Anthem, I totally agree with you. I hope you understand that it was a rethorical question from me. Logically, your answers could also be applicated on mens sexual drive-preferences, then. If it goes for dislikes, it goes for likes as well…
One will no longer be attached to the “set-frame work in your mind that you have always used to define beauty or what you are attracted to”. - - - “I suspect you won’t be emotionally involved in it. It will exist for others but won’t affect your life in one way or another.”
So… sexy women will not affect one’s life any longer whether you are a man liking them or a woman disliking them… That’s what I believe as well. 
Anthem/EMC said:
no longer being “attached” to the set-frame work in your mind that you have always used to define beauty or what you are attracted to
Well, I’m not sure what “attached” means but in the sense I see it normally being used, it means being disturbed if something is being taken away or is inaccessible. Well, I for one am already not attached to a framework in my mind that I have always used to define beauty or what I am attracted to. Neither has such a framework ever been entirely fixed, either for me or my society, as Anthem has indicated using the examples of ancient Greece or the 1950s. If I wake up in the morning finding Marilyn Monroe my ideal, I’m not going to be even slightly upset about it. So I’m not so sure what ‘enlightenment’ is supposed to be producing here, if I already have it…
Anthem 11:
I do not agree. The most important stuff is more or less eternal. Signs of health, youth and fertilility are always attractive and have never been out of style. The changes in taste and style over the centuries have been marginal and have never been as important as health, youth and fertility.
The changes in taste and style over the centuries have been marginal and have never been as important as health, youth and fertility.
Yes, Lavazza, you are right. And you can add ‘beauty’ to the list. There are changes in style and fashion, but, contrary to various canards there is in fact a remarkable cross-cultural and cross-historical underlying consistency in what is found to be a physically beautiful person.
David:
To me, beauty is a sign of youth, health and fertility. “Parasite free”, you know.
Well, there are ‘beauty’ things that don’t seem to be directly related to health at all. They seem to be just about… well, beauty. An example is high cheekbones.
My understanding is that most (if not all) cultures define beauty as that which moves away from the bestial; that is, we favor non-animal characteristics. Thus the refined characteristics in Greek statues (which were also painted, to emphasize their flawless beauty), and the soft (ie, no sharp angles) angelic features of Renaissance art. Our culture takes is one step further, favoring extreme youth as the paradigm of beauty. I disagree with you, Lavazza, that health (or the appearance thereof) is favored in women, as the ideal seems to be over-thin bodies, sometimes bordering on the anorexic. Not good breeding material.
Meg, I agree with you that it isn’t just about health and immediate fertility. But I don’t agree with the theory that it is just about being different from beasts either. It’s a very complex affair that can’t be reduced easily.
Let’s face it, we humans find certain animals more attractive, more physically beautiful than others, and the same indeed for plants. We tend to prefer the look of a jade plant to cabbages, for whatever complex reasons apply.
Most people can identify what they consider a beautiful horse, and you’ll find a lot of commonality between what people choose as the most beautiful horse out of an array of horses. Likewise, almost all human beings I believe find the horse more beautiful than the hyena or the warthog.
Then aesthetic attractveness and ‘physical sexual attractivenss’ are related but not identical either.
A note on skinniness – there is the advertising ideal and then human attraction and they are related but not in general the same. A fashion model has the purpose of advertising and is in general a clothes-rack, not necessarily good breeding material and not identical to what the average man finds attractive.
It’s complex, fer sher. But I do that think physiognomy is most attractive when it’s non-animal in appearance. I haven’t spent hours pondering this, so you may be able to convince me otherwise. But it makes sense to me that the ideal of beauty leans away from the more brute characteristics of animals. We all think Lassie is (was) cute, and we melt over a kitten, but we wouldn’t necessarily want a partner to resemble either one.
You’re right that the advertising ideal is contrary to the ‘real person’ ideal. I don’t know too many people who are attracted to the ultra-skinny models in magazines. But it is our cultural ideal, for whatever reason. Who gets to decide these things? And why are they perpetuated…makes me want to eat a hot fudge banana sundae.
