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PaperclipPerfector  1d ago (text post)   1460 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for January 19, 2025

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

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Every time I see that blog post, I get irrationally angry.

The author has bad taste and a myopic, illiterate understanding of art and aesthetics, especially in relation to female beauty. There is a fundamental lack of knowledge about mythology, anthropology, psychology, symbolism, female archetypes.

The section on love/fertility goddesses should be a massive red flag. There is no engagement with the mythology surrounding the goddess figures he writes about. And any extrapolation of beauty standards from these mythological figures, without first a correct understanding of the mythos of said figures, is wholly meaningless, surface-level. And you cannot write about sexual archetypes and not mention Camille Paglia. The section on male gaze is laughable. No feminist theory was consulted in writing the piece. No Freud either, nothing. I am asking for the very basics here.

I hate the picture spam. It is dishonest

The author has bad taste and a myopic, illiterate understanding of art and aesthetics, especially in relation to female beauty. There is a fundamental lack of knowledge about mythology, anthropology, psychology, symbolism, female archetypes.

What is a better interpretation of these pieces of art?

I think that the blog post is great, and has a lot of insight. It's overly long and belabors its points sometimes, but is much more right than wrong imo. I think that the things you're describing as "the very basics" are completely extraneous and I have no idea why on earth you're demanding these irrelevant digressions.

I enjoyed the first few paragraphs as I leapfrogged the weird AI pics mixed with what looked like Flashman illustrations. Then he started using lovedolls as evidence for what all men want, then wouldn't stop with the lovedolls already. By the time he got to the picture of I think peak Tyra Banks along with a few other supermodels in their prime wearing lingerie and his caption was "Not really what men want" I felt certain either I am an extreme outlier (because I want) or he was blinded by his own biases for thicc. Admittedly I have not finished reading, and probably will later

Yeah, that was confusing. Those women have ideal 0.7 hip/breast to waist ratios. Men very much want that.

But, of course, what men really want is the impossible 0.6 hip/breast to waist ratio of anime dolls. Sadly, hyperreal does seem to dominate over real in terms of male (and female) desire.

One of the things the author does which is kind of bad from is that he will switch between two meanings of "not what men want". Sometimes he seems to mean "men find this repulsive" (as in the case of many fashion models), and sometimes he seems to mean "this isn't most men's ideal woman". In the second case, someone can not look like the average man's ideal woman and still be attractive to many men (both because men are not insistent on getting their ideal, but also because men's individual preferences vary so that some men's ideal woman does look like that).

sometimes he seems to mean "this isn't most men's ideal woman". In the second case, someone can not look like the average man's ideal woman and still be attractive to many men (both because men are not insistent on getting their ideal, but also because men's individual preferences vary so that some men's ideal woman does look like that).

It's explained at the end of the article: the goal is to move into a niche where demand exceeds supply. You can have a body that 15% of men find appealing and 40% of women have or you can have a body that 40% of men find appealing and 15% of women have. Unless you have The One in your sights or have a Groucho Marx approach to mate selection ("I won't date any man that finds my gravity-defying anime tiddies attractive") it's better to have the latter body, simply because now you have seven times more men to choose from and can get to be picky.

It is a really bad post. If I was going to try to annoy the majority of posters here, I would call it mansplaining, but that really is what it is. It starts from a strange premise that women don’t know what men find attractive, and are all out here starving themselves trying to be as skinny as coke era Kate Moss because they’re too stupid to understand that men like the slim thick build with big tits (something rather incongruent with the huge implant industry, almost entirely driven by female demand - ie not husbands demanding their wives get surgery). If anything, it’s men who seem more confused about what women like.

It starts from a strange premise that women don’t know what men find attractive

I actually am much more willing to believe this than I would've been in the past. As I've gotten to know my wife better and better over the course of our marriage, it is shocking the number of times she'll say something which shows that she (or her friends sometimes) doesn't really understand men. My takeaway has been that women do not actually understand men as well as they think they do. It wouldn't surprise me to find that women don't have a very good idea of what men find attractive either.

For what it's worth, some here claim the author is female, and I've seen her referred to as "her" in essays she re-tweeted.

It starts from a strange premise that women don’t know what men find attractive,

Men are belittled for not knowing what women find interesting in dating app pictures (ie not the stereotypical photo of a man with a large fish he caught). Why would only men not know what women like, while women would have insight into preferences of both genders?

