideous. Still, why would you say that women in western countries with large jaws and cheekbones are so rare in fashion, while there's a strong mixture of it in east asian countries? Are their certain extremities on these features where they're considered unattractive outside femininity, or are these considered feminine no matter what, regardless of their size? And exactly what contributes to these facial features looking masculine if size plays no role? It's easy to see, but I'm not sure of the term.
Rob: Your comment is absurd and unsupported by evidence.
Quote:
> The fact is that men are most attracted to young women just after puberty. This has been pretty well documented and makes a lot of sense: young healthy women have the most remaining child bearing years, and therefore make excellent mates.
Do you seriously believe this? Heterosexual men are expected to optimally prefer females in the age range where the combination of fertility and fecundity is at its peak. For white women this would be about age 25 (peak fecundity around age 22 and peak fertility around age 28). The optimally preferred age range would obviously be in the early- to mid-twenties. Consider the following study, which showed pictures of males and females ranging from ages 15-60 to homosexuals and heterosexuals. The graph shows the comparison between homosexual and heterosexual men.
Quote:
The sexual appeal of faces (ages 18-60 years) of the desired sex to homosexual and heterosexual men. The mean ages (in years) of the participants were: homosexual men, 33.24 (SD (standard deviation) = 9.46, range = 18-50); heterosexual men, 33.14 (SD = 9.91, range = 18-52). The intensity of attraction is on a scale from 1-5, with higher values implying stronger attraction. Homosexual and heterosexual women did not differ with respect to partner age preference in this study.
Study: Silverthorne ZA, Quinsey VL. Sexual partner age preferences of homosexual and heterosexual men and women. Arch Sex Behav 2000;29(1):67-76.
The graph speaks for itself. Note that the data concerning ratings of individuals aged 15-18 are not reported. Why do you think the authors never reported this data?
Interesting ideas. But I really don't buy your general theme about gay men running the fashion business causing all the thin, young models. The fact is that men are most attracted to young women just after puberty. This has been pretty well documented and makes a lot of sense: young healthy women have the most remaining child bearing years, and therefore make excellent mates. It's basic biology--sex--and sex sells. Everyone, including women, recognize this on some level. So, for women to be young, thin and beautiful is a very desirable thing, at least as far as increasing the spread of ones genes to the next generation. It's all simple Darwinism, or more specifically, evolutionary psychology.
So, that's the basic science. And the basic truth, speaking as a heterosexual male, is that these young, thin models are outrageously attractive to men, even those with small breasts (most men I know prefer smaller breasts!). There is nothing more desirable to the average male, on pure physical terms. And for men, physical attraction matters a lot more than it does for women, again for basic biological reasons.
I know all this is truly shallow and in some ways sad, but it stems from millions of years of evolution. It's the way it is. We cannot mature as a species by denying our basic desires and where they come from. We might only mature by clearly articulating what is real and then move toward how to best cope with it in today's modern moral structure.
According to Erik ,gays shouldnt dominate the fashion industry , what if that desire becomes true?
Maybe theyll just dominate the "hair dressing kingdom" but then Erik wont probably like that , or their "aesthetic" for hair (since hes so worried about human aesthetics and their huge importance on our planet) hell claim their hair and make up ressemble aliens from outter space or scary vampires...and therefore gays could be sexually attracted to those horrible things, hell probably say THE gays want to fuck aliens and all sorts of strange creatures...(and problably will come with some extensive research about it ) and hell probably begin an all mighty crusade against that...saying that most humans both male and female (normal of course) are attracted to hair that ressembles the northern european texture and colors, and hell give us and "attractive hair section" and educate us all. TEHEEEE :D
You think the fashion industry can become straight all of a sudden? You think thousands and thousands of straight boys will tell their fathers they want to make dresses?
"The straights" make cars and bikes ,and using those busty ,hourglassy girls to climb on their hood and sell them...and "THE gays" dont give a damn! ;)
Erik,why do I think you just dont want "THE gays" to dominate anything at all? LOL
I do not find giselle beautiful.Shes attractive, but I dont get the fascination with her, in my opinion she is in fact too masculine for my aesthetic(not sexual)preference.
I do not like her face, nothing feminine about it ,and she has no waist.I do like that shes lean and lonf and obviously very firm ,but not her shape.
erik:
"THE gays"? lol why dont you refer to straight men as "THE straights"? lol, thats quite obvious.oh well, thats your problem not mine.
btw erik , gay males will dominate the fashion world, theyre entittled to it,because theyre the best at designing clothes,that will never change.Theyre the ones studying it,making it, and theyre entittled to use the models they want,even if those models fail to give you and the average male an erection. There will never be a fashion industry dominated by straight men,never,im sorry if this bothers you.
hum...fashion designed by straight men...how would that look like? funny ,probably very funny.I want to see it in fact,I would be very amussed and entertained.
many people find beauty on an unusual thing, and you cant say thats a lie just beacause you preffer the oposite.
to erik:
theres nothing special about this girls behind, it is a small ,flat behind ,nothing remarkably feminine about it. youre relating having wide hips and thick tighs to a "juicy" behind when thats not always the case.her hips are fleshy,her butt isnt.
This girl is pretty ,her body is average.
Im sure most men would be atracted to her, no doubt ,im sure most women would find her pretty,But that doesnt make her a realistic alternative to a high fashion model.You cannot put a girl like that on a runway...beacause there are a zillion girls that look like her.
Averageness is not celebrated on the fashion industry,average is good for "the people" average is not good to an artist(fashion is an art).
Most people would preffer a rose over a bird of paradise, a florist would problably preffer a bird of paradise...
"I would be difficult to find men who want to look like adolescent boys"
true...youre talking about straight men, or average gay males(who do not work in the fashion industy,with a lifestyle ranging from closeted to "straight-acting").
But believe me,it wouldnt be very difficult to find gay men in the fashion or beauty industry that would like to look like an adolescent boy, for many reassons...
main ones:
looking like models(models ressemble adolescent afterall boys dont they?)
looking "good" in any type of clothes(the type of clothes openly gay men ,especially fashion designers like to wear)
having bigger chances of attracting a masculine man ,or the ellusive "straight guy" (the holy grail for gay males)
Whipped Honey,
Gay men often "suffer" the "peter pan syndrome"(wanting to be young and "pretty" forever),therefore I believe gay designers preffer models who have childlike traits(thinness,age).Im almost sure its not because they are attracted sexualy to underage boys.
Most gay men are attracted to men who are masculine or hyper masculine,who posses an agressive nature(in other words ,the "straighter" the better),its unlikely that they are attracted to fragile little boys(that the current high fashion models ressemble).
Lets be honest here, most gay fashion designers are most likely bottoms sexually,I doubt they have fantasies of abusing fragile little boys...rather than wanting to be abussed themselves! lol
Gay designers are very open about their sexuality, and tho I cant sustain it with reasearch,I doubt that child molesting homosexuals are openly gay or have the tipically femenine interests of the very openly gay designers.I repeat ,tho I cant sustain it with any type of research(there must be research of this type in existence)the tipical profile of the homosexual pedophile is a man who is not openly gay ,and married.I cannot present any proof, but pedophiles are most likely indiferent to the gender of their victims, pedophiles most often abuse boys as well as girls,since their gratification lies on the victimization/domination of their subjects,not their genitals.
Of course there must be pedophiles who are exclusively interested in boys,but I dont think thats very common among them.
That girl is CLOSE TO what I would want to look like: girlie, no deformities, fine nose, small jaw and chin, baby face (subcut. fat),wide eyes, small lips (not too wide horizontaly, not too fat); she should fix her teeth, though. Not common looking, at all. Average girls look much uglier. If that is plain, than plain is better, more beautiful than exotic. And if there is plenty of girls looking that good, then that is only fair.
I would change her waist to be smaller, limbs thinner, but certainly not add any muscles, that fat is gorgeous, gives a body marble appearance . Also her breasts are too small for my taste, and her backside could be perhaps more projecting.
That is description of what I WOULD LIKE FOR MYSELF, BESIDE THE FACT THAT THE SAME WOULD PROBABLY BE THE CHOICE OF MY MAN.
That is how I imagine princess, sexually unattainable.
Reading the lies such as that of women wishing androginous,manlier look for themselves really hurts my brain, confronted with lies every brain hurts, when it has not been hurt too many times and became scar tissue. SUCH MANLY LOOKS ARE PROJECTING THE IMAGE OF DESPERATE WOMAN, NOT THE SEXUALLY RESERVED ONE. AND THEY ARE NOT REALLY RARE ANYMORE.
"How about you ask heterosexual men if they believe she doesn’t have enough muscle tone or if they have problems with her “flab.”
