body masculinity

[PheroQuirk]

Why short women with long legs are the most attractive - Telegraph

[phernoob]

How depressing. Thanks.

How many women outside Hollywood are that perfect type?

We should take a poll - height size and body type.

[K24]

@phernoob

How many women outside Hollywood are that perfect type?

It’s only perfect because Hollywood “makes” it perfect.

[xev]

@K24

It’s only perfect because Hollywood “makes” it perfect.

Maybe or maybe not. There is a fair body of evidence that certain characteristics of attractiveness (for example, a certain hip to waist ratio in females, and facial symmetry in both genders) are consistent across cultures.

This is the first time I’ve read the “short with long legs” hypothesis but it doesn’t seem outside the realm of possibility.

I think it is important to keep in mind that we are all more than just the sum of our parts. Both men and women who fall short of physical “ideals” (whether they are biological or cultural) can still be beautiful and attractive. This is not only because there is more to attractiveness than physical looks, but because there is enough variation in our perception of what is attractive. Most men may like shorter women, but a few will like taller ones.

[K24]

I was talking about media brainwashing.

[Butterfly]

Men usually like women a few inches shorter than themselves, and women a man who is a bit taller than they are, that’s what I read somewhere else. So the average man may prefer short women, but a very tall guy would still prefer a tall girl. The upper classes also tend to be taller, so tall people tend to have more opportunities in general.

Also, most people have a couple of the attractive traits and lack others, but most people also just require one or two of the attractive traits. A shortish guy with a very cut body can attract women who like a sixpack and broad shoulders, an overweight, but very curvy girl can be popular with man who like big boobs or round hips and a very tall lanky guy can have succes with women who look at height.

[phernoob]

It seems to me that most men in general tend to prefer larger breasts.

A couple of my marketing classes in colleged focused on print media psychology. We talked about the use of airbrushing to change a womans proportions to catch a mans eye. I forget if they extended womens legs 1/3 or 1/4 more of her total leg length.

Now the expectation is that males and females SHOULD meet these requirements to catch someone.

Yes K24 - media brainwashing. Our whole society is brainwashed!

Its implicit that we all look like movie stars to get anywhere. I can see all the advertisers rubbing their hands together and chuckling with glee!

[PheroQuirk]

@K24

I was talking about media brainwashing.

There is a nine year cycle in church membership, which is basically a cycle in materialism (and I suppose supericiality). I think that cycle just topped.

[Eldros]

@PheroQuirk

There is a nine year cycle in church membership, which is basically a cycle in materialism (and I suppose supericiality). I think that cycle just topped.

What do you mean?

[PheroQuirk]

@Eldros

What do you mean?

our present era is one that elevates appearance above all else when it comes to evaluating the attractiveness of a girl as a mate (rather than short term fling material). my sense is that the media picks up on and amplifies what’s already latent in the social ether - it is not the originating factor (as implied by the phrase ‘media brainwashing’).

it wasn’t always this way, and possibly prevailing values might be on the verge of a swing back.

[ariadne]

@phernoob

How depressing. Thanks.

How many women outside Hollywood are that perfect type?

We should take a poll - height size and body type.

I’m far from perfect as far as Hollywood goes, but I think I’m pretty on the mark as far as what men like (the realistic ones). I’m of fairly average height for a woman (5’5") and similar in build to Scarlett Johansson; curvy with a large chest and wide hips/butt.

One of the things that gets me about the unrealistic expectations of men these days is the focus on large breasts with absolutely no natural hang to them. I’ve personally never been told by a man that my boobs were unacceptably saggy, but I’ve been involved in conversations with male acquaintances where they expressed the opinion that a woman should absolutely always have boobs that point toward the ceiling or she’s kicked out of bed. This seems to be more common as time goes on, and I’m not sure if guys realize that this is almost never attainable outside of surgically.

[Jedi_Nights]

@ariadne

… I’ve personally never been told by a man that my boobs were unacceptably saggy, but I’ve been involved in conversations with male acquaintances where they expressed the opinion that a woman should absolutely always have boobs that point toward the ceiling or she’s kicked out of bed. …

Those men are plastic - superficial - physically oriented. Let them go. Good riddance. If I could apologize for them, I would.

Boob size is irrelevant to those men who realize that they must excel beyond Bronze Age prejudices and maintain a higher state of enlightenment.

