Please note: some images may not be work-safe.
Human evolution: initial steps toward an hourglass figure in the female
The female hourglass figure obviously reflects sexual selection. However, sexual selection acts on male-female differences to start with. Therefore, what prompted shape differences in the first place? Boguslaw Pawlowski and Marzena Grabarczyk have written a paper on this, and it is addressed here.
The paper refers to the center of mass of a body, which is the point around which the mass of the body is equally distributed. For instance, most of the mass of a human body lies away from a finger tip. Therefore, the center of mass of a human body is not going to be in the fingers, but somewhere in the abdominal region.
The authors have proposed that when our ancestors started walking upright, walking became more challenging for females in the later stages of pregnancy and those carrying babies (in the front) as these conditions shift the center of mass upward and forward, and the women would surely have to walk to obtain food. This challenge can be eased by adding more mass to the hips (more protruding buttocks, wider hips) and thighs (e.g., more fat deposition on the thighs), as well as reducing upper body mass, thereby shifting the center of mass toward the rear and downward. Hominid females with relatively bigger hips for a given waist size and somewhat lesser upper body mass than others would be at an advantage with respect to foraging during the later stages of pregnancy and when carrying infants in front, and the males more attracted toward such females would enjoy better reproductive success. This would lead to a greater frequency of Hominid females shifted toward the modern human female form as well as a greater proportion of hominid males with a preference for females having bigger hips relative to waist size and reduced upper body mass in the form of a smaller musculoskeletal upper body frame. Modern human male preference for large female breasts is not inconsistent with the advantage of reduced upper body mass to the ancestral Hominid females because the prominence of female breasts is due to fat, which doesn’t weigh much; a reduction of skeletal and muscular mass would compensate for an increase in breast size many times over.
To assess the feasibility of the proposal above, the authors obtained various body measurements, including center of mass, in a sample of young women and assessed the correlations between the measurements. A low center of mass, adjusted for height, corresponded to narrower shoulders, a lower waist-to-hip ratio and greater thigh circumference, but not the following variables: trunk length, chest circumference, lower limb length, hip width, hip circumference, waist circumference and body mass. Therefore, the position of the center of mass was correlated with three variables relevant to a feminine look and consistent with the authors’ proposal above, namely shoulder width, waist-to-hip ratio and thigh circumference. Although hip width is relevant to an hourglass/feminine look, since the region where hip width is measured is very close to the center of mass, the lack of correlation should not be surprising, but one sees correlations with parts of the body distant from the center of mass, namely shoulders and thighs. In other words, the data are consistent with the authors’ contention.
Reference
(Posted on March 16, 2007 | Tags: Science)Pawlowski B, Grabarczyk M. Center of body mass and the evolution of female body shape. Am J Hum Biol. 2003 Mar-Apr;15(2):144-50. (zip)
Abstract: Among primates, the genus Homo has a unique sexual dimorphism in general body shape. The stenotypic female "hourglass figure" has often been attributed to sexual selection. Sexual dimorphism both in shape and in position of the center of body mass (CoM) emerges during puberty and is related to hormonal influences. These are only the proximal and not the ultimate causes of this feature. This article explores the hypothesis that the evolutionary (i.e., ultimate) reason for female body shape and male preference for a lower waist-to-hip ratio (WHR) is due to the acquisition of bipedal locomotion and different biomechanical constraints on each sex. The demands of pregnancy and subsequently carrying infants may have more tightly constrained CoM in females than in males. A lower-position of CoM relative to height (RCoM=(CoM/height)*100%) would contribute to better stability during pregnancy and infant carrying. Using body measurements from 119 female students, we show that RCoM correlates negatively with only maximal thigh circumference and positively with only WHR and shoulder width. The relationship between RCoM and traits that best characterize female body shape seems to confirm a hypothesis of biomechanical selection pressure that may have acted on Homo female morphology, thus contributing to sexual dimorphism.
Comments (123) | Notify others
Comments:
I found another site that was talking about gays dictating women’s size, http://www.paradunai.org, in a blog titled “To Be or Not To Be: Gay, Lesbian, Transgendered,” and then searched and found you.
As a model/athlete, at 18% bodyfat my agent told me I needed to lose in my hips—needless to say, I didn’t get rid of my hips, I got rid of my agent!
I am a classic, Sophia Loren hourglass. My waist has always been 12 inches smaller than my bust and hips since I was twelve! My bust and hips have always been the same.
An artist asked me to model for a Vargas tribute (the famous 40s pin-up artist—not nude)and he was the first one I heard say this about gays setting the fashion standard. It makes so much sense.
It’s definitely not fun when the only place you can see your body type these days is in pornography—which is disgusting and so sad to me because it wrecks relationships, and is so disrespectful. Or Anna Nicole Smith or faked-out Pamela Anderson—pathetic and so embarrassing!
I’m always cheering on any intelligent, self-respecting women I see like me in the public eye, but they are so rare. I can tell in a second who is a natural hour-glass but is starving herself to be thinner. I can also easily spot a boob job with 100% accuracy. (By the way, Tyra Banks is real.)
I have to say Erik, while your efforts are much appreciated, and participants, while it’s great you are considering alternative definitions of beauty, for some reason, women in general seem to seek external approval and want to squish themselves into numbers. I see that happening here. From one squish to another? Ladies, your mirror needs to be your magazine and your guide—not Erik, not anyone else. Honestly, greet your body naked in the mirror every morning, ("Hi body, you’re looking great!") run around your house naked, exercise naked and watch yourself in the mirror—love your body! Appreciate your body!
Erik, I know, you’re a guy, and you appreciate women’s beautiful bodies, which women appreciate, (though the very young-looking, blondes seem to be significantly over-represented here) and I see you trying to assure participants that not being a classic hour glass doesn’t mean they are not attractive.
After teaching wanna-be models about fitness and nutrition I learned to veer away from these “perfection” landmines, and refused to go down that path when I identified someone who was wanting an external formula for who they should be in order to be: loved, validated, successful, attractive, etc., etc., etc. Please encourage ladies to love themselves because classic hour-glass or any other formula can be as impossible as skinny. You’re in danger of just switching formulas! Heterosexual men used to be in charge of women’s fashion (hour-glass sex symbols) and now gay men are in charge of women’s fashion. How about women being in charge of women’s fashion? Then we could see the whole beautiful kaleidescope of women’s beauty!
You’ve alluded to some great solutions—one that could be accentuated, and is necessary for this to be successful, is our cultural messages to our daughters about self-respect, self-worth and healthy self-image in the first place. In other words, we can’t just suggest a different look in a magazine, we must raise women who don’t need to look at a magazine at all to feel great about themselves.
This falls in the mother and the father arena—mothers how’s your self-image, what kind of role model are you for your daughters? Specifically tell your daughters how amazing they are—they listen, trust me. Fathers, how do you treat women? What value do women have to you? What kind of role model are you for respecting & valuing women for who they are? Specifically tell your daughters how beautiful they are—so they don’t fall for that line from the first player that comes along! They listen, trust me!
Anyway, there’s my two cents…
Posted by Monique on March 24, 2007 at 09:58 PM | #
Monique: I know that I am not the only person to have figured out the gay factor as an explanation for why high-fashion models are typically very skinny, but thank you for pointing out the link. I am pleased to know that you decided not to lose the healthy amount of body fat that you possess, but other women may have little opportunity for success apart from fashion modeling, for which they will have to become skinny in the first place.
I myself lament the fact that I have had to mostly resort to nude models to obtain examples of feminine beauty. On the other hand, feminine women are uncommon in porn because most of them are not inclined toward promiscuity. The vast majority of the nude models shown in the attractive women section do not comprise of porn stars. If you believe Tyra Banks has always had natural breasts, then explain this.
As far as I know women in general do not seek external approval of their looks. Many women have a strong innate sense of aesthetics and know how attractive they are based on this sense; they do not primarily judge their attractiveness in terms of how others perceive them. But then there are women who are largely dependent on others to assess how attractive they are.
There is certainly nothing within this site that should be taken as women feeling less worthy, less successful, less loved and less validated if they fail to meet the standards for feminine beauty. Good looks last for a short time whereas people’s personality and nature last a lifetime. Surely, no woman should have the immaturity to derive a sense of worth or belonging from how attractive she is. The arguments within this site have nothing to do with acceptability vs. non-acceptability per se of different looks in women, but of appropriate looks – from an aesthetics perspective – among models in various settings and contestants in beauty pageants catering to the general public. There are numerous scenarios where a person’s attractiveness does not matter or should not matter, and nobody should base a general sense of worth upon how attractive she is.
As far as switching formulas go, men and women in general judge female attractiveness similarly. Therefore, if heterosexual women were in charge of women’s fashion, then mindful of the necessity of high-fashion wear conveying a sense of exclusivity [or else the elite would not patronize it], they will have to use a narrow range of physical variation among their models, which will need to be difficult to attain for most women, and this narrow range will obviously be one of feminine beauty.
Anyway, if you have an hourglass figure and are an attractive women, then please consider submitting your pictures to me; I sorely need non-nude pictures of attractive women.
Posted by Erik on March 27, 2007 at 07:46 PM | #
”...Other women may have little chance for success apart from fashion modeling...” Huh? What world do you live in? Where are women’s choices for success limited to fashion modeling?
Tyra - ahhh, Erik, you’re letting the camera fool you! I would look the same in different clothes, angles & lighting! The smaller the triangles the larger the breasts appear! Not only can I tell from looking at Tyra that they’re real, but she also had a gynecologist do a breast ultrasound on national TV. Don’t trash Tyra—she’s always been “real” about the smoke and mirrors of the fashion industry—she’s on your side! Early on, she published a book with unretouched photos of herself, cellulite and all, encouraging women to love their bodies! She’s probably done more for girls (and women’s) self-image than anyone else (Jamie Curtis is awesome, too). I appreciate her efforts, and I love seeing someone shaped like me in the public eye. (Of course, you’re going to say she’s masculine. If so, it’s certainly not from being too skinny!)
Trading formulas—I found a place on your site talking about WHR formulas and then couldn’t find it again, where girls (I think one’s name was Laurie) were basically asking you to “bless” them as hourglass, ie. the most desireable. You told this girl in particular that she doesn’t qualify because her waist is only 9” smaller than her bust and hips. It was obvious that she was getting upset, and was one of the MANY girls and women that I’ve encountered who were not given positive self-image messages growing up and who seek external approval.
I don’t see evidence in research, including yours presented here, that women are as confining in their definitions of beauty for women as males (gay or straight) are.