I'm sure plenty of straight men would find her screwable but not many women would buy clothes or lingerie or cosmetics because she modelled them. She is not what we want to look like. Small breasts are fine on a thin body and flab is fine on a big-breasted body but the combination of small breasts and flab is not what ANY woman wants to look like.
:P
"If you had read the entry on the Latvian attitude toward gay pride, you would have clearly encountered my opposition to the anti-gay group’s behavior."
Erik, you introduce the report of the Latvian anti-gay group's behavior with the headline, "How do Latvians deal with gay pride? They shower homosexuals with human feces, eggs and rotten food!" That headline is positively GLEEFUL. It is obvious that you are getting a good laugh out of homosexuals being pelted with excrement. You wait until after you have quoted the entire long article to state, "Protest in this form is obviously socially unacceptable." No, throwing excrement at people is not just "socially unacceptable"; it is PHYSICAL ASSAULT and a BIOHAZARD. You describe the Latvian anti-gay group's profoundly revolting behavior with the mildest rebuke possible. What euphemism!
Then you go on to say, "However, when the tables are turned, i.e., critiquing/protesting homosexuality is a criminal offense, then we observe the following during gay pride events. Some pictures from the 2004 Toronto dyke and gay pride parades are shown below." YOU'RE LYING. Critiquing/protesting homosexuality is NOT a criminal offense in Toronto.
You then show Toronto gay pride paraders naked and say "An approach in between these extremes is required, whereby people opposed to homosexual behavior can peacefully protest, and homosexual and bisexual individuals participate in a public parade that avoids nudity, simulated sex acts and actual sexual activity. However, this balance is easier wished for than achieved." You imply that straights showering gays with human feces, eggs and rotten food is the equivalent "extreme" to gays simply walking naked and that preventing both is a matter of "balance". There is NO comparison between PHYSICAL ASSUALT and BIOHAZARD and mere public nudity. Nor do you bother to mention that three of the seven photographs of Toronto gay pride paraders portray behavior that is LEGAL: public bare breasts are legal in Toronto. Yet you feel free to insist that "homosexual and bisexual individuals participate in a public protest that avoids nudity" even though Toronto allows some degree of public nudity and Canadians in general are very tolerant of public nudity. Why, pray tell, do gay activists have to limit their public protests to behavior that you or any other random individual personally feels is acceptable, even if their jurisdicational laws and local public opinion allow what you disapprove of?
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"Don’t waste your time accusing me of homophobia. What I have written on homosexuality is backed up with an extensive amount of evidence. Facts cannot be homophobic."
I'm not criticizing "facts". I'm talking about your clear personal bias in your reaction to those "facts". That some of the Toronto gay pride paraders went naked is a fact. That they must "avoid nudity" is not a fact; it is your personal bias.
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"Prior to the 1970s, the left had negative attitudes toward homosexuality with few exceptions. The Bolshevists descriminalized sodomy, but the Stalinists recriminalized it because a number of Nazis were homosexuals and Stalin was concerned about Nazi infiltration of homosexual circles in major Russian cities. There are many pre-1970s examples of persecution of homosexuals by leftists, as pointed out by Whipped honey, but the Stonewall Riots (1969) changed things and the left in the West came to see homosexuality as useful to its long-term goals. Hence Der Wanderer is right about my take on homophobia being a communist (read leftist) plot run by proxy in present times. Yes we do look at the Nazis and the KKK with disgust, but we should look at the communists with even greater disgust since they caused much more carnage.
This is called package-dealing. The left's use for homosexuality, and the right of homosexuals to the same basic legal rights and social considerations as anyone else if they have to pay the same taxes and obey the same laws, are two different things. The left saw women's rights and civil rights as useful to its long-term goals; that hardly means that any woman or racial minority who wants equal access to voting rights and employment opportunities is part of a "communist (read leftist) plot by proxy"!
Communist persecution of homosexuals continued long after the Stonewall Riots of 1969. The Soviet Union claimed in the 1980's that there was no AIDS in the Soviet Union because there were no homosexuals. Name one single communist government in the 1980's, 1990's, or 2000's that legally allowed or allows homosexuality; to my knowledge there is not a single one.
Aside from your inability to distinguish leftism from communism (I assume you're not stupid enough to think all rightists are capitalists or all capitalists are rightists), you cannot even distinguish differing motives for the same actions. I support gay rights and I am not a leftist, let alone a communist.
8-/
WOMEN USE LINGERIE NOT TO PUT THEIR MALE PARTNER IN THE MOOD BUT TO PUT THEMSELVES IN THE MOOD AND CREATE THEIR PREFERRED SELF-IMAGE.
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"In the first part of this series I addressed the basic use of lingerie. Women generally use it to put their male partner in the mood...
If women typically wear lingerie to arouse a male partner they would want a lingerie model who presents the image of restrictive sexuality? Makes a lot of sense."
Women do NOT use lingerie to put their male partner in the mood. Men who are not impotent will frequently be in the mood without any help from lingerie. Women use lingerie to put themselves in the mood and create their preferred self-image; that their male partner finds the lingerie sexy is a nice added plus. Arousal is harder, slower and rarer in women than in men; all the accoutrements women add to sex, like romantic dinners and candlelight and mood-enhancing music, are for the stimulation of her own arousal, not his. It is not a coincidence that many women choose to wear lingerie when they masturbate alone. It's not about HIM. Men's arousal by lingerie is a fringe benefit - not the real purpose. Women who say they wear lingerie to arouse the man are like men who say they buy flowers to make the woman feel loved; this is B.S. and the truth is women buy lingerie for themselves and men give women flowers in order to get laid. The polite official explanations have nothing to do with the real reasons.
Women want lingerie models who reflect the woman's preferred self-image as available only to select high-status men, regardless of the reality of her male partner's status (even working class girls like to feel like a princess) and regardless of whether she actually is selective (even promiscuous women like to think of themselves as choosy and hard to get and so typically restrict their sexual partners to certain types of men in order to feel like they're saying no a lot no matter how often they say yes).
"So I should read evolutionary psychology? Since there are few high status men and most women are not obtaining them, how would it hurt women’s reproductive success if most of them were as promiscuous as men? You can’t even get a fundamental issue right. The issue is not about number of children. It is about two things: the burden of raising children and using sex to obtain resources."
Evolutionary psychology IS about number of children as well as resources to provide for children. The reason that having a child does not end a woman's sex drive is that Mother Nature wants women to have MORE children. The reason the male sex drive remains strong even after many years of opportunity to impregnate women is that Mother Nature wants men to have MORE children. You say I "can't even get a fundamental issue right", but YOU are the one who doesn't get it.
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"Besides, it isn’t like women are programmed for monogamy/”semi-monogamy,” but one expects women to restrict their sexuality so that they make scarce what men want and thereby raise their value, exchange sex for better resources and make men do things to impress them, thereby being better able to gauge who is more motivated and who is better able in obtaining more resources/power."
Way to contradict yourself! It IS like women are programmed for monogamy/semi-monogamy, precisely BECAUSE women gain a reproductive advantage when they restrict their sexuality to raise their value and increase the likelihood of getting a man with more resources/power. Prehistoric women went off the heat cycle as an evolutionary reproductive strategy; it has been many many years since promiscuity was natural for women.
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"You said, “Simply put, women do not want to be what men want women to be.” Since you mentioned evolutionary psychology, here is something that you will be interested in reading, and it argues the opposite, namely that women will generally tend to have a very good idea of what men optimally desire in women and would share the same preferences/want those characteristic among themselves"
There is a difference between what women want *for themselves* and what women want *to attract men*. Women recognize the necessity of making concessions to male tastes in order to attract men; that does not mean women necessarily want to look the way men want women to look. It is rather like obeying a dress code in order to avoid punishment; that certainly doesn't prove you prefer the dress code clothes.
:down:
The relationship between a man's sexual orientation and his aesthetic preferences in women
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"Hefner himself has admitted to experimenting with bisexuality."
Erik, please provide a source for your claim that Hugh Hefner has admitted to experimenting with bisexuality, a reputable, verifiable source. Otherwise, you're just rumormongering.
The problems with the idea of "lifetime-exlusive heterosexual" are that:
1. Self-reporting about sexual matters is notoriously unreliable even with total anonymity; people often lie to themselves about their sexuality, so it's not stretch that they might lie to themselves when answering a survey.
2. Men who are "life-time exclusive heterosexual" in their BEHAVIOR can still be bisexual in their FEELINGS - and men who repress their bisexual feelings are highly likely to tell a surveyor that they have never had bisexual feelings. It's called denial.
