"Okay. An odd question. Why should we strive to conform to men's feminine ideals,
and what determines these ideals in the first place? After all, they're not the same in
all societies. Still, now that she's left it off she looks like a human being again."
Janice, from what I've read of recent research, it has been determined that a woman with an hourglass shape and not too much or too little body fat is the most fertile, and has the easiest time having babies, besides. I believe that men are attracted to this look for instinctual reasons they don't really understand consciously--they just know it arouses them!!! So this is all just basically survival-of-our-species stuff.
I think if you look at females in art down through time, extremely skinny women aren't prevalent, and therefore must not have been considered erotic much of the time. Ancient Egypt seems to be an exception!! Historically, big, rounded women have been considered very attractive at times, and are still in some more primitive cultures today. I would suspect this is because in more adverse conditions, these women, as well, survive to reproduce and rear their offspring.
The motivation for women trying to strive to meet men's ideals of female attractiveness is that the women who do, get the very cutest or most affluent guys, and have a lot more fun, I think!!! The odds are that the more attractive a woman is, the more a man is motivated to stay around and support the whole show until children can fend for themselves. So we have very strong biological imperatives to be attractive.
What I'm curious about is how did western culture fall in love with a look in actresses and models that is not only anorexic but looks drug-addicted as well--totally wasted, with huge breast implants!!!
Does this look really turn most of you guys on?? I would love to hear some opinions from men about these issues.
Christine |