Your justification for straight vs. gay male participation in defining the parameters of a woman’s body for modeling in the fashion industry, rather than leaving that to women, is that wealthy women are the real audience, therefore, the parameters must be hard to achieve or they won’t buy it, and straight men have the correct formula. Huh?
Remember the Hans Christian Andersen fairytale The Emperor’s New Clothes? I guess you’re saying that wealthy women seek more external approval than anyone else!
Maybe that’s true, which is sad, because there are so many worthy things they could be doing with their money that would feed their self-worth rather than trying to look like a size 0 adolescent pretty boy OR a WHR 7 hour-glass.
Maybe women running the fashion industry could rescue wealthy women from this scourge as well! Maybe straight men should just trust women to know how they want to dress & be, just giving their yummy approval to their mates on the side!
Posted by Monique on March 30, 2007 at 12:27 PM | #
Oh, PS—I’m sure I’m not the only woman who doesn’t want to forward pictures to be placed among all the porn shots—sorry! Like Sophia Loren, I have never modeled nude. I don’t want to be thrown among women who do pose nude—and not for art --but for porn!
I also do not want to be seen as promoting your trading one very narrow formula for another, because I disagree with that! You’re trying to define genetics! I didn’t “make” myself an hour-glass or beautiful, I was just blessed and born with it.
It is not my intention to intimidate other women—that happens enough to me in real life and makes me feel very sad. In addition to being a classic hour-glass, I have been told I look like Linda Carter, Xena, and more recently Catherine Zeta-Jones. I have to work at getting women who may feel insecure about themselves (which is way too many!) to let down their wall and realize I just want to be “one of the girls.” I have to joke with them and compliment them (genuinely, of course) to get them to let down their guard, or retract their claws.
If it is the intention of the fashion industry, and wealthy women, to intimidate in this way, then something is seriously wrong with all of them!
Posted by Monique on March 30, 2007 at 01:06 PM | #
Monique: Damn! Unless regular feminine and attractive women start sending me their pictures to put them in the attractive women section, how am I supposed to reduce or eliminate my reliance on nude models? Once again, most of the nude models shown in the attractive women section have posed for art, not porn, and only a rare few have done porn work. Besides, I could put your pictures on a page free of nude models. Speaking of reversing formulas, as I have said before, this site is about promoting feminine beauty in settings where it is required. The message is not that “women should look like this,” i.e., there is no reversal of formula, and please keep in mind that most people, including most women, have an intrinsic preference for feminine beauty, i.e., I am not imposing a new formula on people. You are not helping me at all by refusing to have yourself featured here.
You don’t want to intimidate women with your looks? What is this? Are the athletes participating in the Olympics intimidating the masses with their athletic prowess? Are scientists in the limelight that are working on solving complex scientific problems intimidating others with their intelligence? Beauty is a gift of the Gods, and meant as eye candy for the masses. Thou shalt not deprive others of a balm meant for troubled souls. The wise do not displease the Gods. Would you rather have sick-looking high-fashion models or feminine beauty inspire women?
Regarding the quote about other women having little chance for success apart from fashion modeling, given the strong and overwhelming public preference for feminine beauty, some masculinized women who are capable of becoming very skinny with dieting will have little choice for success apart from fashion modeling in a gay-dominated fashion industry. Look up Iselin Vollen Steiro and ask yourself if she would make it in modeling if gays didn’t dominate the fashion business. Some masculinized women may not make it big without the means to model in a gay-dominated fashion business.
I don’t think that I am being fooled with respect to Tyra. Here are two more pictures of her breasts: 1, 2. Do they seriously look natural to you? Masculinized women who happen to be as slender as Tyra at the time the pictures were taken do not have such large breasts, and certainly not fake-looking ones. Tyra Banks’ supposed proving on her TV show that she has natural breasts could very well have been staged since she was not independently evaluated by multiple physicians who were not known to each other and randomly selected by a neutral party. Regarding her book and her being real, see if you can find her acknowledging the major work she has had on her nose. I am not trashing Tyra; pointing out some truths that do not flatter her is not trashing her.
Regarding Laurie in a separate thread, I told her that she should consider herself to have an hourglass figure, just not one that meets high standards. Lying would not help; phony self-esteem is no good because it wouldn’t take much to reduce it; mere exposure to beauty would reduce phony high esteem. Do not assume that women with a negative opinion of their looks have ended up so because they were not given sufficient “positive self-image messages” while growing up. People have a basic aesthetic sense and will be disappointed in their looks if they do not meet their own aesthetic standards. It is true that some women are more dependent on assessing how attractive they are based on how others view them, but at least the beauty standard being promoted here is natural and healthy.
Your understanding that men are more confining than women with respect to what they regard as female beauty is based on an incorrect understanding of this site. In order for this site to have a strong impact, sufficiently high standards are needed, and high standards translate to a narrow range of women selected as examples of feminine beauty. The narrowness reflects neither my preference nor that of heterosexual men in general. In the general population, men and women rate female attractiveness similarly, as has been shown for:
Facial attractiveness –
Rhodes, G., The evolutionary psychology of facial beauty, Annu Rev Psychol, 57, 199 (2006).Waist-hip proportions –
Streeter, S. A., and McBurney, D. H., Waist-hip ratio and attractiveness: new evidence and a critique of a “critical test” Evol Hum Behav, 24, 88 (2003).
Henss, R., Waist-to-hip ratio and female attractiveness. Evidence from photographic stimuli and methodological considerations, Personal Individ Diff, 28, 501 (2000).
Henss, R., Waist-to-hip ratio and attractiveness. Replication and extension, Pers Individ Diff, 19, 479 (1995).
Furnham, A., Tan, T., and McManus, C., Waist-to-hip ratio and preferences for body shape: a replication and extension, Pers Individ Diff, 22, 539 (1997).
Overall physique –
Tovee, M. J., and Cornelissen, P. L., Female and male perceptions of female physical attractiveness in front-view and profile, Br J Psychol, 92 Part 2, 391 (2001).
Smith, K. L., Cornelissen, P. L., and Tovée, M. J., Color 3D bodies and judgements of human female attractiveness, Evol Hum Behav, 28, 48 (2007).
I have addressed many of the studies above already, and will discuss the unaddressed ones later. The important point of the studies above is that your impression that straight men have the correct formula for targeting wealthy women is incorrect since the aesthetic preferences of straight men also happen to be those of straight women. It is not a question of wealthy women seeking more external approval, but the necessity of suggesting exclusivity in order to build a brand name, which, among other things, requires a narrow range and difficult to achieve looks in models. With respect to majority preferences, the most appropriate standard, and a healthy one at that, is one of feminine beauty with an emphasis on high aesthetic standards. You could always use ordinary-looking women to sell clothes, and this could be part of a fashion alternative, but this will not work for high fashion.
Posted by Erik on April 05, 2007 at 08:20 PM | #
There is only one “God” (don’t ever tell him I called him that, he’ll take advantage) that I need to show my pictures to or be eye candy for and I wake up with him every morning!
High fashion this and high fashion that—I guess I just don’t care about high fashion, I care about people.
I care about immpressionable girls thinking they have to look like a size 0 or a WHR 7, and stop doing well in math to attract a guy.
I’m concerned when I hear a 17 year old boy in a gym criticize an incredibly fit instructor because she has a little cellulite and he thinks she should be perfect like he sees in magazines.
I’m concerned that these messages affect men’s and women’s expectations and harm their ability to connect.
I’m thankful for Tyra—I don’t know about her nose, but I have to laugh at your breast pictures—have you really ever seen real breasts in person? Careful, someone might pull back the curtain on a virgin “wizard of oz” here! (Though being a virgin is a virtue—it certainly wouldn’t qualify you as a judge of real female breasts! What’s sad is the idea of any man being the judge of any female’s breasts except his mate’s!)
Oh, and Catherine Zeta-Jones is Welsh, not “South American”!
High fashion—yada, yada, yada, blah, blah, blah! If the “emperors” want to go around in the underwear gays have made for them, let them. We only need to be concerned if it affects the rest of us.
Posted by Monique on April 05, 2007 at 09:50 PM | #
Monique: Tyra’s pictures shown clearly reveal breast implants, and if you are a self-proclaimed expert on detecting breast implants, then I don’t see how you have failed to observe this. It seems like you don’t want to accept it because Tyra in your estimation has been “honest” about her looks and possibly a good role model, but Tyra has only admitted to minor work like hair straightening, hair dyeing, colored contacts, fake eyelashes and shaving her moustache.
Most women have a reasonable idea of how attractive they are, and would not be adversely affected by this site, but of those who are, at least this site is promoting looks consistent with health, fertility and fecundity, i.e., these looks cannot be acquired by indulging in negative health behaviors.
Not all 17-year-old boys are like your hypothetical example. Most men do not mind a little cellulite. For instance, a woman that I went out with had some cellulite, which you could observe if you squeezed her buttocks or upper thighs, but not otherwise. She was concerned about it, but I told her that I would much rather she have the fat on her, a healthy amount by the way, so that I enjoy massaging it rather than lose the fat to avoid the appearance of cellulite under any circumstances.
I have described Catherine Zeta Jones as Welsh and don’t see the point of your comment. It may be related to your superficial reading of my describing her pre-transformation looks as those of a South American Hispanic. Even her transformation has been of limited help. I had a difficult time convincing my roommate that the lead actress in The Mask of Zorro is Welsh, not a Latina.
Gay fashion designers are affecting the “rest of us” in numerous negative ways, as well-documented within this site. It is time for you to be concerned about their aesthetic preferences.
Posted by Erik on April 07, 2007 at 09:10 PM | #
Sorry, but woman with a moustache is masculinized?
Posted by Elise on April 08, 2007 at 03:28 AM | #
By the way, my measurements are 86-64-91. Is my body feminine or masculinized?
Posted by Elise on April 08, 2007 at 03:47 AM | #
The 17 year old guy was not hypothetical, I was standing there!
Laurie in the WHR section of this website was not hypothetical, when she was obviously seeking your approval of her figure—which just makes me feel sad.
If you think Tyra’s breasts are not real, then you would say the same thing about me in the same light and clothing (or lack thereof)—that’s what makes this all so stupid!
Now that getting breasts is commonplace, people, if they’re rude enough, ask if mine are real—which just cracks me up! The few true hour-glass women now can find a bikini top that’s bigger than a little triangle with support, which was a great plus for me, but a lot of people (you included) cannot tell the difference between real and fake!
