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wiki.cotch.net/index.php/...preferences
I was reading about psychology of human sexual selection. There is an evowiki that pull together some studies and their findings on the subject.
What is very surprising, is that there isn't a strong consensus on why female breast size carries such importance in male psychology. The theories given seem relatively unconvincing.
I was reading about psychology of human sexual selection. There is an evowiki that pull together some studies and their findings on the subject.
What is very surprising, is that there isn't a strong consensus on why female breast size carries such importance in male psychology. The theories given seem relatively unconvincing.
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Unsu...
Re: Human mating strategies and preferences
Fri, January 5, 2007 - 4:42 AMHow about simple fat storage? If there was inadequate food, even a lean woman with larger breasts would have more to live off of than a similarly sized, but smaller breasted, woman. Secondly, it's a handy backup (the fat) if a woman was having children.
life.familyeducation.com/nursi...8.html
Excerpt:
Nutrition experts recommend that breastfeeding women consume 2,700 calories per day. However, recent studies of healthy lactating women in the industrialized world showed their actual intake of food to be approximately 2,200 calories per day while breastfeeding, or about 15 percent less than the recommended value. Most nursing mothers will need to consume at least 2,200 calories per day to provide necessary nutrients and to maintain milk production. At this level of calorie intake, a lactating mother can still expect to lose weight gradually during the course of breastfeeding. This is because the body contributes an additional 500 calories each day from body fat stores to help subsidize lactation. Thus, it is nature's plan to store up extra fat during pregnancy so it will be available to contribute to lactation after delivery. Body fat stores are decreased during breastfeeding, particularly in the thighs and hips.
And prior to that:
Women who require additional nutrition counseling include those who gained less than twenty pounds during pregnancy or who gave birth to a baby weighing less than six pounds at term. Other women who should receive special dietary advice include those who are underweight with little body fat;
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There are still women who can look the same physically, being very lean, and have radically different breast sizes (without surgery, LOL). So that even if one were skinny and had larger breasts, it's fat stored. Fat = energy, necessary for pregnancy and nursing. Sort of like camel's humps and water. To be used when necessary.
Thinking of seasonal foods, times of abundance and famine, it would make perfect sense to choose the one that was able to store extra fat naturally so that reproduction has a higher success rate. It makes sense to me. Make sense to you? -
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Re: Human mating strategies and preferences
Sat, January 6, 2007 - 5:13 PMnot sure what to make of it, but morris said in "the naked ape" that he felt cleavage imitated the rump, and lips (accented by lipstick) were also selected to be fuller, like an aroused vulva. so it may be that breast size is sexually selected for its magnetic imitation of the rump, but it would be interested to account for the regional differences in selective pressure. (i presume no discussion about rump attraction is necessary!)
also, at a very fundamental level, larger breasts emphasize female/male difference, and this might be more important in a clothed and layered signaling species like human beings. -
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Unsu...
Re: Human mating strategies and preferences
Sun, January 7, 2007 - 4:39 AMYes, Jeff, you're going to have to discuss what the "rump attraction" (insert hysterical laughter here for that phrase) is for me. No, I don't get it. It's a butt. A bum. Buttocks. They have bone and muscles and skin, just like the rest of the body.
My god I'm so naive. I had no clue that giant melon-sized butts were considered attractive by some people. I just thought they were friggin' huge and felt sorry for whomever had them (see any avatar Surfertoes puts up). They seem to look better without clothing, I guess, but they're still huge.
Needless to say, I don't have a butt like that. Otherwise I would have known it was supposedly attractive by people saying so, I guess. There's a fetish for everything. I didn't know there was an armpit fetish. Nope, can't figure that one out either. It's an armpit. It has bone and muscles and skin.
And, no, I'm not having armpit implants or lipo. Ditto for the butt. It's a butt. They're armpits. So, explain the butt thing for me, would ya? And the armpit thing if you get that at all. LOL! -
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Re: Human mating strategies and preferences
Sun, January 7, 2007 - 1:50 PMthe rump is an attractor for mounting a female from behind, and frames the vulva. sorry to be so explicit, but that's basically the deal. also, insofar as it's connected to hips and waist, a larger rump may be an indicator of successful fertility -- at least in places or times without c-sections -- for a species that has a disproportionately large head (so large the skull doesn't even set for years).
it might make more sense for many males to be able to relate to this, though certainly a number of women may as well, since traits aren't provided in neat little a la carte packages by a designer. so your head-scratching could be interpreted as a reasonable confusion, though this doesn't amount to your position being something everyone should share.
where problems arise for men and women both is when men rely overly on physical signals to choose a mate in the modern world. to weigh physical information that heavily (pun intended) is shallow and misguided and archaic, hence the feminist sense that such considerations are caveman-like. a good female mate would be someone you want to hang out with, first and foremost, someone who's caring, and most likely someone who could contribute economically and thrive in the marketplace as well. now, if you can find a mate with those characteristics who also has a figure that appeals to you, then that's great. but even a figure by itself would not accurately predict sensuality -- a better marker would be the maturity of a woman's sense of sexuality and her own development and comfort as a sexual being.
