>Only ever heard Monica was fat from a couple of youngish women.
Well 'twas all over the place around here: Leno, Letterman, Sat Night Live, and the like.
>I remember
>an Australian study which compared body shapes between girlie magazines (eg
>Penthouse) and women's magazines (eg Cosmo).
I think the key word here is 'body shapes' whereas I think we're talking body *size* I think we should do a survey of these singles ads, don't you? Let's see the numbers on men who prefer 'slim' 'average' 'athletic' 'big' Now, this wouldn't necessarily tell us anything, because my guy friends who do the singles tell me that they put 'slim' in their ads because they want to avoid the Roseanne Barr types.
>The former were full of
>sumptuous voluptuity and the latter full of relative stringbeans - to a
>statistically significant degree, too (so it must be true).
Of course, this is because one type of mag tends to feature 'fashion' and women sporting clothes--well generally, though cosmo makes me wonder sometimes. The designers like just bones to drape their clothes over. Supposedly they fit better and show better on camera. In other words, the pix of women models offset the pix of nearly naked women in ads for perfume and the like.
Also, as a former subscriber to LBO, who's off list right now told me: men like big boobs. As long as they're attached to a 9/10 or less hour glass figure it's cool by them. But put those same big boobs on a gal who's a size 15/16 and she's fat 'kay? (As an aside re boobs and men: I think men have very active fantasy lives and see things that aren't there. Heck my son informed me the other day that the commercial for a sub shop featured girls w/ big ones. When I saw the comercial myself, I noted that the camera shots never went below the neckline. Go figure!)
Oh and do tell me when that study was done, b/c I'm certain that the girls in cosmo are waifier than ever. Xena is considered fat by some you know. Look, as long as we're using anecdotal evidence: I was 5' 5" and 110 in high school and I was told by the buoys that I was fat. And I believed it. I also had a wonderous case of bulemia for a few years: I'd run and exercise for hours to work off anything more than the 600 calorie a day limit I'd imposed on myself. Then there was the anorexia/bulemia cult in high school. Women who'd binge out, drink a lot of beer and expel it later when they got the bed spins. My women college students say it's gotten worse since my day.
>Whatever the
>forces are that destroy women's self-confidence and eating habits, it ain't
>the male sexuality to which mainstream soft-porn is thrown.
Oh, you've got to be kidding. It's at least a contribuing factor. Men are exposed to these images as well. I agree that het men generally like a little meat on their bones, but I just know far too many men who are good friends who prefer slim w/ big boobs to avg w/ big boobs.
but yes, I agree that het women are harsher critiques than het men. Why? Because het men just want to get laid and they can live with a little meat on the bones for the duration. Besides, I'm sure they always like to add to their portfolio of conquests.
>As for criticisms of women's looks, the harshest seems to come from women,
>in my experience (thankfully, they actually seem a lot more forgiving
>concerning men's looks).
Yes, and you know why of course: keep the competition going, see. no self esteem on the part of some women, fewer competitors.
>Both female appearance and their sexual habits
>are criticised in my hearing a lot more by other women.
Yes, true. But while a het guy will get a rise out of a woman he'd think a slut otherwise and probably sleep with her, he wouldn't have a committed relationship with her let alone take her home to mom. There's still that wonderous little game that's played out. See I used to be a cook and spend long hours w/ a bunch of testosterone pumped buoys and I learned a lot. At my going away party just before I went to grad school we went to happy hour at a local Holiday Inn. I'd been well trained to spot the good looking women and point them out to the buoys and I generally wiped up the drool when need be. It was good informal sociologial training, see. As we got drunk that evening we had a deep philosophical discussion about what I call the madonna/whore complex: They told me that, while they are attracted to slutty looking women with big blonde hair and tight jeans, they ultimately wanted a 'sweet and innocent' looking gal who would turn into a slutty animal in the bedroom. Well, the depth of the conversation was strained when one of my pals fell into the pool suffering from whiplash after he'd spotted a gal that literally 'turned his head'
>As for my multiple-choice question; I'd written the post badly. I was
>referring to my theory that most men find most women attractive,
For the purposes of getting laid, yes of course. For the long haul, no.
why on earth do you find so many men marrying younger women, leaving their same age wives for younger women, advertising for women younger than them in the singles ads? You Australians must be light years ahead.
>while most
>women find but some men attractive.
Actually, it's quite the other way around. Women prefer a good sense of humor and test a man on their 'personality' What this means is that women have been socialized to avoid good looking men or at least not mind if he's not conventionally good looking. why? Because women have been raised to recognize that they depend on men for various reasons: money, social status, etc. They tend to choose men on the basis of personality because they believe that this is an indicator of his stability and commitment to the relationship. An attractive man is a dangerous partner: he is more likely to meet women, be attracted to them, and perhaps leave the relationship for this new woman or women. Best to go for the plain man with good job, than the attractive fellow w/ the low status job, too. Or so they think.
>So now I've explained why girls always seemed to like the bad boys back at
>uni. I'm on a roll.
Heh.
Snit, off to apply for funding for my study of the singles ads.