Monday, February 16, 2009

A Small Thought on Cultural Bias

So we're watching a Discovery Channel documentary on the "The Science of Sex Appeal," and we get to a part where they're discussing the 7/10 ratio – that magical ration between waist and hips that are alleged by cultural anthropologists to represent the maximum ideal of female sexual attractiveness. Using computer images, recently, scientists presented an "average group" of men with a variety of different ratios, though, and came up with one that was sparked even more arousal in their subject's lizard brains: a 5/10 ratio. This Barbie doll-styled ratio isn't even natural, the show asserted, and it showed a doll-like figure with an unnaturally pinched waist to illustrate this point.

Naturally, the FA in me thought to protest: "You're keeping the butt the same size and shrinking the waist. Why not increase the butt and keep the waist close to its old measurement?" Now we're talkin' ancient goddess figures, right? Think I saw one of those, pushing a cart at Thriftee just the other day . . .

1 Comments:

Blogger The Greywolf said...

My problem with that show is that it was relatively unscientific. The sampling of the test "mating" portions were all caucasian. The computer software that they used to measure "beauty" was also being used on caucasians only. It seems like the show should have been called, "What White People Find Attractive". Where were the Asians, Hispanics and Blacks?

7:48 AM  

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