Erik -- look at your assumptions! Ha! Ha! "A typical poor woman" cannot be creative enough to design "asethically appealing apparel"?
Hmmm... you'd better go tell Pier 1 Imports and all other high end importers that quick where wealthy women shop to decorate their homes! (I have a client who just paid $45,000 for a tapestry handcrafted in Iran by these poor, uncreative women!) You'd better go inform the global artisans who design jewelry that the same women clamor for! Wealthy women are already flocking to developing countries for their handcrafted furniture, art & jewelry -- fashion's not far behind! You're unreal!
Once again -- males (gay or straight) need to be relegated to spectator status on this issue -- period. You have no more authority than gay men in telling women what size to be.
To see that this site is hosted by a guy gives me the creeps!
Ladies, what are you doing? Listening to a straight guy tell you that instead of being a size 0 and trying to look like an adolescent boy for the gay guys, you don't possess feminine beauty unless you have a WHR of 7 and a certain face! Hour glass figures are about as rare as a healthy size 0!
It's one thing to know men's opinion. Like on AskMen.com, it's fun to see men's opinions -- but this site is flat-out scary! This is no opinion, this is a prescription!
We may like men, but we don't need men -- gay or straight -- to "bless" our beauty or put us in these impossible boxes! Here's the first clue --if a guy even starts talking like this, run!
Monique: Damn! Unless regular feminine and attractive women start sending me their pictures to put them in the attractive women section, how am I supposed to reduce or eliminate my reliance on nude models? Once again, most of the nude models shown in the attractive women section have posed for art, not porn, and only a rare few have done porn work. Besides, I could put your pictures on a page free of nude models. Speaking of reversing formulas, as I have said before, this site is about promoting feminine beauty in settings where it is required. The message is not that “women should look like this,” i.e., there is no reversal of formula, and please keep in mind that most people, including most women, have an intrinsic preference for feminine beauty, i.e., I am not imposing a new formula on people. You are not helping me at all by refusing to have yourself featured here.
You don’t want to intimidate women with your looks? What is this? Are the athletes participating in the Olympics intimidating the masses with their athletic prowess? Are scientists in the limelight that are working on solving complex scientific problems intimidating others with their intelligence? Beauty is a gift of the Gods, and meant as eye candy for the masses. Thou shalt not deprive others of a balm meant for troubled souls. The wise do not displease the Gods. Would you rather have sick-looking high-fashion models or feminine beauty inspire women?
Regarding the quote about other women having little chance for success apart from fashion modeling, given the strong and overwhelming public preference for feminine beauty, some masculinized women who are capable of becoming very skinny with dieting will have little choice for success apart from fashion modeling in a gay-dominated fashion industry. Look up Iselin Vollen Steiro and ask yourself if she would make it in modeling if gays didn’t dominate the fashion business. Some masculinized women may not make it big without the means to model in a gay-dominated fashion business.
I don’t think that I am being fooled with respect to Tyra. Here are two more pictures of her breasts: 1, 2. Do they seriously look natural to you? Masculinized women who happen to be as slender as Tyra at the time the pictures were taken do not have such large breasts, and certainly not fake-looking ones. Tyra Banks’ supposed proving on her TV show that she has natural breasts could very well have been staged since she was not independently evaluated by multiple physicians who were not known to each other and randomly selected by a neutral party. Regarding her book and her being real, see if you can find her acknowledging the major work she has had on her nose. I am not trashing Tyra; pointing out some truths that do not flatter her is not trashing her.
Regarding Laurie in a separate thread, I told her that she should consider herself to have an hourglass figure, just not one that meets high standards. Lying would not help; phony self-esteem is no good because it wouldn’t take much to reduce it; mere exposure to beauty would reduce phony high esteem. Do not assume that women with a negative opinion of their looks have ended up so because they were not given sufficient “positive self-image messages” while growing up. People have a basic aesthetic sense and will be disappointed in their looks if they do not meet their own aesthetic standards. It is true that some women are more dependent on assessing how attractive they are based on how others view them, but at least the beauty standard being promoted here is natural and healthy.
Your understanding that men are more confining than women with respect to what they regard as female beauty is based on an incorrect understanding of this site. In order for this site to have a strong impact, sufficiently high standards are needed, and high standards translate to a narrow range of women selected as examples of feminine beauty. The narrowness reflects neither my preference nor that of heterosexual men in general. In the general population, men and women rate female attractiveness similarly, as has been shown for:
Quote:
Facial attractiveness –
Quote:
Rhodes, G., The evolutionary psychology of facial beauty, Annu Rev Psychol, 57, 199 (2006).
Waist-hip proportions –
Quote:
Streeter, S. A., and McBurney, D. H., Waist-hip ratio and attractiveness: new evidence and a critique of a "critical test" Evol Hum Behav, 24, 88 (2003).
Henss, R., Waist-to-hip ratio and female attractiveness. Evidence from photographic stimuli and methodological considerations, Personal Individ Diff, 28, 501 (2000).
Henss, R., Waist-to-hip ratio and attractiveness. Replication and extension, Pers Individ Diff, 19, 479 (1995).
Furnham, A., Tan, T., and McManus, C., Waist-to-hip ratio and preferences for body shape: a replication and extension, Pers Individ Diff, 22, 539 (1997).
Overall physique –
Quote:
Tovee, M. J., and Cornelissen, P. L., Female and male perceptions of female physical attractiveness in front-view and profile, Br J Psychol, 92 Part 2, 391 (2001).
Smith, K. L., Cornelissen, P. L., and Tovée, M. J., Color 3D bodies and judgements of human female attractiveness, Evol Hum Behav, 28, 48 (2007).
I have addressed many of the studies above already, and will discuss the unaddressed ones later. The important point of the studies above is that your impression that straight men have the correct formula for targeting wealthy women is incorrect since the aesthetic preferences of straight men also happen to be those of straight women. It is not a question of wealthy women seeking more external approval, but the necessity of suggesting exclusivity in order to build a brand name, which, among other things, requires a narrow range and difficult to achieve looks in models. With respect to majority preferences, the most appropriate standard, and a healthy one at that, is one of feminine beauty with an emphasis on high aesthetic standards. You could always use ordinary-looking women to sell clothes, and this could be part of a fashion alternative, but this will not work for high fashion.
Sandi: The typical poor woman in a developing nation would not have the ability to come up with highly aesthetically appealing apparel, and if some of them did and were asked to design clothing, they would not be poor for long and quickly end up selling high-priced clothing. Exclusive clothing had better look good. Anyway, the use of models ranging from ordinary to mildly pleasant in looks would work as a fashion alternative, and I believe it would be great to have this alternative, but high-fashion is a different matter. Dresses that costs thousands of dollars are not entirely justifiable in terms of the materials, stitching, feel or looks, but one pays a premium for brand name. To build a brand name, you need to suggest exclusivity on most counts, and the use of high-fashion models with looks that cover the range found in most women will not help. A feminine beauty high-fashion model alternative – having a narrow range and with an emphasis on high aesthetic standards – would be consistent with the suggestion of exclusivity, and is the only form consistent with majority preferences and also health, fertility and fecundity, i.e., it cannot prompt indulgence in negative health behaviors.
