|
Post by KoNeko on Mar 28, 2003 9:17:56 GMT -5
I watched this documentary about why people reproduce (it's a lot more primal than you will think!) and they did this experiment when 6 different women wore the same shirt for 2 days (so it was smelly) and then they put the shirts in a lab and sealed them and got a guy to come in and smell them and order them from best to worst smell in his preference.
It turned out that he ordered the jars reverse order from his own genetic makeup in relation to his immune system- there are 6 genes that control the level of your immune systm and he picked them from 0-6 in order of the number of genes they had that matched.
|
|
|
Post by En on Mar 28, 2003 13:00:15 GMT -5
I have seen some odd couples, people who you'd think would never be able to put up with each other. It would be fearfully weird if they were together because of just six little genes.
*starts wondering about hir own attractions and whether there are genetic reasons for attraction between same-sex couples?*
I'd heard about the one where they had girls smelling guys' shirts and picking their favourites, and they almost all picked the one with the least health problems or something like that. I forget. I'm such a documentary hog that I start confusing what I've seen or read after a few thousand more of the same
|
|
|
Post by coldmercurywitch on Mar 28, 2003 22:55:05 GMT -5
I heard of an expeiemnt like that En. they got 10 guys adn ten girls and first they had the girls rate the guys on looks from 1 to 10, then had the guys wear the same shirt to bed everynight for a week without washing adn had the girls smell the shirts to see which was best.
The ones that they deemed to smell the best were generally the ones they had deemed the least attractive looking.
So it really makes you think twice about choosing someone just for their looks.
|
|
|
Post by En on Mar 29, 2003 12:14:40 GMT -5
Ah good... then there is hope for funny-looking people like me, as long as I make sure the first impression they get is how I smell
Ever noticed how the last four generations in Western culture have had ideals about how women look, and poof, suddenly all these women turn up who look like that? It is so scary, how much effect pop culture must be having on our genes, especially since pop culture isn't taking into consideration stuff like selecting for good survival mechanisms... or is it? Are we still enough ruled by our accurate noses that the rest of the stupid selection behaviour is overridden?
|
|
|
Post by moira on Mar 31, 2003 20:34:09 GMT -5
I think part of it has to deal with your environment, and the type of people you grow up around and what kind of social issues they instill. Unlike some of my friends, I'm really not very boy crazy. That is, I don't drop my jaw when I see a good looking guy walk in the building. When an attraction for a guy starts to stick to me, it's mostly because of his personality. That's when I'll start to admit I have a crush on someone, if I see a little bit of their personality, and I find it to be something I like.
Umm...I don't know if that really answered your question or thoughts En I swear, I'm really amazed at some of the thoughts you guys think of around here. It makes me feel a bit small inside intellectually just cause I'm blown away by some of the inquiries you guys make. I almost always leave the board with something new to think about, haha.
|
|
|
Post by KoNeko on Apr 1, 2003 4:02:19 GMT -5
(Don't worry Smiles. I'm sure you'll have something to contribute. )
I saw this really cool poster the other day about how the female form had changed in the last 400 years. In the 1600s and 1700s, they really valued the curves of the female body (like if you look at the paintings and statues and stuff like that), and then they went completely the other way with corsets and whatnot a century later. Oh, but they really did like the whole pear shape in the Victorian era. And then in the 60s they let it all hang out and people started going for the really anorexic look (Thanks, Twiggy. ). And yeah, from then on, you know how it goes, but it's still relatively slimmer than say, 300 or even 80 years ago.
Having said that, images like Santa Claus and snowmen and stuff still seem the same as they did back then. Go figure.
|
|
|
Post by En on Apr 1, 2003 15:42:36 GMT -5
Koko, where did you see that? I want that poster. It would be the absolute perfect present for my Miltonist friend.
Moira, yeah, exactly! Beauty standards are set by culture, and change within the culture; and there are always individuals with the culture who don't do the norms, which is good, because otherwise all women would look like Marilyn Monroe one generation, then Judy Collins the next one, then Jennifer Lopez; and that would be very sad for me unless one of the Judy Collinses wanted to date someone half her age
No seriously. Don't be intimidated, Moira, you play just as well as we do
Ko, Santa has gotten ethnic facelifts in the last 40 years, which I think is way cool. But I get your drift; it isn't quite fair that men can be utterly beloved even when they are heavy-set, but would-be-movie-star women are s.o.l.
|
|
fico the fur
Hufflepuff Alumni
Why'd you say "halleluia" if it means nothin' to ya'?
Posts: 964
|
Post by fico the fur on Apr 1, 2003 23:59:44 GMT -5
*contributes a few random things, most of them overdue*
okay, so on the topic of smell and taste: there was this girl once, who got in a car crash. and she went to the hospital and stuff, but nothing really seemed wrong. so she went home, but she said that everything tasted funny. turns out, she had lost her sense of smell. so, like, all she could taste were the four basics (salty, sweet, bitter, sour); but, like, she couldn't tell the difference between white sugar and brown sugar; they were both just sweet. so they figure that most of our sense of taste is really our sense of smell. which is why when you're sick and your nose is all stuffed up to high heaven, you don't really like the taste of anything.
girls on the same period: okay, besides nialle's good point of pms in large doses, what's the reproductive use? like, 'cause you're the least likely to get pregnant right after your period, right? (*thinks he got that* 'cause then the old egg is gone, and the new one either isn't out yet or is way far up the fallopian tube, neh?) so what good does it do to have all the girls unlikely to conceive all at the same time?
oh, and on the subject of pheremones: this guy i know, j.r., was talking to me once. and he said how these people are developing, like, pheremones that you would wear as a perfume. so, like, you pop some of that stuff on your skin, and people who respond to that pheremone would be like "i wanna have sex with this guy." ... kinda grossed me out. i mean, the idea that as much as you might try to choose someone for their personality, maybe they just wear the right stuff.