so, yeah, butts and boobs are wonderful, but it takes a dunderhead to over emphasize them, female or male. but to deny the fun of enjoying our more autonomous responses is also rather killjoyish. we can have fun with these dimensions of ourselves without stressing people out so much! the balance between enjoying aspects of each other's bodies and developing a social emotional connection is crucial.
as for armpits? well, they are a primary source of signaling via smell. the smell differently when someone is sexually available or active or nervous. shaving armpits and using deodorant permits a level of control over signalling we wouldn't otherwise have. i personally like natural fur or shaved, and also believe the shaved armpit (falsely) signals a woman being earlier in her fertility lifecycle, i.e. just becoming pubescent, and for the part of a male interested in making as many babies as he could, that would be attractive. same for shaving of the pubic hair, wearing pigtails, etc. a man uninterested sexually in children or adolescents in reality can still respond to these false signals in a playful way. imitating adolescent sexuality in this manner is fairly common.
it's interesting to consider other reasons why armpits got shaved, like body lice. also, there seems to be cultural differences in this interest in imitating adolescent physical traits. i used to hear that women in the US were the only ones who shaved their armpits, but that's either very dated now or was never true. i once tried to do an historical analysis of armpit shaving, but couldn't find any info. i recommend susan brownmiller's "femininity" as an interesting general resource for these topics from a feminist cultural position (not evolutionary). -
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Unsu...
Re: Human mating strategies and preferences
Mon, January 8, 2007 - 5:30 AMActual distance of buttock protrusion isn't as important as width of hips in birthing. But I bet it would be really comfy to sit on one of those big butts. Anyone here have a big butt that can tell me for sure if that's true? It would protect you from the pelvis bottoming out on something, as there'd be all this muscle and fat to sit on. All chairs would be much more comfortable. Huh. I wonder if they have gel inserts for one's ass.
No need to apologize for explaining. If that's what it is, from your point of view or research or whatever, that's what it is. Now I have to be self-conscious about my buttocks as a vulva frame. I'm never bending over again.
I can understand the armpit thing as being there for scent and pheromones. Why would people look at images of armpits for sexual arousal? Or get turned on by statues? It's kinda weird. I suppose, that we are free to enjoy what we enjoy for whatever reason we enjoy it. Some of it may be evolutionary and some is just psychological, but has no basis in evolution. Like fetish wear. Or other costuming things.
It could be said that some fetish wear enhances certain aspects, like putting those breasts and buttocks in display mode (again, like the peacock and his feathers). And who doesn't like a guy in assless chaps? ;-) Oh, or a kilt! HOT! But only if he's really Scottish, no poseurs.
Here's an interesting site. It gathers stuff from other sites.
www.spaceandmotion.com/sex/ev...sex.htm
Now, start viewing the vintage erotica. Has it always been the case that what is deemed "attractive" has ALWAYS been attractive. NO!
Have you ever browsed the b00bs tribe? OMG, yes, there definitely is such a thing as being too big. Way too big. Same with butts. It's cultural, it's specific to a group and a time period. There are no giant boobs or butts here:
www.spaceandmotion.com/erotic-art.htm
And I was definitely born in the wrong time. And I really want to know what's going on with the woman and the goose where there are babies (twins) hatching out of eggs.
So, can it be an evolutionary model if it was NOT considered attractive previously? You just don't see shelf-butts or frightening boobies in Renaissance art. The women have relatively smaller breasts by comparison to the current cultural promotions, as well as having almost flat butts. There's a soft belly, there is a lot of muscle and fat combined to make for a soft, strong woman. Not skinny. Not giant boobs or butt. Note no armpit hair in any of those images.
And that might be a good way for you to investigate armpit hair/shaving. Look to art. If they show a nude, and that nude has head hair and pubic hair and no armpit hair for females, and DOES for males, what's going on there? Maybe it was too hard to sculpt armpit/pubic hair for males and females, like Greek and Roman statuary. But there is still tons of art you can look into in other time frames.
Jeff, if it is an evolutionary preference, I was under the impression that it should hold true for all peoples, throughout time. Am I wrong in that assumption? -
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Re: Human mating strategies and preferences
Wed, January 10, 2007 - 12:10 AM"Actual distance of buttock protrusion isn't as important as width of hips in birthing. But I bet it would be really comfy to sit on one of those big butts."
it may be that it's simply difficult to build wide hips without making a big butt as well. see how adaptationism creeps in? we assume everything has an evolutionary purpose or has been selected for, when maybe it's a developmental constraint, among other things.
"I'm never bending over again. "
sorry to make that more uncomfortable for you. i approach these matters with a respect for the natural. certainly some people can be rude about looking at a woman's rear, but i don't see any harm in enjoying signals of fertility and femininity, if done with respect to the person.
"Why would people look at images of armpits for sexual arousal? Or get turned on by statues? It's kinda weird. "
images of armpits? that is a little weird. i could imagine thinking it was sensual and beautiful, but get aroused? not my style at least. maybe a paraphilia? statues? depends on their realism. i don't know, i just don't see much harm in sexual arousal. so long as we treat others respectfully and it doesn't disturb the person having it, arousal doesn't seem to be a problem to me.
"Jeff, if it is an evolutionary preference, I was under the impression that it should hold true for all peoples, throughout time. Am I wrong in that assumption?"
nature is a very sloppy place. since there's no designer and no purpose, things just don't happen in neat packages. also, humans are unusual creatures and show more behavioral variety than other animals. i don't want to pretend anything's less complex than it really is. beauty standards are a complex interplay of forces, some natural, some political, some historical, some developmental, etc. -
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Unsu...