Samantha: Given that you have described your physique as slim, if you gain weight such that your waist size doesn’t change much but you gain an appreciable amount of body fat in your breasts, hips and thighs, then yes, you will acquire a more dramatic hourglass look.
Designer: A bust circumference measurement would simply measure the chest circumference at the level where the breasts are fullest. However, a bust measurement with respect to finding the right bra size is a different matter since it requires the measurement of rib cage circumference; here is the detailed procedure.
Barry: Aishwarya Rai looks decent, but she is not an example of feminine beauty. With respect to masculinity-femininity, she is normal. Her face may look feminine in some pictures, mostly from her twenties and especially if they are airbrushed, but her physique is not feminine.
Ruth: I have explicitly stated that femininity is not a synonym of beauty in women, but it is a very important correlate of beauty in women, and the most important one in the absence of physical defects. Beauty is not “very subjective,” but there is a lot that is objective about it and broad agreement in the public as to what constitutes beauty. Don’t judge how objective beauty is by the comments left here since most people browsing this site do not leave comments; the comments do not reflect the kind of results one would obtain in a controlled laboratory setting, which is where the evidence for broad agreement in the public comes from. A site like this is bound to attract irate comments, disproportionately from masculinized women, homosexual or bisexual men, feminists and others whose identity should be easy to figure out. A careful reading of the irate comments will often reveal that the commentator has come across truth that he or she finds unpalatable, which explains the negative comment.
SH: You may be right about Miss Mississippi (Jalin Wood) looking better than Miss Ohio (Anna Melomud). I haven’t seen clear pictures of Miss Ohio, but I doubt that Miss Mississippi is more feminine.
Doug: In my reply to Richard, I have explained why I am basing my arguments on controlled laboratory studies rather than looking up data on how popular some specific fashion models are. Controlled laboratory studies present the judges with women ranging from masculine to feminine, and the judges pick their choices, whereas in real life, masculinized fashion models occupy the top rankings among models but there are hardly enough feminine and attractive women in the limelight for sufficient contrast purposes. Richard mentioned Askmen.com rankings, where some masculinized women are highly rated, and whereas the number of votes are in the millions, people have to pick their favorite among pre-selected candidates, who are rarely feminine and attractive, and many of the voters have likely not bothered to take a good look at the women they are rating, as in the comparisons above. Giselle herself has ended up in many most attractive women lists, and if I recall correctly, Rolling Stone magazine has even described her as the most beautiful woman in the world! I would rather stick to the “roundabout” way presented here until we finally end up with feminine beauty in the limelight, whereupon popularity ratings could be lent credence.
Your comment, “That doesn’t mean that there won’t be exceptions,” simply reiterates what I have stated. Since there are numerous correlates of beauty, it is certainly possible that in some comparisons less feminine women will be preferred to more feminine women by most, and given the literature cited, one can figure out in a “roundabout” manner which models these would be. Once again, popularity rankings are currently not the way to go given that high-fashion models are the highest status models and the fashion business is dominated by homosexual men. I will shortly address the looks of the top-ranked fashion models to clarify the latter.
Since men and women typically judge female attractiveness similarly, if Victoria’s Secret catered to the preferences of the general female population with respect to selecting its models, it would simultaneously also cater to the general male population. Certainly, taking into account what most people prefer makes good marketing sense, but in the absence of alternatives, gay-dominated lingerie-making companies can get away with their anomalous aesthetic choices, i.e., Victoria’s Secret does not need to bother with focus groups.
What do you think of the past Miss India Aishwarya rai supposedly the most beautiful woman in the world. Is she masculine or feminine and what about her body shape?
Urrrghh I hate square faces they are just so square and ugly they make a womans afce look like a mans sorry dont mean to offend any square face shaped women out there
I am really fascinated by all this! What I was wondering though: for the bust measurement is it standard to add the 4-5 inches as is widely practiced in bra fitting? Or is the measurement taken straight from the body? I have always wondered this!
hi erik,
i occasionally browse through your site and this is one of those times i feel that not leaving a comment would be grossly unjustified.
To Kelsea, i mean no personal injunction against you, but do try to keep your comments objective and professional. Perhaps the webmaster was wrong in correlating feminity with the word 'beauty', as 'beauty' is extremely subjective, just as the myriad of comments on this site has proved. However,in a beauty contest which by its nature mandates stringent objectivity, the standard of women being selected to grace the stage is getting more varied, and in many cases,unbefitting. A beauty contest's primary asset should be beauty itself-not uniqueness , class nor sharp features,but quite simply, the level of a woman's feminity and other contributing factors. Too bad that there is no entirely objective benchmark but this doesn't mean that contestants exhibiting obvious levels of masculinity should be allowed in on the pretext of unique or sophisticated looks. Note that when all else errs, science always manifests clinical precision cum objectivity. Hence, in the aspect of who decides what is ' feminine' or 'average', science does.
personally, i feel that the webmaster's research is of pivotal importance,for the same reason that scientists are lauded for bringing the truth to light. Models and beauty contestants nowadays are regressing continually towards masculinity, and while that is certainly none of anyone's business, and definitely not something to be condemned, placing these masculinized women on a pedestal and broadcasting their standard to the rest of the world as something worthy of admiration , is point-blank deception.
When the fashion world tells you that gisele bundchen or alessandra ambrossio is gorgeous, and manifests that image in sexual poses, one wonders if the aesthetics of humankind have been obliterated altogether.
What i wanted to know was if i gain weight and my waist generally stays the same size but i gain weight on my thighs and breasts alot then would this make a more dramatic hourglass figure look?
Oh, PS -- I'm sure I'm not the only woman who doesn't want to forward pictures to be placed among all the porn shots -- sorry! Like Sophia Loren, I have never modeled nude. I don't want to be thrown among women who do pose nude -- and not for art --but for porn!
I also do not want to be seen as promoting your trading one very narrow formula for another, because I disagree with that! You're trying to define genetics! I didn't "make" myself an hour-glass or beautiful, I was just blessed and born with it.
It is not my intention to intimidate other women -- that happens enough to me in real life and makes me feel very sad. In addition to being a classic hour-glass, I have been told I look like Linda Carter, Xena, and more recently Catherine Zeta-Jones. I have to work at getting women who may feel insecure about themselves (which is way too many!) to let down their wall and realize I just want to be "one of the girls." I have to joke with them and compliment them (genuinely, of course) to get them to let down their guard, or retract their claws.
If it is the intention of the fashion industry, and wealthy women, to intimidate in this way, then something is seriously wrong with all of them!
It sounds like you need to focus on the users rather than the sellers, then.
I just don't buy that switching from size 0 to WHR 7 is really changing the landscape, though it undoubtedly would make you very happy to sit back and watch.
If rich women don't have anything better to do than look for exclusive clothes, how about they fly to a developing country and hire some poor women to make exclusive clothing for them. Then they would have exclusive clothing no one else in the world has (with much more realistic ideals of beauty -- I love watching Bollywood movies, for instance, and seeing "real" women instead of sticks)-- and they would be helping these women tremendously!
