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Who finds “sexy fashion models” sexy?

This page examines some top-ranked fashion models considered very sexy. For reasons explained shortly, the masculinity-femininity of physical appearance will be the main focus here. Readers not familiar with the subtlety of masculinity-femininity should go through the feminine vs. masculine page before proceeding.

As of October, 2005, Models.com had rank-ordered the top-25 sexy female models, based on prominence and impact factor, as follows: 1) Heidi Klum, 2) Gisele Bundchen, 3) Adriana Lima, 4) Tyra Banks, 5) Karolina Kurkova, 6) Alessandra Ambrosio, 7) Isabeli Fontana, 8) Yamila Diaz-Rahi, 9) Ana Beatriz Barros, 10) Natalia Vodianova, 11) Carolyn Murphy, 12) Naomi Campbell, 13) Noemie Lenoir, 14) Marisa Miller, 15) Fernanda Tavares, 16) Daria Werbowy, 17) Veronica Varekova, 18) Kate Moss, 19) Fernanda Motta, 20) Josie Moran, 21) Angela Lindvall, 22) Bridget Hall, 23) Brenda Costa, 24) Mallory of “MTV Real world” fame and 25) Carla Campbell.

The italicized names are those of women of non-European ancestry and/or women with a substantial non-European component; these women are excluded from the discussion for three major reasons: 1) there is an overlap between feature variation related to ethnicity and feature variation related to masculinization-feminization, and an ethnicity confound will unnecessarily complicate analysis; 2) facial features across different populations can be markedly different, which makes it difficult to compare attractiveness/sex appeal and 3) the non-European ancestry of the women with italicized names is heterogeneous. Mallory of “MTV Real world” fame is clearly an odd inclusion, which results from fame not primarily related to fashion modeling, whereas the other women have been some sort of fashion/lingerie models. Therefore, Mallory is not addressed on this page, but her looks are addressed elsewhere; see the addendum below.

Sexy fashion models ranked by models.com (Oct. 2005)

Some of what follows may not be a pleasant read, but someone needs to say that the emperor has no clothes.

Click the images for larger versions.

1) Heidi Klum

Heidi Klum has a masculine face.

Heidi Klum Heidi Klum Heidi Klum

From left to right: 1) Heidi Klum has breasts that are way out of proportion with the rest of her physique, and it is obvious that they are artifically augmented via breast implants; 2) Heidi Klum’s broad shoulders, male-typical arm length and broad rib cage; 3) Heidi Klum’s sexy backside. More on Ms. Klum in the context of lingerie modeling for Victoria’s Secret.

Heidi Klum Heidi Klum Backside of Heidi Klum

2) Gisele Carolina Nonnenmacher Bündchen

The reader should reflect on who finds the following looks sexy.

Gisele Bundchen Gisele Bundchen

Gisele Bundchen has attempted to surgically make her nose finer, but it has been of limited help in detracting from the appearance of an eunuch. If one were to remove the breast implants, Bundchen’s physique would be more obviously boyish.

Gisele Bundchen

Gisele Bundchen

Backside of Gisele Bundchen

See Gisele in the context of a lingerie model for Victoria’s Secret.

5) Karolina Kurkova

With short hair and no makeup, Karolina Kurkova should not find it difficult to pass herself off as a man.

Karolina Kurkova

Who are the people that find the following physique very sexy?

The sexy physique of Karolina Kurkova

The backside of Karolina Kurkova

See Karolina compared to more feminine women in the context of lingerie modeling for Victoria’s Secret.

6) Alessandra Ambrosio

With high cheekbones, facial narrowing, low-set brows and an angular jawline, the face of Alessandra Ambrosio is unambiguously masculinized.

Alessandra Ambrosio

The natural physique of Alessandra Ambrosio is flat-chested and boyish, although the probable-breast implants/push-up bras/digital editing add an illusion of femininity. More on Ms. Ambrosio here; see also Ms. Ambrosio in the context of lingerie modeling for Victoria’s Secret, a video featuring Ms. Ambrosio and Ms. Ambrosio’s physique minus professional posing and photoediting.

Alessandra Ambrosio

7) Isabeli Fontana

If one were to just observe the face of Isabeli Fontana, one may get the impression that one were looking at a long-haired man with make-up.

Isabeli Fontana Isabeli Fontana

In the picture on the left side below, it appears that Isabeli Fontana has a moustache.

Isabeli Fontana

The pelvic region of Isabeli Fontana does not appear to be manly, but note her broad shoulders and long arms.

Isabeli Fontana

10) Natalia Vodianova

Gucci designer Tom Ford has called Natalia Vodianova the most beautiful girl in the world. Who thinks that a woman who looks like an adolescent boy is the most beautiful girl in the world? Note the more male-typical hairline of Natalia Vodianova; this type of hairline in a young woman suggests but does not guarantee elevated testosterone levels.