Erik, what you’re not hearing is that I am concerned about men’s confining aesthetic preferences, period, whether the man is gay or straight! Opinions are one thing—this all is entirely another!
As women, we just don’t do this crap to you guys! I’m saying it is not appropriate for you to define what is or isn’t feminine or not! It’s fine to offer your “preferences” or opinions, but this site goes much further than that.
If women did this to men—good luck!
I speak for women in general when I say we’re tired of it! Whether the guys are gay or straight!
Being appreciated and being molded are two entirely different things, which you just don’t seem to understand.
Posted by Monique on April 11, 2007 at 07:49 PM | #
Elise: You do not see a whole lot of feminine women with a mustache. Your measurements are not informative about masculinity-femininity. A number of masculinized high-fashion models have your measurements, but if you are a couple of inches shorter and have prominent breasts, i.e., a much smaller rib cage, then your appearance will be in the normal-to-feminine range.
Monique: If you are going to be bothered by individual cases like Laurie’s or the teenage male’s, then good luck living a contended life. It is not possible for everyone to be pleased or make all individuals conform to the behavior you like. Feminine women generally appreciate this site, and your case is curious. Do you so strongly empathize with unattractive women that you are disturbed by this site, in spite of being a woman that, judging by your self-description, would be classified as attractive by the standards of this site?
I don’t suppose that all women with large breasts have fake breasts; I have shown multiple women with naturally larger breasts than Tyra’s within this site. However, there are reasons why Tyra’s breasts at their peak in her Sports Illustrated shoot from years ago cannot be accepted as natural. In the first picture series that I cited, you can see very large breasts on the right even though she hasn’t gained weight elsewhere compared to her picture with much smaller breasts. For a slender woman to naturally have breasts as large as Tyra’s at her peak, she has to have the genetics to preferentially deposit body fat in her breasts, i.e., if the woman gains weight, her breasts should grow much larger. Here are recent pictures of Tyra having gained at least 30 pounds compared to her modeling days, but her breasts are not notably larger, though they look more natural because she has more fat in the top region of her breasts. How do you explain this? The second pair of pictures that I cited show very odd-looking large breasts in a woman that is lying down; they are obviously fake. Here is another picture of her fake breasts.
I have heard your concern about “men confining aesthetic preferences,” but you have ignored my response that men and women judge female attractiveness similarly; men are no more confining than women with respect to judging women’s physical attractiveness, and women are not being “molded” into believing that feminine beauty is desirable. What do you mean women “don’t do this crap” to men? Heterosexual women are much more particular than heterosexual men when it comes to whom they are willing to be intimately involved with, though not necessarily with respect to looks.
Posted by Erik on April 13, 2007 at 05:06 AM | #
But there are lots of exceptions. How can you explain, for example, that masculinized Kate Moss is only 168 cm tall? She´s 10 cm shorter than Gisele, but has wider hips than Gisele.Gisele´s hips - 34 inches, Kate´s hips - 35 inches.
And my ribcage is about 75 cm and my bust about 85 cm. What does it mean?Do I have prominent breasts? I don´t know where are those borders in characterization of masculinity and feminity.
Posted by Elise on April 13, 2007 at 08:55 AM | #
When is the ribcage defined as ´´small´´?
Posted by Elise on April 13, 2007 at 09:35 AM | #
Sorry, I made a mistake, Kate Moss is even 11 cm shorter than Gisele and I meant femininity, not feminity.
Posted by Elise on April 14, 2007 at 03:12 AM | #
Erik, you should post a pic of yourself so we can judge just how masculine you must be!!!
You must be a 7 feet tall very muscular macho man with a 12 inch penis, right? If not, we must put into question the sexuality of the woman that goes out with you.
Saying that women with larger breasts are “more feminine” than women with smaller breasts is like saying that men with bigger penises are “more masculine” than men with smaller penises. Then we can go on to a racial debate by asserting that Negroid men are on average more masculine than Caucasian men, just like you implied that Caucasian women were more feminine than non-Caucasian women......
Plenty of people know that secondary sexual characteristics are produced by sex hormones and are also affected by genes. Different races and ethnicities having different expressions. Ie, Brazilian women tend to have smaller breasts, yet bigger backside than most American women.
Like masculinity, feminity is not just about physical appereance, but also about behavior. Stereotipically feminine behavior is very attractive to most men, irregardless of how sensitive to testosterone the women in question happens to be.
It is also very interesting to know, however, that the most feminine woman out there, is often biologically male. As in the cases of women with Complete Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome, which are completely insensitive to male hormones.
Sexuality is very complex, something you try to understand, yet fail miserably at it.
Posted by BS Walks, Money Talks on April 15, 2007 at 05:07 PM | #
Elise: Based on the measurements that you mentioned, you appear to have an A cup, i.e., small breasts. This does not necessarily make you masculine as there are small-breasted feminine women around. How tall you are would make a difference. Your masculinity-femininity can be best assessed by looking at you, and if you want me to assess it, email me your pictures; hide/remove your face if you wish. As far as the borders of masculinity-femininity or the relative size of the rib cage go, this is best assessed by comparing yourself to women in general, and you know better than me how you compare to the average woman.
Shorter height and wider hips do not necessarily imply greater femininity; you need to look at the overall appearance. On the other hand, Giselle Bundchen has a more masculine physique than does Kate Moss.
BS talks...: Look at who is writing B.S.! The most feminine women are often biologically male? How can a woman be a biological male? The condition you have mentioned, complete androgen sensitivity syndrome in a 46-XY individual, is an intersex condition; people with this disorder are neither male nor female, and they are a few inches taller than women, on average, because there are some genes on the Y chromosome that make men larger than women, and these genes are operational in these individuals.
I certainly haven’t implied anything along the lines of only women with 32E-20-37 measurements or more feminine proportions as feminine. Therefore, your coming up with the giant, muscular and foot-long man as the threshold of masculinity is a ridiculous caricature of my arguments.
Your remaining points suggest that you have either not read this site or are deliberately misrepresenting it. I have shown numerous examples of women with smaller breasts looking more feminine than women with larger breasts. I have not described white women as more feminine than non-white women, but cited evidence that among the most overall feminine-looking women, white women are overrepresented, and have pointed out the ethnicity confound in comparisons across populations on numerous occasions. Additionally, I have said repeatedly that this site is about looks, not behavior.
Take sex/gender and sexuality 101 before writing more on it.
Posted by Erik on April 17, 2007 at 10:53 PM | #
CAIS women are biologically male from a scientific standpoint, there is no argument about that. They are not hermaphrodites, but biological males that failed to virilize due to the insensitivity of their androgen receptors. The reason it is considered an intersex condition, is because they are phenotipically female, and their gender identity is often female as well.
They tend to be more feminine than most biological females because they have absolutely no sensitivity to male hormones, unlike biological females. For example, they are completely hairless, except for the hair in the scalp. While they do tend to be taller, many are of normal female height and proportions.
How can a woman be biologically male? If a person’s gender identity is female, then that person is a woman. For example, CAIS women.
You want me to take a sex/gender class, but you don’t even know the difference between sex and gender???????
You have certainly implied that women with higher than average WHRs, larger breasts and childish facial features are more feminine. Guess what, the road goes both ways. Just like you come up with this ideas of what feminine women should look like and which men are attracted to them, the same can be said about men. Men that are taller, more muscular, and with bigger penises than average, are the most masculine, and “life-time exclusive heterosexual women” would certainly prefer them over less virile men. Fortunately it is not as simple as that, and when it comes down to whom and what turn us on, behavior is just very important too.
While I disagree with you and actually think that Mongoloid women tend to be the most feminine. The same thing you said about white women can be said about black men. Among the most overall masculine men, black men are over-represented.
And you are the one that needs to get a sex ed. class, and stop misleading people by pretending your opinions are facts. Get a life!
Posted by BS walks, Money talks on April 19, 2007 at 02:48 PM | #
BS talks...: 46-XY individuals with CAIS are not biologically male from a scientific standpoint, and I have not said that they are hermaphrodites. These individuals do not have a sex and are thus known as intersex; only some intersex individuals are hermaphrodites. You answer the question how a woman can be biologically male by saying that if a person’s gender identity is female, then that person is a woman! Sex is assigned based on concordance of external appearance with karyotype (chromosomal configuration pertaining to number, form, size), and this concordance is found in a little over 99.98% of humans. Sex is not assigned based on what one’s gender identity is. Therefore, if a member of the male sex believes that he is a woman, then this person has a male sex but female gender identity, and is not describable as a woman unless one is specifically referring to psychological gender. 46-XY individuals with CAIS are not women as in those belonging to the female sex, but they do have a female gender identity. Don’t tell me that I do not know the difference between sex and gender. Once again, this site is not concerned with the femininity of behavior, and you have continued to espouse B.S.
Your statement, “You have certainly implied that women with higher than average WHRs, larger breasts and childish facial features are more feminine” is incorrect. I have implied:
Women with lower than average WHRs, larger breasts and less masculine facial features are more feminine, on average, than other women.
Don’t accuse me of making the argument what feminine women should look like; all I have done is to point out what feminine women look like. It is obvious that heterosexual women generally prefer men with above average masculinity as in men who are taller, more muscular and better endowed than average. It is also obvious that behavior is important in partner choice, too, and that behavior/personality considerations compete with looks and people will compromise on looks in exchange for other desirable features, but the fact remains that controlling for non-looks variables, heterosexual women will typically prefer men with somewhat above average masculinity. Heterosexual men will not have a problem if others point this out, but if I point out that heterosexual men prefer above average femininity in women, you seem to have a problem with it.
Your bringing in the masculinity of males is not relevant, but unlike my extensive citations showing white women to be overrepresented among the overall most feminine-looking women, you have not cited any literature about sub-Saharan African men being overrepresented among the overall most masculine men. As far as I see it, one is looking at a mixed bag. Whereas West African men have more bone mass than Northern European men, among professional male bodybuilders, the most muscular men are disproportionately white. Whereas young West African men have somewhat higher testosterone levels than young white men in general, I know of one study where the most masculine 2nd-digit to 4th-digit finger-length ratio, a proxy for prenatal testosterone exposure, was the most masculine among white Finnish men, followed by West Africans and below them other white men. If you look at the champions in weightlifting, powerlifting, martial arts, miscellaneous strength competitions, and now even heavyweight boxing, white men are the champions overwhelmingly. Therefore, why should one believe your statement regarding the masculinity of sub-Saharan African men?
