I gain alot of weight around the backs of my thighs and also the abdominal/stomach region. When I gain weight my thighs do get thicker and also my breast size does slightly increase so if i gained alot of weight I would like to know will this incease the dramaticness of an hourglass figure if say in the waist region the waist size doesnt not dramitically increase in size i.e the upper and lower parts of the bodies gain extra weight but the waist size does gain weight but not as much would this not make a more prominent hourglass figure? In such instances ands in general how much does an hourglass figure look depend more on weight that on just a basic skeletol structure? because i presonalyl believe that weight gain and loss does play a huge part in the look than just skeltol sturcture alone.
Ruth: I appreciate your comment. Regarding Ting Ting Zhao, compare her face to this Chinese woman, and note that Ting Ting has a narrower face and longer lower-third of the face, which gives her a more overall masculine appearance. It could be that Ting Ting is average-looking with respect to facial masculinity-femininity for a Chinese woman, but the reason I am not under this impression is because I am not as familiar with Chinese looks as the typical Chinese individual would be.
Sandy: I will normally ignore the looks of a commentator even if I am aware of how this person looks, but Aileen is a different matter. In the beginning, I had to correct her incorrect perception that she leaned toward fashion models in looks, which given the context of this site -- i.e., not taking a favorable view of the looks of high-fashion models -- does not suggest any kind of criticism. Eventually, she grew angry at being outdebated and not fitting into the narrow range of feminine beauty being promoted by this site, which is strange since there is no reason why she should be comparing herself to European women, and in response to her distortion of my arguments, I had to write the following:
Quote:
I have not made any assertion about men attracted to you or Amelia being less likely to be lifetime-exclusive heterosexual. I do not know how Amelia looks like, and I have not described your looks as manly. Your have broad shoulders but also prominent breasts and non-narrow hips; you have low rather than high cheekbones, and your angular jawline and facial robusticity is more an artifact of ancestry rather than masculinization. Among your co-ethnics, i.e., swarthy semites, you would be within the normal range. As long as you seek men among your co-ethnics, you would be fine, but beware of white men since by European standards your face is on the masculine-looking side.
I don’t think the passage above qualifies as criticism. It should be considered as clarification and advice in her best interests, and if you knew how she looked, you will agree that describing her as on the masculine-looking side of European norms is speaking favorably of her looks. Before Aileen objected to “swarthy,” I was not aware that some people considered it offensive, and I don’t see how calling a swarthy individual swarthy could be seen as objectionable unless the swarthy individual does not like her own skin. Aileen also started talking about the beauty of Iranian women, even though I had not said anything in this regard, and in response, I had to clarify that the ones considered attractive were the more European-looking ones rather than women with her looks, which you may consider as an unflattering description of her looks, but if this is inappropriate, please keep in mind that Aileen’s comments are far worse, comprising of ad hominem, foul insults, misrepresentations, etc. I have reason to suspect that apart from Raymond and Maria above, she also left the foul comment under the alias Jonathan above; Jonathan and Aileen’s comments came from the same narrow geographic region, and like Raymond’s, followed a comment where I outdebated her. Aileen has called a number of feminine women show here as vulgar or heinous looking, and even left comments like the following:
Quote:
A slimy looking girl standing half naked next to a Christmas tree with a cheap hair cut, and of course what do u see on the Christmas tree, her thong as an ornament. Looks like the opening of a porno movie and of course there is often no protection used.
The above is Aileen speaking of a woman more feminine than what the best plastic surgeons in the world could make her, and she does not realize that the woman shown is a nude model who doesn’t do anything pornographic, like most of the women in the attractive women section. In response to her using foul words to describe the looks of the feminine women that I have shown, I don’t think my properly addressing her looks, which may be regarded as criticism, would be too inappropriate to illustrate an example of what kind of women with an inflated opinion of their looks are offended by this site, but I have not done this.
If you find particular women in the attractive women section too cheap or not attractive, then please let me know who they are; I know there are 2 or 3 women there with faces but not physiques that look in the 16-18 range. I have removed 10 women added to this section at some time or the other, and have more removals in mind. If you flag the same women that I have planned on removing, then I may expedite their removal.
Kristin: So what if Luisel Ramos and Ana Carolina Reston were not working in Europe or America? They were of European ancestry, and were undoubtedly inspired toward thinness in the hope of becoming internationally well-recognized. Luisel’s sister, Eliana, also a fashion model, died six months after Luisel because of undernutrition. Who was sent back for being too thin?
Regarding the BMI classifications, they are based on 18-plus Europeans, not people in developing nations. A substantial proportion of high-fashion models are 18-plus. It is true that the BMI cutoffs for those less than 18 and people with less lean body mass per unit height than Europeans (e.g., East Africans) would be lower, but not by a large amount. For a 16-year-old girl, the medical threshold for a low BMI would be 17.5 as opposed to 18.5 for an adult, and the corresponding threshold weights would be about 7 pounds less than in the chart above. Anyway, the proposition is that all models with a BMI less than 18.5 should have a medical bill of health, and this would translate to just about every less-than-18 fashion model needing a medical exam, which is desirable.
Ana: What homophobia is espoused here? Regardless of whether homosexual men are capable of aesthetically appreciating a feminine body, those among them who happen to be fashion designers typically do not want their female models to look feminine; their appreciation for the looks of boys in their early adolescence is obviously greater. Heterosexual men will typically not be in denial when they encounter men better looking than them. Nobody is saying that designers are gay pedophiles; it is more like there being a lot of men with pederastic interests among top fashion designers. Pedophiles are attracted to pre-pubescents, whereas pederasts’ preferences range from pre-pubescents to teenagers. Why doesn’t the typical male fashion model look like an adolescent boy? Do you believe that the homosexuals could get away with it? They obviously wouldn’t, but from the perspective of heterosexual men, there are numerous effeminate male fashion models around.
Nobody is saying that all major individuals in the fashion industry are homosexuals, but the homosexuals dominate, as you have acknowledged, which means that the heterosexuals have to comply with the status quo, i.e., have to use very skinny fashion models.
I agree that tall and very skinny women are rare, but tall, feminine and very attractive women are rarer still. I have provided numerous arguments against your notion that the fashion model look is selected based on its rarity and exclusivity here, specifically under the headings Artistic considerations and a need for unconventionality and Elite adopting style that others cannot afford. I am not sure what you mean by high-fashion models combining long, lean bodies with curves, since this is by no means the norm among high-fashion models. It is not appropriate to compare high-fashion models to female athletes that need to have above average masculinization to be successful in their sport. There is no such need among fashion models unless you are looking at the issue from the aesthetic preferences of gay fashion designers.
Regarding the symmetry of fashion models’ faces, there are plenty of very symmetrical feminine and attractive women around. It is not the case that above average masculinization is required in women for greater facial symmetry.
The arguments here are not about banning robust/masculine models from fashion modeling. As long as the fashion industry complies with minimum weight guidelines for health or provides medical proof of health for models below the threshold weight for their height, it can use any kind of women it wants. However, the lack of mainstream appreciation of feminine beauty in contemporary Western culture is largely due to the gay domination of the fashion business, and if things are to change outside the fashion world then educating the public is the minimum effort required, which is what this site is about.
Anon: Femininity does not equal attractiveness in women, but femininity is a very powerful correlate of beauty in women; most people aesthetically prefer somewhat above average femininity in the looks of women. I addressed some quantitative data in this regard in an entry titled the importance of femininity to beauty in women. As far as what is feminine goes, physical variation from masculine to feminine has been well-described; see the “feminine vs. masculine” page. A feminine woman would be on the overall feminine side of the female average for her ethnic group. The minutiae of attractiveness are discussed all over this site (start here), and there are numerous entries under the tag of aesthetics at the blog. I need to add a lot more in this regard. On the other hand, people do not agree 100% about attractiveness; there is individual variation. Please pick an alias other than “Anon,” especially if you plan on commenting here every now and then.
Kristin: Scalp hair length appears to be of little relevance to this site at the time being.
Kristin: It is time to end this discussion since you repeat the same points, which I have already addressed. I told you that I will not bet my money that Alessandra has breast implants, but I have reasons to suspect them. How many times do you have to tell me that padded bras make the bust appear larger? This is obvious; what are they padded for? However, the point remains that the actual breasts do not increase in size; only the bust size in clothing is increased. Even with breast tissue pulled to the side in Pic 1, there is no way Alessandra’s exposed part of her breasts would look as big without photoshopping, breast implants or some combination of the two. I have asked you many times that if Alessandra’s breasts in Pic 2 represent photoshopping, then why did the artist not make them look natural? An artist skilled enough to come up with the bust shown in Pic 2 should not have a difficult time making her breasts look natural. I have already said that the picture you posted does not suggest natural breasts, and her arms are raised, which would make her breasts look smaller. Don’t repeat your points again.
i don't understand what all this fuss is about. Apparently, those who hurl muck at the webmaster are not able to grasp the meaning of free speech and thought in a world liberalised by the Internet. The webmaster is absolutely free to post whatever he feels like about anyone without revealing his identity - while indiscriminately posting insults is condemnable but definitely not illegal, THAT is FAR from what he is doing.