The value of a woman has nothing to do with the size and shape of her mammary apparatus, length of her legs or waist to hip ratio.

It is the beauty of her character and the content of her heart that is to be most prized above all.

[BiGGieK]

I have a pot belly and the ladies love it!
:o

K

[Puppet]

and this explains why Jedi has been my best friend for many years now …

stands up and cheers

Hurray for enlightened men!!!

his ltr should realize the prize she has … lol

((drat … and yet why do i still exercise, jog, diet, wear make-up … and pheros … for my own body image in the world … rofl))

[ariadne]

Well, men can say that all they want, and in the long run I’m sure it’s true for most guys. You can’t deny, however, that men are visual creatures and it’s instinctual for them to be that way. A man sizes up a woman’s attractiveness first and foremost, with everything else coming after that. What he chooses to do with his assessment comes down to where his values are, his tastes, etc, but it’s unrealistic to think that even enlightened guys don’t evaluate a woman’s looks before anything else.

[Puppet]

Ariadne, I have to agree with you totally. It is our looks first and foremost.

And our attractiveness or otherwise is dictated by the media at this point in our culture.

our perception of “beauty” has indeed had many changes over the centuries. Unfortunately it is now mostly … plastic and surgically altered.

sighs and sprays “lust after me” LOL

[Daedelus76]

@ariadne

You can’t deny, however, that men are visual creatures and it’s instinctual for them to be that way.

Well, then… perhaps a person that was that concerned could date more blind men.

I think you can take all the stuff you hear about attraction and scientific studies with a grain of salt. With most people being bombarded with years worth of television, how do you find an unbiased test subject? Everything about consumerism is designed to make you feel insecure and to measure yourself by an external, artificial standard. Perhaps its true, but it doesn’t mean its absolutely true, there could be a million other reasons for people to be attracted to a particular thing, other than some kind of intrinsic genetic nature.

[Puppet]

yes indeed. we are brainwashed by commercialism. And you are right .. how could it be any different at this point.

From “this mop will make you a better and happier wife and mother” … to … “this dress/suit will make you happier and more successful” … to … my my so many examples.

Yes we are bombarded … and do need to take everything with the proverbial ‘grain of salt’

[Jedi_Nights]

Okay, this is my take on the situation:

7000 years ago we were hunters and gatherers.
Our diet was meat, fat and maybe a few berries.
Carbohydrates from grain were a later discovery called farming.
Sumeria, Ur, Akkadia, Egypt - haven’t blossomed yet.

The men went out risking life and limb with spears and knives.
If they were lucky, they bagged some animal and returned back to camp triumphant. There the women would tend to the wounded and welcome their providers by providing products of their hands from other kills: T-bone steak, shoes, clothing, and tools of bone. And just maybe a little nooky.

Oh, and the bladder of a large animal was good to carry water on the next hunt. Water from the creek - complete with all those microbes.

Thank goodness for fire. Burnt meat is sterile, resists rotting and is free of worms. You are damned lucky if you live to be 40 years old and have grandchildren!

Glunarq, a great hunter, died from an infected puncture on his foot. Cactus quills penetrated his shoes. He died at 20 years old and his skinny woman with the green eyes and tiny boobs gave him two children. She breast-fed each one for 22 months - an action that helps prevent another pregnancy too soon, provides important immunologic elements to the baby that cannot be synthesized even today and - independent of boob size - big ones don’t produce any more milk than the little ones.

Glunarq loved his skinny green-eyed woman with tiny boobs- with her campfire cough, missing teeth and scratchy voice. She was the delight in his arms and purpose of his life, but now she mourns her fate as her man is gone and he can no longer provide and protect her. She might have to consort with Uglotta, that impatient 28-year-old alpha male. She knows he beats his two women with tiny boobs that provide him good work products, and he favors Miss Big Boobies Never Made a Shoe, because she takes him into the tent as much as he can handle.

One time Uglotta killed a male baby because it appeared to have weaknesses, but it was just a birthmark - perceived as an omen of evil.

Hopefully, Glunarq’s children will be spared. Maybe Glunarq’s woman can find another man to value the products from her hands. A man to stand up to Uglotta and claim her as his. Hopefully Uglotta will not be interested in her at all in her blessing of having tiny boobs.