If "lifetime-exlusive heterosexuality" is what causes men to prefer "feminine" women, then why do some bisexual men prefer "feminine" women, such as the bisexual Lawrence Olivier's marriage to the "feminine" Vivien Leigh, which ended only because her then-untreatable bipolar disorder made life with her unbearable? If a man who says he is straight but prefers "masculinized" women is probably not "lifetime exclusive heterosexual", then does a bisexual man's preference for "feminine" women prove his not really bisexual? But Olivier was definitely bisexual; his second wife has admitted it.
Erik, maybe the relationship between a man's sexual orientation and his preferences in women is not as simple as you want it to be.
PROOF THAT HEAVY/OBESE WOMEN WERE THE WESTERN BEAUTY IDEAL PRIOR TO THE 20TH CENTURY, WHICH MEANS MEN DO NOT HAVE AN INNATE PREFERENCE FOR SMALL WAIST TO HIP RATIOS AND HOURGLASS FIGURES
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"How does one know that Botticelli’s Venus represented the ideal held by most people? It is a popular myth that excess body fat was desired in women in medieval Europe; the reality is that obesity was stigmatized and tiny waists preferred."
Erik, your "proof" that in medieval Europe obesity was stigmatized and tiny waists preferred is bogus nonsense because both of the studies you cite are studies of medieval to 18th century LITERATURE, which does not reflect the feelings of "most people" in those societies because:
1. "Most people" pre-19th century were illiterate and therefore not only could not speak for themselves on paper but could not even influence published writers by providing an audience.
2. Your "proof" that in medieval Europe obesity was stigmatized is worthless because it consists of nothing but a study that indicates that in medieval Europe in which all governments practiced censorship of published writings on the grounds of their various Christian official state religions, published writers paid lip service to the official line that gluttony is a deadly sin in order to avoid career ruin and possible imprisonment.
3. Your "proof" that in 16th, 17th and 18th century Britain tiny waists preferred is worthless because it consists of nothing but a study commissioned by Britain's Royal Society/National Academy of Science/Biological Sciences Department claiming that the published literature of those centuries consistently described small waists as beautiful; surely you cannot be so blindly naive to bias in research as to fail to see that a government-funded biologists' organization whose mission is partly to promote public health has a vested interest in telling the public that healthy body weight has always been considered beautiful.
"Plump" is the word most frequently used by 19th century English/European fiction writers to describe the female character the author considered most beautiful, once government censorship of published works relaxed considerably compared to its medieval zenith and authors were somewhat free to say what they really thought, and once Western socieities had, for the first time in their histories, huge numbers of functionally literate people so authors could actually make money by appealing to the tastes of "most people". I know this as an English literature connoissuer and as the daughter of an Ivy League-educated English professor, but if you need to hear it from somebody else, here is a list of quotes from 19th century English/European novelists DROOLING over beautiful "plump" women.
Yes, that website's webmaster is a man with a personal preference for heavy women, but that does not change the fact that his analysis of literature is based on accurate reported quotes, whereas Britain's Royal Society/National Academy of Science/Biological Sciences Department's analysis of literature states a conclusion without sharing the the quotes on which it was based - very bad scientific reporting, refusing to share their core data. Note that almost all of their study's listed references are scientific texts, not literature. How much literature did they actually bother to read? They didn't really need to read any literature, since they had already made up their minds to reach a health-promoting conclusion.
Visual art has never been as government-censored as literature in the West (as opposed to places like the Arab/Muslim world where visual imagery is far more censored than written words), and so medieval to 18th century Western visual artists were free to say in pictures what their contemporary writers were not free to say in words: they got hard for fat women, "deadly sin" be damned.
Conclusion: Natural attraction to the signs of good health and fertility play a role in aesthetic/sexual preferences not by creating an innate male preference for the most fertile female body type (hourglass) but only to the extent of making most people averse to the signs of EXTREME bad health or TOTAL infertility, such as truly morbid obesity (not just obesity, truly morbid), emaciation (not just skinniness, emaction), and old age (not just no-longer-young, truly old).
:)
Erik, I am sure that most heterosexual men would find her unremarkable. A lot of them would screw her if she made the offer but that is not saying much. Her face is sort of cute but her body is very average (for a young girl) and terrible (for any kind of model).
Whipped honey: I will clarify what I previously posted in an article on Hugh Hefner.
Clarification on the sexual orientation of Hugh Hefner
I haven’t made the claim that Hefner is not heterosexual based on a rumor and on the allegation of his watching gay pornography made by one or two women who have lived in the Playboy mansion. Hefner himself has admitted to experimenting with bisexuality. I can cite two studies that provide good evidence showing that people who have ever experienced same-sex attraction or voluntarily indulged in homosexual behavior belong to a different category of people than lifetime-exclusive heterosexuals (people who have experienced neither element):
Quote:
Dunne MP, Bailey JM, Kirk KM, et al. The subtlety of sex-atypicality. Arch Sex Behav 2000;29(6):549-65.
Gangestad SW, Bailey JM, Martin NG. Taxometric analyses of sexual orientation and gender identity. J Pers Soc Psychol 2000;78(6):1109-21.
Lifetime-exclusive heterosexuals, which Hefner isn’t by his own admission, are the only true heterosexuals. The second strong line of evidence that Hefner is not heterosexual has to do with the looks of a large number of Playboy centerfolds, especially in recent years. Playboy magazine is the biggest men’s publication of its kind and can afford to pay its models very well. How many other outlets do you know of that pay $25,000 to a woman for posing as a nude centerfold, $100,000 to a Playmate of the Year and much more to celebrities who pose nude? Most nude models earn a few hundred dollars at most for an entire photo shoot. Shouldn’t Playboy be featuring some of the most attractive women as far as heterosexual men are concerned? But no, many of these women, especially from the 1990s onward are shockingly masculine (and often need fake breasts). There is simply no way a heterosexual man is responsible for selecting them. I will post more pictures if you are not convinced.
I said that the allegation about watching gay pornography is weak. It may or may not be true, and I haven’t built my case on it. He is also alleged to indulge in unprotected anal intercourse with some of his girlfriends. I wouldn’t be surprised if both these allegations are true, but I am not resting my case on these allegations.
Evolution of beauty standards
Where have I claimed that beauty standards do not substantially change? Do you think I believe that ape-men, our ancestors who looked in between apes and modern humans, had the same exact central tendency of beauty standards as, say, modern Europeans do? I have stated that you, Hally, Billy, Danielle and others have not made the case you believe you have made.
See my reply to Billy regarding body fat preferences in women in medieval Europe. Paintings of chubby women from this period no more prove that they were held as an ideal by most people than skinny and masculine women occupying the highest status among female models in contemporary Western societies proves that such looks are regarded as ideal by most Westerners today.
I haven’t been talking about “high levels of female hormones and low levels of male hormones.” Estrogens (female hormones according to you) and androgens (male hormones according to you) are present in both sexes.
I haven’t disputed that many physical features associated with higher social class will be considered more desirable by most people. This issue came up in the form of your alleging that people with higher social class prefer the looks of high-fashion models, but as I pointed out you cited no evidence and no such thing has been shown in studies where people of different social classes have been asked to judge female attractiveness.
Don’t say that “Erik conveniently dismisses any man who disagrees with his ideas of female beauty by making totally unprovable allegations that the man is “not lifetime exclusive heterosexual” or “barely escaped nonheterosexuality”... I have brought up these issues on few occasions and when I have, I have described reasons why these possibilities need to be considered.
Lingerie stuff
Of course, lingerie is marketed to women, but what men desire in women’s looks is what women desire in their own looks. So why would women not want lingerie models’ looks to be in agreement, too? You bring up the studies of the Bailey et al. group. I still have to respond to this in another thread, and I will but don’t know when. In their nutshell, their studies are useless.
So I should read evolutionary psychology? Since there are few high status men and most women are not obtaining them, how would it hurt women’s reproductive success if most of them were as promiscuous as men? You can’t even get a fundamental issue right. The issue is not about number of children. It is about two things: the burden of raising children and using sex to obtain resources. A man can impregnate a woman and disappear, but the woman will have to deal with the cost of pregnancy and child care, and hence a woman will be inclined toward being more careful in her choices, and this will correlate with a weaker libido since a stronger libido increases the likelihood of making unwise decisions in the heat of passion. Besides, it isn’t like women are programmed for monogamy/”semi-monogamy,” but one expects women to restrict their sexuality so that they make scarce what men want and thereby raise their value, exchange sex for better resources and make men do things to impress them, thereby being better able to gauge who is more motivated and who is better able in obtaining more resources/power.
