Lingerie modeling: Rebecca Romijn or Layla from W4B?

i agree this other girl would be a etter mystique

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

... 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.

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?

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:
\'mas-ky?-l?n\
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.

So I am conflating several points? You cited a dictionary definition of masculine and feminine. Has it not occurred to you that this website is concerned with anatomical variation and the corresponding understanding has to be in terms of shape (see example1, example2)? Also, whereas women are typically feminine compared to men, I am addressing variation within women. In other words, some women are on the masculine side of average among women and others on the feminine side of average. Whereas Rebecca Romijn would be cross-culturally recognized as a woman without the need to examine her genitals or breasts, and is clearly feminine compared to the typical man, she is overall on the masculine side of average among women of her ethnic group, notwithstanding her reported WHR being slightly below average and hence on the feminine side of average. Rebecca Romijn looks like a female, but not a feminine one among women.

Other things being left intact, even if Rebecca Romijn’s WHR were to increase to 0.9, she would still be cross-culturally recognized as a woman. So you are unnecessarily bringing in the recognition of femaleness issue, which is a non-issue to start with.

To date accepted? Singh’s ode to a 0.7 WHR has been refuted. Better methodology has revealed an optimum preference for lower WHRs among European populations and cross-cultural optimums clearly different from 0.7. And you did not refute the masculinization part. Reported WHR (and also front view WHR, as assessed in numerous studies) is not strongly correlated with other measures of physical femininity among women. Hence, an overall more masculine woman can easily have a lower WHR than an overall more feminine woman. You have also focused on reported WHR, which captures far less information about Rebecca Romijn’s look than the numerous pictures that I have cited. The woman is clearly on the masculine side of average among women of her ethnic group.

In response to my asking you to look at her overall looks, you wrote –

I have long cited geometric morphometrics within this site, and it goes far beyond capturing mere means and variances; it describes shape variation as shown in the two linked examples above. Ethnic issues are irrelevant to this topic.

A strong preference for above average physical femininity in women has been repeatedly demonstrated in many studies, including cross-cultural samples, and is surely not a highly suspect find. Studies that have documented this find have shown it for variation within women, which is what this site is concerned with. Not all of these studies are limited to young adult judges. Besides, an aesthetic preference need not be cross-culturally generalizable for it be of any significance.

Recognition signal? The typical young adult woman with a WHR of 0.8 – 0.9 will conceive and give birth, but will, on average, have lower fecundity and fertility than young adult women with a WHR of 0.6 – 0.7. The recognition issue is not about whether the woman is “reproductively active” but about whether the woman has high reproductive potential. The reason why WHR by itself is poorly correlated with overall attractiveness has to do with WHR capturing little of the information regarding a woman’s overall looks and being weakly-to-moderately correlated with miscellaneous measures of physical femininity.

My question – “How can you fail to see masculinization?” – is not an appeal to my taste. Physical masculinization is an objective assessment. The question “How can you fail to see her unattractiveness?” would be an appeal to my subjective preferences.

If I have a spare hour or so I may come back at some point and tear apart this set of straw man arguments salted with research from an assortment of second tier journals, but at the moment I'm tired and busy.

So I will most likely allow you to wallow in your agressive ignorance.

Singh has hardly been refuted. What you have done is called "cherry picking" in the scientific community. You cite a handful of obscure publications that support your view-point.

You want to put forward some personal agenda which aparently has something to do with gay men in the fashion industry, while at the same time inflate your personal preference to a generalizable ideal. It's patently nonsense, but if thinking this keeps you warm at night then I won't tear away your security blanket.

I actually do research in this field an as such should spend my time on people interested in data and hypothesis testing, and not personal opinion and diatribe.

If you do research in this field, then I look forward to your tearing apart my arguments. Criticism from academics is always welcome, and yours will hopefully be substantiated. You will not find people more interested in data and hypothesis testing than me, and I am your man if you are looking for pictures and computer-generated imagery to do research on female attractiveness.

I actually do research in this field an as such should spend my time on people interested in data and hypothesis testing, and not personal opinion and diatribe.

If Erik is wrong, I would very much like to see you refute him so that I and others are not lead astray by him. However, I haven't seen anything particularly convincing in your arguments so far.

I totally agree that you people are not looking closely enough at the feminine beauty of rebecca romijn, also, she was great as mystique very curvy and graceful

Layla looks positively boring. Very plain.

