From: Blunderov (squooker@mweb.co.za)
Date: Sun May 09 2004 - 15:53:25 MDT
[Blunderov] I suppose she is beautiful. She has gone to a lot of trouble to
simulate as many of the cultural characteristics of beauty as she can.
I once read of some research that was done into male perceptions of beauty.
They came up with a new word to describe their findings - neotonic. The word
means roughly 'like a baby'. It was their finding that woman with faces that
were devoid of definitely formed characteristics (hence 'like a baby') were
likely to be perceived more beautiful than those whose features were not so.
(I don't know if they extended the scope of their enquiries below the face
and it seems that they may have missed a trick here.)
I wonder whether beauty doesn't respond quite strongly to natural selection
and whether it doesn't account for some of the variations in physiognomy
that are seen around the planet. (I suppose I should be wary of the
assumption that those who are more attractive have a better chance of
breeding until I have some actual data though - one local locker room
witticism holds that all cats are black in the dark.)
Perceptions of beauty have certainly varied widely down the ages. The ample
figures of Neolithic fertility goddess statues are thought by some to
reflect the importance of fecundity in those societies. It might be worth
wondering whether there is some connection here to the fact that the
anorexic figure of Twiggy became popular during the height of the sexual
revolution at about the time when the pill was invented.
<q>
Beauty is a bikini wax 'n waitin' for yer nails to dry
Beauty is colored pencil, scribbled all around yer eye
Beauty is a pair of shoes that makes you wanna die
Frank Zappa, Beauty Knows No Pain
</q>
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