Kimberly: Whereas regarding me as a “despicable a**hole” is a matter of personal opinion, the sexist part has to be justified, and in all your comments, you have yet to justify it. Description is not prescription. Describing what is in the best interests of women interested in heterosexual men is not to say that these women should do anything.
In selecting men, women are not forced to lower the value of looks because “the majority of men are not complying by chasing an exalted physical standard,” but because women tend to have high standards for a suitable partner, which involve multiple desirable traits, and in reality most men will not meet these standards, forcing women to compromise. The men who meet these high standards have a lot of women after them and will naturally choose the best looking ones, which explains the pressure on women to look good. In other words, women are primarily responsible for the pressure they feel to look good.
I do not accept “that people other than homosexual men have been socialized to embrace this new ideal” because, to repeat once again, controlled laboratory studies show that most people harbor a preference for above average femininity in women notwithstanding this alleged socialization, i.e., there is no such socialization in the first place. What you are looking at is not socialization, but the inability to see the extent of masculinization often seen in fashion models given the dearth of feminine beauty in the limelight and posing tricks, implants and airbrushing among models.
Whereas the female pelvis is wider, it is also vertically shorter, not vertically longer as you have assumed. A vertically longer pelvis is not helpful since it will increase transit time to the outside world. Your statistic about death during childbirth prior to the availability of modern medicine is undoubtedly grossly exaggerated for most human populations.
Of course, unattractive features will diminish overall attractiveness. This does not mean that that there is no strong correlation between femininity and beauty; strong correlation does not imply perfect correlation.
Someone with an ordinary face and great body will obviously look less attractive than someone with a great face and a great body. Facial attractiveness is more important than the attractiveness of many body parts because when people interact with each other, they look mostly at the face and are thus more tuned to it.
I have a Korean friend who told me beautiful Korean actresses who have big eyes had them altered. Chinese people are also becoming addicted to cosmetic surgery. Surgery is now an in thing in Asia because Asians want to look like Caucasians.
erik how important is facial beauty compared to body beauty in terms of overall attractiveness? i mean does an exceptrional hourglass figure but a very average looking not beautiful face and vice versa not lessen the appeal of a person?
This is only my opinion after viewing a couple of photographs of each. Some links didn't post the pics; sorry for that. As for Norway, her in that gown is not a very good picture, but her face is pretty nontheless. My opinions on their attractiveness is based on their face only, too, since there aren't more pictures of their figure.
Haha I actually meant to say you probably resemble John Mark Karr, not Karl Marx! I'm doing a paper on the Communist Manifesto and I'm getting things mixed up. I apologize, Erik. I would never confuse you with such a brilliant theorist as KM ;)
As for Frank, you really shouldn't even bother wasting your time explaining things to Erik. Just concentrate on your studies because these are actually FACTUAL information, or at least are supported by strong evidence, while Erik only pulls his information out of his ass.
Haha Erik you crack me up. I haven't been here in a while and I see that my numerous posts have attracted a lot more people.
You DO realize that the others also disagree with your ridiculous beliefs (and I'M the one posting nonsense?) as well, don't you? I can't recall a time I read a comment from a visitor who actually praised you for you "work." If one does, you actually make a blog entitled "I am not alone." HAHAHA that's pretty hilarious.
As for your comment about how readers can guess what I look like.. you're kidding me right? Nothing I have wrote so far would imply that I was unattractive - and what would my physical looks have anything to do with my comments on this preposterous website of yours? I know what attractive is, and I wouldn't consider myself that if I didn't think I was. I'm not as egotistical as you are, but I know pretty when I see it. If I was ever so desperate as to post up a picture of myself for YOUR approval, please do me a favor and come over here to California and slap me across the face for being so pathetic. If you really DID find me attractive, that would be a blow to my confidence, seeing as how you don't even know yourself what true beauty really is. I mean you get hot and heavy about "women" like Sonia Blake, for Christ's sake. HAHAHAHA
And are you seriously arguing against the person who claimed you were racist? What the hell was this: (loosely quoted from YOU) "decent, classy bars do their best to keep out African-Americans." Where the hell did you ever get that idea? People here aren't as racist as you are, I'm afraid; no one's social status is affected by the color of their skin. I'm also in my early twenties you dolt. When I go to bars to have fun, I go to ones that cater to my age group, not snobby high-end bars for old people, where I imagine are the only places that would have such a ludicrous rule as to keep blacks out. As for the bar fight I witnessed, yes, that dumb ass was stupid for picking a fight with someone just because he disliked them for their skin color. Of course YOU would never do such a thing, Erik, because you're just a scrawny pale 50 year old pervert that probably looks like John Karl Marx, and even I could win in a fight with you. You know you could never win in a match with anyone, not even those beautiful models you rag on, because they're just sooooooooo masculine, right? Definitely more masculine than you.