Not only does he have evidence to support what he posts, his comments are entirely passive and mean no harm to the subjects. Moreover, he is directing his accusations at the movers of the beauty industry- that they are encouraging an entirely warped(in his opinion) perceptive of beauty , and not the industry's muses.
As for the models/contestants who feel victimised by this site, should'nt you be fully prepared for criticisms-legitimate or otherwise?
Don't forget that your careers hinge on people's views and this site is merely one of them. Probably some feel that judging an innocent woman thus and taking her apart physically for evaluation purposes is extremely hurtful and most likely ( as they feel) , wrong. Conversely, by exposing themselves to the eyes of the public on the pageant stage or in magazines is an unspoken agreement to be evaluated thus. Think about what goes on in the judges' minds when they score your level of attractiveness. Imagine what a man , or even a woman does when he/she looks at your picture in a mag. If you wanna join a pageant, regardless of its higher purpose , you are essentially putting yourself through a flesh parade, crass as it sounds.
On a separate note, this is a question for the webmaster: Miss China, Ting Ting Zhao, was professed to be masculinized, but she does seem pretty average looking( not pretty though) compared to her chinese counterparts. Please enlighten. Thanks.
While I agree with most of what you say on this site, I think you could get your point across without all the homophobia.
It is very narrow minded to assume that a homosexual man could not appreciate a feminine body in an esthetic sense. You do not need to be sexually attracted to a person to find them beautiful. Case in point: I think my children are beautiful. Also, I'm 100% heterosexual, but I know and appreciate a good looking woman when I see one (and heterosexual men, though they wish to deny it, can tell if other men are good looking). If it were all about designers being gay pedophiles, why don't the male models look like adolescents?
The fashion industry is largely dominated by gay men, this is true, but not exclusively. Tommy Hilfiger(sp?) is straight and if his daughter's mother looks anything like she does then Mr. Hilfiger obvoisly has a taste for the more average, curvy, shorter woman. Coco Chanel is obviously not a gay man, nor is she ultra skinny and masculine looking.
These people still use super-skinny fashion models though. Why? I'm not sure, but I have a theory.
Super skinny and tall women are rare. Rare means exclusive. Designers don't want 'just anybody' buying their clothing (this is why it is so expensive). They want only the rich and the powerful donning thier duds. Using the exclusive skinny model is a way of emphasizing that visually. Runway models are statistical outliers in about every way physically. They are excessively tall and thin. Their hip to waist ratios may be elevated compared to your (ahem) glamour models, but they are still much more feminine than most women would be with that amount of body fat, to quote Nancy Etcoff "they are statistical rarities who can combine long lean bodies with curves". (you could find much more masculine figures on any women's pro basketball team, for example). They do tend to have robust facial features, and while they may be androgynous, they are none the less striking. Their facial symmetry and harmony are ususally impeccable. I theorize that robust features can make an ultra skinny model appear more healthy than she actually is (high cheekbones hide sunken eyes, robust jaws hide sunken cheeks, robust features will lend a smooth taughtness to the skin even if it's a bit dehyrated/strained from excessive dieting)
I don't think that robust features should be banned from the fashion world. After all, models do not exist to give men a perpetual hard-on. Tall, handsome women should have their place(but they do need to gain weight). After all, heterosexual men still run basically everything, do they have to run the fashion world too??
(By the way, I'm neither tall, skinny nor masculine. Facially, I look much more like your glamour models, which has caused problems because everyone thinks I'm 'cute' and people are not inclined to take me seriously.)
also when one looks into how bmi charts were determined in relaion to health----one sees this is a rough estimate. these studies took place in third world countries often---were people had rough lives. they needed more weight on them . additionally, the avg runway model is still an adolescent--so adult weight guidelines do not apply. many come from areas known for lankier populations----eastern europe, holland, east africa, certain latin american countries.
just a note---luisel and the other models tht died did not work in europe/america for major fashion assignments. in fact, one of the girls was sent back for beuing too small. they want women with particular measurements--not as thin as possible.
Erik,
Yes i think i will have to agree i just dont like square faces i find them very unappealing cos of there masucline look and the strong jawline. In Nicky cases example overall she may look feminine objectively speaking but personally for me her square face keeps reminding me of the masucline word and it really reduces her attractivness when i look at her and this is subjectively so this leads me on to the question of femininity and attractiveness. Does femininity equal attractiveness? or is attractiveness a completely diffeent concept which is unrelated to femininity? Someone may look feminine overall objectively but on a subjective level they may not be found attractive this may be due to the odd masucline looking feature of theres as in nicky case's example which may spoil so to put it the overall look on a subjective level. I mean where do you draw the line for what is feminine and what is attractive and by attractive im relatin to beauty as in what you find desirable is that not more of a subjective thing?
erik--before you assume your assumptions about implants are right, please visit a victoria secret bra with women--as they make the breasts appear to fill out a cup, and add up to 2 cup sizes. also--please talk to an experienced photoshop pro. through out your arguments, and plastic surgery claims you appear to have not enough knowledge on what photoshop does. if you would like examples of before and after, please email me.
the pictures are from within a year. i could email more if yu would like---pertaining to many of the models.
I have not checked this site in a number of days, and so missed your comments earlier linking me with Erik. All I can say is NO...we are most definitively not the same person, as you would easily see if you read all or some of my comments on this blog. I must say I don't feel it was an appropriate comment on your part; because the inference is that if someone supports or agrees with Erik he/she must actually be Erik himself or some other equally misguided person, which of course I resent. I do respect your opinion and I think you should respect the opinions of others; diversity and debate are good things and lively discussion helps us to grow!
I respect the content of this web site in many ways and disagree with it in others. It is well-thought out in my opinion. It starts out with a premise: "people overwhelmingly prefer above average femininity in the looks of women" and goes on to back up this premise through various forms of objective data - psychological, medical, scientific, anthropological, and through photos and other visual aids.
I don’t think Erik has ever pretended that the depiction of feminine beauty that he presents is inclusive of all female face or body types, and he has readily admitted that this website is strictly about aesthetics, not about making all women feel good about their own personal beauty (which I believe we all have). Again, a website labeled feminine beauty that operated with vague and undefined criteria would merely be about the personal opinion of whomever operated the site; and so while I think it is fine to question Erik’s premise and/or the science he uses to back up his conclusions, I don’t think it makes sense to just say there should be absolutely NO objective criteria because beauty is completely subjective and everyone knows it. In other words, I might be swayed by a good display of DATA that belied the premise of this website but it is harder to completely surrender to mainly emotional arguments without any corroborating evidence.
We probably DO agree on some points: While I don’t doubt that the attractive women featured here are very feminine and fit the definition of feminine beauty broken down into its separate parts (individual facial features, physiques, WHRs, etc WHERE cid= '; “some” still are not attractive to me and so it could be that you can have all the “right” attributes but still lack the proper combination of those attributes to really be a good example of feminine beauty. This is my own personal opinion however. Of course, Erik takes a lot of flack for featuring women who often look too young or too cheap and this is unfortunate as it may take away from the seriousness of this site. (I’m not saying they ARE too young or too cheap Erik…I’m just talking about the perception created.) More respectable models would be better from a purely public relations standpoint if they were available.
I am in fact very pro-woman, and if I saw this site as something against women I would criticize it or ignore it completely. The fact is; I find it informational, entertaining, confrontational and curiously engaging and certainly worth coming back to occasionally.
Erik:
While I think it is cool that you are willing to critique the looks of women who read this site, I do think that being bluntly honest on a public forum (and not via private email) is a SLIPPERY SLOPE, especially if your comments are anything but unambiguously positive. Men and women are wired very differently in this regard as I’m sure you know! This is merely an observation and possible suggestion on my part; not a criticism.
Aileen: This is a response to miscellaneous comments by you.
Quote:
You said, “It is clear you do not like women who are happy with themselves and the comments you make towards me are a clear indication.”
My replies to you have not assumed what your level of happiness is, which is irrelevant to this discussion.
You tell me that not all Semites are swarthy. Why do you think I used the expression “swarthy Semite”? Answer: to point out that you look like a swarthy Semite as opposed to a non-swarthy Semite.