I think the authors of this site have feminization confused with attractiveness. You don't have to be overly feminine as a female to be attractive nor do you have to be majorly masculine as a male to be attractive. Just lookat rockers and actors through out history alot of them have androgynous qualities and I don't think woman are lesbians for liking them. This is especially true cross culturally, asian societies, japan in particular, value a pretty boy sense of beauty above truly masculine males. Tales of genji etc all value a very boyish, and soft men as the ideal. Fashion industry may be dominated by homosexuals, but any survey comparing romjin with layla to heterosexual males will have romjin coming out a huge winner. She's has great curves, a striking somewhat masculine face which lends itself to the camera. Your article makes her sound like some monster or something.

I read through some other parts of your site after this article, basically your view of beauty is centered around feminization while "gay" designers are supporting masculine looking women as you say. you sound almost as judgmental as those so called gay designers.

There is no confusion between femininity and attractiveness within this site. You haven’t read enough; see the information on aesthetics.

Regarding rockers or actors, their appeal is not necessarily related to their looks, and it may be in spite of their looks as in talent or the role in which they are cast compensating for their looks.

I’d be interested in a survey that asks men in general to judge the physical attractiveness of Rebecca and a more feminine-looking woman such as Layla, and finds Rebecca being ranked higher.

This site is not about being judgmental. Of what use is mere judging a woman’s looks? Read the FAQ to better understand this site’s purpose.

"I am addressing variation within women. In other words, some women are on the masculine side of average among women and others on the feminine side of average. Whereas Rebecca Romijn would be cross-culturally recognized as a woman without the need to examine her genitals or breasts, and is clearly feminine compared to the typical man, she is overall on the masculine side of average among women of her ethnic group, notwithstanding her reported WHR being slightly below average and hence on the feminine side of average. Rebecca Romijn looks like a female, but not a feminine one among women."

A pity you make comments such as these then:

"In the picture below, Elle MacPherson could be easily mistaken for a transgendered male with breast implants."

I'm sorry, but you reveal your agenda here. A scientific assessment is one thing, but you are clearly intent on trying to bully people round to your point of view by unsubtly attacking their attraction to women you have decided are "masculine", by picking particular pictures of them. And before you attack me for liking women like RRS, I would point out that I am also a fan of Jelena Jensen and Tera Patrick. I've not been duped by the fashion industry as you might like me to believe, and I've also not been duped by your bs.

Yawn: Your criticism doesn’t address any science pointed out by me and hence you have not validated your accusation of pseudo-science.

Regarding my agenda, if you like a woman’s looks and I have something unflattering to say about her appearance, then will you change your opinion of her looks or will anyone else? Your opinion of a woman’s looks is based on your preferences, which I cannot affect by writing something about her looks. I can only affect your opinion by showing pictures of the woman that more clearly reveal her shape and by contrasting her pictures with those of other women, but if this alters your opinion, then the alteration will still be along the lines of your preferences. So you got my agenda wrong.

I have no interest in attacking people with different preferences. The reason this site addresses the preferences of homosexual/bisexual fashion designers is not to attack their preferences, which by itself is a waste of time, but because their preferences are responsible for the problems that have prompted the creation of this site. The homosexuals can pick their models as long as they leave alone venues where feminine beauty is more appropriate, but they won’t leave these venues alone, and I am not letting them get away with it.

If anyone believes that my description of Elle MacPherson quoted above is biased, they need only look at the picture of Elle MacPherson (larger version) that the comment is meant for. Sorry, but she does not look like a woman in this picture.

I don't want you to believe that the fashion industry had duped you. The citations from controlled studies show that most people's aesthetic preferences have been unaltered by the promotion of thin and masculinized women.

You don't appear to have any real reasoning behind what constitutes more or less feminine other than your say so, with insulting commentary to back up your opinions. You saying she does not look like a woman doesn't mean she doesn't look like a woman in that photo. Even the most unflattering pictures of Elle MacPherson don't make her look like a man to anyone. Some of the women you cite as beautiful look masculine to me, thus proving it's a matter of opinion.

Yawn: There is a lot of anatomical evidence cited to back up what I am saying about women’s masculinity-femininity. To say that a woman doesn’t look like a woman doesn’t mean that she looks like a man. Note the reference to a transgendered man with breast implants. The correct term should have been “male-to-female transsexual with breast implants,” who happens to be biological man that has undergone sex reassignment surgery, typically resulting in looks that are neither those of men nor those of women. I would never mistake Elle MacPherson for a man, but based on the photo alone I would question whether she is a biological woman or a male-to-female transsexual.