Kimberly: As far as I know, those Asian women I posted up photographs of have not gone through any plastic surgery. If they had, they wouldn't be as famous in their home country as they are. If you want, I could provide you with all their names and you could look it up; I'm almost certain they are all natural.
erike and it is in this sense i.e the comment i left just above that beauty is not a correlate of femininity because sometimes no matter how overall feminine one may look a single feature alone can diminish the attractiveness level.
I under stand what your saying so it is to some degree subjective you can say in the final assessment, so there is by what you are saying some common notion which may be innate in us that we prefer or rate one woman over the other in terms of attractiveness.
One last thing, I promise: why does a vertically long pelvis imply masculinity, when that's actually a sexually dimorphic trait (skewing toward femininity)? I'm not arguing that Klum is feminine! We agree on that. But this one trait...
Look at the most virilized women, like Gisele, and her pelvis size from the back is tiny--more like a boy's. The female pelvis is wider AND longer to accommodate childbirth. Even women with exceptionally "accommodating" ones didn't make it out of childbirth alive approximately half the time before the advent of modern medicine. Perhaps her vertical elongation is outside the female norm, but not necessarily due to masculinization? Or is it that you see it as an indicator of masculinity because it emphasizes that her overall torso is large and long, like a male's?
Aaron: I don't know how natural Jodie Marsh's huge breasts in some recent pictures are, but the woman is not describable as very feminine. Her waist width, rib cage width and muscularity are not consistent with a high level of femininity, but the woman is not manly and she is curvaceous. Consider her normal with respect to masculinity-femininity.
I take back the despicable sexist asshole comment. It is so mean, although called-for! Anyway, I have to agree with one of your last comments about how so many people are shocked to hear that Heidi or any VS girls are MASCULINE, even though it's scarily obvious, thereby proving the desperate need for this site and increased awareness of the issue. But why do you vehemently deny that people other than homosexual men have been socialized to embrace this new ideal when you're arguing with me about misogyny, though you keep seeing evidence to the contrary? You take that evidence you tell me doesn't exist, and then turn around to use it to justify your website's mission. It exists! It's real! And it's anti-woman!
"As far as what women would want to look like goes, if you are a heterosexual woman, you should realize that it is in the best interests of a heterosexual woman to have looks that greatly please the majority of heterosexual men since then she will be able to attract a lot of men and have her pick; the more the choice, the more selective one can be."
Hear that women? You should make yourselves pleasing to men. Get on it!
Erik, can you evaluate this very real cultural phenomenon without being such a despicable sexist asshole?
Sure, you're taking the evolutionary perspective ("I'm helping you to have your pick of men!") but you're not understanding that these sexist notions of mutilating one's body to "please men" are demeaning and a cultural PROBLEM, not an inevitability. Men would be doing the same thing if they would only wear tight clothes, show some peen-cleavage, etc. They don't do this because it's not culturally imposed on them to the extent it is perpetuated for women. In fact, there are social pressures for men to do anything BUT what women are expected to do: spend hours upon hours, as much money as is available, and a lot of self-esteem worrying if they are showing enough skin, and in such a way that it shows off the elusive ideal shape they're chasing.
If the majority of men are not complying by chasing an exalted physical standard, that forces women to go on other factors for mate-selection, thereby forcing her to lower the value of looks in her process.
I don't agree with the exaltation of manly-women, but I also don't agree with this presumed compliance with the degrading status quo.