You tell me that the Persians in India are heavily mixed with Indians. Is this why they have high rates of recessive genetic disorders? The original Persians have mixed with East Indians to some extent, no doubt, but I have personally seen numerous Parsis in India with skin lighter and features more European than yours. Look up the pictures of deceased singer Freddie Mercury, born to Indian Parsis as Farrokh Bulsara, and ask yourself if people would place you and him into the same ethnic group.
So East Indians are Indo-European, too? Learn some history. As I have already explained, the Original Indo-Europeans were a European people that spread through many parts of the world. Part-European ancestry dating to thousands of years ago does not make the Iranians and East Indians Indo-European as in the direct, unmixed descendants of the original Indo-European people. Once gain, look up the hair colors of some well-preserved examples of the ancient Indo-European people that I asked you to observe in a previous comment.
You tell me that the original Arabs that presumably “originated in present day Yemen and moved into present day Saudi Arabia have absolutely no resemblence to 95% of Iran’s population.” If so, then how do you explain the very tight clustering of Algerians, Berbers, Moroccans, Egyptians, and people from Iran-Iraq (represented as Middle East) in the following dendogram based on 24 selection-neutral craniofacial inter-landmark distances?
Quote:
Brace, C. L., Seguchi, N., Quintyn, C. B., Fox, S. C., Nelson, A. R., Manolis, S. K., and Qifeng, P., The questionable contribution of the Neolithic and the Bronze Age to European craniofacial form, Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A, 103, 242 (2006).
Quote:
You said, “Furthermore, by assuming that my ancestry is largely semetic (sic)...”
I have not assumed this; I said that you have Semitic looks. You would easily blend in among Semites because there are plenty of Semites with looks like yours throughout the Middle East; see the above dendogram again.
Quote:
You said, “by saying that “my kind is not admired the world around” you must accept that you are implying that Arab and Jewish women, here I am implying the Sephardic Jews, not the Ashkenazi Jews, are less attractive than women with more European ancestry. This itself is racially offensive...”
If I am implying what you say, then it is surprising that on the one hand you insist that all the above groups are Caucasians like European are, but then accuse me of making a racially offensive statement. If some members of a race are described as not as good looking as other members of this race, how is this racially offensive since both groups belong to the same race? On the other hand, you have ignored my argument in the section addressing aesthetics in international beauty pageants that individuals from physically distinct ethnic groups cannot be aesthetically compared in an objective manner. I have not implied anything along the lines of what you have inferred. I simply stated that women with your swarthy Semitic looks are not as admired around the world as women with some other types of looks are, without any explanation why; I simply described people’s preferences.
Quote:
You asked, “If semetic (sic) women are not attractive, Mr. Holland, then why is there so much literature dedicated to white men’s attraction to Jewish women during Medeival (sic) Europe, a time during which people were even more conservative about what feminine and masculine are...”
Where is all this literature? I have not implied that Semitic women are not attractive; attractive women are found in all groups. However, it is common observation that some ethnic groups are more aesthetically appreciated on a global level than others, and Semites do not rank on top in this regard. Some European men have been attracted to women of just about any ethnicity throughout history, which goes for men in other ethnic groups, too, but most European men prefer European women to non-European women, and this is how it has been in the past, too. People were more conservative about what feminine and masculine are in Medieval Europe? What is this? The nuances of physical variation related to masculinization and feminization are better known today than in the past.
Your description of the feminine women shown here as vulgar, heinous, slimy, etc. is a straightforward illustration of your jealousy. Unable to debate in a rational manner, all you can come up with are distortions and foul adjectives, and I have had enough of it. DO NOT leave comments here anymore as Aileen or under any other alias.
Aileen: Where are my supporters? My supporters don’t need to defend me because you have already done an astounding job of defending my arguments, as the following eight points show:
Quote:
1. You left a comment, “I always appreciate people’s inputs with respect to my ideas. Please feel free to share, but please be respectful.” On the other hand, you have described me as a sorry idiot spit on his face by society and left with numerous complexes, a “sad, sorry story,” narrow-minded, lame, demeaning, slimy, chauvinistic and a societal reject. As Raymond, you described me as a sad loser, reject, someone boiling with anger, sedentary, someone with a small penis, probably a big social moron, masturbator, sex-starved and someone with no luck with women. You spammed me with three additional comments as Raymond, which I am not displaying since I don’t allow spam, but you included the following additional insults in these comments: calling me probably short, someone who was bullied all my life, in denial of my homosexuality, a pathetic f*g and someone crapping in my pants as I read your comments. As Maria you also suggested that I am a homosexual.
Respect for me, but not for thee! Besides, someone who comes up with such a fine response to an argument does an excellent job of showing just how able she is of refuting the argument.
Another interesting comment by you in light of your fine response above: “Again, the word “swarthy” is an inappropriate term because it is clear that it has often been used to demean people.” Oh, how much more offensive being called swarthy than your relatively benign description of me!
2. After saying that “I just went over the site, every page,” you wrote, “Mr. Holland there is nothing on Iranians or the vast majority of ethnic groups here...”
You missed the following citations within this site:
Quote:
Farkas, L. G. et. al., International anthropometric study of facial morphology in various ethnic groups/races, J Craniofac Surg, 16, 615 (2005).
Mafi, P. et. al., Ideal soft tissue facial profile in Iranian females, J Craniofac Surg, 16, 508 (2005).
The first paper cites anthropometric data on numerous populations, including Iranians, and I have provided a pdf of the paper. I haven’t extensively cited the data from the second paper, but you bet that I have read it and cited it in an appropriate manner.
In short, you have shown just how well you have read “every page” within this site.
3. You left the following comments:
Quote:
...you simply have the audacity to place a black woman’s picture next to a white woman’s picture and make comparisons as to which is more feminine...
Furthermore, there is only one random photo shot of Aishwarya Rai and of one other East Indian actress wearing colored lenses where you compare here to a very grotesque looking woman and compare their levels of femininity.
You wrote the above, oblivious to the following note at the very beginning of the section that you are criticizing:
Quote:
Those who wanted others to believe that it is impossible to come up with objective and sufficiently exacting criteria to compare the attractiveness of individuals across populations would tend to display striking contrasts (Figures 1a-h), whereas those who wanted others to conclude the opposite would pick images that minimize differences across populations (Figures 2a-c). Therefore, it is not sufficient to just rely on pictures to answer the central question of this section of the site. It is necessary to also refer to average differences between populations, as documented in the anthropological literature.
In other words, the arguments rest on average differences documented in the anthropological literature. You seem to have glossed over all the numerical data and papers cited, and failed to realize that the pictures shown are merely illustrative examples of what the anthropological data are showing; the arguments are not based on the pictures!
You have shown just how well you have understood the arguments here.
4. You said:
Quote:
I am not the cheap promiscuous type that engages in sexual relations, let alone unprotected sexual relations, with anyone random person who has attraction towards me. Most men earn their way into my life and I am in the business of rejecting 95% of the men who show attraction.
Where have you encountered cheap, promiscuous women who have sexual relations with random men expressing an interest in them? Women, regardless of their promiscuity, are selective about who they have sex with. Even prostitutes make men “earn their way into” their pants. Whereas I have not made any assumptions about your degree of promiscuity, your inference that the women I like are cheap prostitute-types speaks volumes about your “fine understanding” of this site. This site is about looks, not behavior. There are also numerous citations here showing that feminine women are less likely to be promiscuous than masculinized women.
5. You said, “Even if Amelia or Kirsten or anyone were to see how I looked, they wouldnt (sic) think the way you do.” And what do I think about the way you look? I said that you are on the masculine side of European norms. If you attract as many admiring glances as you say you do, get numerous compliments on your looks and believe that I am wrong in my assessment of your looks, I don’t think you should have a problem with me posting your pictures next to average and attractive European women and see what the readers have to say. After all, I am wrong in my assessment, isn’t it?
6. You said:
Quote:
Also, modelling (sic) and fashion need to be treated as works of art, in my opinion. The most credible artist is one who can work with a variety of mediums to produce a eye catching work. There is no reason why male homosexuals would not be able to do this if the status quo shifted a bit.
Wow! The male homosexuals who dominate the fashion business are responsible for the status quo! What is going to “shift” the status quo? Some fine understanding of the fashion industry you have shown!
7. You said:
Quote:
I remember a Vietnamese man in my Communications class saying that he would not ever choose a blonde girl over an Asian because he had a personal affinity for the eye structure of Asian women. Clearly, this indicates that beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
Great! Your example refutes a ton of evidence showing well-replicated objective correlates of beauty, which you have not even acknowledged, in spite of my having pointed them out to you previously, let alone refuted them, doesn’t it?