Yes, some of the women that I have shown in the context of attractive women are somewhat masculinized, and I have often explicitly mentioned this, but this doesn’t prove that it’s a matter of opinion. It shows that femininity is not the be all and end all of attractiveness in women. There are numerous correlates of beauty, and it is certainly possible for somewhat masculinized women to outcompete more feminine women in the attractiveness department.

Sorry dude, you've clearly got issues!

Me, I'm going to stick to enjoying looking at the women I enjoy looking at and not worry about whether some crackpot thinks they're "masculinized". If she looks beautiful then as far as I'm concerned she's perfectly feminine.

p.s. I'm what you hilariously refer to as a "lifetime heterosexual male" too.

I can't believe this website. You are a psychopath. The women you choose as attractive all look like inbreds to me. Yes, I do fing Rabecca masculine in the face but I actualy think it is UGLY for a girl to be super super feminine, after all testosterone is what gives women a high sex drive....... same with men, we all like feminine men! you want him to have a nic e strong body yes... but u still want a pretty face. Also this model here, here bones just look underdeveloped compared to Rabeccas.......... ugh you deluded faggot.

Jenny: Super super feminine women look less attractive to me also. I haven't been showing any of them. The woman contrasted with Rebecca Romijn is herself not that feminine (see previous comments). And who is deluded that Rebecca is appropriate for lingerie modeling? I don't need to state it. You have done so using a non-PC term.

Anyone who thinks Rebecca looks masculine obviously does not know what a woman should look like. The fact that she does not have a pair of Volkswagens parked on her chest or a 14 inch waist does not mean she has masculine features. Her shoulders are far from masculine for a female form. If you want to see over developed shoulders in a woman look at Gabrielle Reese or the Williams sisters. All 3 have very developed shoulders but are still considered beautiful, not by the fashion industry alone but by the majority of men. Go jerk off to a Men's Health and stop hating. Even with extensive surgery you will never be 1/10 as feminine as Rebecca.

like..wow! i never seen anything so intense on a forum b4! i can cut through the tension here because it's sooo thick. i'm with "yawn"
here! all the scientific data in the world can't change my mind on what i constitute as feminine/masculine or not. i'm female who is athletic/slim/muscular yet very feminine in most ways(too me). men enjoy and compliment my muscle tone and outlines abs at the gym. the woman aforementioned in previous posts is not masculine by any means.she has curves. the men/women who came up with that hip/waist ratio gave their opinion too..thats all that is.. most women who are slim will most likely have smaller breast/hips compared to larger women..no science behind it..but u see it continually! some ppl become some brainwashed behind stas/numbers..and old science..decades ago it was considered to be masculine if a woman had any muscle at all...which is nasty (be it skinny or fat) because you have no form or shape withpout muscle...i'm not saying i don't have masculine ways...but i definitely look female! r

there's no scientific data(to my knowledge) that i can run faster than my 5 yr old students, but i know i'm faster...some things you just know...

Dude. I am Northern European. Northern European women have small perky tits and asses okay? So don't say that they usually have the "curvy" hourglass shape cuz they dont kay? This doesnt mean they arent attractive. It just means they have really athletic bodies and thats why I like my Northern European women okay? Maybe you are talking about central Europe where the women are shorter and curvier. But Northern European women are known from being tall and having long legs, and perky small breasts and cute little asses and sexy athletic bodies. Sorry, but if you come up here in the North you will see the tall beautiful angels not super curvy rounded women. Dude, seriously though. What is your problem? Like who seriously puts a website like this up? And by the way don't be dissing Rebecca. She is like a typical beauty. WTF?

Thank you! An expert on the subject who actually knows what they are talking about!

CeeCee: Looking female is not the same as looking feminine unless feminine is defined in comparison to men. Femininity as considered here is among women.

dude you are...: Among European women, Northern Europeans have larger breasts on average. If I had stats on the backside, especially hourglass shapes, the find would be the same.

