harakiri:

A lot of the ladies commenting here are not even worthy of being housemaids to this charming supermodel. A lot of the guys here wouldn't even have the guts to walk up to her and tell her how ugly she is (even for a £1,000 reward).

Get real with yourselves. I've seen the pictures of some of the female posters here and a good number of you look either like chihuahuas,blood hounds or rottweilers.

Jenifa_:


you can't escape the fact that culture is the number one definer of beauty.
for example (going by your posts) you are obsessed with curves on a woman. but in Asia, the opposite is the case. etc
also, when the whites went to Sothern Africa and saw women with large curves, they found it repulsive and even brought one back to be displayed in a circus. they called her hottentot. this word is considered derogatory today. you can google the word "hottentot"

from a biological evolutionary perspective, shouldn't every culture find large curves to be a sign of beauty?
exactly! you have to consider that we humans are different from animals and plants in the sense that we do things in a way that is most times shaped in terms of social rather than biological evolution.

it is our sociability that distinguishes us from plant and animals. and culture is a large part of this.

anonymous6:

No, their are other places besides ghetto's and suburbs their are towns, cities and etc. Majority of the fashion world is not in the real world
http://www.drrobynsilverman.com/body-image/karl-lagerfeld-says-no-one-wants-to-see-curvy-women/

Jenifa_:

ok. then I'm not living in the real world then. because I don't live in the ghetto.
are you living in the real world?

I think we should all agree to disagree. esp. on this topic where beauty is a matter of opinion. as they say, it is in the "eye of the beholder"

Sagamite:

Culture is a definer of the beauty point(s) across a aesthetic range (that is regardable as beauty) at which the majority of people declare others as beautiful.

Biology/nature/evolution sets the aesthetic range.

Believe me, culture can never make some ranges be termed as beautiful. Evolution trumps there.

tpia@:


^^ever heard of vincent van gogh?

explain how or why culture evolved from greco roman art forms to the stylized art he popularized.

Sagamite:

Culture is a definer of the beauty point(s) across a aesthetic range (that is regardable as beauty) at which the majority of people declare others as beautiful.
Biology/nature/evolution sets the aesthetic range.
Believe me, culture can never make some ranges be termed as beautiful. Evolution trumps there.

anonymous6:

first you brought up about suburbs and the ghetto, and the fahion world and when I expalin each three, you mix up the three together. i was talking about two differnt things. so when I say fashion world I don't mean location that was about the ghetto and suburbs

Sagamite:

Please introduce Vincent and his stylized art.

Westerners had long misunderstood African art as "primitive." The term carries with it negative connotations of underdevelopment and poverty. Colonization and the slave trade in Africa during the nineteenth century set up a Western understanding hinged on the belief that African art lacked technical ability due to its low socioeconomic status.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African_art#Influence_on_Western_art

Sagamite:



Yes, majority of black people are ugly because they are poor and under/mal/wrongnourished.

Sagamite:

I fully understand what you wrote, I am just educating you to help you make your thinking a bit more comprehensive.

The lesson was: Perception of beauty is not only a cultural thing, there is an evolutionary and natural aspect of it.

You are wrong. You are born with a certain taste range. Like every animal, we have certian things we are programmed to look for evolutionarily. Get you notepad out and write it down as lesson of the day. I am nice and give free lectures on NL, be grateful.

sagamite:
Yes, majority of black people are ugly because they are poor and under/mal/wrongnourished.

Oba234:


There are some perception of beauty that is perceived by a certain society as beautify and people outside that society look at it as bizarre.  Some examples, feet binding by the chinese [/b]where young girls of upper class families had their binded so by the time they become adults they would have deformed small feet and this was considered beautiful at a certain point. Another example is western culture obsession with women bosoms as a biological Intimate.[b]The mursi tribe in east Africa believes that the bigger the plate is on a girls lips, the better she looks.

Jenifa_:


so then pls tell me: what do you define as the "real world"?
there is fashion world, there is academic world, there is industrial world, there is ghetto world. there are all different kinds of worlds. what is the real world to you?

Jenifa_:

no. your television, celebrities and mass media sets this aesthetic range.
raise a child in a village with no access to television and mass media and ask her to tell you what he/she considers beautiful, you will be shocked.
people have performed this experiment where they went into remote areas that have had no exposure to western world or media. there they found that things like teeth or shaved head were considered most attractive on a woman in one village etc.

what you don't understand is that evolution is dependent on culture (and vice versa) in most places.

so then pls tell me: what do you define as the "real world"?
there is fashion world, there is academic world, there is industrial world, there is ghetto world. there are all different kinds of worlds. what is the real world to you?

