Human males are much more picky than males of other species because human males bring more than just sperm to the table; they bring resources and are consequently choosy about who they spend those resources on.

Thursday, there are males in other animal groups who do bring resources "to the table". What of the various bird species in which male birds do their share of nest-building, egg-sitting, and food-fetching?

I am not a biologist and can only speak on the basis of casual information, but I believe that even in those species like wolves or gorillas, in which a dominant male and female preside over lesser members of the group, the dominant female attains her position not because she is the male's favourite for her looks or sexual appeal, but because she is, you know, dominant: she bullies the other females into submission.

As for black African women being less attractive than women of other races, I keep seeing this belief here and there on the internet, and I find it a very odd one. Sub-Saharan Africans are divided into so many ethnic groups of varied and distinctive appearance that saying "African women are unattractive because they are masculine-looking" (which is the essence of the argument, I believe) is like saying that all northern Europeans are beautiful because they are blonde and blue-eyed: the first part of the statement is subjective, and the second part is false.

Here in Ottawa, I see many young black women of recent Haitian, French West African, or Somali origin, with exquisite faces even by European notions of facial delicacy (but not of mixed race, to judge by the darkness of their complexions), and beautiful bodies that are beautiful in an especially black African way: slimmer wrists, ankles, and waists than are common in Euro-descended girls of the same age; noticeably longer legs; and higher, firmer posteriors. Of course there are many more who are not especially pretty - but then, that's true among white folks too.

The bit about thin wrists and ankles is not fanciful, BTW: some years ago one company began marketing a line of hose especially for African women because the stuff designed for whites didn't fit their longer legs and thinner ankles. I don't know what became of the line, but the theory, as I recall, was based on a large number of measurements of black and white women in the US.

Posted by: alias clio on May 19, 2008 9:50 AM

Whoever said Northern European women have larger breasts than Southern European women got it ass-backwards! As a long-time expatriate and observer of such phenomena, I know whereof I speak.

Posted by: g-man on May 19, 2008 10:17 AM

I suppose it depends on the specific ethnic groups to which you refer, g-man, and the specific geographic location. I knew my comment was too general. But German and Scandinavian women are buxom, and in fact tall and big-boned in general. (I'm surprised more men don't appear to find them rather "masculine".)

Clio

Posted by: alias clio on May 19, 2008 11:35 AM

Perhaps not very relevant, but in Victorian England, weren't bustles very popular? Doesn't this sort of dress emphasize a woman's bottom?

Also, if you remember the Disney movie Cinderalla, the women wear bustles.

Posted by: blue on May 19, 2008 1:32 PM

No one else was struck by Agnostic's claim to be able to smell the diff between a young gal (I'd guess he means late teens) and an older one (30ish)?

As for black gals ... Back when I was taking drawing classes I always loved it when our model was a black woman. For one thing the black skin makes getting tones and shadows and reflections a refreshingly different ballgame than it is when you're drawing white people. For another, black bodies really are (often) dramatically different than white ones, and that's a lot of fun to take in and try to describe in drawing terms. I don't think we were ever given a black guy to draw, come to think of it. I wonder why. Anyway, I regularly thrill to the looks of black women. A sweet beauty rang us up at the grocery store today, for example -- The Wife was as struck by her as I was. I'm not trying to be self-righteous here, but it seems to me that the aesthetics of black beauty are somewhat different than the aesthetics of white beauty. The values are simply different. (Albert Murray is good on this, btw.) My drawing class experience often left me wondering how much of our aesthetic sense generally might be based in the body, in body types, and in our experiences of our own bodies. Our bodies condition our experience, after all -- and it must be somewhat different to live in a, for example, Asian body than it is to live in an African one, or a northern-Euro one. Which in turn would likely ricochet right down through one's assumptions, tastes, preferences, and pleasures. No?

Posted by: Michael Blowhard on May 19, 2008 10:39 PM

Our bodies condition our experience, after all -- and it must be somewhat different to live in a, for example, Asian body than it is to live in an African one, or a northern-Euro one. Which in turn would likely ricochet right down through one's assumptions, tastes, preferences, and pleasures. No?

I do think, though, that black bodies are more different from white and Asian (east asian, I mean) bodies than white and Asian bodies are from one another. Indeed, racist that I am, I am convinced that there is something genuinely different about black people in general, some (dare I say it?) specific black soul that animates black culture, and that is lost when black people assimilate to white culture. I believe, again racist that I am, that the average black IQ is lower than the average white IQ. But I hope and believe that if black people were offered some kind of Matrix pill that would boost their IQs by 15 points but otherwise make them think and feel just like white people, that most blacks would reject the offer, knowing that taking the pill would cost them their souls. The disappearance of the particularly black genius from the world would be an enormous loss, somehow.

But then again, I'm a racist.

Posted by: PatrickH on May 20, 2008 9:57 AM

PatrickH: you're obviously an ungleichgeschaltling, and you've got to be gleichgeschaltet! ;)

Posted by: anon on May 20, 2008 1:52 PM

Hmmm....

I am an unlike switchedling?
Wait...an alien changeling! (Clio says I'm polymorphous...I wonder if that's what she meant.)

So, anon. Spill...what's it mean? I get the irony in the moniker (I think) ...but online translations aren't helping me out here.

Posted by: PatrickH on May 20, 2008 4:23 PM

"Gleichgeschaltet" means "co-ordinated; brought into tune with"; the Nazis' program of trying to make all Germans think the same way as them was entitled "gleichschaltung".

I was actually quoting a line from a sci-fi / alternate history story, 'Two Dooms', by C.M. Kornbluth; it was spoken by a character who was, in fact, a Nazi, addressing coming upon a time-traveller who had just arrived in Nazi-controlled 21st-century America.

Anyway, I just like that line; seems to me today the pressure is at an all-time high on people like you (you evil racist ;) ) and me to be conformed, to fall in line. Well, for my part, the PC liberal left totalitarians and the managerial state can do their best, but I'll never be gleichgeschaltet (or as they'd say in Dixie, 'reconstructed': http://tinyurl.com/6r6foa ), and they'll probably have to kill me, eventually. ;)

Posted by: anon on May 21, 2008 12:32 AM

PatrickH: Perhaps my response was too-longwinded, as the Blowhards didn't publish it, so I'll be brief - "Gleichschaltung" is German for "co-ordinated, brought into tune with", and was the name of the Nazis' program to attempt to make all Germans think the same way, to be good little National Socialists. I was quoting a Nazi character in a sci-fi story; basically, pointing out that with your self-described 'racist' views, you need to be brainwashed by political correctness, if you're gonna fit in with the rest of the sheeple. ;)

Posted by: anon on May 21, 2008 10:03 AM






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