Yah but British women are an exception. They are fugly. I am talking about Scandinavian like Swedish, Finnish, Icelandic etc. Nobody cares about British women really.

dude you are...: If you think British women are fugly, it is your opinion. But they are not an exception. From the countries mentioned, the top 4 are UK, Denmark, Netherlands and Belgium, and the bottom 4 are Greece, Switzerland, Austria and Italy. I suppose you are familiar with their geographic locations and can observe a tendency for Northern women to, on average, have larger breasts than southern and central European women. Individual country statistics could be off because of sampling error. For instance, I have seen another study where the average French woman was reported as having a B-cup, compared to an average C-cup in Britain, but the French women are in the middle of the distribution on the linked page and seem to be placed a little higher. What is less likely is that sampling error is responsible for the geographic trend.

You mentioned Scandinavians. The Danes are Scandinavian and are in the top 4. About 1 in 4 Danes are of the the Hallstatt or Österdal Nordic type, which happens to be the predominant element ranging from Eastern Norway through Southern Sweden to parts of Western Finland. The Dutch and the Flemish part of Belgium are mostly the Keltic Nordic type, which is at least a third of eastern Scotland, eastern Ireland and England. And the stats show 1 in 4 Swedish women having a D-cup and another 30% having a C-cup (but also 14% with an A-cup). Iceland is not mentioned, but the Icelandic population is largely a mix of Norse men and British/Gaelic women. So it is unlikely that Icelandic women are small breasted.

You said that you are Northern European, yet write as if you are non-European. Since high-fashion models are mostly small breasted and typically Northern European, those that have not lived in the West and mostly observed European women in beauty and fashion magazines can be excused for thinking that European, especially Northern European, women tend to have small breasts, but those familiar with European diversity should have no such illusion.

Yah, Im genetically Northern European I don't live there but I have dated other Northern Europeans that were not mixed and of course I have travelled there and was there not too long ago in the summer. I have also dated other women. The women that I have dated that had the biggest breasts and curviest figures were Eastern European. I dated a girl who was 100% Serbain who had 36C breasts, her waist was a 27 and her hips were 36.2. Another one I dated was a bit more slender however her boobs were a 34C. I'm not sure about her other measurements but she was very slender, and extremely curvy. I have only dated one girl that was Italian and something else I do not remember but she was just average. She was like a B cup. My girlfriend right now is Northern European and she has an A cup. She is 100% Swedish and she is tall, slender and gorgeous. I know that most "nordic" women generally don't have really curvy bodies. Instead they have really beautiful tall athletic bodies with small breasts and buttocks. However, they are very attractive. Since they look so toned I think they are the most attractive women compared to other countries. That study is bull. Who conducted it? The British right? I don't see British women as very fit, not unfit like most American women, just not very toned. They probably have very saggy breasts and of course then they will need a bigger bra. I don't see physical excercise a priority for British women unlike the Swedish women who are very athletic and active.

Please read this. This explains why you're British women have such full breasts! It seems hormones related to menopause, excessive alcohol comsumption leading to obesity, and just obesity in general which seems to be a problem in the UK are the major factors why the breast size has gone up!
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-509323/Why-British-womans-clea...
A long time ago if a woman was fat it meant she was rich and powerful. This is why they were attractive. Now we want women who are athletic and strong. A woman can still be athletic and strong and still be feminine. Also remember that life is all about balance. A woman that is too feminine has no definition. Lack of definition is unattractive and therefore her more "masculine" yet still feminine women will take her competition. A man that is too masculine is unattractive as well. A women who is overall feminine but has some masculinazation is ideal. A man that is overall masculine but has some feminization is ideal. Both sexes like smart, beautiful, strong people of the opposite sex. A person like this can be achieved with a combination of the right amount of testosterone and estrogen. Not mostly estrogen and mostly testosterone. A woman will have more estrogen than testosterone, but the absence of testosterone totally would cause her to look hideous! People like women who take care of themselves. Women who work out and still are soft. This means smaller breasts but who cares? The woman overall is attractive. We don't want cows we want women. A woman with a C cup but slender body is beautiful! However a woman with an A cup and slender body can be just as beautiful! You are stuck on this idea of attraction that is not ideal. Get over it!

I don't like your website. But I must admit that some of the other people that argue with you have issues! Seriously.

dude you are...: So your inference about the geographic distribution of breast size is based on the women you have dated? You will make an excellent statistician.

A cursory visual inspection of closely related populations is not very likely to suggest geographic variation in breast size since in any population one finds many women with small breasts, many women with large breasts and many women with medium-sized breasts. Systematic studies are needed. The study was conducted by a company that makes bras. It needs the data for efficient allocation of resources and inventory. So don’t tell me that the study is bunk.

