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PaperclipPerfector  3mo ago (text post)   3054 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for January 19, 2025

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I've forgotten the name of a writer, whom I think was introduced to via The Motte: The webpage that was linked to was a long piece on female physical attractiveness to men, with good examples of convergence in art (e.g., depictions of fertility goddesses) and less persuasive evidence from porn and sex dolls. The author also had an argument that almost no homes should be built with attached garages, and a zoning scheme that would purportedly accommodate everyone having a SFH with a detached garage. (He was much more persuasive that attached garages generally make facades ugly than that attached garages are a net negative. Part of the argument was that cars don't strictly need to be stored indoors, and other things could be stored in a shed. However, most of the things you would store in a garage are things that are designed to be used outdoors, but would benefit from being stored indoors, and cars are far and away both the most expensive of these things and the most likely to be resold to fund their replacement - if you can park in a garage, you should.) Anyone recognize this description?

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

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'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.

I'm just a single data point, but I definitely

  • ask my wife to change when she wears clashing/unseasonal patterns or colors
  • encourage my wife to go to the gym and take time of out of my work schedule so she can go
  • avoid buying too much junk food so we can both stay relatively thin

because I'm not attracted to fat, frumpy, flabby women, but maybe your point was about guys looking for a quick hookup?

We're talking about sexual attractiveness (or "maximizing hotness"), so yes, kind of. You want your wife to be healthy and active and balanced, which is understandable, but that has little relevance to attractiveness.

ask my wife to change when she wears clashing/unseasonal patterns or colors

This behaviour strikes me as rare, for combining two seemingly incompatible elements: the traditionally male role of leading/commanding, and the traditionally female role of giving attention and care to aesthetic things.

I understand where you're coming from, but I don't think the combination is as rare as you think. Middle and upper middle class "alphas" or "chads" tend to be masculine leaders while also dressing well and requiring their girlfriends/spouses to do the same. Think of the top salesmen in a sales department or C-suite executives. I suppose the key is that they are probably not interested in women's fashion for its own sake, but only insofar as their woman's raiment can be used to reflect her man's high status and good taste (if I'm honest, this is also partially why I do it, I guess).

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