Jess: I agree that it is not for nothing that Giselle is a very well paid model, and the reason is that her masculine looks have greatly pleased the people who dominate the fashion business, namely male homosexual fashion designers.
It is misogynistic because so many people other than gay men have embraced it. I can't watch TV without products and services that promise to get rid of my hips being thrown in my face. Even men who claim to like "feminine" women pick and choose which aspects are sufficiently feminine and reject other markers for sexual dimorphism. They are socialized just as the rest are, no matter how delusionally free of it they believe they are. Anyway, people have embraced this increasingly tubular body shape, whether we agree with it or not.
Oh, so Nordic skin is now "normal" skin? I mean the light-skinned people who are blue-eyed and naturally blonde into adulthood, and pale in that pinkish sort of way. They are equally pale as UK folks, if not more so. These so-called Aryans were, yes, perceived as stupid when Indian people and/or other Middle Easterners first encountered them. Ironically/sadly, the caste system seems to have changed its priorities...
Why are you shocked at the prospect that Caucasian features weren't uniformly considered the ideal throughout history? Supremacist ideology isn't inherently skewed in favor of whites. But now we're going way off-topic.
Look at any message board about VS models. Most people HAVE sanctioned it. Tyra Banks, who I dislike primarily for her idiocy and horrendous pseudo-personality, is even on the cover of my fucking Shape magazine this month. Cancelling it. Soon.
So, I said something derogatory about the looks of androgynous women who get paid more money than I'll ever hope to make for merely looking that way. That sexist statement doesn't absolve you of YOUR sexism/racism. FAQ me all you want, baby, you add masculinized women to the attractive women section every day--so long as they're white, and it's not a good enough reason to entirely exclude so many superbly feminine African American women that I see daily--anthropometric skull differences or no.
I don't think promiscuity has anything to do with why women in porn are masculinized! Most women find pornography degrading, but those virilized women probably identify with men more and care less about women's rights. Also, abused women are more likely to have an increase of testosterone and decrease of estrogen, although I cant find the study for it. They appear more masculine. Women with abusive/neglectful upbringings often end up in pornography. So that's a potential confounding factor.
Feminine women aren't "allowed" to be promiscuous. I, an exceptionally feminine woman with the exception of "robust cheekbones" due to some of my awesome residual Native American heritage, would love to have as many attractive mens' cocks in me as often as I could gather them, but diseases and cultural indoctrination have prevented me from doing so. If I can find a way around the diseases part, I am shedding the cultural bullshit ASAP, all 32DD-22-35 of me, bissshhh.
And another thing, height is hereditary and can be altered depending on pathogenic interference/lack of nutrition during development, but what one is fundamentally inheriting is a propensity toward estrogen or testosterone production. Tall women ARE masculinized, although you can find ones with both high testosterone and indicators of higher than average estrogen. However, if the ratio of estrogen to testosterone were extremely feminine, she would be shorter than average, and also more fertile. There are studies, and whatnot.
Admit it, you like this one aspect of the current beauty ideal that denigrates sexual dimorphism. So you can pick and choose which extremes are ideal based on your own preferences?
Ok, now what? Gisele is not beautiful?? Jealousy...thats it...why dont you guys look yourselves at the mirror?? and guess what..she might have had a boob job, or nose job or whatever, but it isn't for nothing shes the best paid model alive...
On the Jomon/Ainu issue, I'm afraid you ignore the mass of modern studies which would contradict you, in favour of one which might seem to support you, although reading closer, I'm not sure that it actually does. It should be noted that the chief author, C.Loring Brace, one of the "old school" of physical anthropologists, tends to use such terms as "caucasoids", "aryans", in an outdated and rather misleading way, as if these represented physical "races", rather than simply as physical types.
I don't have the literature to hand with me (my PC is at a different address from my library), but reference to such works as "Ruins of Identity" (about ethnogenesis in Japan) by Mark J. Hudson, and "China, Korea, and Japan" (archaeology) by Gina Barnes, shows quite clearly that the Jomon/Ainu skulls and skeletons were in some ways more dissimilar to supposed "caucasoid/European" than were the Yayoi (Korean derived) immigrants, whom nobody claim as "caucasoids", while being in other ways closer. For instance, the Jomon had proportionately much shorter and broader faces than the Yayoi. (The Barnes book actually has a drawing comparing typical Jomon and Yayoi skulls which shows this clearly). The Jomon were also shorter and stockier in physique than the Yayoi - which might be one reason why early Chinese records refer to Japan as a land of dwarfs.