8. You said:
Quote:
I recall reading some of what Mr. Holland had to say about these so-called feminine women as to why they could only be found in amateur porn and nude model sites and he said that because of the lack of attention paid to them by the elites, they have to sleep their way to the top?????? I ask everyone here who is more likely to catch an STD????
Talk about egregious distortion! Nowhere have I said that feminine-looking women could only be found in “amateur porn and nude model sites.” Most women found in such sites are in the normal-to-masculinized range. Feminine and attractive women are found aplenty in the general population. However, thanks to the domination of the fashion business by male homosexuals, what would as a first approximation be the most obvious sources of pictures unambiguously depicting feminine beauty -- such as modeling agencies, beauty pageants -- are largely useless. I have already explained why movie actresses are not a convenient alternative at this time. Since adult-oriented sites usually offer pictures of many nude women and show them from multiple angles, one could browse their archives to select the feminine and attractive ones among them, of which there are very few. Besides, images depicting nudity are required to address aesthetics of the physical form. I didn’t say anything about the elite not paying attention to feminine women; I have said that homosexual men in the fashion industry are not interested in using feminine women for modeling purposes. I didn’t say anything along the lines of feminine women having to sleep their way to the top. I said that feminine and attractive women unwilling to deal with the casting couch to make it in mainstream movies or not willing to pose nude remain virtually unknown.
You said:
Quote:
Even with respect to men, Mr. Holland has boldly made the assertion that heterosexual men have low standards for casual sex and so can one conclude that so-called “exclusively heterosexual” men, like Mr. Holland himself, are more likely to harbor a wide range of STDs because of their preferences for the types of women that are ignored by the elites and are therefore forced into prostitution to make their way to the top????? Having low standards for casual sex extends to having low standards for looks as well as for health....
Where have I said that feminine women are forced into prostitution to make their way to the top? Masculinized women are more inclined toward promiscuity than feminine women, and masculinized women would, on average, be more willing to sleep their way to stardom in the movie industry.
Once again, you have shown your fine comprehension of my arguments!
I believe it should be clear why it is not necessary for my supporters to bother refuting your arguments.
Amelia: I have not failed to notice that “women fall under a variety of physiques.” Even children have noted the latter. You use the term “YOUR standard of what an attractive body looks like,” oblivious to numerous studies cited here explaining femininity and showing that the general public strongly and overwhelmingly prefers above average femininity in the looks of women. This site would have no convincing power and the “standard” talked about here would not bother you and others like you if deep down you all did not realize that the core arguments here are true. Once again, this site is not about what “women are apparently supposed to try to aim for.”
This site is an example of patriarchal oppression? Can women be manipulated into accepting just about any looks standards? What is so special about this site that it will convince women that female beauty lies in what is argued here? Don’t waste your time using this site as part of “an anti-healthy body image discussion” in abnormal psychology. Feminine beauty represents health though it is not the only healthy configuration.
Aileen You have not heeded my request to stop commenting here. Now I am warning you to NOT LEAVE comments here anymore as Aileen or under another alias. You have ignored my rebuttal to your distortions of my arguments and, instead, accused me of becoming tired of being exposed, unable to keep track of what I say, making circular arguments, avoiding discussing the issue at hand, being threatened by your comments and unable to hold my water, thereby showing a character defect. Talk about chutzpah!
Spamming in your context means posting the same comment in multiple entries; you are supposed to leave a link to your previous comment, as shown above; interested individuals will click on the link to read the comment. Anyway, this is of little relevance to you as far as this site is concerned because I don’t want you to leave more comments here; just don’t spam other blogs. If you decide to come up with a site of your own to refute this site, don’t post a comment with a link to it; email me the link and I will let the readership know about it.
Also, you are free not to respond to my comments if you are of me leaving them here. They are for others to view as well and to make judgments about as well. I am not necessarily looking for a response from you at all times.
Oh, and one more thing, because I am new to what you call spamming. Please define it for me since that is what you claim I did. Why is it wrong to post the same thread somewhere else for other people to read to the extent that you removed it and just left it as a link? Is it not fair for others to view my comments first hand and then compare them to your views? Just a question....
May I ask for now where have you travelled to specifically and to what section of the population of those countries did you come across? It is just a question. It is nothing to get so pressured from.
When you are at the point, that you are telling someone that he/she is not welcome to leave comments there is an indication that you are just tired of being exposed by that person and it is getting to you, not that the person is necessarily misrepresenting what you say. You are clearly under pressure as a result of your own inability to keep track of what you say and use everything that you put on your charts/links and such just to avoid discussing the issue at hand and make circular arguments. My comments are just more lengthy but not any more or less unaccepting of what you are saying than what others are posting here. If you are threatened by them and cannot manage to hold your water as a result of them, then it is a character defect on your part, not lack of scientific knowledge or understanding on mine.
As a mature scientist who has claimed who has admitted that he does not deem himself an expert on the subject that he is speaking of, you need to handle this in a mature fashion instead of just coming up with the counterargument that the rest of us do not have enough scientific understanding. At least get people with adequate scientific understanding to support what you say, is that so hard to do??
But I am glad to see that you at least restructure what you say from time to time, knowing that others read these responses to your site, and realize that you better come up with something at least slightly better than circular reasoning.
Aileen: Spamming is not allowed. Do not post the same comment in multiple entries. I replaced the comment you copied from elsewhere with a link to the comment. You have accused me of making “borderline racially offensive rhetoric” to make my points by using “such terms as “swarthy” to describe people with relatively darker shades of skin.” Calling swarthy individuals swarthy is borderline racially offensive?
Is it also “borderline racially offensive rhetoric” to cite literature that non-European women with facial features closer to European norms are more admired around the globe than more ethnic-looking women? I don’t see how, but if anyone feels so, please remember that this site is not about political correctness. If you don’t like my argument, refute its premises; don’t accuse me of making offensive statements.
You wrote:
Quote:
he just uses the broad term European as if it is homogeneous in some of what he says and contradicts what he says before when he says that Europeans have the most variety
I am tired of your misunderstanding/misrepresenting my arguments. To use the word European is not to suggest homogeneity. Earlier in this thread I said that Europeans have the most variety of hair and eye colors, which is not to say that Europeans have the most variety per se (variety of what?). Craniofacial as well as genetic diversity is greater in sub-Saharan African than in Europe.
You wrote:
Quote:
his bold assertion that women with more European features are more admired than women with fewer or no European features at all because of the increased femininity that comes with having more European ancestry.
I have not made any explicit or implicit assertion along these lines. You are referring to the section of this site that addresses aesthetics in international beauty pageants. This section addresses femininity of appearance, which is not to be confused with actual femininity. There is a page within this section that addresses pseudo-feminization and pseudo-masculinization in facial features, and provides numerous examples of somewhat masculinized white women looking more facially feminine than more overall feminine-looking non-European women because of elements of face shape that add a pseudo-feminine appearance (read: not actual femininity). This, along with the other data cited, leads to the claim that among the most overall feminine-looking women (not the most feminine women), European women are overrepresented. The other [justified] assertion in this section is that non-European faces that are somewhat shifted toward European norms are considered more attractive than average by non-Europeans in general. This assertion is explained in terms of a correlate of aesthetics that involves placement along the overall ancestral-to-derived discriminant, not the absurd notion of “the increased femininity that comes with having more European ancestry.” The specific correlate is a preference for the somewhat more-overall-derived-than-average range. Since Northern Europeans [facially] deviate the most overall from the ancestral condition, a preference for the somewhat more-overall-derived-than-average range will largely correlate with an overall shift toward European norms. Hence the observation that non-Europeans in general find co-ethnics with a face shape somewhat shifted toward European norms more appealing. It is important to understand that the specific correlate of aesthetics considered here is not a preference for Europeanization but a preference for a somewhat more-overall-derived-than-average face shape, instead.
You wrote:
Quote:
Based on this logic, one would have to conclude that men with European ancestry are more likely to be feminine than men with less European ancestry, which of course is an absurd conclusion, but this is the only conclusion that can be reached based on Mr. Holland’s assertions.
What you represent as my logic is a grotesque distortion of it, as evident from my clarification above. When men favor and disproportionately select feminine women, women favor and disproportionately select masculine men, i.e., men do not become more feminine if there is ongoing selection for feminine women.
You wrote that I am “no visitor to those [non-European] countries.” How do you know this? What do you know of my background and where I have traveled? Don’t jump to conclusions.
You tell us that Iranians are big fans of nose jobs and use them to acquire a more European-looking nose, and then lament that this “is a shame on the part of Iranians who can’t accept their particular nasal configurations,” and then tell us that you, an Iranian, recently had a nose job, which has presumably shifted your nose toward European norms, and expressed regret that even after the nose job your nose is still not as finely chiseled as fine European noses are. Great job!