I would do that in a heartbeat and have considered doing it. Hmmm...
"...Other women may have little chance for success apart from fashion modeling..." Huh? What world do you live in? Where are women's choices for success limited to fashion modeling?
Tyra - ahhh, Erik, you're letting the camera fool you! I would look the same in different clothes, angles & lighting! The smaller the triangles the larger the breasts appear! Not only can I tell from looking at Tyra that they're real, but she also had a gynecologist do a breast ultrasound on national TV. Don't trash Tyra -- she's always been "real" about the smoke and mirrors of the fashion industry -- she's on your side! Early on, she published a book with unretouched photos of herself, cellulite and all, encouraging women to love their bodies! She's probably done more for girls (and women's) self-image than anyone else (Jamie Curtis is awesome, too). I appreciate her efforts, and I love seeing someone shaped like me in the public eye. (Of course, you're going to say she's masculine. If so, it's certainly not from being too skinny!)
Trading formulas -- I found a place on your site talking about WHR formulas and then couldn't find it again, where girls (I think one's name was Laurie) were basically asking you to "bless" them as hourglass, ie. the most desireable. You told this girl in particular that she doesn't qualify because her waist is only 9" smaller than her bust and hips. It was obvious that she was getting upset, and was one of the MANY girls and women that I've encountered who were not given positive self-image messages growing up and who seek external approval.
I don't see evidence in research, including yours presented here, that women are as confining in their definitions of beauty for women as males (gay or straight) are.
Your justification for straight vs. gay male participation in defining the parameters of a woman's body for modeling in the fashion industry, rather than leaving that to women, is that wealthy women are the real audience, therefore, the parameters must be hard to achieve or they won't buy it, and straight men have the correct formula. Huh?
Remember the Hans Christian Andersen fairytale The Emperor's New Clothes? I guess you're saying that wealthy women seek more external approval than anyone else!
Maybe that's true, which is sad, because there are so many worthy things they could be doing with their money that would feed their self-worth rather than trying to look like a size 0 adolescent pretty boy OR a WHR 7 hour-glass.
Maybe women running the fashion industry could rescue wealthy women from this scourge as well! Maybe straight men should just trust women to know how they want to dress & be, just giving their yummy approval to their mates on the side!
All right, I misunderstood what you meant by "normal heterosexual", thinking you were suggesting that I was bisexual, bicurious, or "narrowly escaping homosexuality". You have to understand that that last phrase, whether or not it intends to, suggests that the recipient is somehow less of a heterosexual.
That said, you have a roundabout way of approaching the subject. Instead of looking for statistical or even anecdotal evidence that these specific women are unpopular among heterosexual men, you correlate research on sexual preferences with an anatomical analysis of the women.
The problem with this is that it allows for no extenuating circumstances. If heterosexual men generally prefer more feminine features, and Victoria's Secret models have less feminine features than some other sample group, then men will prefer the sample group all things being equal. That doesn't mean that there won't be exceptions.
I think you even acknowledged that somewhere, pointing to some masculinized models you thought men might prefer keeping around. However, you can't really know which models those would be without appealing directly to the source. It's one thing to say that VS needs more hourglass-figured, soft-featured women, if they want to appeal more to men. It's another thing to say who deserves to go and who's best suited to take their place. If Victoria's Secret actually took this seriously, they'd probably use focus groups.
Doug: I have already refuted Richard’s contention that I am “cheating,” as he calls it. I have extensively cited evidence from peer-reviewed journals to explain the subtlety of masculinity-femininity and expect the reader to use it as a reference while going through the two cited entries on Alessandra Ambrosio, where side-by-side comparisons are provided, to understand that Alessandra is objectively masculinized. It is ridiculous that you say, “you make a series of statements about what heterosexual men like with no evidence to back them up” when I have extensively provided evidence; see points #1-5 here.
The evidence cited is sufficient to state that individuals purporting to be heterosexual men and finding Alessandra Ambrosio attractive are outliers and possibly individuals having narrowly escaped nonheterosexuality if not liars as in being a woman or a man who is not a lifetime-exclusive heterosexual. It is an incorrect portrayal for you to accuse me of not being able to imagine a straight man being attracted to Alessandra; I used the term normal heterosexual as in typical heterosexual in my reply to you; an abnormal/atypical/outlier heterosexual man could be attracted to Alessandra and would still be straight, just as a man that has narrowly escaped nonheterosexuality remains a straight man, though an atypical one.
Your assertion that “Being flat-chested doesn’t make a woman clearly feminine, but it doesn’t make her unfeminine or less of a woman” has been stated by me on multiple occasions, and this should be very clear on the feminine vs. masculine page where I provide illustrative examples of how some large-breasted women are more overall masculine-looking than some small-breasted women and also an example of a small-breasted woman being overall more feminine-looking than a larger-breasted woman next to her. The point is that masculinity-femininity is judged by overall looks, and Alessandra and numerous other Victoria’s Secret models are overall masculinized with respect to women in general in an objective manner, and are also too masculine for the job from a general public perspective.
You don’t have to tell me that a heterosexual man could be attracted to women with small breasts. As I have stated elsewhere, I am not particular about breast size and have been attracted to small-breasted women, but these women have been overall feminine.
Your example of long hair and subsequent claim that by my reasoning long hair would be unfeminine is nonsense. I don’t get what you are trying to convey by saying that I “claim to understand that sex is more complicated than simply heterosexuality vs. homosexuality.” What is this? To assess whether a man who likes baby-faced women has narrowly escaped pedophilia, one will have to assess what kind of physique he likes. Women into bestiality would like a beast’s physical form, and excessive hair does not make a man acquire the body shape of a beast, i.e., your question is absurd. Quit bringing into the picture easily alterable traits such as hair length and what kind of dress one wears.
Sandi: BMI is not expressed as a percentage, but usually as a unitless number. The unit is kilograms per meter squared. I do not recall saying what proportion of women have hourglass figures; the 8% statistic you took was likely from a reader comment/posted article. However, it is obvious that hourglass figures are uncommon.
I have not stated that ‘only models who are attractive to heterosexual men should be allowed to achieve “high status.”’ Those who please others with their looks will naturally acquire higher status with respect to looks, and this high status will translate to public prominence if the pleased individuals are in the right powerful positions.
I have cited plenty of evidence within this site that men and women generally judge female attractiveness similarly. Therefore, mindful of the necessity of high-fashion models conveying a sense of exclusivity, regardless of whether you put heterosexual men or heterosexual women in charge of the fashion industry, the looks of high-fashion models will occupy a narrow range of feminine beauty. Whereas using Dove’s models above as fashion models will be a welcome relief for many women disturbed by the sight of skinny fashion models, you could not use their looks to suggest exclusivity, and the elite looking for exclusive clothing will still have to turn to gay fashion designers to buy their clothes, which wouldn’t help because these gays will remain on top and dictate the norms among high-fashion models. In short, you could use ordinary-looking women to model and sell clothing no doubt, but high-fashion is a different matter. The models needed for selling haute couture need to suggest exclusivity with their looks, and for both aesthetic purposes from a general population perspective and to minimize the prompting of negative health behaviors on the part of girls and women inspired by fashion models, high-fashion models should ideally be exemplars of feminine beauty.
