Re: domestication of humans (was milk & dairy)

[Guest guest]

On 7/1/05, Heidi Schuppenhauer <heidis@...> wrote:

> Interestingly, modern humans are more like

> domestic animals, in terms of infantile characteristics,

> than our ancestors were. We are " less wild " , less

> able to fend for ourselves. So maybe that means

> we retain the desire for suckling longer too!

In one of Jay Gould's essays, which I read years ago in one of

the books that were collections of his _Natural History_ essays, he

made a related observation: the human being differs in appearance

from her primate relatives primarily by retaining youthful

characteristics. He attributes this to the increased reliance of

humans on social networks and the extended neet for parent-child

relationships. Youth-related facial characteristics increase the

parents affection for the offspring. He included images demonstrating

the evolution of Mickey Mouse as well, which became a more successful

and popular cartoon character as he continuously was modified to

acquire youthful physical characteristics.

Chris

[Guest guest]

On 7/1/05, Heidi Schuppenhauer <heidis@...> wrote:

> It is said that the popularity of " blondes " stems from a similar

> ideal ... the giggly, girl-like woman is more appealing, and among

> Europeans, blond hair is mainly a childish feature. Whereas a

> strong, independent woman (think Clinton!) is reviled

> by many segments of society.

I agree that blonde hair is an infantile feature, so to speak, as many

people are born with blonde hair and grow out of it. I also agree

that Hillary Clinton is widely reviled :-)

However, is it actually true that blondes are inherently more

attractive, or is this a cultural thing? When " Black is beautiful "

came out in the 60s or 70s, was the movement to suppress the innate

physical attraction to whiteness, or was it simply a cultural shift,

from one culturally conditioned concept of beauty to another?

Sorry, but you caught me heated about this type of thing. I just

randomly tuned into the last few episodes of America's Next Top Model

when I was flipping through the channels the other day, and the finale

came down to the last two remaining: Yoanna, who was very, very white,

and Mercedes, who was caramel skinned and I'm not sure what she is but

she looks hispanic to me, with the caramel complexion and the finely

curled hair. Anyway, they were both beautiful in their own way

(although I do admit that I was totally rooting for Mercedes), but

when it came down to the final judging, the consensus among the judges

seemed to be in favor of Mercedes because she had mastered the runway

walk much better and for various other such reasons relating to her

modeling skill.

And then one of the judges made this comment, roughly paraphrased as,

" Yes, Mercedes really has better modeling skill, but can she really be

embraced by *all audeinces*? Who will sell better to most of

America? " ... which I immediately interpreted as, " She's not white

enough. "

Then it went to commercial and I was still sure Mercedes would win

because the whole judging team seemed to favor her, and it seemed to

me the aforementioned comment would be so transparent to Tyra (Banks,

the exec producer who facilitated the judging team) and since the

other female judge was an avid advocate of Mercedes. But she lost!

Oh, I was so mad!

I know most people are probably thinking that 1) reality tv is stupid

2) modeling exploits women and 3) sure that was unfair to one model

but the whole show is basically unfair to the 90-something percent of

women who don't look like models, and whatever, but I'm serious and

this really makes me mad.

I had the same general feeling about the Ms. Universe pageant which I

caught part of the end of but didn't watch it for long due to my

observations-- which were that it seemed every country took their

whitest American/European-looking girls to send up, and the only

dark-skinned girls were from some African country that didn't have

light-skinned girls. But all the Latinas were white and

straight-haired, which is so not representative of the Latin

countries. They all have girls who are white, caramel, black, and

everything in between-- but it seems if they had some white girls,

they'd send one. And damn, what's with the straight hair? I'm sure

many were artificially straightening it-- to look, umm, beautiful

*cough* I mean, European. And, iirc, none of the black girls from

African countries made it as finalists.

Wow. I'm sure you didn't expect/deserve this kind of rant from what

you wrote! But it was on my mind...

Oh, anyway, I think the primary features I recall Gould discussing

were hairlessness (you know, compared to an ape) and sort of bubbly

facial features. I just noticed that it seems that some of the facial

features, like roundness, are more accentuated in Price's primitives.