Re: Human mating strategies and preferences
Wed, January 10, 2007 - 7:24 AMI'm kidding ya know, about never bending over again. And yes, Jeff, I don't think you'd be one of those fellas sitting along the street hollering and whistling at women as they walk by. You're much too dignified and respectful. A very good thing.
Have you read the Buss book lately? I remember examples of the waist to hip ratio, and I remember them talking about "Miss America" and "Playboy"...but those are American things.
It might be easier to balance while carrying children (infants, toddlers) with more muscle mass. That would make a lot of sense. Also if there was more work to be done that required lower body strength. Not trying to turn us women folk into plow horses, but those kinds of things make sense to me. If one were in an isolated area, and HAD to have that lower body strength to climb, lift, carry, the weakest ones would not make for good mates and might not even survive a harsh childhood without that strength. It becomes attractive and desireable because of the benefits and rewards of having a strong mate. -
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Re: Human mating strategies and preferences
Wed, January 10, 2007 - 7:47 AMI have been told that larger breasts interfere with breast feeding. If this is true then would evolution not select for smaller breasts? That is evolution unencumbered by outside influences? yes I realize that the psychological factors discussed by others (indicator of fertility, etc.) play a role in evolutionary processes as well. In short, it is very complicated. I still maintian that in today's society is also a cultural fetish; otherwise, why the emphasis on breast augmentation (implants). -
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This is the maximum depth. Additional responses will not be threaded.Unsu...
Re: Human mating strategies and preferences
Wed, January 10, 2007 - 5:00 PMI think it's a fetish too. There were no breast implants in the history. That's all recent. A lot of these things are solely culturally driven. Someone decides that this is good, and here's someone with bigger this or smaller that, and the next person to come along with a bigger/smaller whatever, gets the attention. The fashion models promote tall and anorexic. Striving for perfection in sports can lead to problems or damage, such as women whose body fat drops to the point of not menstruating. Or the marathon hard core guy who pushes himself so hard that tests seem to show he's had heart attacks...uh something like that, people that would do this ultra marathon into Death Valley. People that abuse drugs or themselves to lose weight to fit in with an ideal, and I have a link for forcing women to gain weight to fit in with that ideal, to the point of torturing your children.
From 2005:
www.pastaqueen.com/halfofme...madn.html
Porn industry promotes opposite of fashion for women. Here is an example: b00bs.tribe.net/ At what point, fellas, does it go from being attractive to grotesque? I went through like the first six pages of their photo album. There were a few "normal" women and the rest was just freakish. There's no way evolution would have provided for that in the common man/woman, in that they are too large to be practical.
We think back to Renaissance, where the standard was to have creamy white skin and to be "overweight" by today's standards. This signified wealth. In that the person did not have to work in the fields and had adequate food. No sun exposure, luxury time. Thin and tan was a sign of workers.
Now, thin and tan is the sign of luxury. In that you have so much leisure time, that you can devote to lying around in the sun, preferably in one of may luxury spots doing luxury things...and thin because you had your choice of foods and did not want to be like the masses (eating junk).
Take it to our current level in this discussion, the boob and butt hugeness is attainable via surgery, if nature has not been so generous. Again a sign of wealth. And those who have those things naturally are actually cheapened by surgery, as it is attainable by anyone with the money. If it is desireable among a certain group to have excessively large somethings, the bigger they are, the greater the status. Status is power. Power is control.
How about statistics on women trying to measure up (pun intended):
commerce.senate.gov/hearings...imony.cfm
I've used that link before, it's on porn addiction (a turn off)...
Excerpts:
Those whose marriages don’t end, may find themselves increasing dissatisfied with their spouses appearance and sexual behavior and increasingly sexually acting out which leads to an increase in sexually transmitted diseases. Research indicates that even non-sex addicts will show brain reactions on PET scans while viewing pornography similar to cocaine addicts looking at images of people taking cocaine. This material is potent, addictive and permanently implanted in the brain.
Some wives will resort to plastic surgery especially breast implants. Research indicates that women who get breast implants are four times as likely to commit suicide as other women are.
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When people (men) decide that extremes are desireable and people (women and men) reinforce those ideas, it can become harmful. It can destroy people and relationships.
I'm always mucking around in my profile and had noticed that some people had "types" in their dating/personal section. So I tried to figure out what guy was my "type". I don't have one. I don't buy into society and advertising. There isn't one kind of guy that I seek. Here ya go...guys I've dated...
Older by about 20 years, younger by about 13. About my height which is 5'4" to 6'7". Men that have a lot of money and status to men who have nothing. Shape? What's it matter? They can be so skinny so they resemble a preying mantis or with lots of weight from fully enjoying what they eat and their motto is "Mangia, mangia". Eat and enjoy and drink and DEVOUR the moment with good food, good wine, good friends. Screw worrying about weight and shape, ENJOY!!! And the muscle men who spend their time working out to look good and unfortunately spend most of their time on a date making sure everyone else recognizes that they look good.