If you are offended by the nudity here, please understand that I have little choice presently. If I am successful, there will be no need to use nude models to illustrate examples of feminine beauty. Regarding a man focusing on the body of the woman he loves as the most beautiful, there is no need for this as love makes the loved one the most beautiful of all and beyond compare.
What do you mean despite my claim? I, too, find woman #7 to have the best-looking physique among the bunch. Read the FAQ to understand this site’s purpose. The site’s purpose is not to make sure men understand what they should be attracted to. Men already know what they are attracted to, but those misled by the use of airbrushing, breast implants and posing tricks into believing that some masculinized models and beauty pageant contestants are feminine women need an education. As far as getting feminine women proper fashion modeling jobs goes, this is not happening as long as the fashion business remains gay-dominated. One will have to set up an alternative fashion industry, but a mainstream outlet for feminine beauty appreciation (not this site) needs to be set up first.
Kelsea: There should be no difficulty finding enough talented, well-spoken, classy and moral feminine and attractive women with good presence of mind for the purposes of beauty pageants, but pageants like this are simply not about feminine beauty. Who decides what is feminine and what is not? You might consider browsing what science has to say.
I am not calling the women above masculinized because I couldn’t find nude pictures of them. Partial nudity is inevitable if aesthetics are to be discussed, and there are few alternatives to using nude models for illustrating feminine beauty when what one would expect to be a prime source of beautiful women, namely a major international beauty pageant, features the kind of women shown above. Besides, I don’t see how you can call feminine beauty bland unless you are among the few who like masculinized women.
"I have addressed Alessandra Ambrosio in numerous places within this site, including this and this entry within the blog. If you have gone through these entries and still think that there is nothing masculine about her face or that she looks good, then it is difficult to believe that you are a normal heterosexual man.
"
This was about what I expected, and it pretty well demonstrates what's wrong with your logic. You go to the trouble of pointing to evidence that these women are masculinized (although I agree with Richard's contention that you deliberately use photos and comparisons that suit your agenda). Then, once you've "established" that these women are less feminine than others, you make a series of statements about what heterosexual men like with no evidence to back them up.
If someone expresses deviance from your claims, you assume them to be female or homosexual. If they say otherwise, you assume them to be misinformed or somehow less straight than you are. All of these are ways of dismissing any possible disagreement with your unverified assertion. Any polls that dispute your claims are assumed to be flawed, while you've never bothered conducting any sort of poll (scientific or otherwise) at all. Why bother, when you already know the answer?
Basically, you exhibit tunnel vision. Anyone who disagrees with you is either confused or different from you in such a way that it only supports your theory.
I'm not going to say that Alessandra's waist-to-hip ratio is her best feature, but perfection is not something I expect to find in any woman. That's not the same as saying she isn't attractive or that she looks like a man. There's a difference between femininity and female designation. Being flat-chested doesn't make a woman clearly feminine, but it doesn't make her unfeminine or less of a woman. Conventional wisdom may say that larger breasts are more attractive, but that doesn't mean a man can't prefer smaller breasts and still be heterosexual, since small breasts are still a trait possessed by women. So is a large rib cage, going by the fact that these are naturally female models you point to and not the transsexuals you describe.
Long hair is another example that can be found on both men and women. If you see someone from behind with long hair, it could be a man or a woman, or a transsexual. By your reasoning, that makes long hair unfeminine. Women should be shaved bald, so you can distinctly make out the feminine curvature of their heads. Which just goes to show that being clearly designated female and appearing feminine (or attractive) are not one and the same.
The Victoria's Secret models in question are not masculine. In some cases, they may be androgynous, but that's where things like hair, makeup, clothing, behavior, lack of an adam's apple, and most importantly a vagina come into play. What, are you afraid of being attracted to women that could conceivably be transsexuals? I'm a little too comfortable in my sexuality to worry about things like that.
You claim to understand that sex is more complicated than simply heterosexuality vs. homosexuality, but then you're all too quick to make assumptions about orientation whenever you can't explain something by your own tastes. Are men who like baby-faced women narrowly escaping pedophilia? Are women who like men with lots of chest hair narrowly escaping bestiality?
There are people in this world who get off on being tied up and whipped, among countless other atypical and sometimes repulsive predilections, and yet you can't imagine a straight man being attracted to a woman like Alessandra just because she differs from certain classical standards of female beauty. It's really no different from claiming that women with short hair can't be more attractive to straight men, just because so many men prefer it long. Or saying that it's unfeminine to wear pants instead of dresses.
Oh, and the statement about hair color was an analogy to the very traits we're discussing. I like women of different shapes and sizes (such as buxom Keeley and athletic Alessandra), with different sorts of faces. I don't want models to be boxed into your standard of what makes them attractive and feminine.
Mel: The studies that I have cited “don’t make specifications regarding the sample used”? Have you bothered to look them up? All of them specify what participants were recruited, and the studies assessing the appeal of femininity come from different countries and cultures.
When I talked about some people having defective eyesight/vision and/or a variety of brain abnormalities in reference to the inability to obtain universal agreement, I surely did not imply that those who disagree with me have mental abnormalities. I am not making sweeping generalizations by extrapolating my preferences to heterosexual men in general, but have found my preferences to be generally in excellent agreement with heterosexual men in general, as evident from the studies cited. How have I failed to exclude the opinions of people of other sexualities? This entry itself and a great deal of this site contrasts the differing aesthetic preferences of heterosexual with nonheterosexual men. Besides, there are too few homosexual or transgendered individuals to affect the central tendency of aesthetic preferences in the population, which is what one observes in studies targeting the general population.
The response above is to your using quotes from elsewhere within this site, and you are mentioning them out of context. I do not know where you got the quote, “It is well known that what these gays find aesthetically appealing are looks approximating those of adolescent boys” from. Point out the context and I will respond. I have cited sufficient evidence within this site that high-fashion models tend to lean toward the looks of adolescent boys, which should be common observation for those that have observed enough of them, which in turn is explicable in terms of the gay domination of the fashion business, evidence for which has been documented within this site.
As far as backside protrusion is concerned, I am not going to bother looking up papers where this is documented to back up my assertion about Heidi Klum’s backside. I expect the readers to have observed the trivial items stated or to try to observe them. Ignore the statement if you wish. Heidi’s modeling agency, IMG models, lists her as a 5-foot-9.5 woman with 34-inch hips. Given her height and wide hips, what does her hip circumference, if correctly reported, tell us? The same thing that is seen in the pictures: namely, flattened buttocks, undoubtedly flatter than the average woman of her ancestry.
Homosexual/bisexual men and male-to-female transsexuals (and one could add male transvestites/transvestic fetishists in general) may buy lingerie, too, but Victoria’s Secret is not specifically targeting them. The overwhelmingly vast majority of their customers comprise of heterosexual women, i.e., there is no need for the preferences of the others to be taken into account. Besides, male transvestites and male-to-female transsexuals generally have a strong interest in looking feminine, and will probably appreciate feminine-looking lingerie models.
