Tuesday, June 21, 2011

In praise of slender women

Susan Walsh compares pictures of two Miss Californias who became Miss USAs, separated by nearly 50 years, and wonders if men genuinely prefer the more slender variety:
Putting aside the question of natural assets, today’s rexy winner appears to be in starvation mode, a la Angelina Jolie. What the hell happened? What does this evolution (devolution?) in beauty standards mean? Is it part of the erasure of traditional gender identity? Beauty pageants are won and lost based on male preferences – does this say something about what males find desirable?

“Forget about the .7 waist-to-hip ratio! I want stick insect arms! Man, I love a woman who doesn’t fill out a dress!”

I don’t get it. Please enlighten me if you can.
The answer boils down to the triple A. Age, Angles, and Asses. Both women pictured in Susan's post are extremely attractive, but whereas Miss USA 1962 has lusher curves, Miss USA looks younger, has more sculpted cheekbones, and, although we can't see from the pictures provided, almost certainly has shapelier legs and a prettier posterior.

What happened was breast implants. Breast implants allow a woman to maintain a higher state of fitness and to be healthy/slender rather than skinny/fat while still filling out a bikini in the right places. You can imagine Miss USA 2011 running along the beach or biking hard while it's hard to imagine Miss USA 1962 doing anything more strenuous than cowgirl. Slender women also tend to age much more gracefully, as they tend not to gradually transform into sexless, bulging pear-shaped figures. And finally, when a woman is slender, it creates an illusion of height, which both sexes tend to find attractive.

Although I prefer blondes and Nordic features, I happen to find 2011 to be more attractive than 1962. But men appreciate a much broader range of beauty than most women tend to credit, and their personal preferences also tend to vary more widely than women's. After returning home the night I met Spacebunny, I told my roommate, who historically favored short, dark-haired girls with serious curves, about how I had met a pretty blonde girl with high cheekbones, grey-blue eyes, and hips like a snake.

"Perfect for you," he said. "Sounds like a boy."

So, male mileage varies. In any event, the answer is that while men's personal preferences vary, there is probably general bias towards slender women, as they are perceived as higher status, less common, and more desirable.

43 comments:

Stingray said...

Since you brought up implants, what the deal with mens preference with these? Obviously, they enhance beauty but what about how they feel? Gentlemen, what do you prefer, implants, natural or indifferent (as it is the way they look that matters)?

Social Justice NPC Anti-Paladin™ said...

You overlooked that Gay men and Woman now judge the Miss USA Pageant.
http://www.missuniverse.com/missusa/members/judges/2011

VD said...

Penn Jillette and Lil John are gay? Considering the latter, I'm astounded Miss USA 2011 isn't a tattooed black woman with a giant badonkadonk.

Anonymous said...

1962 was way better in my view.

I like slender women as much as the next man but I don't find the skin stretched over a skeleton attractive at all.

Most men like curves in their women. However the fashion world and beauty contests are run by gay men and women so that's why most models are stick thin and typical have smaller breasts than most men would prefer.

sconzey said...

Sorry Vox, but I'm going to call on 1962 too.

2011's arms are twigs that look like they might break in a strong breeze, and the inch-and-a-half between her ribcage and her dress strap kills the attraction for me.

sconzey said...

Incidentally, Penn Jillette is married (to a woman).

Juhana said...

That fine vintage 1962 all the way (exception made for a more slender Brigette Bardot).

Real men prefer curves! Better, actually, to be chubby than scrawny.

Personal taste, obviously. I've learned to never criticize a man's taste in food, music, or women. Makes as much sense as criticizing one's favorite color.

NateM said...

Could the preference be based on the fact that the seperation between thin, and fat is becoming wider? Seems with more women on the heftier side, guys just err on the side of caution and go for thin women because as you said, they are less likely to put on significant weight with age, whereas 'big boned' or even average women can put on weight at an impressive clip. As much as I do like women with curves I can admit thin and petite women have good genes. As for your comment on lil jon, it's a well known fact that black men find white women better than, especially the slender ones portrayed mostly in popular culture. Sure they often are seen with larger ones, but from what i've gathered from black friends, they figure even average white women are better than more attractive black women

indyguy77@work said...