There are the cultural fellows, with whom I was to defer to their opinions on art in galleries (as in, just nod, fawn over the fella, and be an accessory). There were refined guys with itty bitty buttocks. And big bears of men. Beanstalks and dwarves. Quick witted and quick bodied. I do not have to "obey" evolution. I do not need to reproduce as quickly as possible. I have a brain. I am capable of going beyond evolution at this point, and seeing life for what it is, and not buying into someone else's standards.
What say ye? -
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Re: Human mating strategies and preferences
Wed, January 10, 2007 - 5:32 PMThe fashion models and most popular culture promote tall and thin and small breasted. Many of the latest designs cannot even fit properly on those of us who are even a bit more endowed. This is a culture where Jenifer Lopez and her body are considered exotic for goodness sake. I really don't think that culture promotes the kind of body that genes promote to meet up with!
Personally I also think that porn is a bad example/comparison. In pornography women are reduced to their parts and they are not being thought of in a breeding or relationship way at all. Women in porn tend to be exaggerations of certain body parts or fetishes.
In my experience women don't choose their partners based on looks half as much as men do. You often see couples where the women is very beautiful and the man--well not so much. Most assume that its money but it absolutely is not always. And rarely see the opposite-a very good looking man with a homely woman. Women are attracted by many things and I remember a study that said that the most important thing to most women was that he made her laugh.
Interesting to compare these "norms" with homosexual couples and the process of gay couples choosing mates. I have always found it fascinating that so many gay couples fall into or embrace traditional male/female roles etc. -
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Unsu...
Re: Human mating strategies and preferences
Wed, January 10, 2007 - 8:05 PMDid you read the blurb, Amber (of most beautiful back)?
These fellas here are talking boobs and butts. What part of those parts are not parts? LOL! Gents are fixated on body parts. Saying there may be an evolutionary psychological reason that they would be fixated on those parts specificially... looking for a reason to validate a particular preference. I don't see that, considering the vast amounts of information available in historical commentary, as well as the items considered "great works of art."
Even homosexuality was a "luxury" in ancient times. Think about it. It would behoove someone to thwart their own desires in order to procreate. Why? If you needed 50 adults to continue the necessary hunting and gathering, and some were unable to reproduce, even without genetic relations, it would make sense to bring forth children to provide just numbers.
We do not need to reproduce in those terms. We have advances in reproduction and in health and we can adopt. There is no threat for species: human to become extinct. At all.
So rather than coupling with the only local attentive male/female, the numbers of "mates" allows people to explore their own fetishes. It is not critical for everyone to reproduce at age 20. Our life span is longer than 40 y. o.
Any thoughts on this jibber-jabbering of mine? anything making sense? The laughter is a good thought. So is anything that is consistent and internal. Were I to relate to his thoughts and ideas now, it may be indicative of relating to his thoughts and ideas in the future. Which is clear understanding/communication. Which behooves successful child rearing. And long term relationships.
Again, if a woman has a choice of reproducing with one of two men, who is chosen? -
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Re: Human mating strategies and preferences
Wed, January 10, 2007 - 11:40 PMWiki being wiki, sometimes it's wrong.
Anyone who's ever been to Brazil will tell you it's cultural.
Yes, some women there might even get implants (few/upscale/more westernized), but if you look at their mens' mags, "the most beautiful woman in the world", etc., it's all A-cup nubiles. Relatively flat, almost suggesting pre-pubescent is the middle of the bell curve / majority there. Hence, cultural.
PS: another good / new link:
tinyurl.com/yelko4
Doesn't really get into the biochem of it though, mostly just behaviorist. (Those of oyu who already know me, know I'm about to launch into a lecture about the psychologic effects of oxytocin, estrogen, and testosterone...)
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Re: Human mating strategies and preferences
Thu, January 11, 2007 - 9:19 AMa larger question here for me is about the rate of sexual selection vs. natural selection. it seems people are beginning to settle into a position of "if there's variety, then it's 'cultural' and 'historical', i.e. not 'biological'" but this is over-simplistic. if these traits are sexually selected for with variance geographically, that doesn't mean it's not biological, it means it's sexually selected for in varying historical and social circumstances. obviously rump size and breast size varies PHYSICALLY across cultures, so that means a so-called cultural value has been expressed biologically.
"Anyone who's ever been to Brazil will tell you it's cultural."
brazilian woman tend to have larger rumps, which in turn are probably partially inherited from the sexual selection in west africa.
okay, but wait. i've got it wrong. we're really not talking about selective pressures on rumps, but on the preference. hmmm. these things are not reducible to simply formulae. we can't assume the preference is somehow not selected for itself, and that men are "in power" in such a situation. sexual selection is a complex interplay between the signaller and the selector, and just as with dominance and submission, the roles are not as clear upon examination as one would at first believe.
feminists such as myself too often think of what we term "sexual objectification" in terms of women-as-victim, rather than women as empowered to stun men into becoming pre-rational drooling idiots who will do what they are told! hahahha -
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Re:brazilian woman tend to have larger rumps
Thu, January 11, 2007 - 9:32 AMexcuse me, but have you been there? How are you supporting this claim? I didn't notice bigger butts there -- if anything, people there varied across the country, much like here.
What I did notice were the mens' magazines at the newsstands.