You cited an article about potential explanations for an increase in the breast size of British women. Some of the causes mentioned include increasing obesity, increased impact of estrogens due to behaviors such as reduced child bearing, and increased exposure to environmental estrogens. But guess what? These factors also apply to Swedish and other European women. The issue is that the ethnic differences have remained. I have come across old anthropological works describing Irish women (especially in the West) as bigger-breasted and more prone to obesity than Swedish women.

You said that fat women were considered attractive in the past because it implied riches. If this reference is to Europe, then you had better read about the status of obesity in Medieval Europe.

I am not promoting too feminine women or overweight women. There is an upper limit of femininity beyond which attractiveness diminishes.

People indeed like smartness, but this website has nothing to do with smarts. Women have more testosterone than estrogens, not the other way around (in men, the difference is much greater). And your discussion focuses on breast size, which this website isn’t about. It would be very easy to find a woman with an A-cup who looks overall much better than a woman with a C-cup, and it is the overall looks that matter. I haven’t even bothered addressing the breasts of Rebecca Romijn.

I am sorry but the truth is your study is bunk. It has absolutely no credibility whatsoever. If I were to cite that as a source back in college for one of my papers, I would have failed that essay. Everyone knows that "The Sun" is a tabloid. Since when did tabloids become good references? If you are going to make a point and reference it please use scholarly journals backed up by idk maybe something called research and intelligence and not false assumptions backed up by a laughable survey to nothing? Also,I am sorry but I do not spend my whole life studying these kinds of things so no I did not know that women have more testosterone than estrogen, however you are intelligent enough to realize this is not the point I was making. I did not major in biology and the last time I learned anything about biology was at the age of 18 which is not long ago but yet long ago enough. Also, if you want to use a reference about how obesity has been viewed throughout history please do not use you're own website. What I write is biased to my own points of view and so is what you write. This whole website is filled with tons of pseudo-science and your opinions. You are intelligent but you let your biases get in the way of finding truth.

Also:"Boticelli, Cranach and Rubens belonged to closely related Germanic populations."

Boticelli is Italian and he has never belonged to any Germanic populations. Not even any Germanic populations within Italy. Thank you. That much I know.

Again I suspect you let your biases cloud the way that you view things. Not every great person in history is "Northern European." This would be a conveniant thing for me to believe because I am genetically 100% Northern European, however I know better than that. I wish you would know better than that. Boticelli is Italian, it is as simple as that.

dude you are... The great statistician tells me that the study is bunk because it is sourced from a tabloid, but fails to notice that the tabloid is a secondary source, not a primary source. The study was conducted by a company that makes bras and the results reported in many news outlets one of which I cited. And you want me to cite scholarly journals. I have cited plenty of articles from scholarly journals, but not everything will be found in them. What prestigious journal would be willing to publish data about breast size distribution in Europe?

Someone of your mighty intellect has chided me for backing up my argument by citing my own website, but you have failed to see that the citation is an article written by me that cites two especially relevant papers published in peer-reviewed journals and includes paintings from Medieval Europe. So my argument is based on the papers and the paintings, not my word as in this is the way it is because I say so. You are a malicious individual and I don’t wish to deal with stupid arguments. You must not accuse me of pseudo-science without justification or else don’t leave comments here.

Is Germanic synonymous with Northern European? Only part of Germany is in Northern Europe and half of Germans cannot be ethnically classified as Northern European. So not only is your comment ‘Not every great person in history is "Northern European"’ retarded in reference to my mentioning Germanic populations, but it has nothing to do with anything I have written. And you must stop saying that you are genetically 100% Northern European. Enough of this; your ancestry is irrelevant, and on the internet you can claim to be anything.

Below Botticelli’s painting of the birth of Venus I mentioned that it comes from Florence. So I am aware that he was Italian, but he was a light-haired man, born a millennium after the Roman empire was a footnote in history, in large part because the Romans had let the African and Asian slaves greatly outnumber them. Botticelli’s ancestry would thus be difficult to trace to the Romans or the slaves. The other candidates that could be said to have contributed much to Botticelli’s ancestry would be the Germanic populations that settled in Italy, mostly in the North and the central regions (Florence is in North-Central Italy), after forcing many of the slave-descendants down south. Botticelli was one of the Renaissance figures, and the Renaissance was centered in Northern Italy, originating among the [Germanic] elite. So the point was that the culture within which Botticelli’s Venus was painted was effectively a Germanic culture, not a Roman-Italian or a post-Rome Southern Italian one. Italian is not incompatible with Germanic.

