Another reason why BDSM will never gain acceptance in the US

[teknight]

What?

Excuse me, you know those people with the discs inserted in their lips, the people stretching girl's necks out, the guys with scars all over their heads - um YES beauty is a cultural concept, it's probably one of the most so.

She's talking about beauty as a marker for sexual selection, as a sign of health and potentially successful offspring.

 

[Netzach]

Not often enough apparently...see L'Oreal, Lever-Ponds, Chanel and the army of plastic surgeons driving Bentleys through just about every major city in the world. Perhaps "I will often laugh at the pathetic attempt to buy youth," would be a slightly more accurate start to that statement.

I'm talking expressly about the men with a woman half their age on their arm when they are paunchy and troll like. No woman I know thinks Larry King with his blonde ornament thing is a stud.

Dunno what the rest of it has to do with that.

 

[Netzach]

She's talking about beauty as a marker for sexual selection, as a sign of health and potentially successful offspring.

All of these behaviors supposedly highlight this.

I too am a product of "higher education" - fortunately I still manage to understand the colloquial proles.

 

[Netzach]

And why are they bargaining chips? Because the men of that world think they're hot. If they were thought of as nasty they wouldn't be much good as a bargaining chip. Duh.

When your life expectancy is 37 getting hitched at 12 isn't that weird. It's not always a great idea, though (rampant obestetric fistula and complications is one of those things that probably make life expectancy shit-tastic)

We aren't Sierra Leone though, so these motherfuckers should have the full weight of the (culturally specific) law.

 

[teknight]

When your life expectancy is 37 getting hitched at 12 isn't that weird. It's not always a great idea, though (rampant obestetric fistula and complications is one of those things that probably make life expectancy shit-tastic)

We aren't Sierra Leone though, so these motherfuckers should have the full weight of the (culturally specific) law.

Well, there is that, and also they're viewed like chattel....another form of property, hence why they're bargaining chips.
Besides, who said arranged marriages involve good looking wives?

 

[satindesire]

What?

Excuse me, you know those people with the discs inserted in their lips, the people stretching girl's necks out, the guys with scars all over their heads - um YES beauty is a cultural concept, it's probably one of the most so.

So what about this:

"For example, cross-cultural research comparing two isolated Indian tribes in Venezuela and Paraguay to people in three Western cultures demonstrated a remarkable similarity in what is considered beautiful."

I'm not talking about adornments, I'm talking raw physical genetic looks.

 

[Netzach]

So what about this:

"For example, cross-cultural research comparing two isolated Indian tribes in Venezuela and Paraguay to people in three Western cultures demonstrated a remarkable similarity in what is considered beautiful."

I'm not talking about adornments, I'm talking raw physical genetic looks.

Sure there are spatial relationships in faces that people respond to. What's interesting about the mathematical mask that men and women conform to who are considered attractive - is that babies conform to it really well.

My personal hunch is that getting humans to fuck and birth is a cinch, getting us not to throw our offspring off a cliff is the function of all that wide-eyed symmetry and appeal.

Considering that I've met people more attracted to my feet than Angelina Jolie's face, I just feel like the jury is very out on pure reproductive theories of human sexuality.

 

[Stella_Omega]

She's talking about beauty as a marker for sexual selection, as a sign of health and potentially successful offspring.

And I am talking about "potentially healthy offspring" is not necessarily the most important aspect when we pick out a sexual partner.

"For example, cross-cultural research comparing two isolated Indian tribes in Venezuela and Paraguay to people in three Western cultures demonstrated a remarkable similarity in what is considered beautiful."

"remarkable" is a good word. But when we're talking empiricism, we need more than an assurance that the data is "remarkable."

There will be a number of basics. Symmetry is one, of course, since almost all the critters on this planet exhibit bilateral symmetry.

Whatever signifies prosperity for the culture, be it white skin for a group that must work outdoors-- or tanned skin for a group that works indoors, plump or slender physique-- the underlying reasons for those rather different attractions are similar. And hundreds of groups develop standards of beauty that cross signals in hundreds of ways with hundreds of other groups.

The Wodaabe people of Western Africa are incredibly beautiful to my eyes. The men look like women, the women look like children almost. But although their standards happen to set up a pleasant vibration in me-- they don't see themselves in the same way I see them, with the cultural baggage and personal fetishes that I've developed.

