Towards A More Complete Understanding Of Beauty

Did you know that in 1955, Miss Sweden was 5'7" and weighed 151 pounds? In 1995, Miss Sweden was 5'9" and weighed 120 pounds.

When I was in high school, I consistently ran in the high 11's in the 100 meters. A year later, I made the dance team. I was 5'7" and weighed 145 pounds. I was considered overweight and wasn't allowed to perform until I lost weight. The humiliation was unspeakable. According to the weight chart, I was to weigh 135 pounds. According to the weight chart, I was 10 pounds overweight...and so I sat on the sidelines during the halftime show.

Did you know my best time in 100 meters was 11.3 seconds. That time gets female sprinters into the Olympics some years.

When you're young, it's hard to get above your situation and look at it objectively. Even today, as I write this, I find myself squinting - almost as if I need to strain my eyes to see this subject clearly. When I was 14, I never considered whether or not I was fat. I never even asked myself that question. When I was 16, I was convinced that I was a huge lumbering lard ball.

This haunts me still.

What is beauty? Studies have shown that there is a high correlation between what people consider beautiful and fertility. In otherwords, the more fertile a woman is, the more pronounced her secondary sex characteristics are - breasts, of course, being the obvious example. Other examples include fullness of lips (higher estrogen levels produces fuller lips), wider eyes (corresponding with youth which corresponds with higher fertility) and a curvy figure (which aides in childbirth).

So, in many studies, beauty is linked to fertility.

No one really informed Calvin Klein, though...

And thus we come to the most interesting idea that I have heard in the past month. This theory was presented by a friend of mine - a nameless friend unless said friend desired to attach their name to this theory. Anyway, here's what my friend said.

The fashion industry has become an arena highly influenced by homosexual men - or more clearly stated - a high percentage of fashion designers are homosexual males. That is the claim. I've not done the research, but I can certainly hypothesis that the fashion industry would be more accepting of homosexuals than say...the construction industry. So let's just hypothesis that this is in fact the cast - homosexual influence in the fashion industry is a reality. Now, the argument continues, these homosexual men are required to create fashions for their best customers - women. So, these designers begin to design and as they do, they carry (unknowingly in all likelihood) their perceptions of attractive-sexy-beautiful-whatever into their job. Thus, the models and clothes that are produces look more and more like boys and boy clothes.

So, heterosexual men have tended to desire women who's "beauty" was linked to fertility. However, due to the influence of homosexual men on the fashion industry, popular culture is linking female beauty to boyish / pre-adolescent figures. Concluding then that heterosexual men are being trained to desire what homosexual males desire...?

And in all this, I still have to wonder...

What is beauty?

Why must it be linked to fertility or sex at all?

posted by Headless-in-GR @ 12/13/2004 01:11:00 PM