"What prestigious journal would be willing to publish data about breast size distribution in Europe?" -Erik

Exactly. What idiot would publish something about breast size distribution in Europe? Oh wait I know one!
You're right Erik, no presitgous journal would publish anything remotley similar to what you publish on your website. Thank you for admitting that your website is pseudo-scientific racist and biased crap that no one respectable will take seriously.

Why do I keep coming back to this website?
You're right. It is a waste of my time to read anything on this website. I am only polluting my mind with the crap written on it and I will not return anymore since it is useless to argue with someone like you. You are an individual that has some issues. You believe that you can identify what is most desirable in women but fail to understand that nature identifies what is most desirable in anything. Not you! Remember, it does not take someone with a high IQ to realize what is attractive or not. It is our nature, our instinct, to be attracted to certain characteristics in another individual. I am not saying that the study of attractiveness is extremely absurd, however, I am saying that your studies are absurd. You have not proven to anyone that the women YOU consider attractive are for the most part universally attractive because most straight/heterosexual men do NOT prefer the women you post as attractive on this website whether they are more "feminine" or not. In the end sexual selection will determine what "attractive" women will look like in the future. Explaining to men what is attractive or not isn't necessary.

I am a malicious individual. However, you fail to understand that you as well are a malicious individual. No one has arguments that are 100% accurate, yet I fail to see you admit that some of your ideas are bogus anywhere on this website. Perhaps I would take an individual who realizes he has faults and is not always 100% correct more seriously because an individual like that is interested in evolving and not staying in the same place trying to prove the same thing that is most likely incorrect. The most polished arguments are only those that have constantly been challenged and altered for the better. However, you fail to evolve. You are stuck in your ways and although you claim you are open to criticism you are not. You consistently either re-explain yourself (which is fine) or argue with any individual that disagrees with anything on this website. You claim you value feedback, however, you do not use that feedback as a tool in realizing what might be wrong with your reasoning. This is not to say that any feedback should change your view on something, only that certain critical feedback is valid and you do not take that into account. Instead you continue to argue when your argument has clearly lost its credibility.

A question for you Erik?
Why do you refer to me as a statistician? I have never referred to myself as one. Is this your attempt at sarcasm? I realize that my arguments "push the wrong buttons" Perhaps this is because I have a point?

Thanks for your time Erik. I hope that you realize that you should probably re-evaluate yourself a bit. I do not understand what could have caused you to become the way you are. However, life is about constantly re-inventing ourselves for the better. I think that this website does have good qualities. I agree that eating disorders should be taken seriously and that young women should not look to fashion models as role models. Unfortunatley there are few good role models out there for young women these days. I certainly would not want my daughter to look up to fashion models, glamour models, or most actresses these days. You are obviously an extremely intelligent individual. If you were not I would have never taken a second look at this website. I wish that people like you would forget their prejudices and put their intelligence to something beneficial.

Dude you are... So no prestigious journal would publish anything remotely similar to what I publish at this site? Funny, a lot of what I publish here is taken from science journals, many prestigious. Here is an example of an article that is directly relevant to this site; note the author of the article. Your allegations of pseudo-science, racism and biased crap remain allegations.

You said that I believe that I can identify what is most desirable in women. This is poorly summed. What I can do and have been doing is to identify physical features that most people find desirable in women, illustrate these features, discuss alternative preferences and the reasons underlying the preferences. You said that ‘It is our nature, our instinct, to be attracted to certain characteristics in another individual.’ What have I been doing if not documenting what these characteristics are using the best possible sources that exist?

You have acknowledged your malice, but you have little choice since I have listed numerous examples of it, but where is your justification for my being malicious? I have never said that I am 100% correct or faultless. How can I even begin to admit that some of my ideas are bogus unless you identify them and preferably justify why they are bogus? Yes, arguments that have been altered after challenges are more polished, but you have failed to identify a single example of criticism leveled at my arguments that has undermined my arguments yet I have not altered my arguments. I suppose you could point to comments that I haven’t replied to, but I have limited time, and unreplied comments do not imply that the criticism is valid, and if you point out such comments, I will make it a priority to reply to them soon rather than at my convenience. On the other hand, I have used the feedback I have received to make my arguments clearer and more comprehensive.

I have called you a great statistician because your method of statistical inference – in reference to the breast size distribution issue – is the hallmark of a great statistician.