You’re right that the advertising ideal is contrary to the ‘real person’ ideal. I don’t know too many people who are attracted to the ultra-skinny models in magazines.
Now this is true and surely valuable for women to know.
Who gets to decide these things? And why are they perpetuated…makes me want to eat a hot fudge banana sundae.
No-one gets to decide them. And that’s partly why their perpetuation cannot be stopped. Women are just too interested in beauty.
There’s also something of a myth that ‘men’ are driving this. Not true. Most men don’t give a damn about fashion magazines, or even women’s fashions. If you check out women’s-beauty-centered advertising, I think you’ll find 90% of it is actually directed towards women. Only women and gay men really get into women’s fashions; if a woman is a year or two out of fashion, only fashion professionals, other women, and a certain number of gay men will have a clue 
. Women are driving the fashhion and beauty industry because so many women are extremely enthusiastic about being beautiful. They love it, like so many men love cool cars and sports. Sure, attracting men is part of it, but not the whole story. Many women just love being as beautiful and/or as fashionable as they can be, and, if, in the morning every man (and woman) in the world lost sexual interest in women, so there would be no person to attract with it, the womans-beauty industry would still thrive.
Now there’s a generalization for you! Barry would be proud. Don’t you know that ALL generalizations are false? <— (including that one?) 
I happen to know a hetero guy who’s a fashionista, and he’ll size a person up in a split second just by the shoes they’re wearing.
No argument from me there. God knows why we do it. Most women are as interested in the kind of car a guy drives as the guy is interested in the label she’s wearing. FWIW, I don’t think too many women are interested in the GQ kind of glamour guy, either. Those kind of good looks can be pretty dull. It’s interesting that the glam mags present idealized images of men and women which hugely influence our identities within the culture, and yet our personal preferences tend toward a more relaxed, parasitic version of that ideal.
Contrary to popular ideas, fashion models are curvy in a fertility related manner. The hip-to-waist ratio for fashion models is 0,70-0,72 and for Playboy models 0,69 to 0,71. Even Twiggy had a hip-to-waist ratio of 0,72.
The most of women coming to fertility treatment have hip-to-waist ratios above 0,90.
Hi Lavazza, that’s interesting but what I want to hear is what is the waist-to-hip ratio of women not coming in for fertility treatment… do you know what it is?
Now there’s a generalization for you! Barry would be proud.
No he wouldn’t be proud of it. It’s a light-hearted, joking generalization about a small matter. It’s not a generalization delivered from a mile-high god-pedestal on matters cosmic, to be swallowed whole and used as a basis for living by a swarm of devotees. As Barry Long’s website says, “‘I speak only of love, life, truth, death and God.’” No, Barry long would not be proud of this little generalization.
I do not get it.
I am just relating info from the book “The Survival of the Prettiest”, hopefully correctly, I do not have the book at hand right now, and the research related in the book might have been critisized later on.
Women of many different forms have babies, if that is what you are getting at.
I am interested what reasons are plausible for so many men wanting to make babies with a smaller number of women who have certain characteristics: Is it cultural? Or is more connected to biology/fertility?
I am just relating info from the book “The Survival of the Prettiest”, hopefully correctly, I do not have the book at hand right now, and the research related in the book might have been critisized later on.
I wasn’t criticising it myself. Just trying to get a picture that would nicely complete the picture. A low waist-to-hip ratio for models; a high one for infertile women. The big obvious question now is, what is it for ordinary (fertile) women? If you don’t have the statistic, you can’t help me. I’m not putting your story down, on the contrary, I’m interested and greedy for more if available.
There’s more here to confirm what you said:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waist_Hip_Ratio
I looked around at some sites, but frustratingly, most of the articles I have seen are leaving out the obvious – what is the average waist-hip ratio for a woman?
MMM…Ugh…Ahhh…Yeahhh…MMMM…Oooh…Aahhh…Yeahhh…Ugh…Rrrrr!!!
Just a few bestial sounds for your raw sexuality entertainment
Just throwin’ a funny bone in there. Please don’t let me interrupt your lively and constructive conversation
Rozmus-Wrzesinska M, Pawlowski B.