You said, “Simply put, women do not want to be what men want women to be.” Since you mentioned evolutionary psychology, here is something that you will be interested in reading, and it argues the opposite, namely that women will generally tend to have a very good idea of what men optimally desire in women and would share the same preferences/want those characteristic among themselves:
Quote:
Buss, D. M. (1992). Mate preference mechanisms: Consequences for partner choice and intrasexual competition. In J. H. Barkow, L. Cosmides & J. Tooby (Eds.), The adapted mind: Evolutionary psychology and the generation of culture (pp. 249-266). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
I am sure you will recognize some big evolutionary psychology folk up there.
You said that pleasing men is not the primary motivator of female sexuality, but who said that it is? If women typically wear lingerie to arouse a male partner they would want a lingerie model who presents the image of restrictive sexuality? Makes a lot of sense.
It isn’t like a lingerie company has to produce a catalog bordering on soft porn; using feminine and attractive women to model lingerie would not make it look pornographic.
“Homophobia”
Don’t waste your time accusing me of homophobia. What I have written on homosexuality is backed up with an extensive amount of evidence. Facts cannot be homophobic. If you had read the entry on the Latvian attitude toward gay pride, you would have clearly encountered my opposition to the anti-gay group’s behavior.
Danielle: How about you ask heterosexual men if they believe she doesn't have enough muscle tone or if they have problems with her "flab." More pictures of her backside can be found at the link in the article.
Billy: Your comments have been spread over a week, yet they do not indicate that you have made an effort to read enough of this site. Please do so before leaving further comments.
No discretion in inferring a preference for feminine physiques?
If one only had data regarding femininity preferences in reference to face shape, then extrapolating it to body preferences would not be unreasonable because sex hormones have a global effect. Women with more feminine faces will generally tend to have more feminine physiques. What are the odds that there is a preference for above average femininity in facial features but not in physique? What purpose could a preference for above average femininity in facial features serve? The latter is answered by evidence on the eating disorders page as well as in a study on face shape and estrogen levels, where it turns out that above average femininity is correlated with better fertility and fecundity. So if facial femininity is a cue to these variables then does one not expect the physique to also be a cue to these variables and a preference for feminine faces to co-exist with a preference for feminine physiques? These considerations do not require any data on whether feminine physiques are preferred. However, data in this regard are provided elsewhere within this site; it is simply not possible to present all relevant information on one page. For instance, many studies have revealed a preference for below average waist-to-hip ratios in women (leaning toward the feminine side) on the part of both men and women. One of the articles addresses confounds related to WHR and attractiveness at this blog, and this article provides links to pdfs of many of the citations. Some of these pdfs cite a preference for prominent breasts in women, too, which one hardly needs to cite. So don’t accuse me making a mere assumption.
Change in beauty ideals
No one named Hally has commented on this article. You took the comment from elsewhere. Neither Hally nor you have made a convincing case for change in ideals, and I will repeat again that my argument has never been that there has been no change. The Katzmarzyk and Davis paper you referenced has been cited at this site since when it was set up (~2 years ago). I have addressed the issue in much more detail in an article on twentieth century trends in shapes of high-fashion models, Miss Americas and Playboy Playmates of the Year. The issue you raised is the body weight of Playboy centerfolds, but I have long pointed out that the researchers that have documented this trend have relied on reported weight, not measured weight and if only they had bothered to look at enough centerfolds, they would realize that their weight are underreported and useless for analysis.
I agree that there has been a change among Playboy centerfolds over the decades; they have become more masculinized, but this by no means proves that there has been a shift in public preferences. To understand this issue, the best example is of the masculinization in high-fashion models' faces, clearly at odds with majority preferences...the top models do not reflect anything close to the central tendency of the optimal preferences of the public, but then public preferences do not determine what women get to be top high-fashion models. Playboy was founded by a bisexual male, Hugh Hefner, and he has simply brought the models in line with his tastes over the years, suffering in sales somewhat but not greatly because Playboy was a pioneering magazine that enjoyed a very comfortable headstart over its current competition, making Playboy Inc. well known and rich, and also the fact that feminine beauty is hardly in the limelight.
Playboy magazine is also useless for assessing shifts in heterosexual men’s preferences in a quantitative manner because over half the centerfolds from the 1990s onward have sported breast implants, making their bust measurements useless, yet many researchers are oblivious to this. If you are a heterosexual man and you click on the Hugh Hefner link above, one look at the Playboy centerfolds shown and it would be obvious that the person making the selections is not a heterosexual man.
How does one know that Botticelli’s Venus represented the ideal held by most people? It is a popular myth that excess body fat was desired in women in medieval Europe; the reality is that obesity was stigmatized and tiny waists preferred.
Don’t bring in a tan. I have already addressed it; a tan is not a shape variable and is pretty much readily reversible as opposed to body shape variation along the masculine-feminine discriminant.
Once again, I am not insisting that there has been no change in public preferences across time, but you have not made a decent argument for change pertaining to the chief issue at hand, namely masculinity-femininity, within the past couple of decades/centuries. You, like Hally, have brought up the issue of change to somehow argue that the public’s preferences are responsible for the fashion models’ looks, but this is simply not true. Read more of this site.
What are lingerie models supposed to look like?
It is not mere assumption on my part that lingerie models are supposed to look feminine. In the first part of this series I addressed the basic use of lingerie. Women generally use it to put their male partner in the mood. So what would be the basic marketing consideration? Obviously, “buy this lingerie and acquire this woman’s sex appeal [to heterosexual men].” So a lingerie model is expected to be feminine. Additionally, why do a number of Victoria’s Secret models have breast implants, and why does the company pose them in a manner to make them look more feminine if there is no need for them to look feminine?
The majority of lingerie models being masculinized simply reflects the homosexual domination of the business. Yes, there are plenty of non-gay designers, including some in powerful positions, but the gay domination sets the status quo; others have to comply with it. It is patent nonsense that “women have a powerful influence over the modeling industry.” Read the following from Rebecca Johnson in the April 2007 Vogue Shapes issue:
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“It’s the paradox of the model,” said Natalia Vodianova, one of the few models who have been outspoken on the issue. “You’re supposed to be projecting this image of fun and health. If you talk about having a problem, you know it’s going to affect your career, so you don’t say anything. The girls talk about dieting all the time, but they never talk about the problems.”
If people don’t talk, it’s hard to know the true extent of the issue or where it begins and ends. “Why are the agents even sending these girls?” Donna Karan asked at the CFDA forum on the topic this part February. Answer: because those are the girls who are getting booked. “I know one of my girls has a problem,” one anguished agent asked, “but every designer in town wants that girl in their show, so what am I supposed to tell her? If I tell her she can’t work, she’ll just go to someone else.”
In the passages above, Ms. Johnson is mentioning some examples of people being reluctant to talk about the pressure they are under to have very thin models. Note the comment by Donna Karan, a big name among fashion designers. Does her comment suggest that women have a lot of power in the industry? She appears to be or perhaps pretends to be oblivious to the reason why models have to be very thin.
Calvin Klein is not a heterosexual. He has not been forthcoming about his sexual orientation, but he appears to be some type of bisexual who mostly leans toward pederasty.
I have not stated that “the lingerie industry is targeting heterosexual men with their campaigns”; lingerie is sold to women, not men. I said that “a lingerie show directly or indirectly caters to heterosexual men” since it is clear what the typical purpose of lingerie is. In your reply to Der Wanderer, you stated that “women do not select their wardrobe based on its ability to arouse men (at least not exclusively)...” however, this article isn't about a wardrobe; it is about lingerie.
Are the vast majority of individuals not lifetime-exclusive heterosexual and is this the reason that lingerie companies go for androgyny in their models? Sigmund Freud conducted no scientific studies regarding the prevalence of homosexuals and bisexuals; he just had conjectures. Alfred Kinsey deliberately oversampled homosexuals and bisexuals and still ended up with a majority exclusively heterosexual statistic. I am not aware of Judith Butler ever publishing any scientific surveys on the prevalence of nonheterosexuality; she is a postmodernist, not the kind of person who would be interested in scientific studies, and so on. If you were to look at actual random and population-based scientific surveys, then the great majority of humans turn out to be lifetime-exclusive heterosexual (e.g., Table 1 here).
Discerning own preference from market preference
My argument has nothing to do with the assumption that “homosexual men are in capable of discerning the difference between their own sexually charged aesthetic preferences and that of their market.” What reasonable person would assume this? My argument is that the homosexuals’ dominance of the business allows them to get away with their choices. They are selling a desirable item, and if they do not face competition (others selling comparable products using feminine beauties), then they will get away with their choices.