Natalia Vodianova

Natalia Vodianova Natalia Vodianova Natalia Vodianova

11) Carolyn Murphy

The face of Carolyn Murphy is clearly masculinized.

Carolyn Murphy Carolyn Murphy

Who find boyish physiques sexy?

Carolyn Murphy

Carolyn Murphy has an abnormally shaped lower leg structure, a mild structural deformity to be more precise, and although this does not pertain to masculinity-femininity, it certainly pertains to sexiness.

Carolyn Murphy

14) Marisa Miller

It is interesting that a woman with the masculine-looking and rugged face of Marisa Miller is a top-ranked swimsuit model.

Marisa Miller Marisa Miller Marisa Miller

Marisa Miller has the most feminine physique that we have encountered so far. However, she has breast implants, somewhat broader shoulders and narrower hips than feminine women (usually not obvious in most pictures of her), and chances are that the prominence of her backside is more dependent on muscles than bone structure compared to typical feminine women. Nevertheless, Marisa Miller’s physique is easily more feminine than most others’ on this page.

Marisa Miller Marisa Miller

16) Daria Werbowy

More on Ms. Werbowy’s backside and a brief video of Ms. Werbowy.

Daria Werbowy Daria Werbowy Daria Werbowy Backside of Daria Werbowy.

17) Veronica Varekova

Veronica Varekova has a masculine face.

Veronica Varekova Veronica Varekova

If one were to search for pictures of Veronica Varekova, one would often come across pictures showing a feminine physique, strangely at odds with the masculinization of her face. However, it turns out that the feminine appearance of her physique has a lot to do with crafty posing and what almost certainly appear to be breast implants. In reality, she has broad shoulders, a masculine torso and her backside is flattened compared to typical feminine women.

Veronica Varekova Veronica Varekova Veronica Varekova

18) Kate Moss

Kate Moss has rugged facial features.

Kate Moss Kate Moss

Kate Moss is reputed to have a waif-like physique. However, as the pictures below reveal, her weight fluctuates depending on dieting and the extent to which she is doing drugs. A slender skeletal body-build in Kate Moss would be at odds with her robust facial skeleton, and careful examination reveals that her skeleton is robust and comprises of broad shoulders, wide hips, large feet, etc. Chances are that if she were to stop doing drugs and eat in accordance with desire, her natural physique would be muscular and border on the overweight with respect to body fat.

Kate Moss Kate Moss Kate Moss Kate Moss Kate Moss Kate Moss

19) Fernanda Motta

Her appearance is intermediate to men and women.

Fernanda Motta Fernanda Motta

20) Josie Maran/Moran

The feminine appearance of Josie Maran/Moran makes her a way-out outlier in this group, and it is remarkable that she is even on this list!

Josie Maran/Moran Josie Maran/Moran

21) Angela Lindvall

The developmental program of Angela Lindvall appears to not have made a clear decision whether it wanted to go in the direction of a male or a female.

Angela Lindvall Angela Lindvall Angela Lindvall

22) Bridget Hall

The uninitiated may find it difficult to believe that she is a high-profile swimsuit and lingerie model.

Bridget Hall Bridget Hall Bridget HallBridget Hall Bridget Hall

Addendum: Needless to add, but there are plenty of other women that have been promoted as sexy by the fashion world, and the looks of these women may also be discussed. Some of these women have been addressed elsewhere within this site: Rachel Hunter and Mallory Snyder (as Sports Illustrated models), Elle MacPherson, Rebecca Romijn and Eva Herzigova. Some people have assumed that the top-25 women not addressed here have been ignored because they disprove the point, but this is not true; see, for example, a discussion of the looks of Ana Beatriz Barros and Adriana Lima in the context of lingerie modeling.

Comment:

In 14 of the 15 women addressed above, masculinization or a relative lack of femininity is readily observed. The question is, who finds the women other than Josie Moran sexy to start with, let alone make a top-25 list?

The conventional understanding of sexy is sexually appealing. Since most people sexually attracted to women are heterosexual men, top-ranked sexy women should strongly sexually appeal to most heterosexual men. A correlate of the sexiness of a woman to a heterosexual man is the ease with which he could obtain sexual favors from her without going through a lengthy courtship process and promising commitment. Women who convey the impression of being easier to bed tend to be somewhat masculinized, as in these somewhat masculinized or less feminine women, but there is an upper limit to the masculinization that leaves a woman still highly desirable, and the masculinization or lack of femininity seen among the top-ranked models above, except Josie Maran, is at odds with what one expects among the top 25. This conclusion is not changed even if we consider that too wide hips, too rounded hips and too large breasts look maternal and thereby less sexy than the more moderate feminine development of these structures associated with young adult nulliparous women.