My mention on "minor superficial features" such as epicanthic folds was precisely because these features, minor or not, have played a MAJOR part in the typological "racial" classifications of the past. These classifications play only an insignificant role, if any at all, in modern physical anthropology, but still loom large in the "popular" fringes of science - and also on the racist white-superiority sites which are common on the internet. I note that even one of these has somewhat played down the "caucasoid" Ainu theme.
I agree that population affinities need to be assessed using multiple markers. Using these however, numerous differing, and apparently conflicting, pictures of relationships can be arrived at. I say "apparently" because what these actually show is the complexity of relationships between populations - the very complexities which annoy those who want to stick with old racial - and racist - "certainties". I am sure that as further studies go on, more and more complexities and anomalies will arise. As for "neutral features", I suggest that this is a difficult, and potentially misleading concept. The fact is that there are many features which have been claimed to be "neutral", which on closer study have proven to be not so.
As for "East Asian features". It is generally accepted that all populations of non-African ethnic origin derive from a small number of people who migrated out of Africa. What did these people look like? The earliest Homo sapiens sapiens skulls in Eurasia, including East Asia, all look more "caucasoid" than do modern East Asians. Similarly, early and many modern Amerindian populations similarly are not characterised by such features as "mid-facial flattening" - those which do show such features probably owe these to intermixture with the later Na-Dene and Eskimo-Aleut immigrants. Similarly with ancient and modern Polynesians (to whom both the Ainu and "Kennewick Man" have been compared, although nobody I hope is suggesting that the Ainu are Polynesians). Moreover such people as the New Guineans and Australian Aborigines, which recent studies confirm as being descended from the initial small band of "out of Africa" H.s.sapiens emigrants, are not characterised by East Asian features.
So in terms of Eurasia, most East Asian features probably are recent developments, and evolved out of a situation where they did not exist, or only existed at a low frequency. I must stress here that this does not mean that they are "better" characteristics. Unfortunately the equation "more evolved" = "better" was one established by the racist driven theories of the past. Since these theories arose in a largely European academe, it thus became inconceivable that populations with many "caucasoid" characteristics could evolve into populations with less of them. I suggest that the shadow of this still lies across physical anthropology to this day, which is why the idea that many East Asian characteristics are modern evolutionary developments has only started to be posited recently.
Again the point of bringing Peter Frost in to the picture is that he has proposed a way in which quite rapid evolutionary changes can occur to set up polymorphisms, in his case to do with eye and hair colour in a part of Europe. Exactly the same sort of process could lead to the rapid evolution of polymorphisms in other parts of the world for other features, since there isn't any reason why these sorts of processes might not work for features other than hair and eye colour. (Incidentally, as Peter Frost has acknowledged on his website, polymorphism for hair colour is not confined to Europe, although most marked there. I suspect that closer study will reveal that the same goes, to a lesser degree, for eye colour).
My reply to your attack on my original post will have to wait for a later post of mine.
Kimberly: Whereas regarding me as a “despicable a**hole” is a matter of personal opinion, the sexist part has to be justified, and in all your comments, you have yet to justify it. Description is not prescription. Describing what is in the best interests of women interested in heterosexual men is not to say that these women should do anything.
In selecting men, women are not forced to lower the value of looks because “the majority of men are not complying by chasing an exalted physical standard,” but because women tend to have high standards for a suitable partner, which involve multiple desirable traits, and in reality most men will not meet these standards, forcing women to compromise. The men who meet these high standards have a lot of women after them and will naturally choose the best looking ones, which explains the pressure on women to look good. In other words, women are primarily responsible for the pressure they feel to look good.
I do not accept “that people other than homosexual men have been socialized to embrace this new ideal” because, to repeat once again, controlled laboratory studies show that most people harbor a preference for above average femininity in women notwithstanding this alleged socialization, i.e., there is no such socialization in the first place. What you are looking at is not socialization, but the inability to see the extent of masculinization often seen in fashion models given the dearth of feminine beauty in the limelight and posing tricks, implants and airbrushing among models.