I believe the point was preferences and breasts, and I cited the overwhelming (striking, really) tendency for brazilian mens' mags to choose to feature small breasted women, hence cultural preference. -
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Re:brazilian woman tend to have larger rumps
Thu, January 11, 2007 - 10:59 AMi haven't been there, but brazilian women are rather famous for this. my apologies if i was overconfident!
i didn't make any disagreement with your statements about variety in breast size preference or cultural elements. but if something is preferred by enough men to have an impact on reproductive rates, and the preferred trait is at least partially genetically inherited, then over time there will be a greater incidence of the trait. hence the "cultural" may become "biological."
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Re:brazilian woman tend to have larger rumps
Thu, January 11, 2007 - 11:00 AM"I believe the point was preferences and breasts, and I cited the overwhelming (striking, really) tendency for brazilian mens' mags to choose to feature small breasted women, hence cultural preference."
jewel, do you see where i'm going with this? i wasn't disagreeing at all, just saying that the border between cultural and biological is not as rigid as we might presume sometimes. -
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Re:brazilian woman tend to have larger rumps
Thu, January 11, 2007 - 11:09 AMlet me clarify that this also means that we can direct biology via choice. people tend to think that when biology or evolution is invoked, that the point is that biology is written in stone, and men MUST be this way, or women HAVE TO BE that way. this is rightly considered anti-feminist silliness, and just bad science from any ideological position. sexual selection, though a biological genetical phenomenon in many ways, can be affected by changing cultural norms.
i personally got over caring about breast size in choosing a mate years ago, because it is adolescent and the variable just isn't important enough to base any important decisions on. so, if more men understood that, and also learned to enjoy the variety of shapes and sizes and weights that women come in, we would in turn affect biology over time, because any sexually selective pressures for breast size or rump size would diminish in importance, so long as natural selection wasn't invoked (e.g. hips actually too skinny to give birth, and increased failure in pregnancies or c-sections for some reason, etc.). good mates are intelligent, caring, have developed communication skills, are nurturing, and also sexy. only adolescents with underdeveloped prefrontal lobes should be totally driven by shallow physical features that may have had more importance in the EEA than they do now. that being said, i do consider a potential mate's general health.
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Re:brazilian woman tend to have larger rumps
Thu, January 11, 2007 - 1:38 PMI have never been to Brazil but it is my big dream...
I do have friends who live there and know many people who have been there and I've always been "in touch" with the culture, as much as I can learn from abroad etc...specially the music but anyway...
I think I can say that it is known that butts are much more appreciated in Brazil than breasts, generally speaking.
Like Jeff said it might have something to do with African roots.
Talking with Brazilians themselves or people who know the culture I heard many times breasts were not such a turn on for them, the butt was more important...
Now, it would be like saying the French eat escargots, well I am French and I don't, still lots of French do...
What do you think Jewel, isn't that true? that would explain why magazines do not emphasize in breasts cause readers don't care much about them...it seems like...
Story.
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Re: Human mating strategies and preferences
Thu, January 11, 2007 - 11:11 AMthanks for the link, jewel, it looks really good! will read completely later on...
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Re: Human mating strategies and preferences
Thu, January 11, 2007 - 5:38 PM<Did you read the blurb, Amber (of most beautiful back)? >
I did (and thank you though its not me but my beautiful friend who is a beautiful artist).
I did not mean to margenalize your observations at all. I guess I just think that it is silly to entirely discount either primal or currant culture pressures on ourselves. Evolutionary selection effects us and I don't want to discount that.
<Again, if a woman has a choice of reproducing with one of two men, who is chosen? >
I still say the funny one! :)
Although it is not a rule, as you say, very "good" looking people sometimes lack depth of some sort, or they have grown lazy because people treat them differently. -
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Re: Human mating strategies and preferences
Thu, January 11, 2007 - 5:40 PM(oops, well it is my back but here just a canvas for Yhai's art, is what I meant to say)
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Re: Human mating strategies and preferences
Fri, January 12, 2007 - 2:12 AM"I still say the funny one! :) "
reminds me of a line from bjork:
"his wicked sense of humor
suggests exciting sex"
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Re: oops
Thu, January 11, 2007 - 12:38 PMwhy post nevermind instead of nothing? out with it true? this is a safe environment to speak your mind, even tentatively. -
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Unsu...
Re: oops
Thu, January 11, 2007 - 1:59 PMI had made a post, realized it was garbage, then realized I didn't have the delete option like I do on my own tribe, so I hit the back button, but had to leave something in there to have it post over/instead of what I had written before. And it had to be done fast before someone else posted...and there were like four-five? posts between the time I started writing and finished (I tend to not only wander in my postings, but I wander around here too, so I didn't write it all at once).
It wasn't important. Changed my mind.