As far as the typical heterosexual man preferring women with well-endowed breasts goes, do you believe that I am extrapolating my own preferences to other heterosexual men? Ask around and see for yourself. I am not a big breasts fan, and knew as a kid that I was different from my heterosexual peers in that they were all into big breasts, whereas I was not much concerned about breasts but was very particular about a tiny waist and feminine hips and backside. Nowhere have I argued that all heterosexual men are 100% in agreement about female beauty, but the evidence clearly shows broad agreement.
Erik -- look at your assumptions! Ha! Ha! "A typical poor woman" cannot be creative enough to design "asethically appealing apparel"?
Hmmm... you'd better go tell Pier 1 Imports and all other high end importers that quick where wealthy women shop to decorate their homes! (I have a client who just paid $45,000 for a tapestry handcrafted in Iran by these poor, uncreative women!) You'd better go inform the global artisans who design jewelry that the same women clamor for! Wealthy women are already flocking to developing countries for their handcrafted furniture, art & jewelry -- fashion's not far behind! You're unreal!
Once again -- males (gay or straight) need to be relegated to spectator status on this issue -- period. You have no more authority than gay men in telling women what size to be.
To see that this site is hosted by a guy gives me the creeps!
Ladies, what are you doing? Listening to a straight guy tell you that instead of being a size 0 and trying to look like an adolescent boy for the gay guys, you don't possess feminine beauty unless you have a WHR of 7 and a certain face! Hour glass figures are about as rare as a healthy size 0!
It's one thing to know men's opinion. Like on AskMen.com, it's fun to see men's opinions -- but this site is flat-out scary! This is no opinion, this is a prescription!
We may like men, but we don't need men -- gay or straight -- to "bless" our beauty or put us in these impossible boxes! Here's the first clue --if a guy even starts talking like this, run!
CREEPY!
Monique: Damn! Unless regular feminine and attractive women start sending me their pictures to put them in the attractive women section, how am I supposed to reduce or eliminate my reliance on nude models? Once again, most of the nude models shown in the attractive women section have posed for art, not porn, and only a rare few have done porn work. Besides, I could put your pictures on a page free of nude models. Speaking of reversing formulas, as I have said before, this site is about promoting feminine beauty in settings where it is required. The message is not that “women should look like this,” i.e., there is no reversal of formula, and please keep in mind that most people, including most women, have an intrinsic preference for feminine beauty, i.e., I am not imposing a new formula on people. You are not helping me at all by refusing to have yourself featured here.
You don’t want to intimidate women with your looks? What is this? Are the athletes participating in the Olympics intimidating the masses with their athletic prowess? Are scientists in the limelight that are working on solving complex scientific problems intimidating others with their intelligence? Beauty is a gift of the Gods, and meant as eye candy for the masses. Thou shalt not deprive others of a balm meant for troubled souls. The wise do not displease the Gods. Would you rather have sick-looking high-fashion models or feminine beauty inspire women?
Regarding the quote about other women having little chance for success apart from fashion modeling, given the strong and overwhelming public preference for feminine beauty, some masculinized women who are capable of becoming very skinny with dieting will have little choice for success apart from fashion modeling in a gay-dominated fashion industry. Look up Iselin Vollen Steiro and ask yourself if she would make it in modeling if gays didn’t dominate the fashion business. Some masculinized women may not make it big without the means to model in a gay-dominated fashion business.
I don’t think that I am being fooled with respect to Tyra. Here are two more pictures of her breasts: 1, 2. Do they seriously look natural to you? Masculinized women who happen to be as slender as Tyra at the time the pictures were taken do not have such large breasts, and certainly not fake-looking ones. Tyra Banks’ supposed proving on her TV show that she has natural breasts could very well have been staged since she was not independently evaluated by multiple physicians who were not known to each other and randomly selected by a neutral party. Regarding her book and her being real, see if you can find her acknowledging the major work she has had on her nose. I am not trashing Tyra; pointing out some truths that do not flatter her is not trashing her.
Regarding Laurie in a separate thread, I told her that she should consider herself to have an hourglass figure, just not one that meets high standards. Lying would not help; phony self-esteem is no good because it wouldn’t take much to reduce it; mere exposure to beauty would reduce phony high esteem. Do not assume that women with a negative opinion of their looks have ended up so because they were not given sufficient “positive self-image messages” while growing up. People have a basic aesthetic sense and will be disappointed in their looks if they do not meet their own aesthetic standards. It is true that some women are more dependent on assessing how attractive they are based on how others view them, but at least the beauty standard being promoted here is natural and healthy.
Your understanding that men are more confining than women with respect to what they regard as female beauty is based on an incorrect understanding of this site. In order for this site to have a strong impact, sufficiently high standards are needed, and high standards translate to a narrow range of women selected as examples of feminine beauty. The narrowness reflects neither my preference nor that of heterosexual men in general. In the general population, men and women rate female attractiveness similarly, as has been shown for:
Quote:
I have addressed many of the studies above already, and will discuss the unaddressed ones later. The important point of the studies above is that your impression that straight men have the correct formula for targeting wealthy women is incorrect since the aesthetic preferences of straight men also happen to be those of straight women. It is not a question of wealthy women seeking more external approval, but the necessity of suggesting exclusivity in order to build a brand name, which, among other things, requires a narrow range and difficult to achieve looks in models. With respect to majority preferences, the most appropriate standard, and a healthy one at that, is one of feminine beauty with an emphasis on high aesthetic standards. You could always use ordinary-looking women to sell clothes, and this could be part of a fashion alternative, but this will not work for high fashion.
Sandi: The typical poor woman in a developing nation would not have the ability to come up with highly aesthetically appealing apparel, and if some of them did and were asked to design clothing, they would not be poor for long and quickly end up selling high-priced clothing. Exclusive clothing had better look good. Anyway, the use of models ranging from ordinary to mildly pleasant in looks would work as a fashion alternative, and I believe it would be great to have this alternative, but high-fashion is a different matter. Dresses that costs thousands of dollars are not entirely justifiable in terms of the materials, stitching, feel or looks, but one pays a premium for brand name. To build a brand name, you need to suggest exclusivity on most counts, and the use of high-fashion models with looks that cover the range found in most women will not help. A feminine beauty high-fashion model alternative – having a narrow range and with an emphasis on high aesthetic standards – would be consistent with the suggestion of exclusivity, and is the only form consistent with majority preferences and also health, fertility and fecundity, i.e., it cannot prompt indulgence in negative health behaviors.
Samantha: Given that you have described your physique as slim, if you gain weight such that your waist size doesn’t change much but you gain an appreciable amount of body fat in your breasts, hips and thighs, then yes, you will acquire a more dramatic hourglass look.
Designer: A bust circumference measurement would simply measure the chest circumference at the level where the breasts are fullest. However, a bust measurement with respect to finding the right bra size is a different matter since it requires the measurement of rib cage circumference; here is the detailed procedure.
Barry: Aishwarya Rai looks decent, but she is not an example of feminine beauty. With respect to masculinity-femininity, she is normal. Her face may look feminine in some pictures, mostly from her twenties and especially if they are airbrushed, but her physique is not feminine.
