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Lingerie modeling: Rebecca Romijn or Layla from W4B?
If a top-ranked lingerie model has the facial features shown below, who is most likely directly or indirectly responsible?
The face above shows the profile of top-ranked 1990s supermodel Rebecca Romijn, and it can be clicked for the context of the image. Take a look at the photo below. Whereas the front view of the body looks acceptable, what kind of people would select a lingerie model with the heavy facial masculinization and manly shoulders shown?
A young Rebecca Romijn did not have the looks of a typical high-fashion model, but her greater “curvaceousness” made her more appropriate for modeling swimsuits and lingerie, and gay fashion designers used her for this purpose, but as the following comparison of Rebecca Romijn with a glamour model -- Layla from watch4beauty (W4B) -- shows, Rebecca Romijn is far from a woman that is feminine enough for high profile swimsuit and lingerie modeling. The following 6 pictures can be clicked for larger versions.
The physique of Rebecca Romijn does an excellent job of showing that having a small waist, and even sucking in the belly while posing, does not help make one look feminine unless there are other markers of femininity; some additional examples are shown below.
Rebecca Romijn has played the role of Mystique from X-Men.
The tragedy of the role of Mystique going to Rebecca Romijn is that Mystique is supposed to be a very feminine-looking woman, as in the examples below.
It is be one thing to have masculinized women model clothes in fashion shows and fashion magazines, but another to have these models go beyond their niche; their looks -- thanks to their high status -- trickle down to models and actresses that are supposed to look feminine. This is aesthetically unacceptable and a major reason for the existence of this site.
Three more pictures of Layla are shown below (click for larger versions).
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Comments:
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i agree this other girl would be a etter mystique
Posted by Kristin on December 25, 2006 at 03:25 PM | #
Wait, so I’m gay for liking Rebecca Romijn?
I’ve always considered her to be the most attractive woman on earth.
She has it all, funny personality, brains, an amazing face, an athletic body, and a beautiful and natural chest (I’m so glad she didn’t “ruin” herself with implants).
You people need to rethink your standards if you don’t find her attractive.
Posted by richard justice on October 17, 2007 at 10:34 PM | #
Well if you thought Rebecca Romijn didn’t look very feminine, you sir have problems!!
Perfect choice compared to this, porn star that you think should have got it. Calling her a glamour model doesn’t change the fact that it’s just the posh way of saying porn star.
Posted by Mike on January 08, 2008 at 04:06 AM | #
Richard Justice: You are not gay because you like Rebecca Romijn. You may like her for a variety of reasons apart from looks (you mention personality and brains). Also, there are outliers within any group, but masculinized women like Ms. Romijn are common among fashion models, and this tells us something about the aesthetic interests of the people selecting them.
Mike Rebecca Romijn is unambiguously masculine. Layla isn’t particularly feminine (e.g., not having sufficiently wide hips or large breasts), but still easily illustrates the masculinization in Rebecca. To the best of my knowledge, Layla does nude modelling but no porn work, and hence glamour model is an appropriate term. The point about using the nude model is to present an obvious contrast pertaining to femininity. I am not suggesting that she specifcally should have played the role of Mystique. If the fashion business were not dominated by homosexuals, I could find more mainstream models easily, but this would not be necessary in the first place because Rebecca would not have become a big fashion model.
Posted by Erik on January 08, 2008 at 04:33 AM | #
If you don’t think Rebecca looks feminine than you need some glasses. Masculine? You’re nuts dude, no offense, I understand that it’s all subjective, especially when it comes to finding someone attractive, but to say that she looks masculine is just quite frankly weird and untrue. Whatever floats your boat I guess, she’s hot, she played Mystique perfectly, and she’s a damn good actor as well.
Posted by Joe on February 15, 2008 at 05:20 PM | #
Guys, Recca’s “built” as one says of body phenotype, is undoubtedly masculine, and the features of her face further emphasise it.
There is a remarkable tendency in caucasian women to have sholders that are wider than hips, unexpressed waist, as well as sharp, almost corner-like face features.