@ Stingray: I'm more attracted to a form that looks natural. Slim chicks shouldn't be packing DDs. If they do so naturally, great.

But as I always say: anyone looking at a pre-surgery Pam Anderson (her 1st Playboy shoot) and whining about her natural boobs needs to be beaten with a large stick.

stg58 said...

I have to go with 1962 Miss USA. I like her better because she is closer to the woman I picked in real life, minus the hair.

Anonymous said...

I think there's a difference between slender and scrawny. I personally prefer women with a dancer's or gymnasts physique. They're slim, maybe even skinny, but they also have a lot of toned muscle at their demand. You couldn't call them scrawny.

If men prefer slender women, then skin-and-bones starvation skinny might be the only way for women with wide hips to compete with women who have naturally narrow hips.

Difster said...

I'll take 1962 also. Stick thin just isn't as appealing.

lckychrmsrr said...

The pics are cherry picked. Look up some pics on google of 2011 vs 1962. 2011 isn't nearly as "skeletal" as she appears in that one picture. I'm with Vox on a preference for skinny. I'd take 2011 in a minute. She's a solid 9-10. Miss 1962...a 6...maybe.

Personal preference is king though. However, I refuse to bow down to the "big is beautiful" slogan tossed around to justify the existence of land whales (not that 1962 is one). Compare the universally accepted markers of attractiveness: 0.7 hip-waist, large eyes, high cheekbones, symmetrical features. There's a reason she won.

Markku said...

1962, no question about it.

Anonymous said...

Best comment at SW's site: "Gun to my head, I choose Miss 1962. Gun in my hand, I choose both."

JCclimber said...

Ms Chabot still looks pretty decent in her real estate agent website picture. Now that she is 65 years old. I don't like the chubby cheeks that she has, but the 2011 model doesn't seem to have ANY ass, at least in the google images I saw. Or maybe that's because they always show her face and chest rather than the important area.

Also, Penn may be married, but he's still at least 50% gay in my book. And the Miss USA judges are weighing in on the winners of all the minor contests, which are often dictated by betas and gays and women.

Mike M. said...

I prefer the new model...but I think we're in the area where personal taste enters the equation. One man's 9 is another man's 10, and vice-versa.

King A said...

Pornography and glamor are essentially homosexual industries.

From an eye-opening essay:

The supply and demand for pornography, after all, is overwhelmingly from men to men. And pornography assumes (and then demands) of women a sex drive that used to be associated only with men. (Unlike women, the joke goes, men don't need a reason for sex, they just need a place.) As the porn star Annabel Chong said in Harper's magazine of her World's Biggest Gang Bang, "It's a very homoerotic thing.... I'm just there to guarantee the heterosexuality of it all." ... All pornography is ultimately homosexual.

http://www.orthodoxytoday.org/articles5/SchuchardtHefner.php

In other words, the "slender," toned, and muscle-defined 2011 model -- by virtue of her masculine qualities -- telegraphs her mannish readiness for easy sex. The 1962 model's feminine softness and pronounced waist-hip shape telegraphs fertility. Both are attractive depending on what one is looking for. In 2011 we are unconsciously looking for same-sex impulses that have been redefined into evo-psych ideas of "health" which in turn are called beauty.

But any man looking appreciatively at that stick figure is not responding to her feminine qualities. They are trending bisexual, with a huge assist from the anti-man culture.

----------------
On an unrelated note, I deeply appreciate this website's mission to broaden the anti-feminism of Roissy without falling into the trap of his nihilism, small-minded Dionysianism, and self-slavery.

And yet ... the contrived gamma, sigma, lambda lambda lambda argot should be dispensed with pronto. Apart from all the question-begging involved in its invention, you can't contrive a Klingon language having nothing to do with reality on the ground. The alpha-beta-omega slang developed organically from the ground up and is perfectly serviceable.

Dex said...

Maybe the straight judges just weren't hungry.
http://www.bakadesuyo.com/do-poor-and-hungry-men-prefer-heavier-women-d

rycamor said...