Whereas the female pelvis is wider, it is also vertically shorter, not vertically longer as you have assumed. A vertically longer pelvis is not helpful since it will increase transit time to the outside world. Your statistic about death during childbirth prior to the availability of modern medicine is undoubtedly grossly exaggerated for most human populations.
Of course, unattractive features will diminish overall attractiveness. This does not mean that that there is no strong correlation between femininity and beauty; strong correlation does not imply perfect correlation.
Someone with an ordinary face and great body will obviously look less attractive than someone with a great face and a great body. Facial attractiveness is more important than the attractiveness of many body parts because when people interact with each other, they look mostly at the face and are thus more tuned to it.
Simon: Suada Sherifaj is on the masculine side...look at forehead-nose projection and jaw shape.
But anyway, let's be sure about whether they are natural beauties or not. Can you give us their names?
Sarah, the Asian women whose pictures you posted have most likely undergone plstic surgery. Plastic surgery is very rampant in Asia see this link:
http://www.time.com/time/asia/covers/1101020805/
I have a Korean friend who told me beautiful Korean actresses who have big eyes had them altered. Chinese people are also becoming addicted to cosmetic surgery. Surgery is now an in thing in Asia because Asians want to look like Caucasians.
erik how important is facial beauty compared to body beauty in terms of overall attractiveness? i mean does an exceptrional hourglass figure but a very average looking not beautiful face and vice versa not lessen the appeal of a person?
erik
what do you think of Miss Albania - Suada Sherifaj
how masculine/feminine is she? Her face looks feminine enough?
Oops forgot to finish.
This is only my opinion after viewing a couple of photographs of each. Some links didn't post the pics; sorry for that. As for Norway, her in that gown is not a very good picture, but her face is pretty nontheless. My opinions on their attractiveness is based on their face only, too, since there aren't more pictures of their figure.
I have never implied I was pissed. This site of yours actually gives me comical relief.
In relevance to this entry, Erik, what do you think about the new Miss Universe contestants?
My support is with:
Finland
http://content.missuniverse.com/delegates/2007/images/swim/FI.jpg
http://missuniverse.com/delegates/2007/files/FI-photo-gown.html
Italy
http://content.missuniverse.com/delegates/2007/images/swim/IT.jpg
http://missuniverse.com/delegates/2007/files/IT-photo-gown.html
Japan
http://content.missuniverse.com/delegates/2007/images/swim/JP.jpg
Korea
http://content.missuniverse.com/delegates/2007/images/swim/KR.jpg
http://missuniverse.com/delegates/2007/files/KR-photo-gown.html
Norway
http://content.missuniverse.com/delegates/2007/images/swim/NO.jpg
http://content.missuniverse.com/delegates/2007/images/gown/NO.jpg
Tanzania
http://content.missuniverse.com/delegates/2007/images/swim/TZ.jpg
USA
http://content.missuniverse.com/delegates/2007/images/swim/US.jpg
http://content.missuniverse.com/delegates/2007/images/gown/US.jpg
Haha I actually meant to say you probably resemble John Mark Karr, not Karl Marx! I'm doing a paper on the Communist Manifesto and I'm getting things mixed up. I apologize, Erik. I would never confuse you with such a brilliant theorist as KM ;)
As for Frank, you really shouldn't even bother wasting your time explaining things to Erik. Just concentrate on your studies because these are actually FACTUAL information, or at least are supported by strong evidence, while Erik only pulls his information out of his ass.
Haha Erik you crack me up. I haven't been here in a while and I see that my numerous posts have attracted a lot more people.
You DO realize that the others also disagree with your ridiculous beliefs (and I'M the one posting nonsense?) as well, don't you? I can't recall a time I read a comment from a visitor who actually praised you for you "work." If one does, you actually make a blog entitled "I am not alone." HAHAHA that's pretty hilarious.