Oba234:

wrongggggggggggg! there is nothing about beauty that we are programmed to look for evolutionarily.  If you are saying beauty is a natural thing, then every society will have the same standard of beauty and we all know that it's not true. There are some perceptions of beauty that are perceived by a certain societies as beautiful and people outside that society look at it as bizarre.  Some examples includes feet binding by the chinese where young girls of upper class families had their binded so by the time they become adults they would have deformed small feet and this was considered beautiful at a certain point. Another example is western culture obsession with women bosoms as a biological stimulu. Studies have shown this is false.  Men in western cultures are taught from early age to see bosoms in this way. Male attraction or obsession with human bosoms is not universal among all human beings so it's not biological. So a woman who does not have perky bosom in a society that values them, maybe consider less attractive, but in a society that does not value them, it's consider more attractive.  The mursi tribe in east Africa for example believes that the bigger the plate is on a girls lips, the better she looks. Take a look at this website about the tribe. http://lumq.com/06/mursi/      

Jenifa_:

exactly!

if these societies are exposed to western culture through television, mass media and other means, they also will start to lose their traditional ideas of beauty and assimilate western ideas.

and many tribes (like you say) don't even see bosoms as sign of beauty. many women go around bare breasted and it doesn't affect the males in any way because that's not what they are conditioned to find intimate.

Sagamite:

You are wrong there. Stop trying to argue the unarguable.

They set the point(s).

There is no way television, celebrities and mass media (i.e. culture) can EVER make a women or men weighing 400 pounds be the standard of beauty. That beauty point is outside the range evolution/biology allows us to see as beautiful.

Evolution/Biology/Nature sets the aesthetic range, not culture. Culture picks a point in the range.

Don't argue the unarguable.


We will never see eye to eye on this. To me Beauty is 100% cultural, so any example in the world that you want to give as justification for biological, I will find a cultural explanation for it. End of story. I am tired of going in circles. Good Night.









so give some examples of this range that evolution have set and where cultures pick up
Oba234, that is extra tutorial material.

It seems your comprehension is weak.

There is a beauty range which all societies' perception of beauty fall into. The fact they disagree on points within the range does not nullify the argument the range exists.

Comprehende?

Oba234:


Thank you. Somebody that understand what I am saying. I feel like I am just repeating myself in circles. No matter how people want to twist it, there is nothing biological about beauty. It differs across society and since we are become a more globalized society dominated by western culture, we are losing some of those diversity in beauty that have exists for hundreds of years.

anonymous6:

To me a world that shields you in the way life is or the way things truly are for humans, I will give you examples of people that are not living in reality because of this. examples: Paris Hilton, kardashian sisters, Marie Antoinette, Gadaffi,

Sagamite:

can EVER make a women or men weighing 400 pounds be the standard of beauty. That beauty point is outside the range evolution/biology allows us to see as beautiful.

Jenifa_:

lol. you are funny.
those people you mention live real lives.
It's ironic because Marie Antoinette was beheaded by the french revolutionaries. and gadaffi is currently in a cage/prison.  

you don't find it real because it is not your reality. that kind of life will be a fantasy to you.

ex. a lot of adults do not consider children to have real lives. lol because that is not their reality. but to the child, that is his/her reality.
some people out of school do not consider students to be living in real life. etc

just because you don't live in it doesn't mean it's not real.
I don't know how to explain it to you. but I hope you get my point.

Oba234:


so here is the issue. We will never see eye to eye on this. I don't believe there is a range. I believe everything is 100% cultural.  You believe otherwise. You think I am going in circles and I think you going in circles despite me giving you free tutorial. There is no biological example that you can give to me that I can't attribute to culture. I use to think like you at a certain point in my life I use to attribute beauty to biological, but the more I study and look it and question things, the more I have learned and I am 100% convinced there is nothing biological hence why we can never agree, therefore Good Night.

Sagamite:


There is no way television, celebrities and mass media (i.e. culture) can EVER make a women or men weighing 400 pounds be the standard of beauty. That beauty point is outside the range evolution/biology allows us to see as beautiful.

Obesity is so revered among Mauritania's white Moor Arab population that the young girls are sometimes force-fed to obtain a weight the government has described as "life-threatening".
Mauritania is one of the few African countries where, on average, girls receive more food than boys.

The treatment has its roots in fat being seen as a sign of wealth - if a girl was thin she was considered poor, and would not be respected.

Mauritania struggles with love of fat women




Because most Mauritanian love songs describe the ideal woman as fat, the health ministry commissioned catchy odes to thin women.

These efforts, combined with the rising popularity of foreign soap operas featuring model-thin women, has helped reduce the practice, especially among the country’s urban elite.