Consider, for instance, areals where ethnic intermixing results in more diverse phenotype collections - such as around the “real” caucasus, area around the Caspian Sea. Similar areals exist in Balcans and the Mediterranean - women are much more likely to express that “curvy” pattern with better, classic feminine balance of hips/waist/shoulders.
It is unfortunate that the mainstream promoters lack education and sense to realise just how deeply degrading their cash-cow focused selections are, but what’s truly unsettling is the impact that those choices have on development, broad-sense education of younger generation, as you get to see more and more women-turn-men, and men-turn-women among 20-smth kids.
Posted by MrBAI on March 05, 2008 at 02:14 AM | #
You seem to have confused your view of feminine/masculine with some sort of non-cultural objective standard. Your view is most simply your own. The only well established feminine phenotypic character is hip to waist ratio. Typically a hip to waist ratio of .69 to 1 is preferred across all cultures assayed to date. Ms. Romijn certainly falls well within that “feminine” phenotypic character.
Angular features are simply that and they have been viewed as variously masculine or feminine varying with time and culture.
Your taste in actresses to play Mystique is also entirely your own. The pics that you posted support your view but they are hardly a good cross section of Mystique as she has been drown by a variety of artists. In fact one of the earliest artists to draw her did so with quite broad shoulders.
Strangely the model you chose to put foward as a better choice has particularly boyish hips and a rather nondescript waist. Also her shoulders are rather broad too, you’ve simply posted photos in which she is holding her shoulders at an angle to make them look more narrow, or she is covering them with her hair.
Posted by more pobjective on April 27, 2008 at 04:29 PM | #
MrBAI: Ethnic background is not an issue here. European women do not have a tendency to have shoulders wider than the waist or non-feminine physiques. Your impression apparently results from being exposed to European models, mostly in fashion/cosmetics-related settings. Most of them are not feminine, and this site explains the reasons why.
Hourglass feminine physiques are more common in Northern Europe than in/around the Caspian sea or Mediterranean region.
more pobjective: There is no such thing as a preference for 0.69 to 1 WHR across all cultures; WHRs in the 0.85 – 1 range do not look feminine. And it is ridiculous to cite a WHR of 0.7 in a fashion model to make your case when her pictures clearly reveals an overall masculinized woman.
Angular features are not necessarily masculine or feminine, but Rebecca Romijn is clearly overall masculinized. Regarding Layla, yes her hips are not wide and she doesn’t have narrow shoulders, but her looks are an overall better choice for a lingerie model.
Posted by Erik on April 28, 2008 at 04:09 PM | #
... and allow me to give you the references to peer reviewed journal articles to prove it.
Waist-to-hip ratio and preferences for body shape: A replication and extension
http://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S0191886996002413
Preferred waist-to-hip ratio and ecology
http://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S0191886900000398
How Universal Are Preferences for Female Waist-to-Hip Ratios?
http://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S1090513899000070
Adaptive significance of female physical attractiveness: Role of waist-to-hip ratio
http://content.apa.org/journals/psp/65/2/293.pdf
You see we now have this crazy thing called science that allows people to objectively determine things.
Rebecca Romijn’s measurements from imdb 24 inch waisnt and 35 inch hips. Now let’s see what would that ratio be? Why it’s 0.6857. Hmmm seems it’s almost exactly 0.69. How absolutely not strange at all given what we know about human preferences for body shape across a very wide variety of cultures. For the original work please see the above paper authored by D. Singh.
Oh and perhaps now you can stop spouting nonsense as though it is established fact.
Posted by and you're wrong on May 03, 2008 at 11:54 PM | #
Well, we also have this thing known as inadequate knowledge of science. You cited 4 studies published in 1997, 2001, 1999 and 1993, respectively. I have already cited and critiqued the 1993 study (most of the articles on WHR studies within this site are mentioned here; see the first listed article in particular). The 1997 study was similar to the 1993 study. I have also cited both the 1999 and 2001 studies and some other studies along these lines (WHR preferences in tribal populations) here.