As for your comment about how readers can guess what I look like.. you're kidding me right? Nothing I have wrote so far would imply that I was unattractive - and what would my physical looks have anything to do with my comments on this preposterous website of yours? I know what attractive is, and I wouldn't consider myself that if I didn't think I was. I'm not as egotistical as you are, but I know pretty when I see it. If I was ever so desperate as to post up a picture of myself for YOUR approval, please do me a favor and come over here to California and slap me across the face for being so pathetic. If you really DID find me attractive, that would be a blow to my confidence, seeing as how you don't even know yourself what true beauty really is. I mean you get hot and heavy about "women" like Sonia Blake, for Christ's sake. HAHAHAHA
And are you seriously arguing against the person who claimed you were racist? What the hell was this: (loosely quoted from YOU) "decent, classy bars do their best to keep out African-Americans." Where the hell did you ever get that idea? People here aren't as racist as you are, I'm afraid; no one's social status is affected by the color of their skin. I'm also in my early twenties you dolt. When I go to bars to have fun, I go to ones that cater to my age group, not snobby high-end bars for old people, where I imagine are the only places that would have such a ludicrous rule as to keep blacks out. As for the bar fight I witnessed, yes, that dumb ass was stupid for picking a fight with someone just because he disliked them for their skin color. Of course YOU would never do such a thing, Erik, because you're just a scrawny pale 50 year old pervert that probably looks like John Karl Marx, and even I could win in a fight with you. You know you could never win in a match with anyone, not even those beautiful models you rag on, because they're just sooooooooo masculine, right? Definitely more masculine than you.
Kimberly: As far as I know, those Asian women I posted up photographs of have not gone through any plastic surgery. If they had, they wouldn't be as famous in their home country as they are. If you want, I could provide you with all their names and you could look it up; I'm almost certain they are all natural.
Well, that's fine. I dont like your face either, erik. but at least i get paid for my looks, and you dont.
erike and it is in this sense i.e the comment i left just above that beauty is not a correlate of femininity because sometimes no matter how overall feminine one may look a single feature alone can diminish the attractiveness level.
erik
I under stand what your saying so it is to some degree subjective you can say in the final assessment, so there is by what you are saying some common notion which may be innate in us that we prefer or rate one woman over the other in terms of attractiveness.
One last thing, I promise: why does a vertically long pelvis imply masculinity, when that's actually a sexually dimorphic trait (skewing toward femininity)? I'm not arguing that Klum is feminine! We agree on that. But this one trait...
Look at the most virilized women, like Gisele, and her pelvis size from the back is tiny--more like a boy's. The female pelvis is wider AND longer to accommodate childbirth. Even women with exceptionally "accommodating" ones didn't make it out of childbirth alive approximately half the time before the advent of modern medicine. Perhaps her vertical elongation is outside the female norm, but not necessarily due to masculinization? Or is it that you see it as an indicator of masculinity because it emphasizes that her overall torso is large and long, like a male's?
Aaron: I don't know how natural Jodie Marsh's huge breasts in some recent pictures are, but the woman is not describable as very feminine. Her waist width, rib cage width and muscularity are not consistent with a high level of femininity, but the woman is not manly and she is curvaceous. Consider her normal with respect to masculinity-femininity.
I take back the despicable sexist asshole comment. It is so mean, although called-for! Anyway, I have to agree with one of your last comments about how so many people are shocked to hear that Heidi or any VS girls are MASCULINE, even though it's scarily obvious, thereby proving the desperate need for this site and increased awareness of the issue. But why do you vehemently deny that people other than homosexual men have been socialized to embrace this new ideal when you're arguing with me about misogyny, though you keep seeing evidence to the contrary? You take that evidence you tell me doesn't exist, and then turn around to use it to justify your website's mission. It exists! It's real! And it's anti-woman!
"As far as what women would want to look like goes, if you are a heterosexual woman, you should realize that it is in the best interests of a heterosexual woman to have looks that greatly please the majority of heterosexual men since then she will be able to attract a lot of men and have her pick; the more the choice, the more selective one can be."
Hear that women? You should make yourselves pleasing to men. Get on it!
Erik, can you evaluate this very real cultural phenomenon without being such a despicable sexist asshole?