Posted by Erik on April 23, 2007 at 03:07 PM | #
I believe what BS is trying to say is that it is known (although stereotypical) that Asian women are more feminine (small, dainty bodies and youthful faces) and black males are more masculine (larger penis, taller, etc.) Although this is a generalization, for the most part it is true, and I think he/she finds it as amusing as I do that you always try to promote European women to be more feminine than non-whites and European men to be more masculine. What YOU consider to be feminine/masculine isn’t neccessarily what everyone else would, either. For example, femininity to me is in DELICATE features, and not how big a woman’s breasts are. If a woman has small breasts, it doesn’t mean she is less feminine than a larger breasted woman, and the same thing goes for men with muscular figures.
It’s also quite amusing that you generalize white women to be the most feminine when they happen to be the most overweight. Big and chunky (or curvy as they like to call themselves)doesn’t equal feminine. This is coming from someone who is white, but also has Latina blood, and I can assure you from comparing the women on my mother’s side to the ones on my father’s, my good genes DO come from my Latina mother. Both of my aunts on my father’s side are overweight, while my mother as well as her sisters are very fit. My two aunts on my dad’s side also has a shitload of cellulite, and their pastey complexion doesn’t exactly help it either.
As for black men, I have come across many statistics where they are proven to be the most well endowed (down there) as well as the most athletic. If you question this, I will be happy to link a few reliable sources for your ohhhh so scientific website *rolls eyes*
Posted by Sarah on April 27, 2007 at 02:35 AM | #
That should say “have a shitload of cellulite.”
Posted by Sarah on April 27, 2007 at 02:37 AM | #
Sarah: Do not misrepresent my arguments or make me repeat what should be clear. You have obviously read enough of this site to have come across my response to similar arguments before. Shorter or more slender bodies do not imply greater femininity unless you can show that they result from increased feminization. I have already pointed out that the sex steroid profiles of European women are more feminine than those of Asian women, i.e., what you allege to be more feminine traits of Asian women are not more feminine traits but ethnic traits unrelated to feminization. Nobody should be accusing me of judging femininity in term of single features such as breast size. I have had to repeatedly point out that the argument that you are objecting to is not about actual femininity but about how feminine one looks, which is decided by overall appearance. Women of which ethnic group are most likely to have an hourglass figure? Haven’t you noticed that European women have, on average, smaller faces, narrower noses, smaller jaws, smaller teeth and smaller cheekbones than East Asian women? So who has more delicate facial features, on average? There are obese women in all ethnic groups, and white women, especially Northern Europeans, are less prone to obesity than women in most populations (including Hispanics) except a few such as Northeast Asians, but controlling for ancestry, obese women are more masculine, i.e., don’t bring obese women into the picture.
Don’t bring men into the debate since this site is not about them. Look up the statistics on who wins the most Olympics gold medals and top honors in weight lifting, powerlifting, wrestling, martial arts and miscellaneous strength competitions. White men. So don’t tell me that sub-Saharan African men are more athletic; they just dominate a small minority of sports. As far as endowment goes, the difference between white and sub-Saharan African men is small, which I believe is in favor of the latter. There are studies where no difference has been found (example). Besides, African-American and white men are well-matched for height. Like I said before, the differences between these groups is a mixed bag, and it does not follow that West African men are more masculine unless you have a compelling argument to make.
Posted by Erik on April 27, 2007 at 04:44 AM | #
Ahahahahahaah
Looks like I hit a sore spot in old Erik here. I would quote some sentences in your response but your page will not allow me to highlight so I’ll just address them loosely.
No, I haven’t noticed that European women have smaller facial features than Asian ones. I actually see the exact opposite. If that is what YOU really see, then that is only from your experience/opinion. It is not factual. Sorry buddy.
By worldly standards, women of East Asian descent DO have smaller and more delicate features. That is why they are stereotyped to always look childish and younger than they are, and even older Asian women look much more youthful than older white women. As for noses, white women may generally have more NARROW noses, but Asian noses tend to be smaller and less protruding. Their cheekbones are also generally less sharp and their chins more rounded than the average white female’s.
Your idea of what “feminization” (is that even a word?) is only YOUR opinion. European women may have longer legs, as one of your silly articles provided as a “fact”, but that is because they are generally taller. Taller doesn’t equal “feminization.” That’s why those fashion models you hate so much and consider to be so masculine are tall, along with their masculinized faces.
When you generalize based on racial features, you have to consider the fact that you yourself have not seen every single women out there in this world, so you cannot say that on average, most European women are this, most black women are that, etc etc. You only base your evidence on pictures of certain women you see on the internet, and you pick and choose which ones to feature.
For example, here is a photo of Dawn Yang, who happens to be full Asian and has long legs despite how short she is.
Here is a photo of her face which is a very excellent representation of femininity:
Their delicate and feminine facial features are why Asian women are always typecasted as “cute” - they have very similar facial features to those of children. Their short stature and slim bodies also add to their supposed cuteness. They also are less insusceptable to cellulite than white women, and have more youthful looking skin in general.
“So who has more delicate features, Asian or European women?” is what you ask. Well I say, ASIAN WOMEN.
As for obesity… although every race is prone to it, most obese women ARE of European ancestry. I wouldn’t put it on their genes, though, because I don’t have factual evidence. I think it mostly has to do with how much food we hog here in America and in the United Kingdom, and also because we have no self control. Then these obese women complain about the media and the modeling industry always hiring and promoting skinny women. WELL NO SHIT! Fat isn’t cute, and no one wants to buy lingerie modeled by a fat woman.
As for Latinas (NOT Hispanics… learn your terms before using them) , they are prone to have fuller bottoms, but your claim that European women are less prone to become obese than Latinas is absolutely ridiculous. Care to provide statistical imformation for your statement? From experience in my family and also in what I see on a daily basis, for some reason, white women are almost always more overweight.
YOU were the one who addressed men in your last post, so don’t get all pouty when I bring them up. If you weren’t so insecure about yourself, you wouldn’t get so jumpy when I mention anything about black males being more masculine than white ones, now would you? From experience, I happen to have formed the opinion that black males ARE more well endowed, and there are some studies I have come across that have shown evidence of that. It wouldn’t be such a known generalization if there wasn’t a possibility for it being true.
The Olympics isn’t even relevant. It is based on country representation and the countries with the most athletes competing are predominantly white (the U.S., Australia, etc.) Also, do you really think most African men have so much free time as to participate in the Olympics? Because we’re so wealthy here in America, of course some of us will dedicate our life to training to become an athlete. I’m also guessing you’ve never seen numerous one-on-one fights between a white male and a black male, now have you? Or have you yourself been in one and had your butt kicked and that is why you’re so bitter and insecure?
Posted by Sarah on April 27, 2007 at 08:47 PM | #
*less susceptable
Posted by Sarah on April 27, 2007 at 08:49 PM | #
Sarah: So you haven’t noticed smaller and more delicate facial features among white women, on average? This goes on to show how good your observations are. Some citations regarding larger faces, larger cheekbones, wider noses, larger jaws and larger teeth among East Asian Women, on average, compared to white women:
Choe, K. S., Sclafani, A. P., Litner, J. A., Yu, G. P., and Romo, T., 3rd, The Korean American woman’s face: anthropometric measurements and quantitative analysis of facial aesthetics, Arch Facial Plast Surg, 6, 244 (2004).
Farkas, L. G. et al. International anthropometric study of facial morphology in various ethnic groups/races, J Craniofac Surg, 16, 615 (2005).
Hanihara, T., Frontal and facial flatness of major human populations, Am J Phys Anthropol, 111, 105 (2000).
Hanihara, T., and Ishida, H., Metric dental variation of major human populations, Am J Phys Anthropol, 128, 287 (2005).
Vioarsdottir, U. S., O’Higgins, P., and Stringer, C., A geometric morphometric study of regional differences in the ontogeny of the modern human facial skeleton, J Anat, 201, 211 (2002).
All of the studies above have already been addressed within this site, yet you are either oblivious to them or just ignore them. This is just one example of an observation that I haven’t based on pictures of some women that I have seen on the internet, but on empirical evidence, something your comments are devoid of.
White women are generally less likely to be obese than women in most other ethnic groups; percentage body fat among women in various studies:
American white (30.8%), Asian-American (31.9%), African-American (38.2%), Puerto Rican (40.2%). Reference: Wang, J., Thornton, J. C., Burastero, S., Shen, J., Tanenbaum, S., Heymsfield, S. B., and Pierson, R. N., Jr., Comparisons for body mass index and body fat percent among Puerto Ricans, blacks, whites and Asians living in the New York City area, Obes Res, 4, 377 (1996).
African-American (35.31%), American white (35.58%), Asian-American (36.80%), Hispanic (37.43%). Reference: Wu, C. H., Heshka, S., Wang, J., Pierson, R. N., Jr., Heymsfield, S. B., Laferrere, B., Wang, Z., Albu, J. B., Pi-Sunyer, X., and Gallagher, D., Truncal fat in relation to total body fat: influences of age, sex, ethnicity and fatness, Int J Obes (Lond) (2007). Epub Apr 24, 2007.South African white (33.6%), New Zealand white (33.6%), South African black (36.5%), New Zealand Maori (38.8%), New Zealand Pacific (40.4%), New Zealand Asian Indian (42.2%). Reference: Rush, E. C., Goedecke, J. H., Jennings, C., Micklesfield, L., Dugas, L., Lambert, E. V., and Plank, L. D., BMI, fat and muscle differences in urban women of five ethnicities from two countries, Int J Obes (Lond) (2007). Epub Mar 6, 2007.
Body fat percentage in girls in their mid-to-late teens: American white (27.2%), African-American (30.7%), Hispanic (37.2%). Reference: Ellis, K. J., Abrams, S. A., and Wong, W. W., Body composition of a young, multiethnic female population, Am J Clin Nutr, 65, 724 (1997).
American white (34.9%), Hispanic (38.4%). Reference: Casas, Y. G., Schiller, B. C., DeSouza, C. A., and Seals, D. R., Total and regional body composition across age in healthy Hispanic and white women of similar socioeconomic status, Am J Clin Nutr, 73, 13 (2001).Dutch white (28.9%), Singapore Chinese (29.7%). Reference: Werkman, A., Deurenberg-Yap, M., Schmidt, G., and Deurenberg, P., A Comparison between Composition and Density of the Fat-Free Mass of Young Adult Singaporean Chinese and Dutch Caucasians, Ann Nutr Metab, 44, 235 (2000).