You wrote:
Quote:
The simple fact that Mr. Holland was not under the impression, as he so claimed, that Iranians are as much into cosmetic surgery as they are now, is a clear indication that he does not know what beauty is for different people.
In a separate thread, the very first entry at this blog, you claimed that Iran is “the world’s capital for plastic surgery.” I responded by saying that “I was not under the impression that Iranians are heavily into cosmetic surgery, but it is unlikely that they beat Venezuelans.” You responded with the distortion that “Furthermore, the fact that you did not know that Iranians are into plastic surgery is an indiction (sic) that you do not do much research sir on the subjects that you attempt to teach to others.” I responded by saying, “I have not said that I did not know that Iranians were into plastic surgery; I wrote that I was not under the impression that Iranians are heavily into cosmetic surgery after your comment that Iran is the world’s capital for plastic surgery.” You have ignored this exchange and left the statement quoted above, which brings me to the important point, namely that I am tired of your misrepresentations of my arguments, and do not wish to waste my time with someone who has insufficient background to understand the scientific arguments presented here. I will shortly respond to your comments in the other thread, but you are not welcome here. Please do not leave more comments here. Set up your own website and do what you want with it.
Kristin: Pic 2 is easy for an artist to work with, and I don’t see why a sufficiently skilled artist would have a difficult time making digitally enlarged breasts look natural. Once again, I don’t know how recent your posted picture is, but her breasts don’t look natural in the picture; she also has her arms lifted, which would make her breasts look smaller. I have already mentioned that padded bras make the bust larger, but in Pic 1, the exposed part of Alessandra’s breasts is simply too large to be explained by breast tissue pushed to the side by the padding.
Mar: If I am saying what is beautiful and what is not and if beauty is subjective, why do you give a rat’s? Shouldn’t most others, who apparently have their own ideas about beauty, just dismiss this site? I think you know the answer.
I will entertain the idea that beauty is subjective if you refute evidence to the contrary cited within this site; see this page as it links to various pages within this site that address objective correlates of beauty. Note that the page linked to addresses the fact that people in some cultures find obesity in women attractive, but this still does not undermine the claim that there is a lot that is objective about beauty.
You have completely ignored, let alone refuted, the evidence showing the objectivity of femininity on the feminine vs. masculine page. If femininity is subjective, why should anyone be offended if some women are described as looking like male-to-female transsexuals or having a face reminiscent of an adolescent male transvestite?
A person who gets sexually aroused by cross-dressing is known as a transvestic fetishist, not a transvestite. Once again, I am not calling models male transvestites; just pointing out that some of them have the looks of male-to-female transsexuals and, to a lesser extent, male transvestites. Obviously there are male-to-female transsexuals who look within the range of female variation, but they don’t overall look like feminine women. As far as most people recognizing fashion models in general as women goes, this is of course true, but there are surely masculinized women around who can be easily distinguished from the feminine ones. If you are going to dispute the assertion that women with the most overall feminine appearance tend to be disproportionately white, then you must refute the evidence cited or else don’t bring up the point again. Note that the evidence cited in the section linked to is in the form of numerical data, not pictures; the pictures merely illustrate the arguments.
Men who find Alessandra Ambrosio attractive after being well-aware of her looks will generally not be offended by my describing their sexual orientation; they already know about it and often will not have a problem with who they are. Most people are aware of the diversity of form among women; I don’t need to be showing it. If you want to celebrate the beauty of all women, please go ahead and do so and I wish you good luck, but this site is about promoting feminine beauty. I don’t see why you have a problem with this site if beauty and femininity are subjective.
Laurie: A waist that is somewhat thicker than a borderline-cartoonish small waist may look better, but Maria McBane’s waist isn’t too small, and her physique would look more dramatic if she had a smaller ribcage, i.e., had a 34D bust at age 19. It would be difficult to describe your physique as dramatic in the context of high-standards feminine beauty.
S.H.: Measurements using a tape measure should be snug, i.e., not too much slack or constriction should be involved. If you have an A-cup and not sufficiently wide hips, then your physique will be closer to a tubular look (what you call rectangular) than an hourglass, but if you have sufficiently wide hips, especially if you also have a B-cup, then it will be in the middle of a tubular physique and an hourglass physique. Good luck with your prom.
Anon: Your hips will become somewhat wider due to skeletal growth also.
Anon: It does look like you don’t like a square face shape and a corresponding sharp jawline. A feature that you don’t like will reduce the appeal of a person whom you otherwise find attractive. However, keep in mind that masculinity-femininity should be evaluated in terms of overall looks.
Erik,
I gain alot of weight around the backs of my thighs and also the abdominal/stomach region. When I gain weight my thighs do get thicker and also my breast size does slightly increase so if i gained alot of weight I would like to know will this incease the dramaticness of an hourglass figure if say in the waist region the waist size doesnt not dramitically increase in size i.e the upper and lower parts of the bodies gain extra weight but the waist size does gain weight but not as much would this not make a more prominent hourglass figure? In such instances ands in general how much does an hourglass figure look depend more on weight that on just a basic skeletol structure? because i presonalyl believe that weight gain and loss does play a huge part in the look than just skeltol sturcture alone.
Ruth: I appreciate your comment. Regarding Ting Ting Zhao, compare her face to this Chinese woman, and note that Ting Ting has a narrower face and longer lower-third of the face, which gives her a more overall masculine appearance. It could be that Ting Ting is average-looking with respect to facial masculinity-femininity for a Chinese woman, but the reason I am not under this impression is because I am not as familiar with Chinese looks as the typical Chinese individual would be.
Sandy: I will normally ignore the looks of a commentator even if I am aware of how this person looks, but Aileen is a different matter. In the beginning, I had to correct her incorrect perception that she leaned toward fashion models in looks, which given the context of this site -- i.e., not taking a favorable view of the looks of high-fashion models -- does not suggest any kind of criticism. Eventually, she grew angry at being outdebated and not fitting into the narrow range of feminine beauty being promoted by this site, which is strange since there is no reason why she should be comparing herself to European women, and in response to her distortion of my arguments, I had to write the following:
Quote:
I don’t think the passage above qualifies as criticism. It should be considered as clarification and advice in her best interests, and if you knew how she looked, you will agree that describing her as on the masculine-looking side of European norms is speaking favorably of her looks. Before Aileen objected to “swarthy,” I was not aware that some people considered it offensive, and I don’t see how calling a swarthy individual swarthy could be seen as objectionable unless the swarthy individual does not like her own skin. Aileen also started talking about the beauty of Iranian women, even though I had not said anything in this regard, and in response, I had to clarify that the ones considered attractive were the more European-looking ones rather than women with her looks, which you may consider as an unflattering description of her looks, but if this is inappropriate, please keep in mind that Aileen’s comments are far worse, comprising of ad hominem, foul insults, misrepresentations, etc. I have reason to suspect that apart from Raymond and Maria above, she also left the foul comment under the alias Jonathan above; Jonathan and Aileen’s comments came from the same narrow geographic region, and like Raymond’s, followed a comment where I outdebated her. Aileen has called a number of feminine women show here as vulgar or heinous looking, and even left comments like the following:
Quote:
The above is Aileen speaking of a woman more feminine than what the best plastic surgeons in the world could make her, and she does not realize that the woman shown is a nude model who doesn’t do anything pornographic, like most of the women in the attractive women section. In response to her using foul words to describe the looks of the feminine women that I have shown, I don’t think my properly addressing her looks, which may be regarded as criticism, would be too inappropriate to illustrate an example of what kind of women with an inflated opinion of their looks are offended by this site, but I have not done this.
If you find particular women in the attractive women section too cheap or not attractive, then please let me know who they are; I know there are 2 or 3 women there with faces but not physiques that look in the 16-18 range. I have removed 10 women added to this section at some time or the other, and have more removals in mind. If you flag the same women that I have planned on removing, then I may expedite their removal.
Kristin: So what if Luisel Ramos and Ana Carolina Reston were not working in Europe or America? They were of European ancestry, and were undoubtedly inspired toward thinness in the hope of becoming internationally well-recognized. Luisel’s sister, Eliana, also a fashion model, died six months after Luisel because of undernutrition. Who was sent back for being too thin?
Regarding the BMI classifications, they are based on 18-plus Europeans, not people in developing nations. A substantial proportion of high-fashion models are 18-plus. It is true that the BMI cutoffs for those less than 18 and people with less lean body mass per unit height than Europeans (e.g., East Africans) would be lower, but not by a large amount. For a 16-year-old girl, the medical threshold for a low BMI would be 17.5 as opposed to 18.5 for an adult, and the corresponding threshold weights would be about 7 pounds less than in the chart above. Anyway, the proposition is that all models with a BMI less than 18.5 should have a medical bill of health, and this would translate to just about every less-than-18 fashion model needing a medical exam, which is desirable.
