At 09:25 AM 10/21/99 +0800, Deidre L. Calarco wrote:
>> Is this a new idea? You get the impression because it's a fact.
>> Men are built this way, it's the whole nature thing.
>
>Actually, I've noticed that some men who grew up somewhat isolated from
>mainstream culture aren't that way. For instance, my boyfriend (who was
>raised in a little town in Michigan's upper peninsula) tends to see women as
>other people first, and as sex objects only as a secondary thing only if he
>has a reason to (i.e. he's dating them). I think it's mostly a cultural
>thing.
>
>Deidre Calarco
>Robert Darvas Associates
>(734) 761-8713 (ext. 16)
>[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
>************
>[EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.linuxchix.org
>
I don't know if it is "totally constructed". I know that there is lot of
the "what a good body looks like is..." I know once there it is hard to
change. Like the type of female humanoids I am attracted to, are looked
upon as strange by most other guys. And the spooky thing is that I can
figure how I got it. If I were more attracted to standard "bikini babe..."
Well I could understand, that has been in the culture all the time I grew-up.
But if one looks at other cultures ideas of beauty, or even Western Culture
earlier, one finds a variety of changes over the past 1000 years. Now we
have the technology to blast images of our society's ideas of beauty(or a
section there of) to the world.
Sometimes this body image stuff seems kind of futile to me. I mean there is
no way I could ever get my little old church lady aunts to not comment
about it. I mean I complained after they found a picture of a friend, his
wife and their child. They went on for an hour about his size and weight
and the colour of his wife's skin, the "mixed baby". When I made noises
about it they saw nothing wrong about it, and it couldn't be changed as it
was "just people's way..." But if you look at another society's concept of
beauty, well it seems to throw water on many fixed notions: "Like I am
programmed by Nature to want bikini babes..."
Sometimes someone's notions of beauty can be close to toxic. I mean it is
easier to see in other societies. For example we think footbinding is
pretty much bad, but look the other way about things in our own society. I
mean it seems crazy to many to think corsets were good, but some people (if
old enough) remember their mother's corset fondly.
For extra fun, a picture of 1890s or 1940s bathing beauties in a screen
shot would be illustrative. I'd get a kick out of that.
Have Fun,
Sends Steve
************
[EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.linuxchix.org