American white (32.5%), Hispanic (39.1%), African-American (39.9%). Reference: Fernandez, J. R., Heo, M., Heymsfield, S. B., Pierson, R. N., Jr., Pi-Sunyer, F. X., Wang, Z. M., Wang, J., Hayes, M., Allison, D. B., and Gallagher, D., Is percentage body fat differentially related to body mass index in Hispanic Americans, African Americans, and European Americans?, Am J Clin Nutr, 77, 71 (2003).
American White < Hispanic < African-American. Reference: Diaz, V. A., Mainous, A. G., 3rd, Koopman, R. J., Carek, P. J., and Geesey, M. E., Race and diet in the overweight: association with cardiovascular risk in a nationally representative sample, Nutrition, 21, 718 (2005).
Note that American white women are probably the fattest white women anywhere, yet they are, on average, less likely to be overweight/obese than other ethnic groups in the U.S.
White women do not have longer legs than Asian women because of greater height alone but also because their leg-length to torso-length ratio is higher. This should be common observation. Speaking of leg length, I don’t hate fashion models; my problem is with the people who choose manly fashion models, and I have nothing against their height.
So Dawn Yang is an illustrative example of the cuter, more feminine Asian women? She looks like a girl, not a woman. Do you expect most men from non-Asian populations to actually find a woman who looks like a girl more feminine and appealing? If I were interested in such women and filled the attractive women section with white females who have her look, what do you think people will infer about my sexual orientation? They will think that I am interested in underage girls! I searched for images of Dawn Yang, and it is clear that if she is fully Asian, she is an outlier rather than typical of her ethnic group. However, I came across damning information on her, namely that she has undergone numerous cosmetic surgery procedures, which doesn’t help your case at all.
I didn’t bring men into the picture; “BS talks...” did. I just responded to her. I have already noted that I believe that African-American men are better endowed than white men, on average, but the difference is small and cited a study where there was no difference; if the difference were large then it would be unlikely that a study would reveal no difference. When you refer to a “known generalization,” the belief does not stem from the literature in question since the actual difference is small, but is more along the lines of a mythical urban legend. If you have formed your impression from “experience,” then are you a prostitute that has served thousands of Johns or just foolishly extrapolating from the few dozen ethnically diverse men you have had sex with?
Regarding the Olympics, countries with the most participants are those that have a large number of decent athletes to send to the games. Since whites win the most Olympics medals, most of these countries are Western. Additionally, the U.S. is not a predominantly white country; only about 60% of it is white. In most sports, skill acquisition does not require expensive equipment. For instance, just look at the tremendous success of poor Kenyans in certain long-distance running events. Additionally, given free K-12 education in the U.S. that includes free access to gymnasiums and sporting equipment, it is noteworthy that African-Americans dominate only a small minority of sports. How is this consistent with their greater athletic ability? Moreover, some of the sports dominated by African-Americans are team sports such as football and basketball. Performance in individual sports is a better gauge of athletic prowess. Whereas African-Americans dominate the 100m sprint, sprinting alone is a poor indicator of athletic prowess. Performance in the decathlon is a much better yardstick for assessing athletic ability, and guess what? Whites dominate the decathlon. Since the issue you are discussing is manliness, fighting ability is very important, and like I said, strength and power displays and martial arts are dominated by whites. For a short while boxing was dominated by African-Americans, but now whites dominate it. After international opportunities opened up to impoverished Eastern Europeans, it didn’t take them long to hold all four heavyweight boxing titles simultaneously. Your lame example comprises of one-on-one fights between African-American and white males. These are criminal behaviors, usually comprising of African-American men picking on white men and you bet they pick on white men who are of a weaker build than them, which is what criminals and bullies do.
This is enough digression from what this site is supposed to be discussing. Don’t waste my time with useless comments.
Posted by Erik on April 28, 2007 at 05:17 AM | #
Erik, you’re sounding like Hitler
The rest of us see that as a huge problem…
Posted by Debra on April 28, 2007 at 03:47 PM | #
Ahahahaha oh Erik you’re such a crack up!
Your citation to various studies on body fat prove absolutely nothing. Having more body fat does not equal being the fattest of ethnic groups. And no, white women are not less susceptable to being overweight than other ethnic groups in the U.S., you dumb prick. There have only been few occasions where I have seen overweight Asian women, some occasions where I’ve seen overweight black and Latina women, but the mass majority of overweight women in America are white, mainly down in the South. Since it’s a fact that the most obese people in America are in the South, do you really believe they are all Asians, Latinas, and blacks? The South is predominantly white.
Dawn Yang, I believe, is only 21, so of course she would look more like a girl than a woman, considering the fact Asian women are almost always youthful looking. Also, you’ve already been accused numerous times, on your own website and on others, of being a pedophile since most of the women you feature in your attractive women section look to be in their teens. Just because you personally prefer white women over Asian women doesn’t mean that you’re NOT a pedophile, because there is supporting evidence within your own bullshit website that you are.
But don’t worry about your child-molesting fantasies, buddy. Many men your age (which I’m guessing to be in the 50’s) do fantasize about little girls, considering that a lot of porn always stresses on the fact that the girls are “just 18” (because any younger would be illegal) and have them pose in childish positions with pigtails, and sucking on lollipops. I’m not suggesting that all men who are into that are pedos, but they sure do like them young, don’t they? That is why some Asian women are so appealing to some Western males; it’s all in the youthful attraction.
As for Dawn Yang having surgery, I just did some research and she has never admitted to it, so it really is just speculation. If you also look at her before pics, she still looks quite similar to what she looks like now, although she wears a bit more make up these days and has seem to grown out of her awkwardness, which is normal for girls who have hit puberty.
http://www.xanga.com/clapbangkiss/521486995/item.html
You’re just contradicting yourself by saying that she looks too childish, when you already pointed out that femininity is in child-like features. If I were to guess her age, I would say she would be around seventeen, which is only a few years younger than she really is. In female standards, looking a few years younger than you really are is a good thing.
I have to go out to lunch now, but I’ll address the whole masculinity issue later, unless of course, you’re just too pissed to continue. Don’t act like I didn’t really strike a nerve with you. It’s obvious with the way you’re so defensive 
Posted by Sarah on April 28, 2007 at 04:12 PM | #
Debra: Believe me, if Hitler were alive and learned about my background, he would be displeased. If you found something offensive, blame Ms. Manners, “Sarah,” for bringing in irrelevant topics that cannot be addressed in language that one would expect from the Dalai Lama.
Sarah: Please do not waste my time with useless comments. You asked for obesity statistics and I cited a whole bunch, only to see you argue that they prove absolutely nothing! What in the world? Systematic studies do not prove it, but your lame observations do? If you think the South is predominantly white, you likely have not traveled through Southern Florida; only parts of the South are predominantly white. Besides, as of 2005, some Northern states had a higher prevalence of obesity than Florida.
The average age of the women shown in the attractive women section should be in the early twenties. Whereas some are 18 or 19, they still look a lot older than Dawn Yang. The typical complainant has been a malicious individual like you; most people have no problems with them. Pedophiles are attracted to pre-pubescent girls, not teens. A white female with the looks of Dawn (minus her breast implants) would look like a girl in her early to mid teens, and having a preference for such white females would be close to pedophilia. And no, many men do not fantasize about young girls. Pedophilia is rare.
How bright of you to conclude that Dawn Yang has not undergone different types of cosmetic surgery because she has never admitted it! I linked to a damning expose of her, complete with extensive before and after pictures of her; the woman has fake written all over her.
I haven’t said that femininity lies in child-like features. Someone else said it and I refuted it. As far as it being advantageous to look a few years younger than one’s age goes, with respect to attracting normal heterosexual men, this holds for older women, i.e., women in their late twenties and older, not women in their late teens or early twenties.
It is obvious who has struck whose nerve. Please do not post nonsense.
Posted by Erik on April 28, 2007 at 07:48 PM | #
Hahaha. You posted within a little over three hours since my last response? Are you serious? Is your pastey ass glued to your seat at the computer or something? I’ll say it again. Get a life.
Why did you make it so that I cannot highlight certain sentences? Are you afraid of people quoting you? As for your comment on me being a prostitute, I can’t tell you how hard I laughed at that one. Way to make yourself sound like a 13 year old teenaged girl trying to think of a comeback. “Like OH EM GEE! You’re such a total whore!” Ahahahaha.
Since I am only 23 years old, the idea of me having slept with over a thousand men is not only absurd but also disgusting. Where the hell did you get that idea, anyways? Just because you’re a 50 year old virgin doesn’t mean everyone else applies as total whores. It also seems to me that you have a problem with people dating others of different ethnicities, which only further supports Debra’s claim that you’re a wannabe Hitler (as much of a delusional asshole as Hitler was, he at least brainwashed millions of people to think like them; you’re just an idiot who spews bullshit and everyone can see right through it.) I find people of every ethnicity to be beautiful, and some to be quite unattractive as well. There are good looking and ugly people of every ethnic background. Race doesn’t matter to me, and it shouldn’t matter to you, either. I really like your response to my perception of one-on-one fights, by the way. Criminal behavior? I’ll tell you what’s criminal behavior: a typical dumb white jock calling a black man at a bar a “nigger”. Just because that black man then pounds the dumbass’s face into the ground doesn’t make him a criminal. If you don’t want me resorting to stereotypes to point out that Asian women are the most feminine and black men are the most endowed, then YOU don’t stereotype all black males who get into fights into the “criminal” profile, ok?
As for Dawn Yang having undergone plastic surgery - where is your proof? You have none. Funny that you accused her of having all this surgery done when before, others have accused some of your “attractive” women of having undergone surgery, you doubted it. Talk about BIAS opinions. You only believe what you want to believe about the women you defend (who are mostly average looking, anyways.) I have never come across photos of Dawn’s “before” breasts anyways, so why would you speculate that she had hers enlarged? You’re an idiot. Go play in traffic.
Whether or not the women on your site ARE of legal age, most of them don’t look the part, and that is the case with Dawn as well. Your point is null and void. The photographs that she has on her own blog of her in the early 2000s still look very much like how she is today, and the ones on that other site you linked that don’t look like her at all (2 or 3 of them) were probably just bad pictures taken at unflattering angles, etc. Also notice that those photographs were dated to be in early 2000s as well, which supports my claim that those couple unflattering photos were just bad pictures. Where is proof that those are actually HER, anyways? They look nothing like her now, or other pictures of her around the same time.
Dawn Yang is a celebrity, and so there are many photographs of her everywhere on the internet. Of course some will end up looking bad. As for your amateur pornstars, because they are not pretty enough to be actual stars, there are only a few pictures of them from just one photoshoot. The same applies to other celebrities you have bashed before, such as Alessandra Ambrosio, Adriana Lima, Jessica Alba, etc. It is only in your opinion that they are ugly, but to everyone else, they are beautiful enough to actually be well-known, unlike your homely amateur “models.”