I would probably agree with Mr. gun-to-the-head/gun-in-the-hand. I can appreciate both extremes of figure, but not much outside those extremes. 1962's face does look a whole lot more feminine and agreeable, but I don't think that is a question of body fat.

My favorite type is athletic, but not the gaunt distance-runner type; some muscle, some curves, nice hip/waist ratio, legs with a bit of muscular cut.

And I don't favor implants. Call me a romanticized gamma, but I want flesh and blood, even if small.

SarahsDaughter said...

"Slender women also tend to age much more gracefully, as they tend not to gradually transform into sexless, bulging pear-shaped figures" - VD

Pear-shaped figures are only one body type, an hour glass figure does not transform into a pear shape, it transforms to a "two" or "three-hour glass" figure. An apple becomes a great big apple.

Slender women will age gracefully if they maintain a rigorous skin care regimen. Their low BMI will be a detriment as the elasticity in their skin dissipates and wrinkles overwhelm their once sculpted facial features. Look at Dr. Laura, no amount of cosmetic surgery can help her neck - dead give away of her age. In contrast, it's hard to guess based on her wrinkles (or lack there of) that Valerie Bertinelli is 51.

Kyle said...

I have mixed feelings. I like girls with about the same level of meat on their bones as Ms. 1962 on a purely attraction-based level. However, as others have mentioned, they tend to get chubbier with age.

I would much rather marry a slender girl who is more likely to stay thin. I don't really care about breast size anyway. Larger is nice, but sags with time. And small breasts beat the fakeness of implants and the inevitable medical consequences and costs that come with them. Really, I'd echo what others have said about fit, athletic girls looking the best.

However, I can't stand bony faces. This is really important to me. I like girls with soft, round facial features. Probably why I enjoy Japan - slender but soft-faced girls exist in abundance.

rycamor said...

In the epic words of Arnold in Total Recall:

Recall technician: "How do you like your women? Blonde? Brunette? Redhead?"
Quaid: "Brunette."
Technician: "Slim? Athletic? Voluptuous?"
Quaid: "Athletic."
Technician: "Demure? Aggressive? Sleazy? Be honest."
"Sleazy... Demure."
Technician: (aside) "Boy, is he gonna have a wild time."

VD said...

the contrived gamma, sigma, lambda lambda lambda argot should be dispensed with pronto. Apart from all the question-begging involved in its invention, you can't contrive a Klingon language having nothing to do with reality on the ground. The alpha-beta-omega slang developed organically from the ground up and is perfectly serviceable.

You have it backward. The organic two/three category system is not supported by the sexual statistics even though it is solely based on sexual status. Despite being more broadly based, my more graduated system is more closely aligned with observed sexual behavior, which is why I developed it in the first place. You have also apparently failed to understand that the one is a sexual hierarchy and the other is a socio-sexual one.

LP2021 Bank of LP Work in Progress said...

Both pics are beautiful. It is always great to find that others celebrate thinness and beauty.

Stingray said...

LP,

Not everyone celebrates thinness and beauty, but everyone knows that it is most certainly the ideal. Even the most staunch feminazi knows this. That's why they rail against it so fervently. It is easier for them to try to redefine the ideal that it is to put down the doughnut and hit the gym. I just can't believe they actually got some men to buy into it.

Anonymous said...

You'd really have to compare Miss USA 1962 to other 1962 contestants. Maybe the winner was one of the skinnier ones.

Also, this whole think about "why do men like skinny women" thing strikes me as whiny, self-indulgent "I want it all" stuff. As in "I want to eat whatever I like and men should have to think I'm sexy anyway."

IOW, in the minds of some women, if women have to work to make themselves attractive, it's men's fault.

Having said all that, 1962 Miss USA is plenty attractive for any man with a pulse. It's just that slender women are even more attractive.

Crowhill

Double E said...

There is a difference between skinny/slender and bony. I can't stand bony. Compare this miss USA to somebody like Megan Fox, prime Carmen Electra, or the girl from Bodyrock.tv. All of them are equally as slender, but are not bony, they are in shape. Fitness models like you see in bowflex commercials and stuff. Although I would choose shapely with a few extra pounds (Kim Kardashian) over bony-skinny (Miss USA)

Espion said...