It has been shown that in the U.S., as well as a number of other Western nations, about 80% of men have neither experienced same-sex attraction nor indulged in homosexual behavior in their lifetimes, men that may be called lifetime-exclusive heterosexuals,(1) but upwards of 95% of men self-identify as heterosexual.(2) It has also been shown that individuals that have voluntarily engaged in homosexual behavior without experiencing same-sex attraction or experienced same-sex attraction without engaging in homosexual behavior are distinguished from lifetime-exclusive heterosexuals with respect to recalled gender-atypical childhood behavior and self-ascribed masculinity-femininity in adulthood, and in the same direction that distinguishes homosexuals from heterosexuals on these two counts, though to a lesser extent.(3) Additionally, taxonomical analyses of the distribution of same-sex and opposite-sex attractions have revealed a dichotomous categorization of the sexual orientations underlying such attractions, and these categories are best summed as heterosexual vs. nonheterosexual; the nonheterosexual group includes self-identified heterosexuals that do not happen to be lifetime-exclusive heterosexuals.(4)

Most men who find the women above, except Josie Moran, to have the sexual appeal necessary to make a top-25 list of sexy women are expected to come from the nonheterosexual category, and most of these men will be self-identified heterosexuals. One should also consider the possibility that some lifetime-exclusive heterosexual men have narrowly escaped nonheterosexuality. For instance, I came across the profile of a man who worked as a hairstylist in New York City. The combination of his looks, his profession, place of residence and self-described heterosexuality appeared to be odd, and it prompted me to read more about him. Whereas I did not encounter any description of him having experienced homosexual interests in the past, he described how he met his first wife. It was love at first sight; he first noticed her from the back, and the very first thing that he described about her was her very small backside. This woman also happened to be tall and very thin, i.e., had the looks of a typical high-fashion model. Therefore, if this man is a lifetime-exclusive heterosexual, chances are that he escaped nonheterosexuality by a narrow margin.

If we lump all men who are not lifetime-exclusive heterosexuals with men who have narrowly escaped nonheterosexuality, this group will still constitute a minority of men, and allowing for a small minority of the other group, the majority group, having a preference for somewhat masculinized women and a number of men belonging to the minority group having a preference for feminine women, the weight of the preferences will at most result in only 3 of the 15 women above making it to a top-25 list of sexy women: Josie Moran; Marisa Miller, helped partly by her breast implants; and Veronica Varekova. As pointed above, the usually feminine-appearing physique of Veronica Varekova is a sleight of photography and what almost certainly appear to be breast implants, i.e., if we restrict ourselves to men who know tricks of photography and are familiar with feminine phenotypes among women, then it is unlikely that Veronica Varekova and Marisa Miller will be in a top-25 list.

The placement of the 15 women above in the top-25 sexy-women list is based on prominence and impact factor. The prominence of these women, with the exception of Josie Moran, clearly results from the homosexual domination of the fashion business, which should be obvious in that many of these women are tied to fashion modeling in some way. It should come as no surprise then that the diverse looks observed in the sexually charged environment of gay pride parades—specifically of eunuchs, male transvestites and male-to-female transsexuals—are recreated by gay fashion designers in lingerie catalogs, select runways and other contexts where sexy female looks are required. Models.com simultaneously maintains a list of top-25 sexy female models and top-50 fashion models, and in October 2005, most of the top-25 sexy female models were nowhere among the top-50 fashion models, undoubtedly because a number of the top-25 sexy female models are more feminine and older than what the male homosexual fashion designers would prefer their models to be. The one notable exception in October 2005 happened to be Daria Werbowy, who was ranked at #16 in the top-25 sexy list, #9 in the 15 women considered above and #1 in the top-50 fashion model list.

The reason why masculinity-femininity of young adult women is focused upon here is because on other counts homosexual fashion designers appear to share the views of most others on what is sexy in such women.

References

  1. Sell, R. L., Wells, J. A., and Wypij, D., The prevalence of homosexual behavior and attraction in the United States, the United Kingdom and France: results of national population-based samples, Arch Sex Behav, 24, 235 (1995).
  2. Laumann, E. O., Gagnon, J. H., Michael, R. T., etc., The social organization of sexuality: sexual practices in the United States, University of Chicago Press, Chicago (1994).
  3. Dunne, M. P., Bailey, J. M., Kirk, K. M., and Martin, N. G., The subtlety of sex-atypicality, Arch Sex Behav, 29, 549 (2000).
  4. Gangestad, S. W., Bailey, J. M., and Martin, N. G., Taxometric analyses of sexual orientation and gender identity, J Pers Soc Psychol, 78, 1109 (2000).

Picture Credits:

Skins.be, Supermodels.nl, Perfect People, Sports illustrated magazine.