Accusing me of a “constant charge against dissenters of this site that they must not be “lifetime exclusive” heterosexual men” is baseless smear. Your assumption that if the majority of men are lifetime-exclusive heterosexual then it is “highly unlikely that every man contributing to this forum who has disagreed with Erik is a non-"lifetime exclusive” heterosexual” is ludicrous. You have no idea about what proportion of people that have gone through this site have left comments. This site attracts thousands of unique users per day and the vast majority of them do not leave any comment. So how can one assume that the proportion of lifetime-exclusive heterosexual men in the very small minority that does leave a comment matches that in the general population? How can one be sure that someone posting under a male name is a man? How does one know that a dissenter using a gender-neutral alias is a man?
"Homophobia"
Prior to the 1970s, the left had negative attitudes toward homosexuality with few exceptions. The Bolshevists descriminalized sodomy, but the Stalinists recriminalized it because a number of Nazis were homosexuals and Stalin was concerned about Nazi infiltration of homosexual circles in major Russian cities. There are many pre-1970s examples of persecution of homosexuals by leftists, as pointed out by Whipped honey, but the Stonewall Riots (1969) changed things and the left in the West came to see homosexuality as useful to its long-term goals. Hence Der Wanderer is right about my take on homophobia being a communist (read leftist) plot run by proxy in present times. Yes we do look at the Nazis and the KKK with disgust, but we should look at the communists with even greater disgust since they caused much more carnage.
Comment
Your claims about “misapplied statistics, incredible statistics, bigoted assumptions, a denial of logic, and a denial of overwhelming evidence to the contrary” are unsubstantiated, and you have resorted to ad hominem (calling me homophobic and uneducated when I am the one citing a bunch of studies, not you). Read more of this site before arguing.
That reminds me Erik- you mention how robustness shouldn't be confounded with feminization. I've always suspected this, but I've never fully noticed it until recently when you pointed it out. It comes back to that one white nationalist blog that prompted me to write to you- he made that mistake, which led him to dismiss nearly all non-white females as hideous. Still, why would you say that women in western countries with large jaws and cheekbones are so rare in fashion, while there's a strong mixture of it in east asian countries? Are their certain extremities on these features where they're considered unattractive outside femininity, or are these considered feminine no matter what, regardless of their size? And exactly what contributes to these facial features looking masculine if size plays no role? It's easy to see, but I'm not sure of the term.
Rob: Your comment is absurd and unsupported by evidence.
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Do you seriously believe this? Heterosexual men are expected to optimally prefer females in the age range where the combination of fertility and fecundity is at its peak. For white women this would be about age 25 (peak fecundity around age 22 and peak fertility around age 28). The optimally preferred age range would obviously be in the early- to mid-twenties. Consider the following study, which showed pictures of males and females ranging from ages 15-60 to homosexuals and heterosexuals. The graph shows the comparison between homosexual and heterosexual men.
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The graph speaks for itself. Note that the data concerning ratings of individuals aged 15-18 are not reported. Why do you think the authors never reported this data?
Also see additional evidence that sexual interest in underage individuals is much higher in homosexual and bisexual individuals compared to heterosexuals.
Erik is so obsessed with "femininity" that he cannot tell when femininity is UGLY.
Natalia Cruze is "feminine" and her ugly pig nose is one of the worst noses I have ever seen.
:sick:
Hi,
Interesting ideas. But I really don't buy your general theme about gay men running the fashion business causing all the thin, young models. The fact is that men are most attracted to young women just after puberty. This has been pretty well documented and makes a lot of sense: young healthy women have the most remaining child bearing years, and therefore make excellent mates. It's basic biology--sex--and sex sells. Everyone, including women, recognize this on some level. So, for women to be young, thin and beautiful is a very desirable thing, at least as far as increasing the spread of ones genes to the next generation. It's all simple Darwinism, or more specifically, evolutionary psychology.
So, that's the basic science. And the basic truth, speaking as a heterosexual male, is that these young, thin models are outrageously attractive to men, even those with small breasts (most men I know prefer smaller breasts!). There is nothing more desirable to the average male, on pure physical terms. And for men, physical attraction matters a lot more than it does for women, again for basic biological reasons.
I know all this is truly shallow and in some ways sad, but it stems from millions of years of evolution. It's the way it is. We cannot mature as a species by denying our basic desires and where they come from. We might only mature by clearly articulating what is real and then move toward how to best cope with it in today's modern moral structure.
According to Erik ,gays shouldnt dominate the fashion industry , what if that desire becomes true?
Maybe theyll just dominate the "hair dressing kingdom" but then Erik wont probably like that , or their "aesthetic" for hair (since hes so worried about human aesthetics and their huge importance on our planet) hell claim their hair and make up ressemble aliens from outter space or scary vampires...and therefore gays could be sexually attracted to those horrible things, hell probably say THE gays want to fuck aliens and all sorts of strange creatures...(and problably will come with some extensive research about it ) and hell probably begin an all mighty crusade against that...saying that most humans both male and female (normal of course) are attracted to hair that ressembles the northern european texture and colors, and hell give us and "attractive hair section" and educate us all. TEHEEEE :D
You think the fashion industry can become straight all of a sudden? You think thousands and thousands of straight boys will tell their fathers they want to make dresses?
"The straights" make cars and bikes ,and using those busty ,hourglassy girls to climb on their hood and sell them...and "THE gays" dont give a damn! ;)
Erik,why do I think you just dont want "THE gays" to dominate anything at all? LOL
I do not find giselle beautiful.Shes attractive, but I dont get the fascination with her, in my opinion she is in fact too masculine for my aesthetic(not sexual)preference.
I do not like her face, nothing feminine about it ,and she has no waist.I do like that shes lean and lonf and obviously very firm ,but not her shape.
erik:
"THE gays"? lol why dont you refer to straight men as "THE straights"? lol, thats quite obvious.oh well, thats your problem not mine.
btw erik , gay males will dominate the fashion world, theyre entittled to it,because theyre the best at designing clothes,that will never change.Theyre the ones studying it,making it, and theyre entittled to use the models they want,even if those models fail to give you and the average male an erection. There will never be a fashion industry dominated by straight men,never,im sorry if this bothers you.
hum...fashion designed by straight men...how would that look like? funny ,probably very funny.I want to see it in fact,I would be very amussed and entertained.
bron:
your princess looks like gemma ward...
erick:
you did good removing those ugly girls, this one is an improvement for sure.
to bron:
"then plain is better,more beautiful than exotic"
thats your opinion...
many people find beauty on an unusual thing, and you cant say thats a lie just beacause you preffer the oposite.
to erik:
theres nothing special about this girls behind, it is a small ,flat behind ,nothing remarkably feminine about it. youre relating having wide hips and thick tighs to a "juicy" behind when thats not always the case.her hips are fleshy,her butt isnt.
This girl is pretty ,her body is average.
Im sure most men would be atracted to her, no doubt ,im sure most women would find her pretty,But that doesnt make her a realistic alternative to a high fashion model.You cannot put a girl like that on a runway...beacause there are a zillion girls that look like her.
Averageness is not celebrated on the fashion industry,average is good for "the people" average is not good to an artist(fashion is an art).
Most people would preffer a rose over a bird of paradise, a florist would problably preffer a bird of paradise...
Erik wrote:
"I would be difficult to find men who want to look like adolescent boys"
true...youre talking about straight men, or average gay males(who do not work in the fashion industy,with a lifestyle ranging from closeted to "straight-acting").
But believe me,it wouldnt be very difficult to find gay men in the fashion or beauty industry that would like to look like an adolescent boy, for many reassons...
main ones:
looking like models(models ressemble adolescent afterall boys dont they?)
looking "good" in any type of clothes(the type of clothes openly gay men ,especially fashion designers like to wear)
having bigger chances of attracting a masculine man ,or the ellusive "straight guy" (the holy grail for gay males)
Whipped Honey,
Gay men often "suffer" the "peter pan syndrome"(wanting to be young and "pretty" forever),therefore I believe gay designers preffer models who have childlike traits(thinness,age).Im almost sure its not because they are attracted sexualy to underage boys.
Most gay men are attracted to men who are masculine or hyper masculine,who posses an agressive nature(in other words ,the "straighter" the better),its unlikely that they are attracted to fragile little boys(that the current high fashion models ressemble).
Lets be honest here, most gay fashion designers are most likely bottoms sexually,I doubt they have fantasies of abusing fragile little boys...rather than wanting to be abussed themselves! lol
Gay designers are very open about their sexuality, and tho I cant sustain it with reasearch,I doubt that child molesting homosexuals are openly gay or have the tipically femenine interests of the very openly gay designers.I repeat ,tho I cant sustain it with any type of research(there must be research of this type in existence)the tipical profile of the homosexual pedophile is a man who is not openly gay ,and married.I cannot present any proof, but pedophiles are most likely indiferent to the gender of their victims, pedophiles most often abuse boys as well as girls,since their gratification lies on the victimization/domination of their subjects,not their genitals.