Ana: What homophobia is espoused here? Regardless of whether homosexual men are capable of aesthetically appreciating a feminine body, those among them who happen to be fashion designers typically do not want their female models to look feminine; their appreciation for the looks of boys in their early adolescence is obviously greater. Heterosexual men will typically not be in denial when they encounter men better looking than them. Nobody is saying that designers are gay pedophiles; it is more like there being a lot of men with pederastic interests among top fashion designers. Pedophiles are attracted to pre-pubescents, whereas pederasts’ preferences range from pre-pubescents to teenagers. Why doesn’t the typical male fashion model look like an adolescent boy? Do you believe that the homosexuals could get away with it? They obviously wouldn’t, but from the perspective of heterosexual men, there are numerous effeminate male fashion models around.
Nobody is saying that all major individuals in the fashion industry are homosexuals, but the homosexuals dominate, as you have acknowledged, which means that the heterosexuals have to comply with the status quo, i.e., have to use very skinny fashion models.
I agree that tall and very skinny women are rare, but tall, feminine and very attractive women are rarer still. I have provided numerous arguments against your notion that the fashion model look is selected based on its rarity and exclusivity here, specifically under the headings Artistic considerations and a need for unconventionality and Elite adopting style that others cannot afford. I am not sure what you mean by high-fashion models combining long, lean bodies with curves, since this is by no means the norm among high-fashion models. It is not appropriate to compare high-fashion models to female athletes that need to have above average masculinization to be successful in their sport. There is no such need among fashion models unless you are looking at the issue from the aesthetic preferences of gay fashion designers.
Regarding the symmetry of fashion models’ faces, there are plenty of very symmetrical feminine and attractive women around. It is not the case that above average masculinization is required in women for greater facial symmetry.
The arguments here are not about banning robust/masculine models from fashion modeling. As long as the fashion industry complies with minimum weight guidelines for health or provides medical proof of health for models below the threshold weight for their height, it can use any kind of women it wants. However, the lack of mainstream appreciation of feminine beauty in contemporary Western culture is largely due to the gay domination of the fashion business, and if things are to change outside the fashion world then educating the public is the minimum effort required, which is what this site is about.
Anon: Femininity does not equal attractiveness in women, but femininity is a very powerful correlate of beauty in women; most people aesthetically prefer somewhat above average femininity in the looks of women. I addressed some quantitative data in this regard in an entry titled the importance of femininity to beauty in women. As far as what is feminine goes, physical variation from masculine to feminine has been well-described; see the “feminine vs. masculine” page. A feminine woman would be on the overall feminine side of the female average for her ethnic group. The minutiae of attractiveness are discussed all over this site (start here), and there are numerous entries under the tag of aesthetics at the blog. I need to add a lot more in this regard. On the other hand, people do not agree 100% about attractiveness; there is individual variation. Please pick an alias other than “Anon,” especially if you plan on commenting here every now and then.
Kristin: Scalp hair length appears to be of little relevance to this site at the time being.
Kristin: It is time to end this discussion since you repeat the same points, which I have already addressed. I told you that I will not bet my money that Alessandra has breast implants, but I have reasons to suspect them. How many times do you have to tell me that padded bras make the bust appear larger? This is obvious; what are they padded for? However, the point remains that the actual breasts do not increase in size; only the bust size in clothing is increased. Even with breast tissue pulled to the side in Pic 1, there is no way Alessandra’s exposed part of her breasts would look as big without photoshopping, breast implants or some combination of the two. I have asked you many times that if Alessandra’s breasts in Pic 2 represent photoshopping, then why did the artist not make them look natural? An artist skilled enough to come up with the bust shown in Pic 2 should not have a difficult time making her breasts look natural. I have already said that the picture you posted does not suggest natural breasts, and her arms are raised, which would make her breasts look smaller. Don’t repeat your points again.
i don't understand what all this fuss is about. Apparently, those who hurl muck at the webmaster are not able to grasp the meaning of free speech and thought in a world liberalised by the Internet. The webmaster is absolutely free to post whatever he feels like about anyone without revealing his identity - while indiscriminately posting insults is condemnable but definitely not illegal, THAT is FAR from what he is doing.
Not only does he have evidence to support what he posts, his comments are entirely passive and mean no harm to the subjects. Moreover, he is directing his accusations at the movers of the beauty industry- that they are encouraging an entirely warped(in his opinion) perceptive of beauty , and not the industry's muses.
As for the models/contestants who feel victimised by this site, should'nt you be fully prepared for criticisms-legitimate or otherwise?
Don't forget that your careers hinge on people's views and this site is merely one of them. Probably some feel that judging an innocent woman thus and taking her apart physically for evaluation purposes is extremely hurtful and most likely ( as they feel) , wrong. Conversely, by exposing themselves to the eyes of the public on the pageant stage or in magazines is an unspoken agreement to be evaluated thus. Think about what goes on in the judges' minds when they score your level of attractiveness. Imagine what a man , or even a woman does when he/she looks at your picture in a mag. If you wanna join a pageant, regardless of its higher purpose , you are essentially putting yourself through a flesh parade, crass as it sounds.
On a separate note, this is a question for the webmaster: Miss China, Ting Ting Zhao, was professed to be masculinized, but she does seem pretty average looking( not pretty though) compared to her chinese counterparts. Please enlighten. Thanks.
While I agree with most of what you say on this site, I think you could get your point across without all the homophobia.
It is very narrow minded to assume that a homosexual man could not appreciate a feminine body in an esthetic sense. You do not need to be sexually attracted to a person to find them beautiful. Case in point: I think my children are beautiful. Also, I'm 100% heterosexual, but I know and appreciate a good looking woman when I see one (and heterosexual men, though they wish to deny it, can tell if other men are good looking). If it were all about designers being gay pedophiles, why don't the male models look like adolescents?
The fashion industry is largely dominated by gay men, this is true, but not exclusively. Tommy Hilfiger(sp?) is straight and if his daughter's mother looks anything like she does then Mr. Hilfiger obvoisly has a taste for the more average, curvy, shorter woman. Coco Chanel is obviously not a gay man, nor is she ultra skinny and masculine looking.
These people still use super-skinny fashion models though. Why? I'm not sure, but I have a theory.
Super skinny and tall women are rare. Rare means exclusive. Designers don't want 'just anybody' buying their clothing (this is why it is so expensive). They want only the rich and the powerful donning thier duds. Using the exclusive skinny model is a way of emphasizing that visually. Runway models are statistical outliers in about every way physically. They are excessively tall and thin. Their hip to waist ratios may be elevated compared to your (ahem) glamour models, but they are still much more feminine than most women would be with that amount of body fat, to quote Nancy Etcoff "they are statistical rarities who can combine long lean bodies with curves". (you could find much more masculine figures on any women's pro basketball team, for example). They do tend to have robust facial features, and while they may be androgynous, they are none the less striking. Their facial symmetry and harmony are ususally impeccable. I theorize that robust features can make an ultra skinny model appear more healthy than she actually is (high cheekbones hide sunken eyes, robust jaws hide sunken cheeks, robust features will lend a smooth taughtness to the skin even if it's a bit dehyrated/strained from excessive dieting)
I don't think that robust features should be banned from the fashion world. After all, models do not exist to give men a perpetual hard-on. Tall, handsome women should have their place(but they do need to gain weight). After all, heterosexual men still run basically everything, do they have to run the fashion world too??
(By the way, I'm neither tall, skinny nor masculine. Facially, I look much more like your glamour models, which has caused problems because everyone thinks I'm 'cute' and people are not inclined to take me seriously.)
also when one looks into how bmi charts were determined in relaion to health----one sees this is a rough estimate. these studies took place in third world countries often---were people had rough lives. they needed more weight on them . additionally, the avg runway model is still an adolescent--so adult weight guidelines do not apply. many come from areas known for lankier populations----eastern europe, holland, east africa, certain latin american countries.
just a note---luisel and the other models tht died did not work in europe/america for major fashion assignments. in fact, one of the girls was sent back for beuing too small. they want women with particular measurements--not as thin as possible.
you should post something on people's obsession with feminine equals long hair.