And plenty people will find them repugnant for the effeminate look they achieve, or maybe the darkness of their skin or maybe they'll seem too tall as a group. Who knows?

More musing later, I have death of the brainze very suddenly!

 

[satindesire]

Sure there are spatial relationships in faces that people respond to. What's interesting about the mathematical mask that men and women conform to who are considered attractive - is that babies conform to it really well.

Considering that I've met people more attracted to my feet than Angelina Jolie's face, I just feel like the jury is very out on pure reproductive theories of human sexuality.

Your experience is different than mine, but mine isn't less worthy than yours. More women meet more people attracted to their face than their feet. Fetishes aren't widespread, if everyone were more attracted to feet than genitals, we'd have died out ages ago.

 

[Netzach]

Your experience is different than mine, but mine isn't less worthy than yours. More women meet more people attracted to their face than their feet. Fetishes aren't widespread, if everyone were more attracted to feet than genitals, we'd have died out ages ago.

In some parts of the world having a really hairy snatch is a sign of fertility and shaving one's is disgusting. My point is that these things are arbitrary enough there is NO biological justification for the psychopathic sexualized consumer insanity that is American girlhood. We can grow 'em in test tubes now, have been able to for some time, if we're worried about our natural state more of us would be running down dinner than sitting in cars. We do most thing synthetically, including fuck. Hence this board.

 

[satindesire]

In some parts of the world having a really hairy snatch is a sign of fertility and shaving one's is disgusting. My point is that these things are arbitrary enough there is NO biological justification for the psychopathic sexualized consumer insanity that is American girlhood. We can grow 'em in test tubes now, have been able to for some time, if we're worried about our natural state more of us would be running down dinner than sitting in cars. We do most thing synthetically, including fuck. Hence this board.

I guess we'll have to agree to disagree. I don't think that sex and beauty are such separate entities nor do I think that the 'concept' of beauty is nothing more than a modern-day media-driven myth with no basis in science and genetics.

 

[kitten_candy]

......

 

[BiBunny]

Anything I've ever seen suggesting that "beauty" is a cross-cultural concept has been based in symmetry and the golden ratio and all that shiznit. That's got nothing to do with youth, health, or fertility. It's just a bunch of facial measurements.

 

[satindesire]

Anything I've ever seen suggesting that "beauty" is a cross-cultural concept has been based in symmetry and the golden ratio and all that shiznit. That's got nothing to do with youth, health, or fertility. It's just a bunch of facial measurements.

According to the theory, health and fertility are genetically coded to produce those ratios. So it has everything to do with those measurements and that golden ratio. Symmetrical genes are healthy genes, and healthy genes produce attractive people who are in turn, symmetrical on the outside.

 

[BiBunny]

According to the theory, health and fertility are genetically coded to produce those ratios. So it has everything to do with those measurements and that golden ratio. Symmetrical genes are healthy genes, and healthy genes produce attractive people who are in turn, symmetrical on the outside.

Eh. I'm not sure it's that simple. I mean, it may be; I'm not an evolutionary biologist. It just sounds like an oversimplification.

 

[JMohegan]

A few observations, from a biological male, on the criteria that biological males use in seeking out intimate partners.

1 - The notion that the hottest female attainable is the best choice for intimate partner is a notion that most heterosexual males discard by the time they leave adolescence. They discard it because they learn, through experience, that the hottest female in the room is not always the one who can meet the guy's need for emotional support, personal and ethical compatibility, and interesting conversation at dinner.

That doesn't mean he stops caring about physical attractiveness. What it means is that he starts to care about other attributes also. His perception of attractiveness therefore widens, and becomes more complex.

2 - The notion that there is a single standard for physical attractiveness, even among heterosexual males in the same peer group in our own society, is just laughable. Preferences differ, and guys in fact argue about this sort of thing all the time.

3 - Gay men exist. I should think this would be self-evident, but given the claims that sexual attraction in males is rooted in fertility, apparently it needs to be mentioned.

4 - The physical, mental, and emotional needs of men, as individuals, vary. The physical, mental, and emotional needs of individual males vary over time as well. Genetic wiring is part - but only part - of what's going on. I should think that this, too, would be self-evident. But apparently it's not.