If you’re so sure that everyone else finds them sooo unattractive, then tell me why men obsess over these beautiful women all the time? You can’t actually believe that the men who find them attractive are not all completely heterosexual. That is the biggest joke I’ve ever heard.
Posted by Sarah on April 28, 2007 at 09:10 PM | #
I just went through your attractive “women” section.
Are you telling me that these young women aren’t trying to look like little girls? Look at the way they do their hair, pose, etc. The second one is posing in front of a damn SCHOOL bus. The one named Maria looks like she should be taking an Algebra class, not posing in the nude for sick men like you, and don’t even get me started on the last one. If you really find her attractive, then that just speaks the truth on your tastes. She looks like a fat freckled 10 year old boy putting on his mother’s wig. Oh right, and you don’t find the likes of Dawn Yang attractive at all! LOL Erik you should really organize and be the judge of a beauty contest because you REALLY know what attractive is, don’t you?
Posted by Sarah on April 28, 2007 at 09:28 PM | #
Oh and look! More Asian women who only look this good because of plastic surgery! LOL
Geez they’re so masculine! With their big ass faces, noses, and teeth! LOL
Okay I’m done Erik. It was really nice chatting with you. I’ll stop posting “nonsense” now and let you get back to your oh so informative, educational website ahahah
Posted by Sarah on April 28, 2007 at 09:35 PM | #
Sarah: I have often taken days to respond to various comments because I am usually busy with a lot of things, but for the past two days I have been stuck before the computer trying to learn something, and hence have been able to respond promptly.
You can quote passages. Haven’t you noticed the formatting bar above the comments box? The quoted passage will be indented though not highlighted with a different background. This is a blog, not a forum with fancy formatting, and if it were a forum I don’t think you would be too eager to leave the comments you have left since you would have to register and not be able to use multiple aliases. If I were afraid of people quoting certain passages of mine, I wouldn’t write them in the first place.
I did not say that you are a prostitute. Since you mentioned personal “experience” I asked whether you have serviced thousands of Johns to come to the conclusion about ethnicity and endowment. Nothing in my reply to you can be taken as my disapproval of dating other ethnicities. I have never disputed that good looking and not-so-good-looking women are found in all ethnic groups.
Your one-on-one example still remains absurd and does not prove your assertion regarding masculinity. Do you seriously expect someone to use an ethnic slur against an individual who is bigger and stronger and thereby risk getting beaten up by this individual? The examples you have witnessed are criminal behaviors not provoked by the white men whom you have seen getting beaten up.
I have already cited massive photographic evidence for Dawn Yang being a product of extensive plastic surgery. The woman doesn’t look much like her unmodified former self because of the remarkable extent of her transformation, but go though the evidence carefully and you will recognize her early pictures. As far as others accusing the women in the attractive women section of having undergone plastic surgery goes, there have been rare comments regarding breast implants among some of the well-endowed ones, and if the implants are not obvious, then I have asked for evidence, which nobody has supplied.
You have said that most of the women in the attractive women section do not look of legal age. This is pure nonsense. The four women you cited as illustrative examples all look adult. Just because some of them have their hair in ponytails or one is sitting in front of a school bus doesn’t imply that there is anything about their physique or face that looks underage, unlike your example of Dawn Yang. Besides, I have planned on transferring the woman in front of the school bus to a different section of the site for quite a while. Sonia Blake (the pale-haired one) looks like a 10-year-old boy to you? I’d wager that you are jealous of her hourglass figure.
I don’t “bash” celebrities for their looks. If it is necessary to point out the masculinization among certain models or beauty pageant contestants, then I address it; other celebrities are addressed only in response to reader comments. You could not have failed to come across a straightforward explanation of the “popularity” of masculinized models like Alessandra Ambrosio within this site: the gay domination of the fashion business, airbrushing, posing tricks and the dearth of feminine beauty in the limelight for comparative purposes. Additionally, up to 20% of men are not lifetime-exclusive heterosexual. Wait till there is mainstream feminine beauty appreciation and then we shall see to what extent men obsess over Alessandra and the others you have named.
I appreciate your posting pictures of attractive Asian women. There are certainly plenty of feminine and attractive East Asian women who do not owe their beauty to cosmetic surgery; I have never implied otherwise. However, none of your pictures undermine the average differences that have been documented in the scientific literature cited above.
Posted by Erik on April 28, 2007 at 10:41 PM | #
Hi Sarah! I’m Asian and I do confirm what Eric said about Dawn Yang: she’s an outlier. She’s not your typical Asian. Generally, East Asian women, the group where Dawn Yang belongs, do not have features like hers. East Asian women who have features similar to hers are either part Caucasian or are plastic surgery enhanced. I think you ignored Erik’s evidence against Dawn Yang’s alleged “natural” looks. Why don’t you click that link?
I think you ignored the scientific evidences Erik posted about ethnicity and obesity as well.
Last one: don’t you think that how soon Erik replies to your comments is irrelevant? It doesn’t make your arguments more valid, nor does it ivalidate Erik’s arguments and claims in this website.
Posted by brenda on April 29, 2007 at 04:49 AM | #
Furthermore, you have failed to notice that Dawn Yang’s eyes are unnaturally huge. Compare her apperance to those of the other attractive Asian women whose pictures you have posted.
Posted by brenda on April 29, 2007 at 05:11 AM | #
Actually no, I still cannot quote passages. Anytime I click on any of the above buttons, nothing happens except the URL address changes into something else. Maybe I’m missing something.
Multiple Alias. AHAHAH good one, Erik! So you finally figured out that all the people that have commented and questioned you/disagreed with you were actually me! *rolls eyes* Don’t you have an IP identifier? I’m not the only one that thinks you’re full of shit, and you know it, so quit pretending.
A John is someone who requests services from prostitutes, so yes, you were implying I was one. Nice try, though.
When I was at a bar a few weeks ago, I actually did witness someone call another man a racial slur, and he got his ass kicked in seconds flat. The offender was actually more muscular than the black male, too, which goes to show muscularity doesn’t necessarily equal strength.
The link you supplied had many “before” photos of Dawn that still looked almost exactly like she does now. There were only a few that were completely unlike her, and as I said, could’ve just been really bad angle shots or a totally different girl. I never completely ruled out the possibility that she has undergone surgery, but I highly doubt it since I don’t see any differences between clear shots of her before photos and her recent phohtos, other than the awkardness of her smile before. I agree that she does look fake in many shots, but that has mostly to do with her sometimes wearing colored contacts and false eyelashes.
In my posting pictures of those in your attractive women section, I wasn’t trying to prove a point other than the fact that these women are so desperately trying to look underage, which would support my previous claim that youthful looking girls are what men find attractive. As for me being envious of Sonia Blake, LOL you almost made me fall out of my chair. I actually didn’t even look at her body shots, and was only talking about her hideous mug, but I can assure you that my very own hourglass figure outshines hers anyday, and even if my body wasn’t so nice, I would still be more attractive than her considering the fact that my face doesn’t resemble a cow’s.
Where did you get that BS statistic that 20% of men aren’t fully heterosexual? I’d like to see your evidence of that claim, please. As for Alessandra Ambrosio, I have come across plenty of candid pictures of her that were actually quite stunning, and if I find them again I’ll be more than happy to post them. Also take note that Victoria’s Secret is one of, if not THE most popular lingerie company in the U.S. They couldn’t possibly sell as many of their products as they do if the general population believed their models to be unattractive. After all, advertisement is what draws customers in. As for other celebrities you have criticized before, such as Jessica Alba and Halle Berry… why do you think they’re so famous? I certainly hope you don’t believe it’s because of their acting skills (or lack thereof.) Just because they have extremely SLIGHT masculine features, doesn’t mean they are unattractive because I really doubt anyone gives a shit if their cheekbones are too high, or why ever the hell you think they’re masculinized.
Brenda: Actually, I used to be roommates with a girl who was full Chinese and looked very much like Dawn, so it is possible and that is why I don’t question Dawn having had surgery.
I did visit the link Erik posted and it still doesn’t convince me that she has had work done. It doesn’t even convince me that some of those pictures are actually HER. The date of one of the unflattering pictures is in the same time frame as another picture of her where she looked very much like she does now.
Posted by Sarah on April 29, 2007 at 05:34 AM | #
Erik
what do you think of cher the singer do you find her masuline or feminine?
Posted by andy on April 29, 2007 at 09:23 AM | #
Sarah
The blog post and the comments are all plain text.
If you have trouble highlighting, then it is probably your browser or your operating system that are fucked up. Pardon my french.
Posted by matthewth on April 29, 2007 at 11:45 PM | #
Would it just be on this website alone, then? I can highlight on other ones but just not on here.
Posted by Sarah on April 30, 2007 at 09:38 PM | #
One of the great problems in all these sorts of discussions is that isolated bits of “evidence” are quoted as if they are the whole picture. This applies not just to physical characteristics, such as those which are supposed to make a man or a woman “beautiful”, but in so many other ways.
I remember that when I was blood-typed I proved to have a blood type which was supposedly not found in my ethnicity (Chinese). There are several other features both about myself and my relatives which run counter to the supposed phenotype. Yet, I am, as far as I know, “pure” Chinese.
The problem is that so often studies on a small, and often not really randomly selected group is then taken to represent the group as a whole. If this is absurd enough when talking of “Chinese”, how much more absurd when generalisations are made on the scale of such as “Asians” in general?
So all your comments about size of teeth, noses, obesity etc.etc., I place in such a context. No doubt there are groups of “Asians”, “Africans” etc. who do fit into your stereotypes. There are many others who don’t. And I suspect that there is no “race” (whatever that means) which is supreme in all characteristics of “beauty”, even by your own rigid standards.
I’m afraid sex steroids might well be a red herring. As a matter of fact, men also produce oestrogens, and women produce androgens. There has been, as far as I know, no evidence that higher levels of one or the other, once above a certain level, correlate absolutely with “beauty”.
Incidentally, average proportionate leg length is longer in men than in women - so long legs are actuall a masculine characteristic. I suspect very strongly that, when studied more carefully, proportionate leg length will also be shown to vary greatly within “races”, at least as much as between them. The longest legs, proportionately, are probably to be found in some “black” African groups.