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compulsive heterosexuality and sexual objectification
Thu, January 11, 2007 - 12:51 PMpeople's bodies exist along a continuum of traits, and women and men are based on the same starting tissue, with testosterone affecting the development of masculine bodies. nature does not speak a language, and so distinctions in nature are not as rigid and discrete as our language for them. and again, when you really really get that there is no designer who made us for purposes, the notion of sex and gender being absolutely neat categories centered around reproduction slips a bit. sure, any genetic trait that doesn't replicate well won't stick around long perhaps, but that's not the same as being designed.
so, in beings that have fudged with estrus so much, have clothes, reproductive technology, contraception, overpopulation... the compulsiveness of rigid sex distinctions is rather forced. the modern typical american male, if he is to line up his emotions, sexuality and bodily responses -- which are rather nebulous -- with a rigid definition of manly heterosexuality, it requires a rather compulsive fixation with aspects of an attractive person that distinguish them as female. the more rigid the self-definition a man has as heterosexual, the most such fixations must exist to shore it up.
so now we have the image of a junkie, a man so enamored with t & a that he must return to such fixations again and again: the enormous breasts that state again and again "she's a woman, i'm not gay, i'm a man, i'm straight." this is not to say that all heterosexual men are like this, nor all men who enjoy looking at sexy pictures of women. i'm not sex-negative or an idiot, and i'm also attracted to women.
one can be heterosexual without being homophobic, certainly, but if one closes down the possibility of homoeroticism and generalized eroticism, then evidence of one's denial bubble up and the effort it takes to prove something that was supposed to be natural becomes rather clear. -
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Re: compulsive heterosexuality and sexual objectification
Fri, January 12, 2007 - 5:49 PMi'm curious what people might be thinking about this post about compulsive heterosexuality (aside from trying to guess my sexual orientation). anyone have any thoughts to share, even if they end up being risky? -
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Unsu...
Re: compulsive heterosexuality and sexual objectification
Fri, January 12, 2007 - 7:24 PMI wasn't thinking about it or your sexual orientation, until you mentioned both. So, I reread your post, three times. Uh, and I don't care what your sexual orientation is.
What about mama fixation? In that the bigger the boobies, the more "nourishment" that is available, if it were a lactating female. Who know, maybe some people have flashbacks to infancy where the only good breast was one the size of your head. That could be safety. Nurturing.
Head off into Freud, mama was first male love object, and she pushed him away. As mama is not going to the prom with son (or at least too often).
It could be that general "bigger is better" phenomenon that seems to exist in this society as a whole. Big cars. Big houses. Big boobs and butts? It's not good enough to be average, when it's a person who derives their sense of self from their possessions and fixations. So they'd want to obsess and obtain the "Look at me" homes, cars, people to increase their own perceived value.
Yes, it could be that they are denying an aspect they are uncomfortable with, and the more they try to suppress, the harder it becomes. But the porn thing also follows the same lines, as does a lot of other addictions. It becomes an obsession. What was originally fulfilling become obsolete when the next level was reached.
Two dollars in the nickel slot machines is fine. But some people go to the DIME machines. LOL! And that's not enough, so the next level, and some people lose their homes from gambling. Their jobs from alcohol or drugs. Their spouses from sex addiction and/or porn.
And when you reach that kind of extreme, can you ever go back to being satisfied with the nickel slots? Or a nice date with a smart person that doesn't involve whatever it was a person got into before? It's progressive. And I think when it reaches an extreme, I don't think there's any going back.
Talked about fixing "bad boys" elsewhere, and they can't be "fixed"...uh, they would have to decide for themselves that whatever it is they are doing is something they don't want to do anymore. I think that's the same with many addictions. And may be why we end up with some of those incredibly extreme examples...when I went into the boobs tribe, my thought was "ewwww, gross". It was abnormal. I didn't take little baby steps going from average to a little bit bigger. And I didn't find the sheer size to be attractive, it was instead repulsive. I think because it didn't look healthy. It looked, well, I said it, abnormal. As in "there's something very wrong with those people". Health wise.
And we have that way of avoiding people that we think are ill. Nobody wants the office cold. "Get away from me, I don't want your cold". I know that giant cancerous tumors aren't contagious. Neither are implants. But I think there's something mentally scary about people that would choose to do that, to that excess. And if it's natural, it would be healthy to have some of it reduced. Like for your back (remember I have back pain and think I should have my head removed to cut back on upper body weight, LOL)
What else...There's a lot of reasons why people would want to suppress various urges of preferences. I think that's handy when people get mad and really want to kill someone and they refrain from doing so. It may place a person in a category they are not ready for, or cannot handle, like with their family, friends, employer, religion, location, etc. Remember that many folks who post live in the Bay Area, and it's not as open elsewhere to experience one's sexuality in all it's many flavours.
Men seem to say they would like to have sex more often, they control that particular urge rather well, so we have no rampant sex orgies while at work or leaping out of the bushes to wrestle down the nearest person. The more I think about something, the more I think about something. Sounds stupid. But it's true. And if I fall into a subject, I think about it, and the more I think, the more I look into it, and the more I get knowledge, which leads to more questions. I reach a saturation point, and I'm done. I think that some people don't reach the point where they're done.
I don't think those are risky things. And I'm too exhausted from things that really are important to worry about a few thoughts.
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Re: compulsive heterosexuality and sexual objectification
Mon, January 15, 2007 - 1:57 PMI had meant to comment on this earlier Jeff.