Erik,
Yes i think i will have to agree i just dont like square faces i find them very unappealing cos of there masucline look and the strong jawline. In Nicky cases example overall she may look feminine objectively speaking but personally for me her square face keeps reminding me of the masucline word and it really reduces her attractivness when i look at her and this is subjectively so this leads me on to the question of femininity and attractiveness. Does femininity equal attractiveness? or is attractiveness a completely diffeent concept which is unrelated to femininity? Someone may look feminine overall objectively but on a subjective level they may not be found attractive this may be due to the odd masucline looking feature of theres as in nicky case's example which may spoil so to put it the overall look on a subjective level. I mean where do you draw the line for what is feminine and what is attractive and by attractive im relatin to beauty as in what you find desirable is that not more of a subjective thing?
erik--before you assume your assumptions about implants are right, please visit a victoria secret bra with women--as they make the breasts appear to fill out a cup, and add up to 2 cup sizes. also--please talk to an experienced photoshop pro. through out your arguments, and plastic surgery claims you appear to have not enough knowledge on what photoshop does. if you would like examples of before and after, please email me.
the pictures are from within a year. i could email more if yu would like---pertaining to many of the models.
Aileen:
I have not checked this site in a number of days, and so missed your comments earlier linking me with Erik. All I can say is NO...we are most definitively not the same person, as you would easily see if you read all or some of my comments on this blog. I must say I don't feel it was an appropriate comment on your part; because the inference is that if someone supports or agrees with Erik he/she must actually be Erik himself or some other equally misguided person, which of course I resent. I do respect your opinion and I think you should respect the opinions of others; diversity and debate are good things and lively discussion helps us to grow!
I respect the content of this web site in many ways and disagree with it in others. It is well-thought out in my opinion. It starts out with a premise: "people overwhelmingly prefer above average femininity in the looks of women" and goes on to back up this premise through various forms of objective data - psychological, medical, scientific, anthropological, and through photos and other visual aids.
I don’t think Erik has ever pretended that the depiction of feminine beauty that he presents is inclusive of all female face or body types, and he has readily admitted that this website is strictly about aesthetics, not about making all women feel good about their own personal beauty (which I believe we all have). Again, a website labeled feminine beauty that operated with vague and undefined criteria would merely be about the personal opinion of whomever operated the site; and so while I think it is fine to question Erik’s premise and/or the science he uses to back up his conclusions, I don’t think it makes sense to just say there should be absolutely NO objective criteria because beauty is completely subjective and everyone knows it. In other words, I might be swayed by a good display of DATA that belied the premise of this website but it is harder to completely surrender to mainly emotional arguments without any corroborating evidence.
We probably DO agree on some points: While I don’t doubt that the attractive women featured here are very feminine and fit the definition of feminine beauty broken down into its separate parts (individual facial features, physiques, WHRs, etc WHERE cid= '; “some” still are not attractive to me and so it could be that you can have all the “right” attributes but still lack the proper combination of those attributes to really be a good example of feminine beauty. This is my own personal opinion however. Of course, Erik takes a lot of flack for featuring women who often look too young or too cheap and this is unfortunate as it may take away from the seriousness of this site. (I’m not saying they ARE too young or too cheap Erik…I’m just talking about the perception created.) More respectable models would be better from a purely public relations standpoint if they were available.
I am in fact very pro-woman, and if I saw this site as something against women I would criticize it or ignore it completely. The fact is; I find it informational, entertaining, confrontational and curiously engaging and certainly worth coming back to occasionally.
Erik:
While I think it is cool that you are willing to critique the looks of women who read this site, I do think that being bluntly honest on a public forum (and not via private email) is a SLIPPERY SLOPE, especially if your comments are anything but unambiguously positive. Men and women are wired very differently in this regard as I’m sure you know! This is merely an observation and possible suggestion on my part; not a criticism.
Aileen: This is a response to miscellaneous comments by you.
Quote:
My replies to you have not assumed what your level of happiness is, which is irrelevant to this discussion.
You tell me that not all Semites are swarthy. Why do you think I used the expression “swarthy Semite”? Answer: to point out that you look like a swarthy Semite as opposed to a non-swarthy Semite.
You tell me that the Persians in India are heavily mixed with Indians. Is this why they have high rates of recessive genetic disorders? The original Persians have mixed with East Indians to some extent, no doubt, but I have personally seen numerous Parsis in India with skin lighter and features more European than yours. Look up the pictures of deceased singer Freddie Mercury, born to Indian Parsis as Farrokh Bulsara, and ask yourself if people would place you and him into the same ethnic group.
So East Indians are Indo-European, too? Learn some history. As I have already explained, the Original Indo-Europeans were a European people that spread through many parts of the world. Part-European ancestry dating to thousands of years ago does not make the Iranians and East Indians Indo-European as in the direct, unmixed descendants of the original Indo-European people. Once gain, look up the hair colors of some well-preserved examples of the ancient Indo-European people that I asked you to observe in a previous comment.
You tell me that the original Arabs that presumably “originated in present day Yemen and moved into present day Saudi Arabia have absolutely no resemblence to 95% of Iran’s population.” If so, then how do you explain the very tight clustering of Algerians, Berbers, Moroccans, Egyptians, and people from Iran-Iraq (represented as Middle East) in the following dendogram based on 24 selection-neutral craniofacial inter-landmark distances?
Quote:
Quote:
I have not assumed this; I said that you have Semitic looks. You would easily blend in among Semites because there are plenty of Semites with looks like yours throughout the Middle East; see the above dendogram again.
Quote:
If I am implying what you say, then it is surprising that on the one hand you insist that all the above groups are Caucasians like European are, but then accuse me of making a racially offensive statement. If some members of a race are described as not as good looking as other members of this race, how is this racially offensive since both groups belong to the same race? On the other hand, you have ignored my argument in the section addressing aesthetics in international beauty pageants that individuals from physically distinct ethnic groups cannot be aesthetically compared in an objective manner. I have not implied anything along the lines of what you have inferred. I simply stated that women with your swarthy Semitic looks are not as admired around the world as women with some other types of looks are, without any explanation why; I simply described people’s preferences.
Quote:
Where is all this literature? I have not implied that Semitic women are not attractive; attractive women are found in all groups. However, it is common observation that some ethnic groups are more aesthetically appreciated on a global level than others, and Semites do not rank on top in this regard. Some European men have been attracted to women of just about any ethnicity throughout history, which goes for men in other ethnic groups, too, but most European men prefer European women to non-European women, and this is how it has been in the past, too. People were more conservative about what feminine and masculine are in Medieval Europe? What is this? The nuances of physical variation related to masculinization and feminization are better known today than in the past.
Your description of the feminine women shown here as vulgar, heinous, slimy, etc. is a straightforward illustration of your jealousy. Unable to debate in a rational manner, all you can come up with are distortions and foul adjectives, and I have had enough of it. DO NOT leave comments here anymore as Aileen or under any other alias.
Aileen: Where are my supporters? My supporters don’t need to defend me because you have already done an astounding job of defending my arguments, as the following eight points show:
Quote:
I believe it should be clear why it is not necessary for my supporters to bother refuting your arguments.
Amelia: I have not failed to notice that “women fall under a variety of physiques.” Even children have noted the latter. You use the term “YOUR standard of what an attractive body looks like,” oblivious to numerous studies cited here explaining femininity and showing that the general public strongly and overwhelmingly prefers above average femininity in the looks of women. This site would have no convincing power and the “standard” talked about here would not bother you and others like you if deep down you all did not realize that the core arguments here are true. Once again, this site is not about what “women are apparently supposed to try to aim for.”
This site is an example of patriarchal oppression? Can women be manipulated into accepting just about any looks standards? What is so special about this site that it will convince women that female beauty lies in what is argued here? Don’t waste your time using this site as part of “an anti-healthy body image discussion” in abnormal psychology. Feminine beauty represents health though it is not the only healthy configuration.
Aileen You have not heeded my request to stop commenting here. Now I am warning you to NOT LEAVE comments here anymore as Aileen or under another alias. You have ignored my rebuttal to your distortions of my arguments and, instead, accused me of becoming tired of being exposed, unable to keep track of what I say, making circular arguments, avoiding discussing the issue at hand, being threatened by your comments and unable to hold my water, thereby showing a character defect. Talk about chutzpah!
Spamming in your context means posting the same comment in multiple entries; you are supposed to leave a link to your previous comment, as shown above; interested individuals will click on the link to read the comment. Anyway, this is of little relevance to you as far as this site is concerned because I don’t want you to leave more comments here; just don’t spam other blogs. If you decide to come up with a site of your own to refute this site, don’t post a comment with a link to it; email me the link and I will let the readership know about it.
Also, you are free not to respond to my comments if you are of me leaving them here. They are for others to view as well and to make judgments about as well. I am not necessarily looking for a response from you at all times.
Oh, and one more thing, because I am new to what you call spamming. Please define it for me since that is what you claim I did. Why is it wrong to post the same thread somewhere else for other people to read to the extent that you removed it and just left it as a link? Is it not fair for others to view my comments first hand and then compare them to your views? Just a question....