Sure, you're taking the evolutionary perspective ("I'm helping you to have your pick of men!") but you're not understanding that these sexist notions of mutilating one's body to "please men" are demeaning and a cultural PROBLEM, not an inevitability. Men would be doing the same thing if they would only wear tight clothes, show some peen-cleavage, etc. They don't do this because it's not culturally imposed on them to the extent it is perpetuated for women. In fact, there are social pressures for men to do anything BUT what women are expected to do: spend hours upon hours, as much money as is available, and a lot of self-esteem worrying if they are showing enough skin, and in such a way that it shows off the elusive ideal shape they're chasing.
If the majority of men are not complying by chasing an exalted physical standard, that forces women to go on other factors for mate-selection, thereby forcing her to lower the value of looks in her process.
I don't agree with the exaltation of manly-women, but I also don't agree with this presumed compliance with the degrading status quo.
Jess: I agree that it is not for nothing that Giselle is a very well paid model, and the reason is that her masculine looks have greatly pleased the people who dominate the fashion business, namely male homosexual fashion designers.
It is misogynistic because so many people other than gay men have embraced it. I can't watch TV without products and services that promise to get rid of my hips being thrown in my face. Even men who claim to like "feminine" women pick and choose which aspects are sufficiently feminine and reject other markers for sexual dimorphism. They are socialized just as the rest are, no matter how delusionally free of it they believe they are. Anyway, people have embraced this increasingly tubular body shape, whether we agree with it or not.
Oh, so Nordic skin is now "normal" skin? I mean the light-skinned people who are blue-eyed and naturally blonde into adulthood, and pale in that pinkish sort of way. They are equally pale as UK folks, if not more so. These so-called Aryans were, yes, perceived as stupid when Indian people and/or other Middle Easterners first encountered them. Ironically/sadly, the caste system seems to have changed its priorities...
Why are you shocked at the prospect that Caucasian features weren't uniformly considered the ideal throughout history? Supremacist ideology isn't inherently skewed in favor of whites. But now we're going way off-topic.
Look at any message board about VS models. Most people HAVE sanctioned it. Tyra Banks, who I dislike primarily for her idiocy and horrendous pseudo-personality, is even on the cover of my fucking Shape magazine this month. Cancelling it. Soon.
So, I said something derogatory about the looks of androgynous women who get paid more money than I'll ever hope to make for merely looking that way. That sexist statement doesn't absolve you of YOUR sexism/racism. FAQ me all you want, baby, you add masculinized women to the attractive women section every day--so long as they're white, and it's not a good enough reason to entirely exclude so many superbly feminine African American women that I see daily--anthropometric skull differences or no.
I don't think promiscuity has anything to do with why women in porn are masculinized! Most women find pornography degrading, but those virilized women probably identify with men more and care less about women's rights. Also, abused women are more likely to have an increase of testosterone and decrease of estrogen, although I cant find the study for it. They appear more masculine. Women with abusive/neglectful upbringings often end up in pornography. So that's a potential confounding factor.
Feminine women aren't "allowed" to be promiscuous. I, an exceptionally feminine woman with the exception of "robust cheekbones" due to some of my awesome residual Native American heritage, would love to have as many attractive mens' cocks in me as often as I could gather them, but diseases and cultural indoctrination have prevented me from doing so. If I can find a way around the diseases part, I am shedding the cultural bullshit ASAP, all 32DD-22-35 of me, bissshhh.
And another thing, height is hereditary and can be altered depending on pathogenic interference/lack of nutrition during development, but what one is fundamentally inheriting is a propensity toward estrogen or testosterone production. Tall women ARE masculinized, although you can find ones with both high testosterone and indicators of higher than average estrogen. However, if the ratio of estrogen to testosterone were extremely feminine, she would be shorter than average, and also more fertile. There are studies, and whatnot.
Admit it, you like this one aspect of the current beauty ideal that denigrates sexual dimorphism. So you can pick and choose which extremes are ideal based on your own preferences?
Ok, now what? Gisele is not beautiful?? Jealousy...thats it...why dont you guys look yourselves at the mirror?? and guess what..she might have had a boob job, or nose job or whatever, but it isn't for nothing shes the best paid model alive...