“My husband thinks I’m not fat enough,” complained Zeinabou Mint Bilkhere, explaining that her husband found her pretty during the last months of her pregnancy. Since giving birth, the weight has dropped, however, and with it his desire for her.

When I was little, my mother hit me to eat because I didn’t want to be fat. Now I want to be big because men like that,” said Bilkhere, who wants to gain more than 20 pounds.

But many men say they prefer voluptuous women.

Isselmou Ould Mohamed says he loves his wife’s 200-pound body and was pleased when she began adding even more weight during pregnancy. When he learned she had started walking around the soccer stadium to try to shed the extra pounds, he was revolted.

A man’s goal is to marry a woman that fills his house. She needs to decorate it like an armoire or a TV set,” said Seif l’Islam, 48, curator of a library of ancient Islamic manuscripts, which include numerous love poems to plump women.

Sagamite:

Do you believe any culture can ever convince people to idealise and regard these as standard of beauty that majority will agree with?



[img]http://creaseblog.files./2010/06/fat-woman.jpg[/img]

Do you believe any culture can ever convince people to idealise and regard these as standard of beauty that majority will agree with?

Jenifa_:


this has nothing to do with beauty. It's biological/evolutionary but has nothing to do with beauty.
ex. a man wouldn't typically marry a woman with leprosy or a woman who has HIV/AIDS or weighs 400 lbs or 70 lbs no matter how beautiful she is.
doesn't mean she can't be beautiful.
same goes vice versa. a woman can be very ugly but she will still be able to marry and bear children because she is healthy!!
think about it.there won't be ugly women in the world if only the beautiful ones are evolving!!

health and beauty are not the same thing. although health can enhance beauty.
all cultures will have the same standard of beauty if that were the case.
because human health is the same in pretty much all cultures. but beauty is not.

tpia@:


http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/3429903.stm

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18141550/ns/health-health_care/t/mauritania-struggles-love-fat-women/

tpia@:

you do understand those are people with serious medical conditions, right?

anonymous6:

I understand what you mean but I am talking about in general the world follow a set of standards and rules and when somebody is not in that set of standards, it gives them room or a excuse to not live in the reality they are in, so it is irrelavnt that they are living real lives because all of them are but when you live a illusion that's when it becomes a problem.

To me Marie Antoinette and Gadaffi had it coming, I feel they refuse to connect to people in the real world and stayed in their illusion, which resulted in their behaviors and demise. look at Micheal Jackson, he was living a fantasy land life

Sagamite:

What do you mean it has nothing to do with beauty? You are grasping at straws?

I thought you said culture is the thing that sets out perception of beauty, then you now try and claim things that culture can never convince us is beauty has nothing to do with beauty.

EVOLUTION sets the range of what we can term as beauty and it infuses ability to procreate in shaping that range. That is why bosoms are beautiful on a woman and not a man.

E.g. There is no way culture can ever convince a nation to idealise flat chested women as the epitome of beauty. Evolution will say "Nah, it is outside the range I specify".

I never said beauty was the same in all cultures, that is why I have REPEATEDLY been telling you of selected POINT(S) in the range.

You will have to summarise in your own words. Do you think I have time and the interest to read every link you send.

Summarise your arguments.

Let me for the sake of argument agree with you.

And so?

Can culture make them be regarded as the standard of "beauty"?

Jenifa_:

so how does this relate to alek wek?
what qualities about alek wek makes her evolutionarily ugly?

Sagamite:

Are you strawmanning me or do you now agree that evolution is the one that sets a range?

Jenifa_:

I see where you are coming from too.
Michael Jackson's behavior and demise is as a result of depression and mental issues he has. so the fantasy he created for himself is to try to escape his world.  
as long as you can connect to the people around you, one should be fine. ex if you are a fashion designer, connect to people who who you are designing for etc that's why I say that it is usually people who appreciate high fashion and art that might appreciate a beauty like alek wek.

just like 20% of the population cannot connect with the 80% that appreciate Justin Bieber. lol but doesn't mean they live a fantasy world. they just live a different reality. (I know there's an exagerration there but u get my point).

That's why I used the word "unconventional" beauty to describe Alek wek.
she is not conventional like a pageant queen (miss universe, miss world etc).

I guess you do not see her beauty. and that is ok.
but there are many people out there who do see it. and that is ok too.

have we agreed to disagree?

Jenifa_:

so how does this relate to alek wek?
what qualities about alek wek make her evolutionarily ugly?

all you are doing here is trying to create shock factors. to be honest, you are not fit to debate with.
you are like FOX news trying to debate PBS.


when you see somebody and say "she is beautiful"
you don't typically think of it as "she is not infertile" etc
that is health. like anorexia and obesity are health issues. those pics you posted.