As for the concept of “beauty” itself, it is an interesting mixture of the objective - and the subjective. You seem to think that it is almost entirely the former, and that your taste in women represents it. OK, so you obviously think that generally white women are the most beautiful. You have the right to that belief, and others have the right to disagree.
My own experience is this. Growing up in the West, I have been constantly bombarded with the ideas and images of white women as the epitome of “Beauty”. When I was younger I would probably have agreed. Now I am of a more mature age, I can honestly say that I personally believe that a beautiful Asian woman is unsurpassed. Not that I still don’t appreciate the beauty of beautiful white women - or, for that matter, beautiful black, brown, Arab, Hispanic women etc.etc. I am glad of that, as I can appreciate so much more the great variety of female beauty in this world.
As in so many other fields of aesthetic appreciation, one of the most stultifying of all activities is to try and rigidly define what is or is not “Beautiful”.
And there is another important point, which I, as an evolutionary biologist, must make. There is an “objective” aspect of beauty, although that is far from the totality. This objective aspect undoubtedly has something to do with our evolutionary past. It is why we don’t find Chimpanzees sexually attractive (unless we are very perverted), and they don’t find us so. But evolution is a dynamic process. We haven’t stopped evolving as a species. As such, the “objective” part of sexual attraction is also bound to change - and our present preferences are a reference to our immediate evolutionary past rather than to our future, or even to the present. I’d be willing to expand on that if it interests anyone here. But the moot point here is that any idea that there can be a totally fixed objective standard of Female - or Male - beauty, is just wishful thinking.
Posted by Frank on May 01, 2007 at 02:40 PM | #
Sarah: The formatting buttons only seem to work in some browsers. I will either change them or replace them with a link to formatting instructions. If you wanted to quote something, all you need to do is to left-click the mouse where you need to start, then drag the mouse where you wish to end while holding the left click pad down, then let go of the left click pad, point the mouse to anywhere inside the highlighted region, right click and select copy. Subsequently, paste this excerpt as either
[quote]excerpt[/quote]
or
<blockquote>excerpt</blockquote>
in the form of a separate paragraph. On the other hand, you are supposed to have stopped posting nonsense and shouldn’t be commenting, let alone bother quoting me.
I have not said that all commentators disagreeing with me have been you, but you have posted comments under multiple aliases apart from “Sarah” such as “.” without the quotes, SH, maddie, Madeline.
Once again, I asked whether you were a prostitute since you mentioned “experience” rather than implying that you are or were one. If the bar incident you mentioned is true, then it would be an anomaly. Whereas martial arts experts can beat those who are stronger and faster but without such expertise, few people are martial arts experts. I also wonder what kind of bar it was. Decent bars catering to the general public often adopt dress codes and other means to keep African-Americans out to the maximum extent possible, and the bouncers/security usually keep a close eye on African-American men, ready to pounce on them at the slightest hint of trouble.
Dawn Yang underwent multiple cosmetic surgeries over a period of time. Look at her earliest pictures and her current ones and see the radical change. Dawn is well-aware of the cosmetic surgery allegations but has never bothered to lay them to rest by posting clear pictures of her from when she was a schoolgirl to present. People who knew her in school have a difficult time realizing that it is her. All this is well documented, and I don’t care if you don’t believe it; just quit posting nonsense.
The models from the attractive women section are not trying to look underage. They have styled their hair and are posing in response to the photographer’s request. All the models you picked have the physique of adult women. Why would a photographer use models with adult physiques, especially Sonia Blake, to cater to men who prefer underage girls? Some people look a few years younger than they are, and some such individuals are 18-year-old girls who are willing to pose nude, and these are the kind of women a photographer would use to legally cater to men interested in underage girls.
If you look better than Sonia Blake, then there should be no reason for you to be bothered by this site, and you could even send me your pictures to use as illustrative examples of feminine beauty, but I think most readers can reasonably guess how you look like.
Here is the survey showing up to 20% of men not being lifetime-exclusive heterosexual. Alessandra Ambrosio generally looks worse in her candid pictures than when she is modeling. The reason Victoria’s Secret can get away with using masculinized lingerie models has nothing to do with women generally finding them attractive but because it has no competition that is using feminine women. Frederick’s of Hollywood and other prominent lingerie retailers all generally use masculinized models because of the gay domination of the fashion business, including these companies.
I haven’t criticized the looks of Halle Berry and Jessica Alba. I pointed out Berry’s nose job and Alba’s masculinization. In the relative absence of feminine beauty in the limelight, why should it be surprising if the likes of Jessica Alba are popular, especially among Latinos? Just as it is very clear that the looks of high-fashion models do not reflect the preferences of the general public, it cannot be assumed some women become top actresses because they have the looks most people like. Connections and willingness to sleep around are important factors behind stardom for actresses, and women willing to prostitute themselves tend to be disproportionately masculinized, which will not be a problem if feminine beauty is not in the limelight.
Andy: It is difficult to address the looks of Cher since she has had many plastic surgeries, and I haven’t seen pictures of her as a young adult to address how feminine she is.
Posted by Erik on May 01, 2007 at 09:31 PM | #
Frank Your objections have nothing to do with the arguments put forth by this site. If you are an evolutionary biologist, then why is your understanding so poor or have you even bothered to read enough of this site?
Whereas the frequency of blood groups varies with geography, blood type is poorly correlated with ethnicity. Phenotypic variation is not solely between groups; most of it is within groups. One could be an outlier within one’s group without having significant admixture from other groups.
As far as your being “pure” Chinese goes, till the end of the late Pleistocene (about 12,000 years ago) Northeast Asia was occupied by Europeans —who occupied Mongolia as recently as the Bronze age and were also in Linzi, China in 500 B.C.—who were eventually displaced by Asians, as evident from skull samples and even mitochondrial DNA evidence from Linzi, China. Some admixture between Europeans and Asians did occur, which is today most evident in West Asia. The Asians from mainland China who moved into Japan absorbed the Jomon and Ainu indigenous populations there, who were a lot closer to modern Europeans than to modern Asians, and this reflects in the looks of the Japanese to some extent. So, “pure” Chinese doesn’t mean that a Chinese individual couldn’t have some of his ancestry from other populations as recently as the Bronze Age.
I have cited numerous studies about average differences between Asian and European facial features, and they show a consistent picture, which is also common observation. Average differences do not imply that two individuals taken at random from different populations will always differ along the direction of average differences.
Of course, men produce estrogens and women produce androgens. I have not implied otherwise. I have cited evidence showing higher levels of estrogens corresponding to greater femininity and attractiveness in women; see this example for instance.
Just because men have relatively longer legs than women does not make long legs a masculine characteristic since relative leg length varies more within a sex than between the sexes and thereby one could end up with long legs as a result of factors other than sex hormones and their receptors. Similarly, relative leg length varies more within populations than between populations, and it does not follow that populations with relatively longer legs are more masculine unless you show that this results from greater masculinization.
Nowhere have I argued that beauty is almost entirely objective or that my taste in women represents it or that there is any ethnic group that is supreme in all beauty characteristics or that white women are the most beautiful. I have repeatedly pointed out individual variation in aesthetic preferences and argued that it is not possible to objectively compare the attractiveness of women from different ethnic groups.
I have also not implied anything along the lines of a “totally fixed objective standard of Female - or Male – beauty.” Of course, evolution is an ongoing process, but genetic change that notably alters physical appearance in humans takes a lot longer than a handful of generations, i.e., over short periods of time, namely a few generations at least, many features that people find attractive will remain the same.
Please make an effort to understand the arguments within this site. I do not like seeing misrepresentations, non sequiturs and caricatures of my arguments.
Posted by Erik on May 01, 2007 at 09:47 PM | #
Some admixture between Europeans and Asians did occur, which is today most evident in West Asia
Sorry to steer this more off-topic, but i found the above quote perplexing.
You’re talking about Europeans and Mongoloids mixing together to create...... what ethnic groups? What is meant by “West Asia”?
Posted by matthewth on May 01, 2007 at 11:44 PM | #
erike,
if you cant assess chers face then what about her body from what you see is it mascluine or feminine?
Posted by andy on May 02, 2007 at 06:42 AM | #
white people are not beautifull people
Posted by emannual on May 02, 2007 at 07:13 AM | #
Matthewth: West Asia is obviously the Western part of Asia, the region immediately east of Europe. The Uygurs of the Xinjiang region of China are a good example of European-Asian mixes. If you go down south, you will also find other such mixes such as the Burusho and Hazara people.
Andy: If you can point out clear pictures of Cher’s physique as a young adult, I can judge it.
Posted by Erik on May 02, 2007 at 10:17 PM | #
ok, so “West Asia”, as you intend, encompasses part of China. That ISN’T obvious, so thanks for clarifying.
Posted by matthewth on May 02, 2007 at 10:57 PM | #
Erik, why is my detailed reply to your attack on my post being blocked? Is it too long perhaps?
Posted by Frank on May 03, 2007 at 08:44 AM | #
Frank: Your ability to leave a comment is obviously not blocked. If your comment exceeded the number of allowed words, you would have been notified of this. The current setting allows each comment to have a maximum of 15,000 characters, which is generous. Beyond this, you will need to split your reply into two or more comments. I don’t know why you have not been able to post your lengthy reply. Try again.
Posted by Erik on May 03, 2007 at 06:56 PM | #
Thanks, Erik. I think there must be something wrong with my set-up, as there was no notification of exceeding any limit. I tried a number of times before giving up. I realised it wasn’t your decision to block my post, which is why I tried the short query.
In the meantime, I have decided not to post my original reply, but, in light of having explored more of your site, to write a more considered reply. However, as I don’t have much time to post, and am shortly leaving my office until the middle of next week, I won’t do so until then. Suffice to say for now that two posts might be needed, as a number of different issues came up.
Whether or not I have misunderstood you, you have certainly misunderstood the import of some of my post. I don’t blame you for this, as my post was probably not clear enough.
I’ll just for now try to clear up some points which are not central to the main thrust of this site and this thread.
I am fully aware that blood groups, especially when individuals are concerned, are not a good indicator of ethnicity! (Although it is surprising how many apparently educated people still think they are). My point was simply to point out how unreliable much of the published literature in the field of Physical Anthropology has been until quite recently, and to some extent still is. I had my blood tested in the early ‘70s, and found that I had a Rhesus blood group (C+D-E-) which, according to the leading Human Medical Genetics text book at the time, was non-existent among Chinese. I then find that the source for the text-book assertion was a sample of 500 Cantonese. So, on the basis of a small sample from one Southern Chinese city, the text-book characterized all Chinese!
