Why is thinness in women fashionable?

Discussion in 'Human Science' started by visceral_instinct, Dec 4, 2009.

  1. visceral_instinct Monkey see, monkey denigrate Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    7,913
    Why is thinness in women currently considered attractive?

    It is as far as I know relatively new - in older ages women were supposed to be voluptuous - and invoking evolved instincts doesn't make sense either, since back when we were still hunting and gathering, carrying some extra fat would have been an asset.

    I have this theory that we like it because it is "unnatural" - it gives someone a bit of an otherworldly look. It's striking to the senses. It's probably the same reason we like white-blond hair and blue eyes. It looks like a "heightened" or "saturated" version of more usual human colouring.

    Just a theory. Thoughts?
     
  2. Google AdSense Guest Advertisement



    to hide all adverts.
  3. Orleander OH JOY!!!! Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    25,817
    because it costs money to be thin. It costs money to join a gym. It takes time out of your work day to exercise. Thinness shows you have dedication and drive, which are admirable qualities.
    Seriously, how many people are fat due to a health issue vs laziness?

    Ever watch Biggest Loser?
     
  4. Google AdSense Guest Advertisement



    to hide all adverts.
  5. visceral_instinct Monkey see, monkey denigrate Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    7,913
    Ya got a point, but I don't think that's the whole story. Our culture doesn't seem to be satisfied with merely healthy weight. If you're a size 12, you're fat. Why do we like women to look like pre-adolescent boys?

    On the flipside, thinness may also mean that you don't eat, or that you're sick. Not a positive trait.
     
  6. Google AdSense Guest Advertisement



    to hide all adverts.
  7. spidergoat pubic diorama Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    54,036
    Because it evokes the masculine instinct to want to care and feed the poor waif.
     
  8. visceral_instinct Monkey see, monkey denigrate Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    7,913
    Interesting view..

    Why do you think we went from finding voluptuous and natural figures nice to look at, to valuing an appearance associated with weakness and hunger? Do you think it's simply because we can, because most of us don't have to fight to survive?
     
  9. Orleander OH JOY!!!! Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    25,817
    I don't think society does. I think some designers like very thin (almost gaunt) women, but if you look at the Victoria's Secret models, they aren't boyish looking at all.

    Most men like healthy women. Most women like healthy men. Obesity is not healthy
     
  10. spidergoat pubic diorama Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    54,036
    There was no change, men like both, but a normal looking girl sends the message, "I'm being taken care of". One evokes neediness (with sexual connotations), the other evokes, "I'm already taken".
     
  11. CutsieMarie89 Zen Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    3,485
    It's a fad. It just came into season a few decades ago and I'm sure we'll be on to something else in a few more decades. Personally I'm glad I was born during this era, as I would've had to work real hard at maintaining a Marilyn Monroe figure or the giant breasts and no butt thing, that was beautiful in the 19th century. Where as this overall thinness, with above average size breasts and butt thing is effortless for me. So I'm not complaining and I pray we don't change preferences until I'm too old to care or dead which ever comes first. I'm very lazy when it comes to looks.
     
  12. Syzygys As a mother, I am telling you Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    12,671
    It is a myth. The fashion designers are idiots, nobody wears the shit what they put on the catwalk.

    The real desire (for men) is curviness not thinness. Buy any men magazine, most of the women in it have curves. They might be thinner than the average women but not as thin as the models....
     
  13. kmguru Staff Member

    Messages:
    11,757
    Why is thinness in women fashionable?

    Because, the fashion designers are too lazy or incompetent to design clothes for complex curve lines of a real woman.
     
  14. spidergoat pubic diorama Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    54,036
    1. It is also a fad.
    2. Fashion designers tend to be gay, so perhaps they are imposing their own concepts of beauty.
     
  15. sifreak21 Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    1,671
    models in my eyes are discusting bags of skin and bone. its not natural and its extremely bad for your health to be 6ft + and 100lbs i would rather take a woman thats a bit over weight than one that turns sideways and dissipears
     
  16. Lori_7 Go to church? I am the church! Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    10,515
    you know what though...aside from a few like VI, i think it's normally impossible to be that thin, and still have boobs that big. as prevalent as plastic surgery is nowadays, i would bet that most of those victoria's secret models have had their boobs done...at least.
     