Of course there must be pedophiles who are exclusively interested in boys,but I dont think thats very common among them.
That girl is CLOSE TO what I would want to look like: girlie, no deformities, fine nose, small jaw and chin, baby face (subcut. fat),wide eyes, small lips (not too wide horizontaly, not too fat); she should fix her teeth, though. Not common looking, at all. Average girls look much uglier. If that is plain, than plain is better, more beautiful than exotic. And if there is plenty of girls looking that good, then that is only fair.
I would change her waist to be smaller, limbs thinner, but certainly not add any muscles, that fat is gorgeous, gives a body marble appearance . Also her breasts are too small for my taste, and her backside could be perhaps more projecting.
That is description of what I WOULD LIKE FOR MYSELF, BESIDE THE FACT THAT THE SAME WOULD PROBABLY BE THE CHOICE OF MY MAN.
That is how I imagine princess, sexually unattainable.
Reading the lies such as that of women wishing androginous,manlier look for themselves really hurts my brain, confronted with lies every brain hurts, when it has not been hurt too many times and became scar tissue. SUCH MANLY LOOKS ARE PROJECTING THE IMAGE OF DESPERATE WOMAN, NOT THE SEXUALLY RESERVED ONE. AND THEY ARE NOT REALLY RARE ANYMORE.
image of princess is feminine
http://www.zabra.si/TMP_WEB/New%20Folder/SLEEPINGBEAUTY.jpg
Zuleyka is way hotter than Natalia who looks like a victim of fetal alchohol syndrome. Poor thing.
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I'm sure plenty of straight men would find her screwable but not many women would buy clothes or lingerie or cosmetics because she modelled them. She is not what we want to look like. Small breasts are fine on a thin body and flab is fine on a big-breasted body but the combination of small breasts and flab is not what ANY woman wants to look like.
:P
ERIK'S DISTORTIONS ABOUT HOMOSEXUALITY
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Erik, you introduce the report of the Latvian anti-gay group's behavior with the headline, "How do Latvians deal with gay pride? They shower homosexuals with human feces, eggs and rotten food!" That headline is positively GLEEFUL. It is obvious that you are getting a good laugh out of homosexuals being pelted with excrement. You wait until after you have quoted the entire long article to state, "Protest in this form is obviously socially unacceptable." No, throwing excrement at people is not just "socially unacceptable"; it is PHYSICAL ASSAULT and a BIOHAZARD. You describe the Latvian anti-gay group's profoundly revolting behavior with the mildest rebuke possible. What euphemism!
Then you go on to say, "However, when the tables are turned, i.e., critiquing/protesting homosexuality is a criminal offense, then we observe the following during gay pride events. Some pictures from the 2004 Toronto dyke and gay pride parades are shown below." YOU'RE LYING. Critiquing/protesting homosexuality is NOT a criminal offense in Toronto.
You then show Toronto gay pride paraders naked and say "An approach in between these extremes is required, whereby people opposed to homosexual behavior can peacefully protest, and homosexual and bisexual individuals participate in a public parade that avoids nudity, simulated sex acts and actual sexual activity. However, this balance is easier wished for than achieved." You imply that straights showering gays with human feces, eggs and rotten food is the equivalent "extreme" to gays simply walking naked and that preventing both is a matter of "balance". There is NO comparison between PHYSICAL ASSUALT and BIOHAZARD and mere public nudity. Nor do you bother to mention that three of the seven photographs of Toronto gay pride paraders portray behavior that is LEGAL: public bare breasts are legal in Toronto. Yet you feel free to insist that "homosexual and bisexual individuals participate in a public protest that avoids nudity" even though Toronto allows some degree of public nudity and Canadians in general are very tolerant of public nudity. Why, pray tell, do gay activists have to limit their public protests to behavior that you or any other random individual personally feels is acceptable, even if their jurisdicational laws and local public opinion allow what you disapprove of?
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I'm not criticizing "facts". I'm talking about your clear personal bias in your reaction to those "facts". That some of the Toronto gay pride paraders went naked is a fact. That they must "avoid nudity" is not a fact; it is your personal bias.
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This is called package-dealing. The left's use for homosexuality, and the right of homosexuals to the same basic legal rights and social considerations as anyone else if they have to pay the same taxes and obey the same laws, are two different things. The left saw women's rights and civil rights as useful to its long-term goals; that hardly means that any woman or racial minority who wants equal access to voting rights and employment opportunities is part of a "communist (read leftist) plot by proxy"!
Communist persecution of homosexuals continued long after the Stonewall Riots of 1969. The Soviet Union claimed in the 1980's that there was no AIDS in the Soviet Union because there were no homosexuals. Name one single communist government in the 1980's, 1990's, or 2000's that legally allowed or allows homosexuality; to my knowledge there is not a single one.
Aside from your inability to distinguish leftism from communism (I assume you're not stupid enough to think all rightists are capitalists or all capitalists are rightists), you cannot even distinguish differing motives for the same actions. I support gay rights and I am not a leftist, let alone a communist.
8-/
WOMEN USE LINGERIE NOT TO PUT THEIR MALE PARTNER IN THE MOOD BUT TO PUT THEMSELVES IN THE MOOD AND CREATE THEIR PREFERRED SELF-IMAGE.
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Women do NOT use lingerie to put their male partner in the mood. Men who are not impotent will frequently be in the mood without any help from lingerie. Women use lingerie to put themselves in the mood and create their preferred self-image; that their male partner finds the lingerie sexy is a nice added plus. Arousal is harder, slower and rarer in women than in men; all the accoutrements women add to sex, like romantic dinners and candlelight and mood-enhancing music, are for the stimulation of her own arousal, not his. It is not a coincidence that many women choose to wear lingerie when they masturbate alone. It's not about HIM. Men's arousal by lingerie is a fringe benefit - not the real purpose. Women who say they wear lingerie to arouse the man are like men who say they buy flowers to make the woman feel loved; this is B.S. and the truth is women buy lingerie for themselves and men give women flowers in order to get laid. The polite official explanations have nothing to do with the real reasons.
Women want lingerie models who reflect the woman's preferred self-image as available only to select high-status men, regardless of the reality of her male partner's status (even working class girls like to feel like a princess) and regardless of whether she actually is selective (even promiscuous women like to think of themselves as choosy and hard to get and so typically restrict their sexual partners to certain types of men in order to feel like they're saying no a lot no matter how often they say yes).
More on Evolutionary Psychology
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Evolutionary psychology IS about number of children as well as resources to provide for children. The reason that having a child does not end a woman's sex drive is that Mother Nature wants women to have MORE children. The reason the male sex drive remains strong even after many years of opportunity to impregnate women is that Mother Nature wants men to have MORE children. You say I "can't even get a fundamental issue right", but YOU are the one who doesn't get it.
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Way to contradict yourself! It IS like women are programmed for monogamy/semi-monogamy, precisely BECAUSE women gain a reproductive advantage when they restrict their sexuality to raise their value and increase the likelihood of getting a man with more resources/power. Prehistoric women went off the heat cycle as an evolutionary reproductive strategy; it has been many many years since promiscuity was natural for women.
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There is a difference between what women want *for themselves* and what women want *to attract men*. Women recognize the necessity of making concessions to male tastes in order to attract men; that does not mean women necessarily want to look the way men want women to look. It is rather like obeying a dress code in order to avoid punishment; that certainly doesn't prove you prefer the dress code clothes.
:down:
The relationship between a man's sexual orientation and his aesthetic preferences in women
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Erik, please provide a source for your claim that Hugh Hefner has admitted to experimenting with bisexuality, a reputable, verifiable source. Otherwise, you're just rumormongering.
The problems with the idea of "lifetime-exlusive heterosexual" are that:
1. Self-reporting about sexual matters is notoriously unreliable even with total anonymity; people often lie to themselves about their sexuality, so it's not stretch that they might lie to themselves when answering a survey.
2. Men who are "life-time exclusive heterosexual" in their BEHAVIOR can still be bisexual in their FEELINGS - and men who repress their bisexual feelings are highly likely to tell a surveyor that they have never had bisexual feelings. It's called denial.
If "lifetime-exlusive heterosexuality" is what causes men to prefer "feminine" women, then why do some bisexual men prefer "feminine" women, such as the bisexual Lawrence Olivier's marriage to the "feminine" Vivien Leigh, which ended only because her then-untreatable bipolar disorder made life with her unbearable? If a man who says he is straight but prefers "masculinized" women is probably not "lifetime exclusive heterosexual", then does a bisexual man's preference for "feminine" women prove his not really bisexual? But Olivier was definitely bisexual; his second wife has admitted it.