Thank you for the compliment. I don’t believe that my work is completely non-beneficial. This site has greatly pleased many and also strongly displeased some. This is consistent with doing noteworthy work though not proof of it. Beneficial work is not necessarily something that pleases all.

I should like to point out that: (1) The cited article is E. Holland's ONLY publication in a peer-reviewed academic journal; (2) it is not an original research article, it is a critical review of another author's work; (3) it is published in a journal with a relatively low impact factor (around 0.5). This means that it is not a very prestigious journal and generally publishes articles of limited importance.

If your many ideas really do stand up to scientific scrutiny, why not publish more of them in academic journals?

Dude, you're a moron.

MarxEngland: This is a response to your 3 points and your question. First, the cited article is not my only publication in a peer-reviewed academic journal; here is another one, though not related to this site. There are others on their way.

Second, the cited article is an original research article. The website of the journal offers a free preview of the first page of the article, and “Original Article” is clearly stated on top of the page. The cited article is not a critical review of another author’s work because Marquardt has never published the validity of his mask in a scientific journal and hence there is no scientific work of his that I am addressing. Some people have published some journal articles on the validity of Marquardt’s mask, and I do address them in my paper, but my work is original. In addition, criticism of some claims do not prevent the criticism from being classified as original research work.

Third, low impact factor of a journal is not the primary criterion of an article’s quality or its importance. If you look at funding, medical research is funded many times all science research combined. The gap is especially stark when pure science, i.e., scientific research not aimed at any applications, is concerned. Therefore, medical research will generally be more high profile and cited in all sorts of places, hence having a high impact factor. The journal I published my article in addresses aesthetic plastic surgeries, which do not concern themselves with medical problems. So the articles in this journal will generally not be addressing high profile issues in medical practice. Aesthetic plastic surgeries are a subset of plastic surgeries, and one of the articles that I have argued against (by Bashour) in my paper was published in a plastic surgery journal having a higher impact factor, which is simply due to the fact that plastic surgeries generally address structural/functional medical problems, not merely aesthetic problems. But, the key to deciding whose article is superior, Bashour’s or mine, does not lie in the impact factor of the journal that has published it, but in the evidence cited in the article. Bashour uses Euclidean morphometrics, the old way to compare shapes, but this approach does not take into account the geometric configuration of the landmarks of the shapes, whereas I have used geometric morphometrics, and cited plenty of literature addressing its superiority. Aesthetics is a low profile research topic compared to medical issues and application-oriented science, and hence, if an article on aesthetics is of low importance in comparison to peer-reviewed journal articles in general, it does not mean that it is of low importance within its own domain.

Last, the answer to your question is that more publications are on their way. Some of the ideas within this website are politically incorrect and would be difficult to publish in a peer-reviewed journal at present, an example of which is assigning the responsibility for the very thin ideal among female high-fashion models upon male homosexual fashion designers. You cannot tell me that this difficulty has anything to do with the validity of this notion because this notion is indisputable. The reader has the option, on many pages of this website, to try and dispute this notion, and is more than welcome to try. Politically incorrect arguments, as arguments in general, should be judged based on the evidence cited rather than the inability to get them published somewhere. The politically incorrect ideas within this site will approach common knowledge at some point. More and more people are surfing the internet and realizing that there is a whole world out there that their newspapers, magazines, TV shows and books obtained from mainstream publishers pretend doesn’t exist. So eventually, I or maybe someone else could get some of the politically incorrect ideas within this site published in peer-reviewed science journals.

Being politically incorrect does not validate an opinion a priori. However, a reader can garner a great deal of insight into the mind of the author based on his defense of his opinion. Anyone who claims that his position is "indisputable" or that it will become "common knowledge" when he overcomes the conspiracy to silence him establishes all that a reader needs to know about the mind behind the opinion.

Jay Brophy: Obviously, political incorrectness does not make an opinion or argument valid, but neither does difficulty in getting it published in mainstream or ‘respectable’ sources make an argument invalid. The conviction of an author who argues that a specific idea of his is indisputable could be based on delusion or the simple fact that he is right. Hence, a strong conviction does not offer any insight into the mind of the claimant. You and others have the opportunity to argue that I am wrong. Also, I haven’t mentioned a conspiracy to silence me. Some people examining some of the core issues addressed within this site have come across this site, have realized the error of their thinking but pretend that this site doesn’t exist. We shall see how long they can keep their pretense or continue to defend their hypotheses.