Chris

[Guest guest]

Ok, haven't read this subject before this post (so sorry if ya'll

are talking about something else, just happened to glance at this

one)...are you talking about shaving your pits? You don't?

Kris

--- In , Lynn Siprelle <lynn@s...>

wrote:

> > It is said that the popularity of " blondes " stems from a similar

> > ideal ... the giggly, girl-like woman is more appealing, and

among

> > Europeans, blond hair is mainly a childish feature.

>

> I stopped shaving when I realized that the only naturally hairless

> females were children. It grossed me out for the longest time, the

> thought that women who shave were emulating pre-pubescent

children. Now

> I occasionally do, like once a year maybe, and I can see it as

more of

> a personal choice. But for the people that have just never thought

> about it--it's just what you do--it still grosses me out.

>

> Lynn S.

>

> ------

> Lynn Siprelle * web developer, writer, mama, fiber junky

> http://www.siprelle.com * http://www.thenewhomemaker.com

> http://www.deanspeaksforme.com * http://www.knitting911.net

[Guest guest]

On 7/2/05, Rathbone <yvonr@...> wrote:

> I think the cultural preferences for hairless women has to do with a

> tendency to polarize sex roles rather than making women into prepubescents.

> Many people who are attracted to women like an adult sized bustline and

> hips. I have talked with lots of men who want *adult* women and hate the

> stick figure ideal of flat chests and slim hips. But they still want the

> hairless legs and pits. It's more about polarizing the sex roles (women

> are hairless and men are hair) than sexualizing immaturity.

Hmm. I disagree. It appears to me that the cultural ideal is for men

to be hairless to, and it seems that it's quite common for women to

dislike a significant amount of hair, at least beyond a certain point,

on men, and in general a shaven face is the normal preference. So I

don't think there is any polarization going on at all, but rather a

similar preference for the more youthful feature among both sexes.

I'm curious why you think there is a " stick figure ideal. " I'm really

not aware of anyone anywhere who likes a flat chest-- slim hips there

might be more variance on.

> A lot of women are also starting to get their men to shave chests and

> backs.

> A recent Queer Eye showcased some of the Boston Red Sox. All of them had

> to

> get their backs waxed as part of their makeovers except for centerfielder

> ny Damon. His wife already makes him shave there! (And only

> Veritek got the waxing without yelping - he didn't even flinch, but then,

> he's a catcher and ML catchers tend to have almost as high a pain threshold

> as women <G>!)

Right, so how is there a polarization going on?

> It took me many years of not liking my hairy legs to realize I just didn't

> like hair. It tickles, it gets caught in things, it's scratchy. I prefer

> the look of smooth skin in both men and women on face, chest, back, legs

> and

> arms. For me this isn't about being juvenile because many adults are

> naturally quite hairless. Hairlessness in these areas could just be a

> physical preference like some people preferring very hairy people (both men

> and women).

It's certainly very hard to weed out the innate rules of attraction

from individual preference and each from cultural conditioning, but,

as I pointed out in my original email about Jay Gould's

article, human adults are this way precisely because (according to

his-- sensible and compelling-- theory) this is a youth-associated

trait. So what separates humans from other primates in appearance is

a tendency towards the retention of youth-associated features, to

elicit a retained affective response from parents and others involved

in a social network. I don't see a reason for phrases like " being

juvenile " or " prepubescent " or to see anything creepy about it,

because even our mature adults have a tendency for these

youth-associated characteristics, relative to other animals.

Chris

[Guest guest]

On 7/2/05, Rathbone <yvonr@...> wrote:

> You're response to my points isn't making much sense to me. I was

> responding to someone else's (Lynn's?) statement that the hairless ideal

> was

> for prepubescence. I wasn't arguing that people weren't going for a

> youthful (i.e. sexually mature, but young enough to be very viable). I do

> think that's part of things.

I'm not sure which point that I made you are saying doesn't make sense.

> As to the polarization, while I agree that the ideal level of sexy hair on

> men is at an all time low, men can still be much more hairy than women and

> still be sexy.

That isn't polarization. An example of polarization would be that men

are considered sexy to the extent that they are hairy and women are

considered sexy to the extent that they are hairless.