Ruth: I have explicitly stated that femininity is not a synonym of beauty in women, but it is a very important correlate of beauty in women, and the most important one in the absence of physical defects. Beauty is not “very subjective,” but there is a lot that is objective about it and broad agreement in the public as to what constitutes beauty. Don’t judge how objective beauty is by the comments left here since most people browsing this site do not leave comments; the comments do not reflect the kind of results one would obtain in a controlled laboratory setting, which is where the evidence for broad agreement in the public comes from. A site like this is bound to attract irate comments, disproportionately from masculinized women, homosexual or bisexual men, feminists and others whose identity should be easy to figure out. A careful reading of the irate comments will often reveal that the commentator has come across truth that he or she finds unpalatable, which explains the negative comment.
SH: You may be right about Miss Mississippi (Jalin Wood) looking better than Miss Ohio (Anna Melomud). I haven’t seen clear pictures of Miss Ohio, but I doubt that Miss Mississippi is more feminine.
Doug: In my reply to Richard, I have explained why I am basing my arguments on controlled laboratory studies rather than looking up data on how popular some specific fashion models are. Controlled laboratory studies present the judges with women ranging from masculine to feminine, and the judges pick their choices, whereas in real life, masculinized fashion models occupy the top rankings among models but there are hardly enough feminine and attractive women in the limelight for sufficient contrast purposes. Richard mentioned Askmen.com rankings, where some masculinized women are highly rated, and whereas the number of votes are in the millions, people have to pick their favorite among pre-selected candidates, who are rarely feminine and attractive, and many of the voters have likely not bothered to take a good look at the women they are rating, as in the comparisons above. Giselle herself has ended up in many most attractive women lists, and if I recall correctly, Rolling Stone magazine has even described her as the most beautiful woman in the world! I would rather stick to the “roundabout” way presented here until we finally end up with feminine beauty in the limelight, whereupon popularity ratings could be lent credence.
Your comment, “That doesn’t mean that there won’t be exceptions,” simply reiterates what I have stated. Since there are numerous correlates of beauty, it is certainly possible that in some comparisons less feminine women will be preferred to more feminine women by most, and given the literature cited, one can figure out in a “roundabout” manner which models these would be. Once again, popularity rankings are currently not the way to go given that high-fashion models are the highest status models and the fashion business is dominated by homosexual men. I will shortly address the looks of the top-ranked fashion models to clarify the latter.
Since men and women typically judge female attractiveness similarly, if Victoria’s Secret catered to the preferences of the general female population with respect to selecting its models, it would simultaneously also cater to the general male population. Certainly, taking into account what most people prefer makes good marketing sense, but in the absence of alternatives, gay-dominated lingerie-making companies can get away with their anomalous aesthetic choices, i.e., Victoria’s Secret does not need to bother with focus groups.
Dear erik,
What do you think of the past Miss India Aishwarya rai supposedly the most beautiful woman in the world. Is she masculine or feminine and what about her body shape?
*sorry i meant to say "a womans face"
Urrrghh I hate square faces they are just so square and ugly they make a womans afce look like a mans sorry dont mean to offend any square face shaped women out there
Hi
I am really fascinated by all this! What I was wondering though: for the bust measurement is it standard to add the 4-5 inches as is widely practiced in bra fitting? Or is the measurement taken straight from the body? I have always wondered this!
Miss Mississippi is gorgeous! I think her face is much more feminine and overall, more beautiful, than Miss Ohio.
Oh and Kristin, most women of Asian ancestry have feminine faces. I have no idea what you're talking about there.
Filipino isn't exactly Asian, either.
hi erik,
i occasionally browse through your site and this is one of those times i feel that not leaving a comment would be grossly unjustified.
To Kelsea, i mean no personal injunction against you, but do try to keep your comments objective and professional. Perhaps the webmaster was wrong in correlating feminity with the word 'beauty', as 'beauty' is extremely subjective, just as the myriad of comments on this site has proved. However,in a beauty contest which by its nature mandates stringent objectivity, the standard of women being selected to grace the stage is getting more varied, and in many cases,unbefitting. A beauty contest's primary asset should be beauty itself-not uniqueness , class nor sharp features,but quite simply, the level of a woman's feminity and other contributing factors. Too bad that there is no entirely objective benchmark but this doesn't mean that contestants exhibiting obvious levels of masculinity should be allowed in on the pretext of unique or sophisticated looks. Note that when all else errs, science always manifests clinical precision cum objectivity. Hence, in the aspect of who decides what is ' feminine' or 'average', science does.
personally, i feel that the webmaster's research is of pivotal importance,for the same reason that scientists are lauded for bringing the truth to light. Models and beauty contestants nowadays are regressing continually towards masculinity, and while that is certainly none of anyone's business, and definitely not something to be condemned, placing these masculinized women on a pedestal and broadcasting their standard to the rest of the world as something worthy of admiration , is point-blank deception.
When the fashion world tells you that gisele bundchen or alessandra ambrossio is gorgeous, and manifests that image in sexual poses, one wonders if the aesthetics of humankind have been obliterated altogether.
Erik
What i wanted to know was if i gain weight and my waist generally stays the same size but i gain weight on my thighs and breasts alot then would this make a more dramatic hourglass figure look?
Oh, PS -- I'm sure I'm not the only woman who doesn't want to forward pictures to be placed among all the porn shots -- sorry! Like Sophia Loren, I have never modeled nude. I don't want to be thrown among women who do pose nude -- and not for art --but for porn!
I also do not want to be seen as promoting your trading one very narrow formula for another, because I disagree with that! You're trying to define genetics! I didn't "make" myself an hour-glass or beautiful, I was just blessed and born with it.
It is not my intention to intimidate other women -- that happens enough to me in real life and makes me feel very sad. In addition to being a classic hour-glass, I have been told I look like Linda Carter, Xena, and more recently Catherine Zeta-Jones. I have to work at getting women who may feel insecure about themselves (which is way too many!) to let down their wall and realize I just want to be "one of the girls." I have to joke with them and compliment them (genuinely, of course) to get them to let down their guard, or retract their claws.
If it is the intention of the fashion industry, and wealthy women, to intimidate in this way, then something is seriously wrong with all of them!
It sounds like you need to focus on the users rather than the sellers, then.
I just don't buy that switching from size 0 to WHR 7 is really changing the landscape, though it undoubtedly would make you very happy to sit back and watch.
If rich women don't have anything better to do than look for exclusive clothes, how about they fly to a developing country and hire some poor women to make exclusive clothing for them. Then they would have exclusive clothing no one else in the world has (with much more realistic ideals of beauty -- I love watching Bollywood movies, for instance, and seeing "real" women instead of sticks)-- and they would be helping these women tremendously!
I would do that in a heartbeat and have considered doing it. Hmmm...
"...Other women may have little chance for success apart from fashion modeling..." Huh? What world do you live in? Where are women's choices for success limited to fashion modeling?