Erik, maybe the relationship between a man's sexual orientation and his preferences in women is not as simple as you want it to be.
:question:
PROOF THAT HEAVY/OBESE WOMEN WERE THE WESTERN BEAUTY IDEAL PRIOR TO THE 20TH CENTURY, WHICH MEANS MEN DO NOT HAVE AN INNATE PREFERENCE FOR SMALL WAIST TO HIP RATIOS AND HOURGLASS FIGURES
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Erik, your "proof" that in medieval Europe obesity was stigmatized and tiny waists preferred is bogus nonsense because both of the studies you cite are studies of medieval to 18th century LITERATURE, which does not reflect the feelings of "most people" in those societies because:
1. "Most people" pre-19th century were illiterate and therefore not only could not speak for themselves on paper but could not even influence published writers by providing an audience.
2. Your "proof" that in medieval Europe obesity was stigmatized is worthless because it consists of nothing but a study that indicates that in medieval Europe in which all governments practiced censorship of published writings on the grounds of their various Christian official state religions, published writers paid lip service to the official line that gluttony is a deadly sin in order to avoid career ruin and possible imprisonment.
3. Your "proof" that in 16th, 17th and 18th century Britain tiny waists preferred is worthless because it consists of nothing but a study commissioned by Britain's Royal Society/National Academy of Science/Biological Sciences Department claiming that the published literature of those centuries consistently described small waists as beautiful; surely you cannot be so blindly naive to bias in research as to fail to see that a government-funded biologists' organization whose mission is partly to promote public health has a vested interest in telling the public that healthy body weight has always been considered beautiful.
"Plump" is the word most frequently used by 19th century English/European fiction writers to describe the female character the author considered most beautiful, once government censorship of published works relaxed considerably compared to its medieval zenith and authors were somewhat free to say what they really thought, and once Western socieities had, for the first time in their histories, huge numbers of functionally literate people so authors could actually make money by appealing to the tastes of "most people". I know this as an English literature connoissuer and as the daughter of an Ivy League-educated English professor, but if you need to hear it from somebody else, here is a list of quotes from 19th century English/European novelists DROOLING over beautiful "plump" women.
Yes, that website's webmaster is a man with a personal preference for heavy women, but that does not change the fact that his analysis of literature is based on accurate reported quotes, whereas Britain's Royal Society/National Academy of Science/Biological Sciences Department's analysis of literature states a conclusion without sharing the the quotes on which it was based - very bad scientific reporting, refusing to share their core data. Note that almost all of their study's listed references are scientific texts, not literature. How much literature did they actually bother to read? They didn't really need to read any literature, since they had already made up their minds to reach a health-promoting conclusion.
Botticelli's "Venus" is hardly the only proof that pre-20th century Western artwork consistently portrayed beautiful, glamorized, sexualized women as heavy or even obese. Again, this website has a bias in favor of heavy women, but that does not change the fact that the artwork shown on that page represents a cross section of Northern and Southern Europe and of all eras Classical to Fin de Siecle, 200 BC to 1900 AD.
Visual art has never been as government-censored as literature in the West (as opposed to places like the Arab/Muslim world where visual imagery is far more censored than written words), and so medieval to 18th century Western visual artists were free to say in pictures what their contemporary writers were not free to say in words: they got hard for fat women, "deadly sin" be damned.
Conclusion: Natural attraction to the signs of good health and fertility play a role in aesthetic/sexual preferences not by creating an innate male preference for the most fertile female body type (hourglass) but only to the extent of making most people averse to the signs of EXTREME bad health or TOTAL infertility, such as truly morbid obesity (not just obesity, truly morbid), emaciation (not just skinniness, emaction), and old age (not just no-longer-young, truly old).
:)
Erik, I am sure that most heterosexual men would find her unremarkable. A lot of them would screw her if she made the offer but that is not saying much. Her face is sort of cute but her body is very average (for a young girl) and terrible (for any kind of model).
Whipped honey: I will clarify what I previously posted in an article on Hugh Hefner.
Clarification on the sexual orientation of Hugh Hefner
I haven’t made the claim that Hefner is not heterosexual based on a rumor and on the allegation of his watching gay pornography made by one or two women who have lived in the Playboy mansion. Hefner himself has admitted to experimenting with bisexuality. I can cite two studies that provide good evidence showing that people who have ever experienced same-sex attraction or voluntarily indulged in homosexual behavior belong to a different category of people than lifetime-exclusive heterosexuals (people who have experienced neither element):
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Lifetime-exclusive heterosexuals, which Hefner isn’t by his own admission, are the only true heterosexuals. The second strong line of evidence that Hefner is not heterosexual has to do with the looks of a large number of Playboy centerfolds, especially in recent years. Playboy magazine is the biggest men’s publication of its kind and can afford to pay its models very well. How many other outlets do you know of that pay $25,000 to a woman for posing as a nude centerfold, $100,000 to a Playmate of the Year and much more to celebrities who pose nude? Most nude models earn a few hundred dollars at most for an entire photo shoot. Shouldn’t Playboy be featuring some of the most attractive women as far as heterosexual men are concerned? But no, many of these women, especially from the 1990s onward are shockingly masculine (and often need fake breasts). There is simply no way a heterosexual man is responsible for selecting them. I will post more pictures if you are not convinced.
I said that the allegation about watching gay pornography is weak. It may or may not be true, and I haven’t built my case on it. He is also alleged to indulge in unprotected anal intercourse with some of his girlfriends. I wouldn’t be surprised if both these allegations are true, but I am not resting my case on these allegations.
Evolution of beauty standards
Where have I claimed that beauty standards do not substantially change? Do you think I believe that ape-men, our ancestors who looked in between apes and modern humans, had the same exact central tendency of beauty standards as, say, modern Europeans do? I have stated that you, Hally, Billy, Danielle and others have not made the case you believe you have made.
See my reply to Billy regarding body fat preferences in women in medieval Europe. Paintings of chubby women from this period no more prove that they were held as an ideal by most people than skinny and masculine women occupying the highest status among female models in contemporary Western societies proves that such looks are regarded as ideal by most Westerners today.
I haven’t been talking about “high levels of female hormones and low levels of male hormones.” Estrogens (female hormones according to you) and androgens (male hormones according to you) are present in both sexes.
I haven’t disputed that many physical features associated with higher social class will be considered more desirable by most people. This issue came up in the form of your alleging that people with higher social class prefer the looks of high-fashion models, but as I pointed out you cited no evidence and no such thing has been shown in studies where people of different social classes have been asked to judge female attractiveness.
Don’t say that “Erik conveniently dismisses any man who disagrees with his ideas of female beauty by making totally unprovable allegations that the man is “not lifetime exclusive heterosexual” or “barely escaped nonheterosexuality”... I have brought up these issues on few occasions and when I have, I have described reasons why these possibilities need to be considered.
Lingerie stuff
Of course, lingerie is marketed to women, but what men desire in women’s looks is what women desire in their own looks. So why would women not want lingerie models’ looks to be in agreement, too? You bring up the studies of the Bailey et al. group. I still have to respond to this in another thread, and I will but don’t know when. In their nutshell, their studies are useless.
So I should read evolutionary psychology? Since there are few high status men and most women are not obtaining them, how would it hurt women’s reproductive success if most of them were as promiscuous as men? You can’t even get a fundamental issue right. The issue is not about number of children. It is about two things: the burden of raising children and using sex to obtain resources. A man can impregnate a woman and disappear, but the woman will have to deal with the cost of pregnancy and child care, and hence a woman will be inclined toward being more careful in her choices, and this will correlate with a weaker libido since a stronger libido increases the likelihood of making unwise decisions in the heat of passion. Besides, it isn’t like women are programmed for monogamy/”semi-monogamy,” but one expects women to restrict their sexuality so that they make scarce what men want and thereby raise their value, exchange sex for better resources and make men do things to impress them, thereby being better able to gauge who is more motivated and who is better able in obtaining more resources/power.
You said, “Simply put, women do not want to be what men want women to be.” Since you mentioned evolutionary psychology, here is something that you will be interested in reading, and it argues the opposite, namely that women will generally tend to have a very good idea of what men optimally desire in women and would share the same preferences/want those characteristic among themselves:
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I am sure you will recognize some big evolutionary psychology folk up there.
You said that pleasing men is not the primary motivator of female sexuality, but who said that it is? If women typically wear lingerie to arouse a male partner they would want a lingerie model who presents the image of restrictive sexuality? Makes a lot of sense.
It isn’t like a lingerie company has to produce a catalog bordering on soft porn; using feminine and attractive women to model lingerie would not make it look pornographic.