If anything it is the opposite: a literal hairy pigwoman can get laid, thus showing women do not need to know anything about men to get their attention, while only a smattering of men will ever be considered worthy of female attention. Thus men have an incentive to try to understand women, which diesn't exist vice versa.

If anything it is the opposite: a literal hairy pigwoman can get laid

Women generally don’t want to get laid, they want commitment from a good man who treats them well. Kudos to circus freaks who find that, but ‘had sex’ does not necessarily indicate it.

Why would only men not know what women like, while women would have insight into preferences of both genders?

Because I think being attractive to men is simpler than being hot to women because men care more about physical features alone while women care about both physical features and more intangible but easily perceived qualities like a sense of presence and charisma, for which being hot is often necessary but not usually sufficient. If that’s misandry I do apologize.

Say you ask the average relatively attractive woman to wear the outfit she thinks men will like the most - she will probably know what it is. Will the average man know the inverse? It’s not that women don’t care about men’s style, either. Men just don’t seem to think about it.

If anything it is the opposite: a literal hairy pigwoman can get laid, thus showing women do not need to know anything about men to get their attention

Since most women have little interest in maximizing the number of sexual partners they have, whether they could find ‘someone’ to fuck is irrelevant. What matters is finding someone good, who will commit, who is nice and who is attractive (in various ways), and that is very much as competitive for women as finding a good partner is for men.

It starts from a strange premise that women don’t know what men find attractive

Do they? If they do, I think the most charitable explanation is that they prioritize other evaluations of their appearance:

  • evaluation by other women, who rate fashionable outfits higher than they rate attractive ones and who downrate women that exploit their attractiveness to the fullest, branding them pick-mes/sluts
  • deliberately lowering the amount of male attention they receive. Back when my wife was my GF I asked her to get a bodycon knit dress, because she had the right figure to rock it (still does). She bought one (nothing racy: long sleeves, knee length, crew neck) and wore it just once, because sudden lulls in conversation when she entered the office really upset her. Her friend would wear the same model in a different color to the same workplace with no regrets

It's fine, you can always annoy us. The lesson of ‘mansplaining’ is that women find correct information threatening.

something rather incongruent with the huge implant industry

Not huge enough, evidently. He probably thinks it should be near-universal, personal interest well considered, given that it’s like 3 points of attractiveness for little effort.

He doesn’t really cover the issues with implants which is that rupturing is an issue, they have to be replaced every 10 years for life (expensive, time consuming, recovery process, inherent risk of anaesthesia), and the initial cost is quite high for many young women, plus you want to shop around to find someone good.

Most people also aren’t relentlessly focused on maximizing their hotness, which is why plenty of people don’t care about style, don’t go to the gym, are overweight etc.

Jesus Christ, I had no idea how shitty they were. All the sales-talk about "helping you achieve the feminine curves you desire" followed by dropping the "hardened scar tissue and breast deflation" stuff is surreal.

The cost/benefit of those things is far higher, especially for women. Men don't care if women have no style, don't go to the gym, and are (slightly) overweight.

You’re typical minding when you say most people know this. People’s opinions bounce off random shit they hear (eg, lies by men reassuring their wives), they can’t cut through it with a sharp intellect like yours.

What would you imagine drives that demand for boob jobs, if women's wants are indeed the driving force (maybe they are, I'll take your word for it)? Women imagining this is what men want them to look like? Personal self-consciousness before the judgment of other women? Or something else?

It ties into intrasexual competition which is ultimately derived from opposite sex attraction but in practice sublimated beyond a broader layer of activity best described as posturing. Men and women both do this in different ways, throughout their lives. Being a man with a small dick is bad, imagine if everybody knew you had a small dick, including other men.

Whoah whoah whoah, who have you been talking to? If it was Ingrid, don't believe a word, plus we dated in the winter time, so there's that.

No feminist theory was consulted in writing the piece. No Freud either, nothing.

I cannot tell if you're serious or sarcastic.

I would suggest if he's serious it's not an unreasonable point. Straw(wo) manning a view isn't a compelling argument for any but the already devout. There are, as well, a gamut of feminist views, from the pathological (Andrea Dworkin) to the clear minded but currently criticized (Germaine Greer) to Ms. Male Gaze herself (Laura Mulvey). He didn't need to write a treatise but not even naming any of these people suggests he just has an idea of what Womyn TM think. I agree the author should read a few books of Camille Paglia's.

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