Erik
On the Jomon/Ainu issue, I'm afraid you ignore the mass of modern studies which would contradict you, in favour of one which might seem to support you, although reading closer, I'm not sure that it actually does. It should be noted that the chief author, C.Loring Brace, one of the "old school" of physical anthropologists, tends to use such terms as "caucasoids", "aryans", in an outdated and rather misleading way, as if these represented physical "races", rather than simply as physical types.
I don't have the literature to hand with me (my PC is at a different address from my library), but reference to such works as "Ruins of Identity" (about ethnogenesis in Japan) by Mark J. Hudson, and "China, Korea, and Japan" (archaeology) by Gina Barnes, shows quite clearly that the Jomon/Ainu skulls and skeletons were in some ways more dissimilar to supposed "caucasoid/European" than were the Yayoi (Korean derived) immigrants, whom nobody claim as "caucasoids", while being in other ways closer. For instance, the Jomon had proportionately much shorter and broader faces than the Yayoi. (The Barnes book actually has a drawing comparing typical Jomon and Yayoi skulls which shows this clearly). The Jomon were also shorter and stockier in physique than the Yayoi - which might be one reason why early Chinese records refer to Japan as a land of dwarfs.
My mention on "minor superficial features" such as epicanthic folds was precisely because these features, minor or not, have played a MAJOR part in the typological "racial" classifications of the past. These classifications play only an insignificant role, if any at all, in modern physical anthropology, but still loom large in the "popular" fringes of science - and also on the racist white-superiority sites which are common on the internet. I note that even one of these has somewhat played down the "caucasoid" Ainu theme.
I agree that population affinities need to be assessed using multiple markers. Using these however, numerous differing, and apparently conflicting, pictures of relationships can be arrived at. I say "apparently" because what these actually show is the complexity of relationships between populations - the very complexities which annoy those who want to stick with old racial - and racist - "certainties". I am sure that as further studies go on, more and more complexities and anomalies will arise. As for "neutral features", I suggest that this is a difficult, and potentially misleading concept. The fact is that there are many features which have been claimed to be "neutral", which on closer study have proven to be not so.
As for "East Asian features". It is generally accepted that all populations of non-African ethnic origin derive from a small number of people who migrated out of Africa. What did these people look like? The earliest Homo sapiens sapiens skulls in Eurasia, including East Asia, all look more "caucasoid" than do modern East Asians. Similarly, early and many modern Amerindian populations similarly are not characterised by such features as "mid-facial flattening" - those which do show such features probably owe these to intermixture with the later Na-Dene and Eskimo-Aleut immigrants. Similarly with ancient and modern Polynesians (to whom both the Ainu and "Kennewick Man" have been compared, although nobody I hope is suggesting that the Ainu are Polynesians). Moreover such people as the New Guineans and Australian Aborigines, which recent studies confirm as being descended from the initial small band of "out of Africa" H.s.sapiens emigrants, are not characterised by East Asian features.
So in terms of Eurasia, most East Asian features probably are recent developments, and evolved out of a situation where they did not exist, or only existed at a low frequency. I must stress here that this does not mean that they are "better" characteristics. Unfortunately the equation "more evolved" = "better" was one established by the racist driven theories of the past. Since these theories arose in a largely European academe, it thus became inconceivable that populations with many "caucasoid" characteristics could evolve into populations with less of them. I suggest that the shadow of this still lies across physical anthropology to this day, which is why the idea that many East Asian characteristics are modern evolutionary developments has only started to be posited recently.
Again the point of bringing Peter Frost in to the picture is that he has proposed a way in which quite rapid evolutionary changes can occur to set up polymorphisms, in his case to do with eye and hair colour in a part of Europe. Exactly the same sort of process could lead to the rapid evolution of polymorphisms in other parts of the world for other features, since there isn't any reason why these sorts of processes might not work for features other than hair and eye colour. (Incidentally, as Peter Frost has acknowledged on his website, polymorphism for hair colour is not confined to Europe, although most marked there. I suspect that closer study will reveal that the same goes, to a lesser degree, for eye colour).
My reply to your attack on my original post will have to wait for a later post of mine.
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