Tyra - ahhh, Erik, you're letting the camera fool you! I would look the same in different clothes, angles & lighting! The smaller the triangles the larger the breasts appear! Not only can I tell from looking at Tyra that they're real, but she also had a gynecologist do a breast ultrasound on national TV. Don't trash Tyra -- she's always been "real" about the smoke and mirrors of the fashion industry -- she's on your side! Early on, she published a book with unretouched photos of herself, cellulite and all, encouraging women to love their bodies! She's probably done more for girls (and women's) self-image than anyone else (Jamie Curtis is awesome, too). I appreciate her efforts, and I love seeing someone shaped like me in the public eye. (Of course, you're going to say she's masculine. If so, it's certainly not from being too skinny!)
Trading formulas -- I found a place on your site talking about WHR formulas and then couldn't find it again, where girls (I think one's name was Laurie) were basically asking you to "bless" them as hourglass, ie. the most desireable. You told this girl in particular that she doesn't qualify because her waist is only 9" smaller than her bust and hips. It was obvious that she was getting upset, and was one of the MANY girls and women that I've encountered who were not given positive self-image messages growing up and who seek external approval.
I don't see evidence in research, including yours presented here, that women are as confining in their definitions of beauty for women as males (gay or straight) are.
Your justification for straight vs. gay male participation in defining the parameters of a woman's body for modeling in the fashion industry, rather than leaving that to women, is that wealthy women are the real audience, therefore, the parameters must be hard to achieve or they won't buy it, and straight men have the correct formula. Huh?
Remember the Hans Christian Andersen fairytale The Emperor's New Clothes? I guess you're saying that wealthy women seek more external approval than anyone else!
Maybe that's true, which is sad, because there are so many worthy things they could be doing with their money that would feed their self-worth rather than trying to look like a size 0 adolescent pretty boy OR a WHR 7 hour-glass.
Maybe women running the fashion industry could rescue wealthy women from this scourge as well! Maybe straight men should just trust women to know how they want to dress & be, just giving their yummy approval to their mates on the side!
All right, I misunderstood what you meant by "normal heterosexual", thinking you were suggesting that I was bisexual, bicurious, or "narrowly escaping homosexuality". You have to understand that that last phrase, whether or not it intends to, suggests that the recipient is somehow less of a heterosexual.
That said, you have a roundabout way of approaching the subject. Instead of looking for statistical or even anecdotal evidence that these specific women are unpopular among heterosexual men, you correlate research on sexual preferences with an anatomical analysis of the women.
The problem with this is that it allows for no extenuating circumstances. If heterosexual men generally prefer more feminine features, and Victoria's Secret models have less feminine features than some other sample group, then men will prefer the sample group all things being equal. That doesn't mean that there won't be exceptions.
I think you even acknowledged that somewhere, pointing to some masculinized models you thought men might prefer keeping around. However, you can't really know which models those would be without appealing directly to the source. It's one thing to say that VS needs more hourglass-figured, soft-featured women, if they want to appeal more to men. It's another thing to say who deserves to go and who's best suited to take their place. If Victoria's Secret actually took this seriously, they'd probably use focus groups.
Doug: I have already refuted Richard’s contention that I am “cheating,” as he calls it. I have extensively cited evidence from peer-reviewed journals to explain the subtlety of masculinity-femininity and expect the reader to use it as a reference while going through the two cited entries on Alessandra Ambrosio, where side-by-side comparisons are provided, to understand that Alessandra is objectively masculinized. It is ridiculous that you say, “you make a series of statements about what heterosexual men like with no evidence to back them up” when I have extensively provided evidence; see points #1-5 here.
The evidence cited is sufficient to state that individuals purporting to be heterosexual men and finding Alessandra Ambrosio attractive are outliers and possibly individuals having narrowly escaped nonheterosexuality if not liars as in being a woman or a man who is not a lifetime-exclusive heterosexual. It is an incorrect portrayal for you to accuse me of not being able to imagine a straight man being attracted to Alessandra; I used the term normal heterosexual as in typical heterosexual in my reply to you; an abnormal/atypical/outlier heterosexual man could be attracted to Alessandra and would still be straight, just as a man that has narrowly escaped nonheterosexuality remains a straight man, though an atypical one.
Your assertion that “Being flat-chested doesn’t make a woman clearly feminine, but it doesn’t make her unfeminine or less of a woman” has been stated by me on multiple occasions, and this should be very clear on the feminine vs. masculine page where I provide illustrative examples of how some large-breasted women are more overall masculine-looking than some small-breasted women and also an example of a small-breasted woman being overall more feminine-looking than a larger-breasted woman next to her. The point is that masculinity-femininity is judged by overall looks, and Alessandra and numerous other Victoria’s Secret models are overall masculinized with respect to women in general in an objective manner, and are also too masculine for the job from a general public perspective.
You don’t have to tell me that a heterosexual man could be attracted to women with small breasts. As I have stated elsewhere, I am not particular about breast size and have been attracted to small-breasted women, but these women have been overall feminine.
Your example of long hair and subsequent claim that by my reasoning long hair would be unfeminine is nonsense. I don’t get what you are trying to convey by saying that I “claim to understand that sex is more complicated than simply heterosexuality vs. homosexuality.” What is this? To assess whether a man who likes baby-faced women has narrowly escaped pedophilia, one will have to assess what kind of physique he likes. Women into bestiality would like a beast’s physical form, and excessive hair does not make a man acquire the body shape of a beast, i.e., your question is absurd. Quit bringing into the picture easily alterable traits such as hair length and what kind of dress one wears.
Sandi: BMI is not expressed as a percentage, but usually as a unitless number. The unit is kilograms per meter squared. I do not recall saying what proportion of women have hourglass figures; the 8% statistic you took was likely from a reader comment/posted article. However, it is obvious that hourglass figures are uncommon.
I have not stated that ‘only models who are attractive to heterosexual men should be allowed to achieve “high status.”’ Those who please others with their looks will naturally acquire higher status with respect to looks, and this high status will translate to public prominence if the pleased individuals are in the right powerful positions.
I have cited plenty of evidence within this site that men and women generally judge female attractiveness similarly. Therefore, mindful of the necessity of high-fashion models conveying a sense of exclusivity, regardless of whether you put heterosexual men or heterosexual women in charge of the fashion industry, the looks of high-fashion models will occupy a narrow range of feminine beauty. Whereas using Dove’s models above as fashion models will be a welcome relief for many women disturbed by the sight of skinny fashion models, you could not use their looks to suggest exclusivity, and the elite looking for exclusive clothing will still have to turn to gay fashion designers to buy their clothes, which wouldn’t help because these gays will remain on top and dictate the norms among high-fashion models. In short, you could use ordinary-looking women to model and sell clothing no doubt, but high-fashion is a different matter. The models needed for selling haute couture need to suggest exclusivity with their looks, and for both aesthetic purposes from a general population perspective and to minimize the prompting of negative health behaviors on the part of girls and women inspired by fashion models, high-fashion models should ideally be exemplars of feminine beauty.
If you are offended by the nudity here, please understand that I have little choice presently. If I am successful, there will be no need to use nude models to illustrate examples of feminine beauty. Regarding a man focusing on the body of the woman he loves as the most beautiful, there is no need for this as love makes the loved one the most beautiful of all and beyond compare.