Maybe she can join the clan of the Ibex. She has hidden the 10 arrows and four shoes she had made for her man. Maybe she can figure out how to present them as a gift to the young Toegnar of the Ibex and he will see her gifts and experience as valuable. She could even give him children.

Lovely times the Bronze Age!
Don’t you wish we could all go back there?

HELL NO! NOT ME! I WOULD HAVE BEEN THE BABY THAT GOT WHACKED!

The point is, our cultural evolution has accelerated so far past our physical evolution.

We have advanced agriculture and no more have use for all 28 feet of intestines. In fact, that much intestinal tract causes health problems in today’s technological society. Eating corn chips, French-fried potatoes and all those tasty sugars and other carbohydrates can make us fat and diabetic. Our bodies are geared for a hunter/gatherer kind of diet.

And yes, we still have alpha male arrogant sociopathic jerks like Uglotta that lust after the heights of power and use women. We even have women that do that!

If there is a God, help us!

We still have the brain of a mammal, yet we can engage the frontal lobes of that mind in such matters as understanding celestial mechanics.

The male radar is no vestigial remnant of the past. It is still fully functional, let me tell you! It is fast in obtaining facial and body recognition of the female and willing to act on it. It is so much faster than the more reasoned assessment of the situation requiring effort from the frontal lobes.

Yet if we men were to turn that radar off, we wouldn’t be able to see anyone, much less you wonderful women with your beautiful existence in our world! And if we men are going to see you, that radar will pick up damn near everything - waist to hip ratio, leg length and breast size. We men have not evolved newer and improved radar. It’s got to be a re-interpretation of the data coming in from this antiquated radar. It will not pick up her character and the content of her heart! We gotta filter it through the frontal lobes but the testosterone on the chemical levels is a drive saying, “Let’s just get nekked and do it!”

I see the quest for the modern man as seeing the woman in a new light and not that of just a sex object - but that does not exclude sexual activity with that beautiful woman creature. And maybe, just maybe, the woman should see the man in a new light, not that of just a $ecurity blanket obtained by her sexual favors.

There needs to be ascension of the minds, ascension of our species, where a man and woman can enter into a new kind of love relationship.

Ah, hell. Maybe I’m just full of s|-|it! This frontal cortex brain activity is too damned hard!

I quit! Let’s just get nekked and do it because I have a penis and you have a vagina and it can be ecstasy for both of us.

Upon second evaluation, no. Not tonight. I have a headache.

[Phya]

@Jedi_Nights

The point is, our cultural evolution has accelerated so far past our physical evolution.

I agree. How many years did it take for our biological systems to develop? Now how many years did it take to make the transition from hunter/gatherer societies to agricultural societies then to our own modern society? Exactly.

We’re definitely going off topic of body masculinity here, but what the hell.

I’m in the middle of an interesting book, A Brief History of Everything by Ken Wilber, and he touches upon this very facet of human development and the relative status men and women had in each society.

@Ken Wilber

As Habermas points out, what separated the first humans from apes and hominids was not an economy or even tools, but rather the invention of the role of the father–what he calls “the familialization of the male.” By participating in both the productive hunt and the reproductive family, the father bridged these two value spheres, and marked off the beginning point of specifically human evolution. Since the pregnant female did not participate in the hunt, this job fell to the male, whether he wanted it or not (mostly not, I would guess). But with the familialization of the male, we would see the beginning of the single, great, enduring, and nightmarish task of all subsequent civilization: the taming of testosterone. Fuck it or kill it, but now in service of the family man. This is very funny, don’t you think?

@Ken Wilber

In foraging societies, the roles of men and women were sharply delineated and sharply separated. Men, indeed, did most of the hunting, and women most of the gathering and child rearing. An astonishing 97 percent of foraging societies follow that rather rigid pattern. But because there were few possessions–the wheel hadn’t even been invented–there was no particular emphasis placed on either the male of female value sphere. Men’s work was men’s work, and women’s work was women’s, and never the twain shall cross–there were very strong taboos about that, especially about menstruating women–but that didn’t seem to be parlayed into any major sort of difference in status.

@Ken Wilber

So foraging eventually gave way to agriculture. You point out that there are two very different types of farming cultures–horticultural and agrarian. Yes, horticultural is based on a hoe or simple digging stick, Agrarian is based on a heavy, animal drawn plow. Sounds like a very small distinction, but you point out how momentous it was.