 

[teknight]

A few observations, from a biological male, on the criteria that biological males use in seeking out intimate partners.

1 - The notion that the hottest female attainable is the best choice for intimate partner is a notion that most heterosexual males discard by the time they leave adolescence. They discard it because they learn, through experience, that the hottest female in the room is not always the one who can meet the guy's need for emotional support, personal and ethical compatibility, and interesting conversation at dinner.

That doesn't mean he stops caring about physical attractiveness. What it means is that he starts to care about other attributes also. His perception of attractiveness therefore widens, and becomes more complex.

There's some truth to that first paragraph- "beautiful people" don't have to try as hard, so they might turn out shallow. It's probabilistic, however- she might all that and more.

And beauty's but the gateway.

3 - Gay men exist. I should think this would be self-evident, but given the claims that sexual attraction in males is rooted in fertility, apparently it needs to be mentioned.

SD's already addressed this- attractiveness is a sign of health and well being, unless you've got some kink or something's cross-wired (her words).
That doesn't make your preference wrong, but to deny the purpose of attractiveness based solely on a sub group of the population...

4 - The physical, mental, and emotional needs of men, as individuals, vary. The physical, mental, and emotional needs of individual males vary over time as well. Genetic wiring is part - but only part - of what's going on. I should think that this, too, would be self-evident. But apparently it's not.

You're not at odds with her viewpoint...you merely cast a wider canvas for "beauty" than she does.

 

[Stella_Omega]

My question is whether or not "signs of fertility" are as big a factor in sexual desireability as the evopsych crowd claim.

I do not think so.

 

[JMohegan]

You're not at odds with her viewpoint...you merely cast a wider canvas for "beauty" than she does.

But that's precisely my point. The canvas IS wider. Much wider than what she describes.

Male looking at females and seeking a healthy baby-making machine was surely coded in our wiring at some point. But that's not all there is to intimate partner selection or sexual attractiveness. There are powerful cultural forces at work, as well as many other kinds of wiring, and the intricate intersection between culture and wiring, nature and nurture, that defines who we are as individuals.

Speaking of which, re your comment on "beautiful people," it's not just that they might be stereotypically shallow, or bitchy, or high maintenance types. Some are, some aren't - same as everybody! It's also that they may simply be a poor match in terms of sense of humor, religious outlook, etc.

 

[kitten_candy]

.....

 

[JMohegan]

My question is whether or not "signs of fertility" are as big a factor in sexual desireability as the evopsych crowd claim.

I do not think so.

I don't think so either.

For one thing, I think most males throughout time, everywhere, instinctively assume that tits + pre-menopausal cunt = potential momma for a baby.

As criteria for selection go, the perception of fertility is just not all that selective!

 

[teknight]

hmm. i knew throwing christina aguillara in the middle of this fertility / beauty theoritical discussion might be poor timing...

Nice try though. Next time throw harder.

I don't think so either.

For one thing, I think most males throughout time, everywhere, instinctively assume that tits + pre-menopausal cunt = potential momma for a baby.

As criteria for selection go, the perception of fertility is just not all that selective!

You're putting forth 2 minor criteria as the "thing" that defines fertility.

Yes, there are cultural norms that dictate how you date, who's best looking (them there be some hot tattoos, let me tell you, would be one dumb example), there are fetishes, and there's competition, that almost always guarantees that you have to be more than a cock or a pussy ('cause the cock that's also funny will steal your pussy)...
..and yet, damn it, a good looking chick...mmm-mmmmm

 

[JMohegan]

..and yet, damn it, a good looking chick...mmm-mmmmm

There are two types of men who talk like this.

1 - The very young.

2 - The ones who have never actually fucked a "good looking chick."

 

[FungiUg]

There are two types of men who talk like this.

1 - The very young.

2 - The ones who have never actually fucked a "good looking chick."

3 - The ones who still love looking, no matter what the age.

4 - The ones who can't stop counting once they reach two.

Seriously though... I've heard rather old men talk like this too. Of course, I've heard a four year old talk like this too, so I take your point. Men appreciate the female form, and will verbalise it, at all ages.

 

[Stella_Omega]

5 - Straight men.
6 - Lesbians.
7 - Gourmet cannibals.

(that really is a funny webcomic!)