I think you hit the nail on the head precisely. I don't think this is always a concious kind of thing but I do think it is fairly prevalent. As a women who has shaved my head on more than one occasion, I think I have run up against this head on. Or rather got a glimpse of the more overt emotions associated with it. -
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Re: compulsive heterosexuality and sexual objectification
Mon, January 15, 2007 - 4:16 PMthanks amber, glad to hear that resonated with you!
the tricky part for me is to maintain such insights without being sex negative, to accept the joy of our basic feelings but not be led to displeasing situations by them. there's a time for letting go, and a time for consideration. over-thinking sexuality is a drag and no-fun, but so is not integrating my rational functions with my primal hungers. sometimes you have to just get the forebrain out of the way and enjoy! if arousal is the basic effect of something, could it really be so bad?
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This is the maximum depth. Additional responses will not be threaded.
Re: Human mating strategies and preferences
Wed, January 10, 2007 - 5:19 PMI have not ever heard that larger breasts interfere with breast feeding (unless they are sugically inhanced) , inverted nipples can be problamatic but they are found on breasts of all sizes. Not to get all La Lache League on ya, but where did you hear this?
I think it is more complicated than one or the other when it comes to culture or evolutionary processes. A mix of both when it comes to currant time choosing of a mate.
All rules are meant to be broken, I am considered to be a bit shorter than petite and have no hips or rump and manged to pop one out like a pro! -
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Unsu...
Re: Human mating strategies and preferences
Wed, January 10, 2007 - 6:08 PMIf males are genetically prone to choose wider hips, as one factor, it might originate from one perhaps relatively brief span of time when it REALLY mattered, and has stayed with us ever since... I don't believe all males weight it that heavily. I do a little sometimes, but it's sometimes (for me) hard to distinguish between broadness of hips for their own sake, and the illusion wider hips sometimes project: of a thrusting backwards, and ready to mate posture, which also is not necessarily heavily weighted, but sometimes can be.
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Re: Human mating strategies and preferences
Fri, January 5, 2007 - 6:00 AMMaybe it is a fetish? -
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Re: Human mating strategies and preferences
Fri, January 5, 2007 - 1:11 PMI seems way too common of an attribute to be considered a fetish. Selection would have to be at work here, in my view. -
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Re: Human mating strategies and preferences
Fri, January 5, 2007 - 1:22 PMA cultural fetish? perpetuated as a meme? -
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Re: Human mating strategies and preferences
Fri, January 5, 2007 - 1:47 PMGood point Krampus.
Are there cultures where breast size is not such a big deal?
I know some of the island cultures are all about the rump which would kindof play into Blue's fat storing thing. -
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Unsu...
Re: Human mating strategies and preferences
Fri, January 5, 2007 - 2:54 PMAnd I just bet that where the female breast size matters, the men have in the past enjoyed that as a food source for themselves? Anyway, sure "feels" true, to stcik my neck out just a bit. -
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Re: Human mating strategies and preferences
Fri, January 5, 2007 - 4:21 PMSize and certain *shape* makes a considered and preferred. -
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Re: Human mating strategies and preferences
Fri, January 5, 2007 - 4:23 PMAlso proportionality to body type and shape is a factor. -
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Unsu...
Re: Human mating strategies and preferences
Sat, January 6, 2007 - 1:52 PMhi Jon, that is very true. Certain shapes look good at certain sizes and vice versa, I guess, to me. And is this a good place to mention other feelings too, while maybe embarrassing to myself, might be interesting none the less. I've just been through a maybe not unique ordeal of intimacy deprivation, like maybe 12 years not allowed to get close to people in certain ways, how that was accomplished maybe is neither here nor there. But one of the effects has been an acute awareness of bizarre(?) desires surfacing at various times. It's hard for me to tell whether they are verbally/socially inspired somehow from some experience in life sometime, or if they are true genetic tendencies. But one of the hallmarks of these feelings is that when I first acknowledge them verbally (to myself), I get a wave of relief, like oh that's what that is, and also I am able to ride some new energy or something from it by pretending that I am going to try to satisfy what was perceived as lacking. For instance, cannibalism. For a few days I wanted to eat people. Also, blending into the "forest", wanting to stand absolutely still so as to be invisible, and moving only when I know that no one will notice, sneaking up on people and goings-on, and a big part of this was a desire to call one special safe patch of ground a safe home, and branch out from there, like a cat does. OK, then to get to the breast and body interest thing, When I acknowledged to myself the desire to impregnate women, it was first an idea embraced, experimentally, but then it took the form of a coherent sensation, noticing their fat, on hips and breasts and thighs, (maybe lots of it, but not flab!) and feeling like it was my food, and it was then that I was conscious of wanting to carve into the woman's life energy, and I stepped back and figured I was actually thinking for the future child, but in a selfish way, like it was really mine to acquire, and actually the future child didn't really enter my mind at all until I wondered why I was seeing these strangers' life force like my marble slab to bite into or wield or something (if I could make it past first base, I guess), actually more like a food feeling. In this state there was no thought of suckling, it was more like: there in front of me is a nice vibrant and valuable and even naive package of life energy if I could only grab it, and carve into it for my own purposes. Well, anyway, this was longer and even more revealing than I wanted. But we build ideas up, right? -
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This is the maximum depth. Additional responses will not be threaded.Unsu...
Re: Human mating strategies and preferences
Sat, January 6, 2007 - 1:56 PMAnd lower belly seems important, and back and inside of upper thighs? I'm trying to dissect a sort of total sensation, not easy. And still not concluding that it's genetic, but it probably is somehow. Sorry if I went on too long or was too graphic.