More relevant to your argument, by now it is very well documented that waist-to-hip ratio alone explains a very small proportion of the variance in women’s attractiveness. In other words, a woman with a higher WHR can easily be much more overall attractive than a woman with a lower WHR. So pointing out a reported WHR of 0.7 in fashion models to argue that they are appealing to the general population is useless. Look at Rebecca Romijn overall. How can you fail to see masculinization?
Posted by Erik on May 11, 2008 at 01:21 AM | #
Let’s address your argument again shall we?
As is common in people who don’t understand the fields of Behavioral Ecology, Sexual Selection and Evolutionary Psychology, you are conflating several points in your argument. The central one is confusing preference with recognition.
From the Merriam and Webster dictionary:
Masculine
Pronunciation:
\ˈmas-kyə-lən\
Function:
adjective
Etymology:
Middle English masculin, from Latin masculinus, from masculus, noun, male, diminutive of mas male
Date:
14th century
1 a: male b: having qualities appropriate to or usually associated with a man
Saying someone is masculine means that they are recognized as male, not that they match some Platonic ideal of male beauty. The same may be said of feminine with regards to female.
As your argument rests on her being not feminine but masculine, I presented four (admittedly older but to date accepted) studies on the cross-cultural relevance of waist to hip to refute your statement that she is “masculine”.
“So pointing out a reported WHR of 0.7 in fashion models to argue that they are appealing to the general population is useless.”
So in response to your above statements, we are not talking about appealing (preference) we are discussing masculine versus feminine (recognition). As Miss Romijn’s waist to hip ratio is an almost perfect 0.69 she would be recognized as feminine, or female, in every culture on the Earth.
“Look at Rebecca Romijn overall.”
Here you commit another classic error, stepping into the far muddier waters of masculine versus feminine faces and body measures. While you can certainly gather data from mens’ faces and womens’ faces, as well as measurements from other parts of their bodies, all that you end up doing is defining means and variances for those characteristics within populations. There are a number of incongruous results when you analyze the data across populations. Nose width between European and sub-saharan African populations and leg to body ratios between European and Asian populations spring to mind.
This is probably what you are thinking about as it tends to be the data presented in the majority of the publications you cite on this website. These tests are almost always done by taking measurements of faces from various populations and then asking undergraduate students in the United States to rank or compare their attractiveness of original faces or composite faces generated using various computer programs. While this does say something about the preferences of 18 to 21 year old young adults from various cities in the United States during the year that the test was carried out, it says surprisingly little that is generalizable about preferences overall or between various cultures. If the tests were done in a year the Miss Romijn had a big movie out you might very well she her face being preferred by more students than you would expect.
If you look at European means and variances for any of these facial or body measurements, I am sure Miss Romijn’s falls well withing the spread of data points for women, and hence she is certainly feminine.
Any judgment or assessment of attractiveness is highly suspect and to date few if any reputable studies exist that espouse a cross-cultural preference for any body measurement. This is why the waist hip ratio data is trotted out so much. The fact that it explains very little of the preference for a particular individual is due to a number of factors but the most compelling of them is that it is a signal that identifies an individual as a reproductively active female human. This as I explained earlier is a recognition signal.
“How can you fail to see masculinization?”
Ah and now the final gross error I will address. “I see it don’t you?” A direct appeal to individual taste. Whatever I think when I look at Miss Romijn means nothing. It is purely subjective. The same can be said about your opinion. In science “Eine mal ist kien mal”, and the opinion of a single individual is anecdote not data. Your eye is of course the arbiter of your own aesthetic, but don’t ever confuse this with any objective reality.
You try very hard on this website to convince yourself and others that your views are generalizable, but, most simply, they are not. While your opinion regarding what is masculine or feminine may correlate highly with a given data set, that does not lend it any relevance across cultural lines and lends it only weak support within a given culture. Always remember correlation is not causation and just because you think it it true does not mean it is. I have been proven wrong more often than right over the course of my 15 years in the field of Behavioral Ecology. So until you bring some real data to bear, I would tread lightly.
Posted by I can't believe I'm bothering but it's my job... on May 16, 2008 at 01:37 PM | #
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