Quick fact check.
http://www.missuniverse.com/missusa/contestant_profiles/past
Scroll down, and near the bottom you will see Macel Wilson was in fact Miss USA 1962

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miss_USA_1962
I looked up Miss universe and couldn't find Amedee Chabot, but I did find her on Miss World for 1962, as the U.S. contestant.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miss_World_1962

Chabot was not in fact Miss USA 1962, but represented the US in Miss World in 1962.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_representatives_at_Miss_World

http://missnzl.blog.com/files/2010/01/world_1962-group3.jpg

Second from the right on the top row.

wombatty said...

Speaking for myself, I have a 'thing' for tall, lanky women. I don't know - nor do I care - why. They aren't the only women who get my attention, but they top my list.

Not a fan of implants either. I prefer small to medium breasted women anyway, but even so a natural A or B cup beats a C or D implant any day.

LP2021 Bank of LP Work in Progress said...

It's cool Stingray.

I do and always will celebrate thinness whether its mine or others.

Stingray said...

LP,

Sorry. i was not railing against you. I've read enough of your comments to know where you stand. I guess I was making more of a general comment as yours simply got me thinking. Feminist piss me off.

King A said...

Vox replied:

The organic two/three category system is not supported by the sexual statistics even though it is solely based on sexual status. Despite being more broadly based, my more graduated system is more closely aligned with observed sexual behavior, which is why I developed it in the first place. You have also apparently failed to understand that the one is a sexual hierarchy and the other is a socio-sexual one.

Thanks for the response. The alpha-beta-omega argot is faulty as well. It is adopted language from evolutionary pseudo-science that has been misapplied by dilettantes. But it has the virtue of widespread acceptance.

You are a science fiction writer. Your day job is to invent comprehensive systems that could plausibly exist given certain creative assumptions. As an author you have fiat power; in open-source sociology there must be give and take. Absent your invented glossary, no one can intuit precisely what delineates the categories, as they have been wholly invented through your personal observations. Or did you draw off of some supporting studies that we might refer to? Roissy has fallen into this trap as well with his occasional forays into greater- and lesser-betas, etc., which have not been adopted either, despite (or because of?) his laughably quantitative, faux-statistical definitions.

You are onto something by broadening the conversation to male power dynamics (beyond "the seduction community's" giggly groin fixation), but you need a more substantive vehicle to promote your ideas. If you had fiat power, it would be better to use it to banish the lame jargon of "Game" altogether in favor of terms with a philosophical pedigree like vir and virtù and thymos. But the point is, no one has a fiat: we are stuck with proffered suggestions to the evolving lingua franca.

Your terms will not be adopted through repetition and stubbornness but rather through a critical mass of agreement with regard to the terms' utility. Right now they don't seem particularly useful or true-to-life, and you have not made a solid, widely disseminated case.

Which is a real shame and a lost opportunity: these poor chumps seeking "pick up" advice are really seeking guidance on how to recover their manhood in a culture where an abstract and leaderless feminism has infiltrated every pore of the polity. Lead them in the language they speak before asking them to adopt new ways. Your gang blog concept has the best chance to give them what they need, more than anonymous braggarts and Frank T.J. Mackey $5000-seminar hucksters ever could. You are closer to "real social dynamics" than those who have claimed the name.

I'm a fan. Keep the locomotive rolling.

Markku said...

You are a science fiction writer. Your day job is to invent comprehensive systems that could plausibly exist given certain creative assumptions.

He's also a game designer, which means that his job is to reduce real-life diversity into parametrizable objects.

rycamor said...

King A,

Vox's system may not be the epitome of academic sociology, but that's a strength, not a weakness. It is actually useful for assessing a plan of action, not just for dilettantish musing. Interestingly, I find that it is very similar to Paul Fussell's analysis in Class: A Guide Through the American Status System, which is the most useful explanation of the American class system I ever found. Fussell lays it out thusly:

- Top out-of-site: Rothschilds, Mellons, etc... inheritors with a special place in the power system.
- Upper: traditional Old Money, descendants of presidents and revolutionary war heroes (only if the family has stayed Ivy League).
- Upper Middle: general Ivy League, captains of industry, high-powered lawyers, doctors, but most importantly, they grew up with in the right neighborhoods and going to the right schools.
- Middle: most college-educated drones who think that hard work and earnest loyalty and Always Following Procedure will make them winners. Middle management, HR, engineers, etc...
- Lower middle: bank tellers, bookkeepers, secretaries, fast food managers, the low end of college graduates, those with associates degrees or
- High Prole: (some of the happiest people, actually and usually earning more than Middle Class) - Plumbers, carpenters, mechanics, etc... usually owning their own businesses.
- Prole: general working class
- Low Prole: broom-pushers, "sanitation engineers", etc...
- Bottom out-of-site: homeless, drifters

-- and then there is Class X: artists, celebrities, musicians, *successful* entrepreneurs... those who live outside of any one particular class system and need pay no homage to the usual cues. Sigmas, more or less.

Once you understand Fussell's system, it is amazing how well it works at pigeonholing who you are dealing with in just about any situation.

Note that with the class system, it is not only or even mostly about money, as with the male socio-sexual hierarchy it is only tangentially about looks.

Uncle Screwtape said...

King A:

Good work, nephew!

Anonymous said...

Stingray: Here's how it is.

Men have a variation in taste with regard to size. Some like B's and some like up to big double D's. A general medium of admiration is C's

BUT THATS NOT THE IMPORTANT PART.

Those beach ball round fakey fake implants , look fake and like implants and are the least desirable style to choose.

What is best is LIFT. Perkiness. Breasts than lift upwards from the bottom, where they normally sag over time.

My choice : perky B's.

Anonymous said...

Lol, fag.

Seriously mate, I can't fathom anyone who finds the saline bag creature above more attractive than the woman below. You should have your hormones tested.

King A said...

rycamor, I appreciate the response.

I am sure the categories are descriptively useful in the particular, and most particularly within Vox Day's mind. But as a tool for communication with others of unlike mind they are inadequate and distracting.

They sap the vitality of what should be an energetic give-and-take, given the topic. We have to spend too much time translating the codewords inscribed on Vox's tablets rather than relating experiences. Was that an ALPHA move or an Alpha move? I know a guy who is working to transition from Gamma to Delta. Is there a such thing as an Omega Lambda? Wasted time, wasted energy. And too precious for any man with a sense of self to participate in.

To understand this jargon tendency better, and why a sci-fi writer is especially susceptible to it, see Steve Sailer's new essay in Taki Mag:

http://takimag.com/article/the_golden_age_of_white_male_antisocial_media

"Twitter is restricted to 140 characters, a length that us nerdy straight white guys find absurd. How can anybody say anything that is true, new, important, and interesting in 140 characters?"

We white men want to make a Wikipedia out of Twitter. We have a will to complication, categorizing, and shibbolething -- distinguishing ourselves by employing inside baseball.

I understand no amount of argumentation will dislodge what is, in effect, a secret language designed to signify one's loyalty. But this unnecessary burden will help snuff out this website's nascent movement. Not that anyone will notice. You should reconsider this handicap and broaden your audience because the movement is more important than the quirks of its early adopters.

Desert Cat said...

Perhaps this is unintentional, but I wonder if you realize the irony of asking a Sigma to give a damn about the concerns and needs of the collective?

Markku said...

It would appear that Vox's classification is merely a two-dimensional version of the usual classification.

Let X-axis be social success and Y-axis be sexual success. Right/up is higher, left/down is lower. Alphas are in the top right corner. Between the center and top-right are betas. The top extreme of the chart, from left to the alpha-region, consists of sigmas. Deltas take the region at the center. Bottom-right consists of gammas and bottom-left of omegas. Lambdas are irrelevant to the chart since they don't play the same game.

Hence, Vox's categories exhaust all possible combinations of the two values.

Markku said...

Center-left to top-left extremes would obviously be very rare, especially the latter. If this were a chart, color could be used to denote how densely the regions are populated. The greatest density would be at the center, obviously.

The density would probably resemble an ellipse where the major axis goes from bottom-left to top-right.

Waist to Hip Ratio said...

I think that the function of memory loss in obese women is not because of the obesity, it is more a function of poor nutrition and likely high blood sugar levels.

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