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Re: Human mating strategies and preferences
Fri, January 5, 2007 - 4:22 PMI believe it's cross cultural and historic. I'll look for references to back this up.
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Crypto-oestrus and the human breast as deception facilitator
Sun, January 21, 2007 - 4:22 AMHuman females who were best able to obscure oestrus lent to inclusive fitness for themselves and their progeny. Further, perpetually-engorged breasts are mechanisms which facilitate deception in the case of polyamory. In the old EEA, these benefits seem patently obvious enough, and into the modern era, it's proabably a simple case of of social constructs which perpetuate males' psycho-sexual selection for large-breasted women.
Gene-meme environments which benefit women-firstly seem more adaptively successful, so it stands to reason that those males whom adhere to these constructs would lend to their (females') fitness...so soon enough you'd find that males are attracted to those very phenotypes in women which lend not to the males' spreading their own genes (crypto-oestrus and polyandry is not a benefit to men) but rather lend to women's success in spreading their gene-sets.
Answer: The women tricked them into liking large breasts. Or they tricked themselves. Same diff'. -
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Re: Crypto-oestrus and the human breast as deception facilitator
Mon, January 22, 2007 - 8:05 PMthis is a great angle on this topic! hmm, yes, just as a flat tummy indicates non-pregnancy and might be favored by males, so might large breasts conceal pregnancy and might be effective for females over time in concealing their fertility status.
now, getting into the nitty gritty of sexual selection...
"Answer: The women tricked them into liking large breasts. Or they tricked themselves. Same diff'. "
i'd find it interesting if you might conjecture specifically on how this might go down. specifically, can you unpack the use of the term "trick" in your statements? -
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Re: Crypto-oestrus and the human breast as deception facilitator
Thu, January 25, 2007 - 2:36 AMIt's been said that 90% of what's going on when human beings communicate with one-another is deception and counter-deception, and this has surely always been the case in romance. No doubt more so simply because the stakes in sex are so much higher than in all other human endeavours. The crypto-oestrus and false bossom among hominids may well predate the social construct of monogamy, well into the earliest proto-hominid periods. This EEA was likely polyamorous to a degree that makes us uncomfortable to consider as moral, modern sapiens.
Maybe you've heard of the genii Photinus and Photuris and their strange symbiotic courtship? It seems to me that the perpetuation of the species Photuris relies upon the fidelity with which it can mimic Photinus "love"...we might say that the best Photuris are the ones that must actually have come to believe themselves that they "love" the prey species Photunis...for if they betray their deception through even a glimmer of self-awareness, they'll fail as Photuris.
Do you see what I'm getting at? -
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Re: Crypto-oestrus and the human breast as deception facilitator
Thu, January 25, 2007 - 8:43 AMyou obviously know more evolutionary biology than i do, so if you could slow down a hair, that would help me understand. as i followed your logic on breast size, it seemed that men would select for SMALLER breasts. my question was, how did women "trick" men into liking larger breasts? redirected paternal pride or vestigial infantilism? help me!
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Re: Crypto-oestrus and the human breast as deception facilitator
Thu, January 25, 2007 - 5:31 PMWhere did 90% come from? How is one defining deception? -
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Re: Crypto-oestrus and the human breast as deception facilitator
Thu, January 25, 2007 - 7:40 PMi think we're all lying about this deception thing, and i'm on to all of you!
you lie with your baggy clothing, your deodorants, your plastic surgery, your facial toners, your bras, your heels, your credit cards, your studied grin, your firm handshake, you're all liars, manipulative rats!
ah, well then again, perhaps these are all also accumulated meta-structures, extended phenotypes. perhaps signaling models from ethology do not apply as readily as we think? when do we start counting the human being as a cybernetic organism, with synthetic body extensions?
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Re: Crypto-oestrus and the human breast as deception facilitator
Sat, September 8, 2007 - 4:33 AMthis recent citation helped me with my thinking about breast size fetishism among human males:
"Until very recently, it was a mystery to evolutionary psychology why men prefer women with large breasts, since the size of a woman's breasts has no relationship to her ability to lactate. But Harvard anthropologist Frank Marlowe contends that larger, and hence heavier, breasts sag more conspicuously with age than do smaller breasts. Thus they make it easier for men to judge a woman's age (and her reproductive value) by sight—suggesting why men find women with large breasts more attractive.
Alternatively, men may prefer women with large breasts for the same reason they prefer women with small waists. A new study of Polish women shows that women with large breasts and tight waists have the greatest fecundity, indicated by their levels of two reproductive hormones (estradiol and progesterone)."
psychologytoday.com/articles...00002.xml
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Re: Crypto-oestrus and the human breast as deception facilitator
Thu, January 25, 2007 - 6:21 PMOkay so when it comes to sex/romance I could totally buy 90% deception, maybe not currently but than again maybe so.
Wheather or not the EEA was polyamorous doesn't seem to me to have a whole lot to do with crypto-oestrus and false bossom. It seems that these are much more useful to monogomy paired with cuckolding, which serves women best which is how it evolved? Polygamy makes cryto-oestrus etc not necessary from what I see.
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Re: Crypto-oestrus and the human breast as deception facilitator
Thu, January 25, 2007 - 6:22 PMI think I am beginning to see what you are getting out, but more help please!!
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