And I’m afraid such stereotyping was all too common at that time. I could quote other examples of other such “facts” which have subsequently proved to be untrue. While such extreme examples are much rarer today, more restrained examples are still too common. All this has made me quite suspicious of most claims about “ethnic” or “racial” characteristics, unless they have been certified a reasonable amount of times in modern studies by reliable scholars.
An example as to how recent studies in physical anthropology have transformed the understanding of “race” concerns the Ainu you mentioned in your reply.
It is clear now that the Ainu, and the Jomon, were NOT a lot closer to modern Europeans than to modern (East) Asians. See for example:
http://www.pitt.edu/~annj/courses/notes/jomon_genes or http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=14997363&dopt=Citation
It is clear that the closest relatives of the Ainu are certain other North East Asian groups. This is backed up by linguistic research which is more and more suggesting that the closest relatives of the Ainu language are other North East Asian languages.
The characteristics which were cited to link the Ainu with Europeans have either turned out to be mistakes (e.g. the Ainu were and are not blue-eyed), or are to do with what now appears to be purely superficial appearance, e.g. the Ainu have quite heavy body hair growth, and not many instances of the epicanthus eye-fold. In fact on this level the Australian Aborigines have as many “European” characteristics as the Ainu.
The Jomon-Yayoi transition and synthesis to form the modern Japanese nation is actually one of the best examples of the fusion of two different ethnic groups. The whole subject is also a good example as to how pseudo-scientific anthropology has been misused for ethnic - and sometimes frankly racist - purposes.
Furthermore, the relatively recent appearance of so-called “Mongoloid” features in East Asian and Amerindian populations is a puzzle which has, until recently, not been tackled in a truly scientific manner. “Migration” used to be the only answer considered - but from where? It is notable that the highest frequency of the epicanthus occurs in populations such as the Koreans and the Northern Chinese, which are, as Cavalli-Sforza and others have shown, actually in some ways more closely related to Europeans than they are to Southern Chinese and South East Asians, who have a low frequency of “Mongolian” features such as the epicanthus.
“Evolution” seems too often forgotten in all this. There seems to be a reluctance to consider that characteristic polymorphisms which gave rise to the “East Asian” appearance might actually have evolved relatively recently out of a more generalised ancient Eurasian (broadly “Caucasoid") background - perhaps by a process which some, e.g. Peter Frost, have proposed (on the basis of what is as yet very shaky, but plausible, argumentation) for the establishment of polymorphisms with regard to hair and eye colour in parts of Europe.
And that links up to why I put the word “pure” in quotation marks, because in the light of evolution “purity” becomes an elusive quality - in fact usually meaningless. Yet those who get hung-up on making ethnic comparisons e.g. Europeans vs. Asians often unwittingly speak as if “pure” races existed, and any anomalies must be due to race-mixing.
That’s enough for now. Next week I’ll try to deal with matters more directly relevant to your site.
Best Wishes
Posted by Frank on May 04, 2007 at 12:37 PM | #
Holy god, you people are all fucking crazy. Sarah, all the Asian girls you displayed have clearly had extensive plastic surgery. I do not say this to support Erik’s creepy racist argument, but because Asian societies have very dehumanizing cultural constructs that have most recently manifested themselves in the prevailing cultural notions of beauty ideals (or even beauty necessities, these days) of co-opting a handful of very particular features specific to caucasian people. They impose a great deal of misogyny and racism on themselves, for whatever reason.
You are all crazy. Erik, I loved this site at first because there are so few people who can see beyond their cultural conditioning that idealizes masculinized models, but it’s become clear to me that you have so many other sickening agendas that even this site has become a disappointment. Go hang out with your real comrades--those majorityrights and GNXP psychos.
You are especially disappointing to women who are tired of being dehumanized by all the men still in control of the majority of wealth, as well as influential spheres like politics, media, and academia.
Posted by Kimberly on May 04, 2007 at 03:29 PM | #
Kimberly: Do not label my arguments as “racist” or accuse me of harboring “sickening agendas” without justifying these serious charges. This site is not “dehumanizing” women and I don’t see how I am disappointing women upset at not matching men with respect to wealth and power.
Frank: I am aware of the limitations of the early physical anthropology literature and make a point to cite current papers. All papers I cited in reference to average facial differences between East Asians and Europeans in my reply to Sarah have been published between 2000 and 2005, are in agreement with each other and consistent with common observation.
Regarding the Jomon and Ainu, you have cited data on Y and mtDNA, and mentioned linguistics. The DNA data is limited and affected by admixture. The linguistic data is of little relevance as can be seen from the example of white Finns speaking an Asiatic language in spite of having very little Asiatic genetic contribution. The paper that I cited, published in 2001, analyzed skull samples ranging from prehistory to present and used 21 neutral inter-landmark distances to infer population affinities. It is very clear that the prehistoric Jomon and early Ainus are closer to Europeans than to the current core population of East Asia. Your objections involve minor superficial features such as body hair and frequency of epicanthal folds and on this basis you mention Australian aborigines having as many “European” features as the Ainu. Population affinities need to be assessed by analyzing multiple markers rather than a handful of features. Use the 21 neutral inter-landmark distances as in the study above and there is no way Australian aborigines will end up anywhere close to Europeans.
What do you mean by a relatively recent appearance of East Asian features? There is nothing “recent” about flattened nasal bones, general mid-facial flattening, larger faces, larger teeth, etc. You mention epicanthal folds, but this is of little relevance to the “relatively recent” question unless its genetics is known and DNA suitable for analysis can be extracted from prehistoric remains. Yes, Cavalli-Sforza did show Northeast Asians to be closer to Europeans than Southeast Asians, but he only analyzed 150 genes, and the markers were not neutral; his genetic tree was also not very stable. The use of neutral and much more numerous markers reveal that the mainland Northeast Asian and mainland Southeast Asian populations cluster together.
I don’t see the point of your bringing Peter Frost into the picture. The unusual MC1R diversity corresponding to hair color diversity among Europeans has no analog among East Asians. Regarding “purity,” I have not mentioned this word or implied anything along these lines.
Posted by Erik on May 05, 2007 at 04:41 AM | #
Erik,
If a woman has an exceptional hourglass figure according to your statistics and one which has a slightly less hourglass figure it doesnt make the one with the more exceptional hourglass figure more so to speak beautifull than the one with the less hourglass figure the one with the exceptional hourglass figure might look more aesthetically pleasing than the one with the less hourglass figure but the one with the less hourglass figure might be more sexually appealing than the one with the exceptional hourglass figure so what is your opinion in relation to your argument that life time hetrosexual men prefer feminine looking women, thats not saying the less hourglas figure woman is less feminine than the more hourglass figure woman but in terms of secxual appeal.
Posted by andy on May 09, 2007 at 06:35 AM | #
Erik
On the Jomon/Ainu issue, I’m afraid you ignore the mass of modern studies which would contradict you, in favour of one which might seem to support you, although reading closer, I’m not sure that it actually does. It should be noted that the chief author, C.Loring Brace, one of the “old school” of physical anthropologists, tends to use such terms as “caucasoids”, “aryans”, in an outdated and rather misleading way, as if these represented physical “races”, rather than simply as physical types.
I don’t have the literature to hand with me (my PC is at a different address from my library), but reference to such works as “Ruins of Identity” (about ethnogenesis in Japan) by Mark J. Hudson, and “China, Korea, and Japan” (archaeology) by Gina Barnes, shows quite clearly that the Jomon/Ainu skulls and skeletons were in some ways more dissimilar to supposed “caucasoid/European” than were the Yayoi (Korean derived) immigrants, whom nobody claim as “caucasoids”, while being in other ways closer. For instance, the Jomon had proportionately much shorter and broader faces than the Yayoi. (The Barnes book actually has a drawing comparing typical Jomon and Yayoi skulls which shows this clearly). The Jomon were also shorter and stockier in physique than the Yayoi - which might be one reason why early Chinese records refer to Japan as a land of dwarfs.
My mention on “minor superficial features” such as epicanthic folds was precisely because these features, minor or not, have played a MAJOR part in the typological “racial” classifications of the past. These classifications play only an insignificant role, if any at all, in modern physical anthropology, but still loom large in the “popular” fringes of science - and also on the racist white-superiority sites which are common on the internet. I note that even one of these has somewhat played down the “caucasoid” Ainu theme.
I agree that population affinities need to be assessed using multiple markers. Using these however, numerous differing, and apparently conflicting, pictures of relationships can be arrived at. I say “apparently” because what these actually show is the complexity of relationships between populations - the very complexities which annoy those who want to stick with old racial - and racist - “certainties”. I am sure that as further studies go on, more and more complexities and anomalies will arise. As for “neutral features”, I suggest that this is a difficult, and potentially misleading concept. The fact is that there are many features which have been claimed to be “neutral”, which on closer study have proven to be not so.
As for “East Asian features”. It is generally accepted that all populations of non-African ethnic origin derive from a small number of people who migrated out of Africa. What did these people look like? The earliest Homo sapiens sapiens skulls in Eurasia, including East Asia, all look more “caucasoid” than do modern East Asians. Similarly, early and many modern Amerindian populations similarly are not characterised by such features as “mid-facial flattening” - those which do show such features probably owe these to intermixture with the later Na-Dene and Eskimo-Aleut immigrants. Similarly with ancient and modern Polynesians (to whom both the Ainu and “Kennewick Man” have been compared, although nobody I hope is suggesting that the Ainu are Polynesians). Moreover such people as the New Guineans and Australian Aborigines, which recent studies confirm as being descended from the initial small band of “out of Africa” H.s.sapiens emigrants, are not characterised by East Asian features.
So in terms of Eurasia, most East Asian features probably are recent developments, and evolved out of a situation where they did not exist, or only existed at a low frequency. I must stress here that this does not mean that they are “better” characteristics. Unfortunately the equation “more evolved” = “better” was one established by the racist driven theories of the past. Since these theories arose in a largely European academe, it thus became inconceivable that populations with many “caucasoid” characteristics could evolve into populations with less of them. I suggest that the shadow of this still lies across physical anthropology to this day, which is why the idea that many East Asian characteristics are modern evolutionary developments has only started to be posited recently.
Again the point of bringing Peter Frost in to the picture is that he has proposed a way in which quite rapid evolutionary changes can occur to set up polymorphisms, in his case to do with eye and hair colour in a part of Europe. Exactly the same sort of process could lead to the rapid evolution of polymorphisms in other parts of the world for other features, since there isn’t any reason why these sorts of processes might not work for features other than hair and eye col