Quite extraordinary really. A digging stick or simple hoe can be used quite easily by a pregnant woman, and thus mothers were as capable as fathers of doing horticulture. Which they did. In fact, about 80 percent of the foodstuffs in these societies were produced by women (the men still went off and hunted, of course). Small surprise then, that about one-third of these societies have female-only deities, and about one-third of these societies have male-and-female deities, and women’s status in such societies was roughly equal with men’s, although their roles were still, of course, sharply separated.

As I said, about one-third of these societies had female-only deities, particularly the Great Mother in her various guises, and conversely, virtually every known Great Mother society is horticultural. Almost any place you see the Great Mother religion, you know there is a horticultural background. This began roughly around 10,000 BCE, in both the East and West.

@Ken Wilber

Where a digging stick can easily be handled by a pregnant woman, an animal-drawn plow cannot. As Joyce Nielsen and Janet Chafetz have pointed out, those women who attempt to do so suffer significantly higher rates of miscarriage. In other words, it was to a women’s Darwinian advantage not to plow. And thus, with the introduction of the plow, a massive, absolutely massive shift in culture began.

First, virtually all of the foodstuffs were now produced solely by men. Men didn’t want to do this, and they did not “take away” or “oppress” the female work force in order to do so. Both men and women decided that heavy plowing was male work.

Women are not sheep; men are not pigs. This “patriarchy” was a conscious co-creation of men and women in the face of largely brutal circumstances. For the men, this certainly was no day at the beach, and was not nearly as much fun as, gosh, big-game hunting, which men had largely to give up. Furthermore, according to researchers such as Lenski and Chafetz, the men in these “patriarchal” societies had it considerably worse than women, according to any number of objective “life quality” scales, starting with the fact that men alone were conscripted for defense, and the men alone were asked to put life in jeopardy for the State. the idea that the patriarchy was an ole boys club that was nothing but fun, fun, fun for men is based on extremely poor research heavily infected with an intense ideaology.

For what we really learn from these various societies is that wen the sexes are heavily polarized–that is, when their value spheres are sharply divided and compartmentalized–then both sexes suffer horribly.

Which is what happened with the patriarchy? The polarization of the sexes, yes. Agraraian societies have the most highly sexually polarized structure of any known societal type. This was not a male plot, nor a female plot for that matter, but was simply the best that these societies could do under the technological form of their organizations at that time. Thus when men began to virtually the sole producers of foodstuffs, then–no surprise–the deity figures in these cultures switched from female-oriented to almost exclusively male-oriented. Over 90 percent of agrarian societies, whereever they appear, have solely male primary deities.

…And here we briefly touch bases with Marx: Because of the social relations that began to organize themselves around the the basic forces of prodcution–in this case, the plow–men then began to dominate the public sphere of government, education, religion, politics. And women dominated the private sphere of family, hearth, home. This division is often referred to as male production and female reproduction. Agrarian societies began to arise around 4000-2000 BCE, in both East and West, and this was the dominant mode of production until the industrial revolution.

Just as far reaching was the fact that advanced farming craeted a massive surplus in foodstuffs, and this freed a great number of individuals–a great number of males–to pursue tasks other than foodgathering and food-creating, and now on a very large scale. That is, farming technology freed some men from production, but women were still largely tied to reproduction. This allowed a series of highly specialized classes to arise: men that could devote their time, not just to subsistence endeavors, but to extended cultural endeavors. Mathematics was invented, writing was invented, metallurgy–and specialized warfare.

@Ken Wilber

Industrialization, for all its horrors and all of its nightmarish secondary effects, was first and foremost a technological means to secure subsistence not from human muscle working on nature, but from machin power working on nature. As long as agrarian societies demanded physical human labor for subsistence (plowing), those societies inevitably and unavoidably placed a premium on male physicalstrength and mobility. No known agrarian society has anything even vaguely resembling women’s rights.

But within a century of industrialization–which removed the emphasis on male physical strength and replaced it with gender-neutral engines–the women’s movement emerged for the first time in history on any sort of large scale. Mary Wollstonecraft’s Vindication of the Rights of Women was written in 1792; it is the first major feminist treatise anywhere in history.