  17. Raithere plagued by infinities Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    3,348
    Regarding models, the issue is mainly aesthetic rather than being a physical ideal. They tend to be tall and thin and disproportionately leggy. Rather like a comic-book hero. They're literally selected for displaying clothing, not for the attractiveness of the body underneath which is actually rather odd when seen in person as opposed to in photography.

    Unfortunately, the prevalence of the imagery pushes the social concept of attractiveness in that direction as our concept of beauty is largely based upon our conditioning.

    These things also tend to snowball... if thin is in, thinner is better. If long necks, small feet, elongated earlobes or skulls are in, exaggerating them further is better. There are many such examples of how the social conceptions of beauty tend to run out of control.

    ~Raithere
     
  18. wynn ˙ Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    15,058
    I think this is partly because there is more nakedness nowadays than ever before as far as "civilized society" goes - and fat people look ugly when naked.

    Look at how it all sags and hangs and wobbles -

    Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!



    A naked fat body also tends to be cold to the touch, hence uncomfortable for both the one who touches as for the one who is touched.
     
  19. Anti-Flag Pun intended Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    3,714
    Well fat will never be attractive, but what we're bombarded with every day comes down to whoever is in a position of power to decide on such images, and they know we (the general public) can be easily influenced. Think Derren Brown, but with advertising and media. I suspect at the end of the day money and profit may be involved somewhere here.

    If being really thin was really that attractive, then mail order brides would come from Africa.
     
  20. Syzygys As a mother, I am telling you Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    12,671
  21. visceral_instinct Monkey see, monkey denigrate Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    7,913
    I love that model's hairstyle. I used to keep mine like that, but fuzzy Afro-like hair + streamlined hairdos = oil and water
     
  22. visceral_instinct Monkey see, monkey denigrate Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    7,913
    And does anyone agree that it may come from looking unnatural?

    The curvy woman looks pretty in a very normal way. The ultra-thin one looks more like some sort of genetic mutant, or a gynoid.
     
  23. WillNever Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    2,595
    Quotation from another thread:

    Why are people automatically assuming that if somebody is thin, then he or she must be anorexic..?

    Well anyway, here's my answer:

    Slim people are way more attractive. That's all there is to it. Humans have a definite weakness for people who are built that way. Flat tummies, slender limbs, delicate and lean hands.. and an ass so firm and tight, that you could bounce a quarter off it. That's what people like. In fact, that's what they LOVE. I know where these kinds of statements come from, though. Overall, most Western men and women are much too fat. That's a fact. The worst examples are right here in the good ol' USA... where more than 50% of the male population and fully 60% of the female population is either overweight, or downright obese. Tragically, many of those people have now come to accept their fatness as the norm to which everyone should be compared to.

    Well sorry folks.. but guys usually don't like like fat girls, okay..? No offense to them or anybody else, but its no secret that men prefer women who care about their appearance. They're just weird that way. The same goes for women, who want their man to be as clean and healthily slim as he can be. Most don't even care about how easy it is to get fat people into bed (and believe me, it's VERY easy). As soon as someone sees their tummy jiggling and that battleship-sized ass of theirs, then they go as limp as a wet noodle.

    Fatties need not despair at my remarks, however. There's a certain percentage of people out there who have freaky fantasies about being enveloped by great mounds of warm, spongy human flesh. They love to probe into deep valleys of marshmallow, seeking out buried treasure. They don't mind wading through all of that pulchritude, so long as they uncover a bounty of moist, steaming, pungent pink oysters. They fantasize about riding upon crests of swollen, sloshing waves of perfumed adipose tissue and....

    ...and I'm gonna lose my lunch if I keep going with that paragraph, so I'll just cut it short and say that quite a few people actually get turned on by that stuff. More power to 'em and the chubbies that they hang out with. The point is that we all have our own tastes. Most of ours happens to be a taste for Grade AAA Prime Extra-Lean flesh. As for the rest of ya's, well... your own mileage may vary.

    But for chrissakes, stop assuming that just because someone is slim, that he or she has some kind of pathology (like anorexia). No... maybe they just care more about their long-term health and happiness than they care about Haagen-Dazs. Try it some time.

    Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!



    BELOW: Karen Price in a gymnastic pose, in a 1981 photograph. Censored for prudes:

    See..? Thin and healthy girls with big boobs really *do* exist...

    [Deleted]
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Dec 5, 2009

Share This Page