“Homophobia”
Don’t waste your time accusing me of homophobia. What I have written on homosexuality is backed up with an extensive amount of evidence. Facts cannot be homophobic. If you had read the entry on the Latvian attitude toward gay pride, you would have clearly encountered my opposition to the anti-gay group’s behavior.
Danielle: How about you ask heterosexual men if they believe she doesn't have enough muscle tone or if they have problems with her "flab." More pictures of her backside can be found at the link in the article.
Billy: Your comments have been spread over a week, yet they do not indicate that you have made an effort to read enough of this site. Please do so before leaving further comments.
No discretion in inferring a preference for feminine physiques?
If one only had data regarding femininity preferences in reference to face shape, then extrapolating it to body preferences would not be unreasonable because sex hormones have a global effect. Women with more feminine faces will generally tend to have more feminine physiques. What are the odds that there is a preference for above average femininity in facial features but not in physique? What purpose could a preference for above average femininity in facial features serve? The latter is answered by evidence on the eating disorders page as well as in a study on face shape and estrogen levels, where it turns out that above average femininity is correlated with better fertility and fecundity. So if facial femininity is a cue to these variables then does one not expect the physique to also be a cue to these variables and a preference for feminine faces to co-exist with a preference for feminine physiques? These considerations do not require any data on whether feminine physiques are preferred. However, data in this regard are provided elsewhere within this site; it is simply not possible to present all relevant information on one page. For instance, many studies have revealed a preference for below average waist-to-hip ratios in women (leaning toward the feminine side) on the part of both men and women. One of the articles addresses confounds related to WHR and attractiveness at this blog, and this article provides links to pdfs of many of the citations. Some of these pdfs cite a preference for prominent breasts in women, too, which one hardly needs to cite. So don’t accuse me making a mere assumption.
Change in beauty ideals
No one named Hally has commented on this article. You took the comment from elsewhere. Neither Hally nor you have made a convincing case for change in ideals, and I will repeat again that my argument has never been that there has been no change. The Katzmarzyk and Davis paper you referenced has been cited at this site since when it was set up (~2 years ago). I have addressed the issue in much more detail in an article on twentieth century trends in shapes of high-fashion models, Miss Americas and Playboy Playmates of the Year. The issue you raised is the body weight of Playboy centerfolds, but I have long pointed out that the researchers that have documented this trend have relied on reported weight, not measured weight and if only they had bothered to look at enough centerfolds, they would realize that their weight are underreported and useless for analysis.
I agree that there has been a change among Playboy centerfolds over the decades; they have become more masculinized, but this by no means proves that there has been a shift in public preferences. To understand this issue, the best example is of the masculinization in high-fashion models' faces, clearly at odds with majority preferences...the top models do not reflect anything close to the central tendency of the optimal preferences of the public, but then public preferences do not determine what women get to be top high-fashion models. Playboy was founded by a bisexual male, Hugh Hefner, and he has simply brought the models in line with his tastes over the years, suffering in sales somewhat but not greatly because Playboy was a pioneering magazine that enjoyed a very comfortable headstart over its current competition, making Playboy Inc. well known and rich, and also the fact that feminine beauty is hardly in the limelight.
Playboy magazine is also useless for assessing shifts in heterosexual men’s preferences in a quantitative manner because over half the centerfolds from the 1990s onward have sported breast implants, making their bust measurements useless, yet many researchers are oblivious to this. If you are a heterosexual man and you click on the Hugh Hefner link above, one look at the Playboy centerfolds shown and it would be obvious that the person making the selections is not a heterosexual man.
How does one know that Botticelli’s Venus represented the ideal held by most people? It is a popular myth that excess body fat was desired in women in medieval Europe; the reality is that obesity was stigmatized and tiny waists preferred.
Don’t bring in a tan. I have already addressed it; a tan is not a shape variable and is pretty much readily reversible as opposed to body shape variation along the masculine-feminine discriminant.
Once again, I am not insisting that there has been no change in public preferences across time, but you have not made a decent argument for change pertaining to the chief issue at hand, namely masculinity-femininity, within the past couple of decades/centuries. You, like Hally, have brought up the issue of change to somehow argue that the public’s preferences are responsible for the fashion models’ looks, but this is simply not true. Read more of this site.
What are lingerie models supposed to look like?
It is not mere assumption on my part that lingerie models are supposed to look feminine. In the first part of this series I addressed the basic use of lingerie. Women generally use it to put their male partner in the mood. So what would be the basic marketing consideration? Obviously, “buy this lingerie and acquire this woman’s sex appeal [to heterosexual men].” So a lingerie model is expected to be feminine. Additionally, why do a number of Victoria’s Secret models have breast implants, and why does the company pose them in a manner to make them look more feminine if there is no need for them to look feminine?
The majority of lingerie models being masculinized simply reflects the homosexual domination of the business. Yes, there are plenty of non-gay designers, including some in powerful positions, but the gay domination sets the status quo; others have to comply with it. It is patent nonsense that “women have a powerful influence over the modeling industry.” Read the following from Rebecca Johnson in the April 2007 Vogue Shapes issue:
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In the passages above, Ms. Johnson is mentioning some examples of people being reluctant to talk about the pressure they are under to have very thin models. Note the comment by Donna Karan, a big name among fashion designers. Does her comment suggest that women have a lot of power in the industry? She appears to be or perhaps pretends to be oblivious to the reason why models have to be very thin.
Calvin Klein is not a heterosexual. He has not been forthcoming about his sexual orientation, but he appears to be some type of bisexual who mostly leans toward pederasty.
I have not stated that “the lingerie industry is targeting heterosexual men with their campaigns”; lingerie is sold to women, not men. I said that “a lingerie show directly or indirectly caters to heterosexual men” since it is clear what the typical purpose of lingerie is. In your reply to Der Wanderer, you stated that “women do not select their wardrobe based on its ability to arouse men (at least not exclusively)...” however, this article isn't about a wardrobe; it is about lingerie.
Are the vast majority of individuals not lifetime-exclusive heterosexual and is this the reason that lingerie companies go for androgyny in their models? Sigmund Freud conducted no scientific studies regarding the prevalence of homosexuals and bisexuals; he just had conjectures. Alfred Kinsey deliberately oversampled homosexuals and bisexuals and still ended up with a majority exclusively heterosexual statistic. I am not aware of Judith Butler ever publishing any scientific surveys on the prevalence of nonheterosexuality; she is a postmodernist, not the kind of person who would be interested in scientific studies, and so on. If you were to look at actual random and population-based scientific surveys, then the great majority of humans turn out to be lifetime-exclusive heterosexual (e.g., Table 1 here).
Discerning own preference from market preference
My argument has nothing to do with the assumption that “homosexual men are in capable of discerning the difference between their own sexually charged aesthetic preferences and that of their market.” What reasonable person would assume this? My argument is that the homosexuals’ dominance of the business allows them to get away with their choices. They are selling a desirable item, and if they do not face competition (others selling comparable products using feminine beauties), then they will get away with their choices.
Accusing me of a “constant charge against dissenters of this site that they must not be “lifetime exclusive” heterosexual men” is baseless smear. Your assumption that if the majority of men are lifetime-exclusive heterosexual then it is “highly unlikely that every man contributing to this forum who has disagreed with Erik is a non-"lifetime exclusive” heterosexual” is ludicrous. You have no idea about what proportion of people that have gone through this site have left comments. This site attracts thousands of unique users per day and the vast majority of them do not leave any comment. So how can one assume that the proportion of lifetime-exclusive heterosexual men in the very small minority that does leave a comment matches that in the general population? How can one be sure that someone posting under a male name is a man? How does one know that a dissenter using a gender-neutral alias is a man?
"Homophobia"
Prior to the 1970s, the left had negative attitudes toward homosexuality with few exceptions. The Bolshevists descriminalized sodomy, but the Stalinists recriminalized it because a number of Nazis were homosexuals and Stalin was concerned about Nazi infiltration of homosexual circles in major Russian cities. There are many pre-1970s examples of persecution of homosexuals by leftists, as pointed out by Whipped honey, but the Stonewall Riots (1969) changed things and the left in the West came to see homosexuality as useful to its long-term goals. Hence Der Wanderer is right about my take on homophobia being a communist (read leftist) plot run by proxy in present times. Yes we do look at the Nazis and the KKK with disgust, but we should look at the communists with even greater disgust since they caused much more carnage.
Comment
Your claims about “misapplied statistics, incredible statistics, bigoted assumptions, a denial of logic, and a denial of overwhelming evidence to the contrary” are unsubstantiated, and you have resorted to ad hominem (calling me homophobic and uneducated when I am the one citing a bunch of studies, not you). Read more of this site before arguing.
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