It is not that all of a sudden, women became smart and strong and determined after a million years of oppression, dupedom, and sheepdom. It is that the social structures had evolved, for the first time in history, to a point that physical strength did not overwhelmingly determine power in culture. Biology was no longer destiny when it came to gender roles. Within a mere few centuries–a blink in evolutionary time–women had acted with lightning speed to secure legal rights to own property, to vote, and to “be their own persons,” that is, to have a property in their own selves.

@Ken Wilber

You often refer to “the dialectic of progress.” Yes, the idea is that every stage of evolution eventually runs into its own inherent limitations, and these may act as triggers for the self-transcending drive. The inherent limitations create a type of turmoil, even chaos, and the system either breaks down (sel-dissolutions) or escapes this chaos by evolving to a higher degree of order (self-transcendence)–so-called order out of chaos. This new and higher order escapes the limitations of its predecessor, but then introduces its own limitations and problems that cannot be solved on its own level. In other words, there is a price to be paid for every evolutionary step forward. Old problems are solved or defused, only to introduce new and sometimes more complex difficulties. But the retrogressive Romantics–whether the ecomasculinists or the ecofeminists–simply take the problems of the subsequent level and compare them with the accomplishments of the previous level, and thus claim everything has gone downhill past their favorite epoch.

Obviously those are mostly excerpt but I tried my best to keep the context intact. Just something I found relevant and you may find it was an interesting read.

@Jedi_Nights

Yet if we men were to turn that radar off, we wouldn’t be able to see anyone, much less you wonderful women with your beautiful existence in our world! And if we men are going to see you, that radar will pick up damn near everything - waist to hip ratio, leg length and breast size. We men have not evolved newer and improved radar. It’s got to be a re-interpretation of the data coming in from this antiquated radar. We gotta filter it through the frontal lobes but the testosterone on the chemical levels is a drive saying, “Let’s just get nekked and do it!”

As far as the actual topic of body shape/proportions, etc..

Like it or not, even if someone is blessed with ‘good genes’, that person needs to exert a modest amount of effort in order to maintain a healthy figure in today’s society, where you don’t have to get up for anything. My mom and dad are both skinny, and I’m probably one of those people with ‘good genes’, but I also work my ass off on my runs and try and avoid junk food, etc..

It shows me that she cares enough about herself to take care of herself mentally and physically, and your body is a good indicator of how healthy you are mentally. A fit body balances a sharp mind and vice versa.

Yes, the mentioned body type in the link is not something you can excercise your way to, but that doesn’t mean your body type is suddenly worthless or unattractive.

I don’t get all riled up about breast size or hip to waist ratio or leg length. But I do notice it, I just happen to use my gut. I look at a girl, and I just know. There are definitely many girls who don’t know how pretty they are or perhaps don’t know how to draw attention to those aspects. I am definitely surprised they don’t get asked out more often.

As with anything, there needs to be a balance. Yes, if you focus on physical attributes too much, then yea, you’re shallow. But OTOH, it’s an essential part of the process, and the process should be accepted as a whole, we can’t just pick and choose the parts of life we want, can we?

@Jedi_Nights

I see the quest for the modern man as seeing the woman in a new light and not that of just a sex object - but that does not exclude sexual activity with that beautiful woman creature. And maybe, just maybe, the woman should see the man in a new light, not that of just a $ecurity blanket obtained by her sexual favors.

There needs to be ascension of the minds, ascension of our species, where a man and woman can enter into a new kind of love relationship.

I agree, but I also think that we need to stop blaming each other, and just start trying to appreciate each other for our respective strengths and weaknesses. There are some ladies that are very interesting, but do not spend enough effort presenting themselves physically.

Others, IMO, present themselves very well physically, but do little to back that up. The plastic girls I know talk only about TV, movies, celebrity gossip, and new thing they want to buy. Booooring. That’s what’s gonna get you treated like a sex object, because there really isn’t any other relationship than sex. I know a girl who would probably feel that she gets treated like a sex object, but as far as I’m concerned, that’s all she really does. She makes money, to make herself look hotter, then goes to clubs, to meet guys. In her off time, she watches DVDs on her laptop. It got boring quick. I understand why guys would want to just duck out if they’re not having sex. There are better things to do with my time.

Same for guys, stop making making money the only thing you do. And stop making money a source of pride. If you don’t carry your self-esteem on the value of your bank account, other people can’t use your wealth, or lack of wealth against you.

It’s not a crazy consipracy. You define yourself. If you don’t want to be a sex object, don’t be. I don’t think Oprah is.