May I ask for now where have you travelled to specifically and to what section of the population of those countries did you come across? It is just a question. It is nothing to get so pressured from.
When you are at the point, that you are telling someone that he/she is not welcome to leave comments there is an indication that you are just tired of being exposed by that person and it is getting to you, not that the person is necessarily misrepresenting what you say. You are clearly under pressure as a result of your own inability to keep track of what you say and use everything that you put on your charts/links and such just to avoid discussing the issue at hand and make circular arguments. My comments are just more lengthy but not any more or less unaccepting of what you are saying than what others are posting here. If you are threatened by them and cannot manage to hold your water as a result of them, then it is a character defect on your part, not lack of scientific knowledge or understanding on mine.
As a mature scientist who has claimed who has admitted that he does not deem himself an expert on the subject that he is speaking of, you need to handle this in a mature fashion instead of just coming up with the counterargument that the rest of us do not have enough scientific understanding. At least get people with adequate scientific understanding to support what you say, is that so hard to do??
But I am glad to see that you at least restructure what you say from time to time, knowing that others read these responses to your site, and realize that you better come up with something at least slightly better than circular reasoning.
Aileen: Spamming is not allowed. Do not post the same comment in multiple entries. I replaced the comment you copied from elsewhere with a link to the comment. You have accused me of making “borderline racially offensive rhetoric” to make my points by using “such terms as “swarthy” to describe people with relatively darker shades of skin.” Calling swarthy individuals swarthy is borderline racially offensive?
Is it also “borderline racially offensive rhetoric” to cite literature that non-European women with facial features closer to European norms are more admired around the globe than more ethnic-looking women? I don’t see how, but if anyone feels so, please remember that this site is not about political correctness. If you don’t like my argument, refute its premises; don’t accuse me of making offensive statements.
You wrote:
Quote:
I am tired of your misunderstanding/misrepresenting my arguments. To use the word European is not to suggest homogeneity. Earlier in this thread I said that Europeans have the most variety of hair and eye colors, which is not to say that Europeans have the most variety per se (variety of what?). Craniofacial as well as genetic diversity is greater in sub-Saharan African than in Europe.
You wrote:
Quote:
I have not made any explicit or implicit assertion along these lines. You are referring to the section of this site that addresses aesthetics in international beauty pageants. This section addresses femininity of appearance, which is not to be confused with actual femininity. There is a page within this section that addresses pseudo-feminization and pseudo-masculinization in facial features, and provides numerous examples of somewhat masculinized white women looking more facially feminine than more overall feminine-looking non-European women because of elements of face shape that add a pseudo-feminine appearance (read: not actual femininity). This, along with the other data cited, leads to the claim that among the most overall feminine-looking women (not the most feminine women), European women are overrepresented. The other [justified] assertion in this section is that non-European faces that are somewhat shifted toward European norms are considered more attractive than average by non-Europeans in general. This assertion is explained in terms of a correlate of aesthetics that involves placement along the overall ancestral-to-derived discriminant, not the absurd notion of “the increased femininity that comes with having more European ancestry.” The specific correlate is a preference for the somewhat more-overall-derived-than-average range. Since Northern Europeans [facially] deviate the most overall from the ancestral condition, a preference for the somewhat more-overall-derived-than-average range will largely correlate with an overall shift toward European norms. Hence the observation that non-Europeans in general find co-ethnics with a face shape somewhat shifted toward European norms more appealing. It is important to understand that the specific correlate of aesthetics considered here is not a preference for Europeanization but a preference for a somewhat more-overall-derived-than-average face shape, instead.
You wrote:
Quote:
What you represent as my logic is a grotesque distortion of it, as evident from my clarification above. When men favor and disproportionately select feminine women, women favor and disproportionately select masculine men, i.e., men do not become more feminine if there is ongoing selection for feminine women.
You wrote that I am “no visitor to those [non-European] countries.” How do you know this? What do you know of my background and where I have traveled? Don’t jump to conclusions.
You tell us that Iranians are big fans of nose jobs and use them to acquire a more European-looking nose, and then lament that this “is a shame on the part of Iranians who can’t accept their particular nasal configurations,” and then tell us that you, an Iranian, recently had a nose job, which has presumably shifted your nose toward European norms, and expressed regret that even after the nose job your nose is still not as finely chiseled as fine European noses are. Great job!
You wrote:
Quote:
In a separate thread, the very first entry at this blog, you claimed that Iran is “the world’s capital for plastic surgery.” I responded by saying that “I was not under the impression that Iranians are heavily into cosmetic surgery, but it is unlikely that they beat Venezuelans.” You responded with the distortion that “Furthermore, the fact that you did not know that Iranians are into plastic surgery is an indiction (sic) that you do not do much research sir on the subjects that you attempt to teach to others.” I responded by saying, “I have not said that I did not know that Iranians were into plastic surgery; I wrote that I was not under the impression that Iranians are heavily into cosmetic surgery after your comment that Iran is the world’s capital for plastic surgery.” You have ignored this exchange and left the statement quoted above, which brings me to the important point, namely that I am tired of your misrepresentations of my arguments, and do not wish to waste my time with someone who has insufficient background to understand the scientific arguments presented here. I will shortly respond to your comments in the other thread, but you are not welcome here. Please do not leave more comments here. Set up your own website and do what you want with it.
Kristin: Pic 2 is easy for an artist to work with, and I don’t see why a sufficiently skilled artist would have a difficult time making digitally enlarged breasts look natural. Once again, I don’t know how recent your posted picture is, but her breasts don’t look natural in the picture; she also has her arms lifted, which would make her breasts look smaller. I have already mentioned that padded bras make the bust larger, but in Pic 1, the exposed part of Alessandra’s breasts is simply too large to be explained by breast tissue pushed to the side by the padding.
Mar: If I am saying what is beautiful and what is not and if beauty is subjective, why do you give a rat’s? Shouldn’t most others, who apparently have their own ideas about beauty, just dismiss this site? I think you know the answer.
I will entertain the idea that beauty is subjective if you refute evidence to the contrary cited within this site; see this page as it links to various pages within this site that address objective correlates of beauty. Note that the page linked to addresses the fact that people in some cultures find obesity in women attractive, but this still does not undermine the claim that there is a lot that is objective about beauty.
You have completely ignored, let alone refuted, the evidence showing the objectivity of femininity on the feminine vs. masculine page. If femininity is subjective, why should anyone be offended if some women are described as looking like male-to-female transsexuals or having a face reminiscent of an adolescent male transvestite?
A person who gets sexually aroused by cross-dressing is known as a transvestic fetishist, not a transvestite. Once again, I am not calling models male transvestites; just pointing out that some of them have the looks of male-to-female transsexuals and, to a lesser extent, male transvestites. Obviously there are male-to-female transsexuals who look within the range of female variation, but they don’t overall look like feminine women. As far as most people recognizing fashion models in general as women goes, this is of course true, but there are surely masculinized women around who can be easily distinguished from the feminine ones. If you are going to dispute the assertion that women with the most overall feminine appearance tend to be disproportionately white, then you must refute the evidence cited or else don’t bring up the point again. Note that the evidence cited in the section linked to is in the form of numerical data, not pictures; the pictures merely illustrate the arguments.
Men who find Alessandra Ambrosio attractive after being well-aware of her looks will generally not be offended by my describing their sexual orientation; they already know about it and often will not have a problem with who they are. Most people are aware of the diversity of form among women; I don’t need to be showing it. If you want to celebrate the beauty of all women, please go ahead and do so and I wish you good luck, but this site is about promoting feminine beauty. I don’t see why you have a problem with this site if beauty and femininity are subjective.
Laurie: A waist that is somewhat thicker than a borderline-cartoonish small waist may look better, but Maria McBane’s waist isn’t too small, and her physique would look more dramatic if she had a smaller ribcage, i.e., had a 34D bust at age 19. It would be difficult to describe your physique as dramatic in the context of high-standards feminine beauty.
S.H.: Measurements using a tape measure should be snug, i.e., not too much slack or constriction should be involved. If you have an A-cup and not sufficiently wide hips, then your physique will be closer to a tubular look (what you call rectangular) than an hourglass, but if you have sufficiently wide hips, especially if you also have a B-cup, then it will be in the middle of a tubular physique and an hourglass physique. Good luck with your prom.
Anon: Your hips will become somewhat wider due to skeletal growth also.
Anon: It does look like you don’t like a square face shape and a corresponding sharp jawline. A feature that you don’t like will reduce the appeal of a person whom you otherwise find attractive. However, keep in mind that masculinity-femininity should be evaluated in terms of overall looks.
Pages