What do you mean despite my claim? I, too, find woman #7 to have the best-looking physique among the bunch. Read the FAQ to understand this site’s purpose. The site’s purpose is not to make sure men understand what they should be attracted to. Men already know what they are attracted to, but those misled by the use of airbrushing, breast implants and posing tricks into believing that some masculinized models and beauty pageant contestants are feminine women need an education. As far as getting feminine women proper fashion modeling jobs goes, this is not happening as long as the fashion business remains gay-dominated. One will have to set up an alternative fashion industry, but a mainstream outlet for feminine beauty appreciation (not this site) needs to be set up first.
Kelsea: There should be no difficulty finding enough talented, well-spoken, classy and moral feminine and attractive women with good presence of mind for the purposes of beauty pageants, but pageants like this are simply not about feminine beauty. Who decides what is feminine and what is not? You might consider browsing what science has to say.
I am not calling the women above masculinized because I couldn’t find nude pictures of them. Partial nudity is inevitable if aesthetics are to be discussed, and there are few alternatives to using nude models for illustrating feminine beauty when what one would expect to be a prime source of beautiful women, namely a major international beauty pageant, features the kind of women shown above. Besides, I don’t see how you can call feminine beauty bland unless you are among the few who like masculinized women.
"I have addressed Alessandra Ambrosio in numerous places within this site, including this and this entry within the blog. If you have gone through these entries and still think that there is nothing masculine about her face or that she looks good, then it is difficult to believe that you are a normal heterosexual man.
"
This was about what I expected, and it pretty well demonstrates what's wrong with your logic. You go to the trouble of pointing to evidence that these women are masculinized (although I agree with Richard's contention that you deliberately use photos and comparisons that suit your agenda). Then, once you've "established" that these women are less feminine than others, you make a series of statements about what heterosexual men like with no evidence to back them up.
If someone expresses deviance from your claims, you assume them to be female or homosexual. If they say otherwise, you assume them to be misinformed or somehow less straight than you are. All of these are ways of dismissing any possible disagreement with your unverified assertion. Any polls that dispute your claims are assumed to be flawed, while you've never bothered conducting any sort of poll (scientific or otherwise) at all. Why bother, when you already know the answer?
Basically, you exhibit tunnel vision. Anyone who disagrees with you is either confused or different from you in such a way that it only supports your theory.
I'm not going to say that Alessandra's waist-to-hip ratio is her best feature, but perfection is not something I expect to find in any woman. That's not the same as saying she isn't attractive or that she looks like a man. There's a difference between femininity and female designation. Being flat-chested doesn't make a woman clearly feminine, but it doesn't make her unfeminine or less of a woman. Conventional wisdom may say that larger breasts are more attractive, but that doesn't mean a man can't prefer smaller breasts and still be heterosexual, since small breasts are still a trait possessed by women. So is a large rib cage, going by the fact that these are naturally female models you point to and not the transsexuals you describe.
Long hair is another example that can be found on both men and women. If you see someone from behind with long hair, it could be a man or a woman, or a transsexual. By your reasoning, that makes long hair unfeminine. Women should be shaved bald, so you can distinctly make out the feminine curvature of their heads. Which just goes to show that being clearly designated female and appearing feminine (or attractive) are not one and the same.
The Victoria's Secret models in question are not masculine. In some cases, they may be androgynous, but that's where things like hair, makeup, clothing, behavior, lack of an adam's apple, and most importantly a vagina come into play. What, are you afraid of being attracted to women that could conceivably be transsexuals? I'm a little too comfortable in my sexuality to worry about things like that.
You claim to understand that sex is more complicated than simply heterosexuality vs. homosexuality, but then you're all too quick to make assumptions about orientation whenever you can't explain something by your own tastes. Are men who like baby-faced women narrowly escaping pedophilia? Are women who like men with lots of chest hair narrowly escaping bestiality?
There are people in this world who get off on being tied up and whipped, among countless other atypical and sometimes repulsive predilections, and yet you can't imagine a straight man being attracted to a woman like Alessandra just because she differs from certain classical standards of female beauty. It's really no different from claiming that women with short hair can't be more attractive to straight men, just because so many men prefer it long. Or saying that it's unfeminine to wear pants instead of dresses.
Oh, and the statement about hair color was an analogy to the very traits we're discussing. I like women of different shapes and sizes (such as buxom Keeley and athletic Alessandra), with different sorts of faces. I don't want models to be boxed into your standard of what makes them attractive and feminine.
Mel: The studies that I have cited “don’t make specifications regarding the sample used”? Have you bothered to look them up? All of them specify what participants were recruited, and the studies assessing the appeal of femininity come from different countries and cultures.
When I talked about some people having defective eyesight/vision and/or a variety of brain abnormalities in reference to the inability to obtain universal agreement, I surely did not imply that those who disagree with me have mental abnormalities. I am not making sweeping generalizations by extrapolating my preferences to heterosexual men in general, but have found my preferences to be generally in excellent agreement with heterosexual men in general, as evident from the studies cited. How have I failed to exclude the opinions of people of other sexualities? This entry itself and a great deal of this site contrasts the differing aesthetic preferences of heterosexual with nonheterosexual men. Besides, there are too few homosexual or transgendered individuals to affect the central tendency of aesthetic preferences in the population, which is what one observes in studies targeting the general population.
The response above is to your using quotes from elsewhere within this site, and you are mentioning them out of context. I do not know where you got the quote, “It is well known that what these gays find aesthetically appealing are looks approximating those of adolescent boys” from. Point out the context and I will respond. I have cited sufficient evidence within this site that high-fashion models tend to lean toward the looks of adolescent boys, which should be common observation for those that have observed enough of them, which in turn is explicable in terms of the gay domination of the fashion business, evidence for which has been documented within this site.
As far as backside protrusion is concerned, I am not going to bother looking up papers where this is documented to back up my assertion about Heidi Klum’s backside. I expect the readers to have observed the trivial items stated or to try to observe them. Ignore the statement if you wish. Heidi’s modeling agency, IMG models, lists her as a 5-foot-9.5 woman with 34-inch hips. Given her height and wide hips, what does her hip circumference, if correctly reported, tell us? The same thing that is seen in the pictures: namely, flattened buttocks, undoubtedly flatter than the average woman of her ancestry.
Homosexual/bisexual men and male-to-female transsexuals (and one could add male transvestites/transvestic fetishists in general) may buy lingerie, too, but Victoria’s Secret is not specifically targeting them. The overwhelmingly vast majority of their customers comprise of heterosexual women, i.e., there is no need for the preferences of the others to be taken into account. Besides, male transvestites and male-to-female transsexuals generally have a strong interest in looking feminine, and will probably appreciate feminine-looking lingerie models.
As far as the typical heterosexual man preferring women with well-endowed breasts goes, do you believe that I am extrapolating my own preferences to other heterosexual men? Ask around and see for yourself. I am not a big breasts fan, and knew as a kid that I was different from my heterosexual peers in that they were all into big breasts, whereas I was not much concerned about breasts but was very particular about a tiny waist and feminine hips and backside. Nowhere have I argued that all heterosexual men are 100% in agreement about female beauty, but the evidence clearly shows broad agreement.
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