nialle: um, "s.o.l."?
ever notice how people like santa claus are always old? like you need to have white hair before you can get fat or something. this makes me mad. i mean, 'cause i love the idea of the fat grandmother (a la the witches by roald dahl, among others), but i have trouble finding in my memory some mythical person between the ages of, say 15 and 40 who is lovingly not a rail. the closest i come is those chubby-type of kings, like the king in disney's "cinderella". wait, nope, even that guy was old-looking. (white hair, anyway, and a "grown" son.) so maybe guys don't have it all that much easier. i mean, since they have to be a certain age in order to be accepted. girls have it the same, with an age i mean; mrs. claus is always heavy-set along with santa.
|
|
|
Post by coldmercurywitch on Apr 2, 2003 6:11:31 GMT -5
The big problem is that there is only ever really one image for what beatiful women should look like, and it's generally an image that only a select handful can achieve naturally. Everyone else has to put themselves through hell, pain and waste heaps of money to do it. In china for example where tiny feet were fashionable, only a few women would naturally grow up with tiny feet, so little girls had their feet bound from two years old.
Or that country where the women lengthen their necks with the copper coils. That's a really, really painful experience and once they start to stretch their necks with the coils they have to leave them on permanently because their neck is too weak without them to hold their own head up.
And over here things like lipposuction and plastic surgery are dangerous to people. The girl who plays the main character in Sex in the City told her story about lipposuction to a magazine and she ended up with chronic health problems that could have killed her. Her bladder was filling up but she wasn't feelign the need to pee, nor could she pee when she was told to try so she had to be on a catheter for almost a week and those things are painful.
So really, we have to ask ourselves.....why do we allow the media to influence us so much when we know that being individual is the most important thing?
|
|
|
Post by KoNeko on Apr 2, 2003 9:17:35 GMT -5
En, I found it at a poster sale at uni. They usually come around to our uni every couple of months, so next time they swing by I'll see if I can pick up a poster for you.
(Ele, my great-grandmother had bound feet. I've got a pair of her shoes. They're teeny- only about the length of my palm.)
Gen, you know that thing about phermones in a perfume? They sell it on the internet I think. I get all these annoying popups telling me I can attract men or women with these different smells. I think it still has to be scientifically proven though.
Alright, about ethnic facelifts, I might be stepping on a few toes (tell me if I am) but I always got the distinct impression that Jesus was black. I don't know why, but I thought he was. Or at least he was not white. I know that the interpretations and reinterpretations of the scriptures in the west have amounted to a very european looking Jesus, but surely, given that he's from the area in the world so covered in desert and hot sun and stuff like that, surely that pale European complexion would have gone all red?! Or at least he'd be olive-skinned?
|
|
|
Post by En on Apr 2, 2003 16:35:53 GMT -5
Heh, yes, Koko -- it's evidently a little-known fact -- Jesus was a Hebrew He probably had olive to brown skin, black or brown eyes, and black hair; and he was probably five feet tall at the most.
(Oh, about the poster -- I'll just look for it online then. I just wondered if you knew what company made it or something. Now that I know it exists... *jumps into a phone booth and jumps back out in a white spandex suit with a red and blue G on the front* Google Browser is On the Job!)
I don't know why humans create impossible norms. That is most unhealthy. I suppose there is a biological impulse behind it, but we should be mature enough as a species by now to choose which impulses we follow
(Gen - s.o.l. = s*** outta luck)
|
|
|
Post by KoNeko on Apr 4, 2003 4:51:28 GMT -5
Sorry En, no idea who made it- the poster guys just sort of bring lots (read: hundreds) of different prints to uni and lay them on the table.
Er, I don't really think the human race is mature enough to set realistic norms for itself. Maybe it's because we're built with a need to achieve more than is perceivable (such as our need to control our environment) or quite simply, because we're the only species stupid enough to kill ourselves in a variety of ways and bring our environment with us.
|
|
|
Post by coldmercurywitch on Apr 4, 2003 5:06:06 GMT -5
And all this time we've been calling ourselves the superior race.
I think our problem is that we made ourselves evolve too quickly. We allowed our intelligence to get the better of us and carry us away. For a long time in history larger and plmper women were considered more desireable because it meant they were better fed and could hold up better if they fell ill. Now that we have discovered that high amounts of fat and cholestorol are bad for us and we've found a way to use this to take advantage of each other we've created a new ideal woman who it impossibly thin and perfectly beautiful.
And the same thing has happened with men as well really. Men are now expected to be trim and fit and muscle bound. It's being portrayed that that is the image that women want. I think it's pathetic. I don't really like huge bulging muscles. They just make a guy look funny. I like my guys softer cos they are nicer to cuddle and snuggle up to. And a surprising amount of women have the same preferance.
The Image of the ideal person has been distorted for nothing but personal gain. That's what it all boils down to.
|
|
|
Post by En on Apr 4, 2003 16:27:06 GMT -5
*has faith* Really, I'm sure the race will grow out of it. I mean, kids all go through that age when they know better than all the adults ever did, and they live. Kids also live through that age when they have to try the extremes. The human race, likewise, will survive its adolescence.
I just feel bad for the kids who end up dead because they feel the need to show off
|
|
|
Post by KoNeko on Apr 5, 2003 6:55:02 GMT -5
hmmm, yeah, I think that eventually (don't know how long), there will be either a healthy way to be really thin, or evolution will swing us towards the more-rounded side again. Maybe we're just going through the phase when the human race is throwing a tantrum and trashing its room.
|
|