Department of Anthropology, University of Wroclaw, ul. Kuznicza 35, Wroclaw 50-138, Poland.
Women’s attractiveness has been found to be negatively correlated with waist-to-hip ratio (WHR) in many studies. Two components of this ratio can, however, carry different signals for a potential mate. Hip size indicates pelvic size and the amount of additional fat storage that can be used as a source of energy. Waist size conveys information such as current reproductive status or health status. To assess which of these two dimensions is more important for men’s perception of female attractiveness, we used a series of photographs of a woman with WHR manipulated either by hip or waist changes. Attractiveness was correlated negatively with WHR, when WHR was manipulated by waist size. The relation was inverted-U shape when WHR was changed by hip size. We postulate that in westernized societies with no risk of seasonal lack of food, the waist, conveying information about fecundity and health status, will be more important than hip size for assessing a female’s attractiveness.
Singh D.
Department of Psychology, University of Texas at Austin 78712.
Interrelationships of female body fat distribution as measured by the waist-to-hip ratio (WHR), overall body size, perceived attractiveness, youthfulness, health, and need to lose weight were investigated. Drawings showing thin females with high WHRs and heavier females with low WHRs were presented to college-age women with low and high scores on the Restrained Eating Scale (Herman & Polivy. [1980]. Obesity [pp. 208-225]. Philadelphia: Saunders) and men who ranked figures for various attributes. Female subjects, regardless of their eating style, as well as male subjects, judged heavier female target figures with low WHRs as more attractive and healthier than thinner figures with higher WHRs. The rankings for youthfulness and need to lose weight were not systematically affected by the size of the WHR. Female subjects perceived heavier female target figures with low WHR to represent ideal female figures. Female subjects with a restrained eating style felt their own body was not similar to idealized female figures and expressed unhappiness with their body shape; this was not true of unrestrained eaters. It is proposed that female attractiveness and ideal female shape may be more influenced by WHR than overall body size.
Fan J, Dai W, Liu F, Wu J.
Institute of Textiles and Clothing, Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hung Hom, Kowloon, Hong Kong. tcfanjt@inet.polyu.edu.hk
Based on 69 scanned Chinese male subjects and 25 Caucasian male subjects, the present study showed that the volume height index (VHI) is the most important visual cue to male body attractiveness of young Chinese viewers among the many body parameters examined in the study. VHI alone can explain ca. 73% of the variance of male body attractiveness ratings. The effect of VHI can be fitted with two half bell-shaped exponential curves with an optimal VHI at 17.6 l m(-2) and 18.0 l m(-2) for female raters and male raters, respectively. In addition to VHI, other body parameters or ratios can have small, but significant effects on male body attractiveness. Body proportions associated with fitness will enhance male body attractiveness. It was also found that there is an optimal waist-to-hip ratio (WHR) at 0.8 and deviations from this optimal WHR reduce male body attractiveness.
Tovee MJ, Maisey DS, Emery JL, Cornelissen PL.
Department of Psychology, Newcastle University, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, UK. m.j.tovee@ncl.ac.uk
Evolutionary psychology suggests that a woman’s sexual attractiveness is based on cues of health and reproductive potential. In recent years, research has focused on the ratio of the width of the waist to the width of the hips (the waist-to-hip ratio (WHR). A low WHR (i.e. a curvaceous body) is believed to correspond to the optimal fat distribution for high fertility, and so this shape should be highly attractive. In this paper we present evidence that weight scaled for height (the body mass index (BMI)) is the primary determinant of sexual attractiveness rather than WHR. BMI is also strongly linked to health and reproductive potential. Furthermore, we show how covariation of apparent BMI and WHR in previous studies led to the overestimation of the importance of WHR in the perception of female attractiveness. Finally, we show how visual cues, such as the perimeter-area ratio (PAR), can provide an accurate and reliable index of an individual’s BMI and could be used by an observer to differentiate between potential partners.
etc etc
Go look at http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?DB=pubmed if you are interested in some of the latest research. The results are still contradictory depending on which population that is tested.
Normal WHR in the general population is 0.8 in females and 1.0 in males.
Thanks!