Here at Herd Watching I consider all of human interaction fair game for discussion. This has often included politics and conspiracy craziness as well as activism. Something I talk about less frequently but is well within this purview are beauty standards and what might effect them.
While working on another blog I was looking for some images of Stacey Dash and came up with some super ones. Now Stacy is a seriously hot lady and age hasn’t changed that one bit. Fantastic face, great exotic look and a body that simply doesn’t quit. Good find and I was happy.
As is my habit I wound up looking around the rest of the site I found this images linked from and following the threads. Apparently SOHH is a sort of hip-hop fan site and the forums see a number of discussions about what is or is not “hot”. I was immediately struck by how much different the prevailing tastes in that forum differ from my own. They were going wild over a whole lot of girls that I found, frankly, seriously unattractive.
Why do I bring this up here on Herd Watching? Because it points out something that is often used as a strawman in discussions about beauty. Namely, the idea that somehow the realities of an evolutionary underpinning for many characteristics of what is hot or sexy imply that all males will be looking for clones of a single, idea, female. The wide difference between the tastes of the denizens of SOHH and myself are indicative not of a flaw in the science… but of it’s strength.
Taking an example we see a girl who is typical of many that the guys on SOHH find attractive. Personally? She doesn’t do a thing for me.
- Her ass is, to my eyes, way too big. I mean, I can go with a decent bubble butt… but that? No thanks.
- Her breasts sag.
- Her thighs are larger than I prefer.
- Overall, she is carrying more weight than I prefer.
On the other hand, she fits well within the variability of what the science tells us will be attractive to many men. Her figure probably falls well within the Golden Ratio. Her skins is smooth, her body is symmetrical, her hair is smooth and healthy looking as are her eyes (healthy looking). In those areas where her figure is exaggerated it winds up enhancing her silhouette in respect to typical femininity signs.
In short, while I don’t find her at all attractive, she is not an exception to what the studies tell us is commonly attractive.
In other cases we find some of the folks at SOHH being drawn to women that do not fall within the norms the studies suggest. This is also predicted by theory and is a simple case of fetishization at work. Much of the culture surrounding Hip-Hop is one of fetishes as a value display. Huge jewelry as a sign of wealth, without regard to aesthetics, exaggerated changes to vehicles (there is nothing less practical than huge rims on an SUV) without regard to function and so on. In such an environment something that started from the norm (a rounder ass will make a woman appear to fit the golden ratio better than a flat one) it is not shocking that a fetish for large asses almost to the exclusion of other traits will arise on the fringes and / or for a short time. In much the same way I had a friend who liked big breasts… that’s it. That’s was almost his sole criteria and it led him to be attracted to some truly huge girls.
Such things are to be expected in any population. They don;t in any way shake the foundations of the primary preferences any more than homosexuality somehow shakes the foundations of very real species wide preference for heterosexuality in mate selection.
Anyway, I found it interesting 
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