So, consider visually the hairless/hairy spectrum:

ideal woman ideal man

* *

|---------------------|----------------------|

hairless midpoint hairy

* *

acceptable acceptable

woman man

I'm just making vague approximations with the asterisks, but the poles

of the spectrum are each side-- hairless, and hairy. A polarization

would be if the ideals for each respective sex were concentrated

similarly toward a specific pole. And consider it with arrows to show

a trend, both women and men are generally considered sexier to the

extent they are hairless (without hitting the extreme pole, of

course), so, broadly speaking, they both become sexy as they move

leftward on the line <----. A polarizaiton would involve a leftward

arrow for women and a rightward arrow for men.

In any case, I do agree that men can get away with more hair than

women. And there are many women who consider certain types of hair

sexy. Nevertheless, out of those women, who considers back hair sexy?

Or bushes for eyebrows, or leghair you'd get caught in... I think the

ideal man for any woman is probably considerably less hairy than the

hairiest man.

> As to what we are doing compared to chimps, we can only speculate. If

> Gould

> did make the claim you say he did, he messed up. He assumed that chimps

> wouldn't shave if they could. We don't know that.

That assumption isn't implicit in his point. It's possible I conveyed

his point wrong, but I'm not sure what I said to indicate that this

assumption would be implicit. His point wasn't about anyone shaving,

it was about how humans have evolved to possess youthful

characteristics, which is true, and irrelevant to behavior.

> Anyone else making that

> kind of assumption, I'd probably let slide, but Gould was so good at

> pointing out just where other people made assumptions to support their

> points so I'm stricter with him.

>

> I would say that probably whatever shows the other sex that you can make

> good babies or care for babies is what is going to do it.

But Gould's point did not relate to what mates find attractive, it

related to what would elicit an affective response from a parent

toward a considerably developed offspring.

I suppose, though, that it is probably a corollary of that that humans

would devleop attraction for those same traits, to ensure (but not

consciously) that their children possess them, and thereby elicit a

greater affective response from the parents, although this wasn't part

of Gould's point, that I recall.

> If men could

> only

> grow beards if they were sexually viable, beards would be *in*. We have no

> idea what cultural norms the chimps would use to indicate their sexual

> viability if they could use more tools.

Of course we don't, but it has nothing to do with his point. His

point was that we evolved inherent physical traits, not behavioral

traits, that project a youthful aura.

> My point about the stickfigure ideal was exactly what you were saying.

> Most actual men want boobs and hips, which are not prepubescent

characteristics

> no matter how hairless the woman is. The stickfigure ideal is just the

> fashion industry starving its models and telling us it's sexy. Blech.

If your point was that the ideal is not prepubescent, even minus the

hair, than I understand and agree. However, I'm not so sure there is

an ideal of flat-chestedness in the fashion world. Granted I might

have deficient knowledge in that area, but I just looked through a

's Secret, which I think classifies as fashion industry, and

it seems that the women are consistently full-breasted, but that their

hips range from very slender to curvy. They are all definitely

skinny, but I wouldn't say stick figure. I think I prefer more to the

hips than many of them have, but there are quite a few with curvy

hips.

Chris

[Guest guest]

>

> I stopped shaving when I realized that the only naturally hairless

> females were children. It grossed me out for the longest time, the

> thought that women who shave were emulating pre-pubescent children.

Now

> I occasionally do, like once a year maybe, and I can see it as more

of

> a personal choice. But for the people that have just never thought

> about it--it's just what you do--it still grosses me out.

>

> Lynn S.

i stopped shaving after i took a swiss friend of mine to our pool.

okay, i shave a few times in the summer so as not to gross out the

others at the pool, as pit hair on women seems to be REALLY discouraged

here, but i wish no one would shave. including men.

laura in nj

[Guest guest]

On 7/2/05, Rathbone <yvonr@...> wrote:

> Re: polarization: You're really forcing an extreme definition for the

> word. Polarization can just mean two opposing tendencies, in this case

> hairless to hairy. Just because one pole is not as strong as it used to be

> doesn't mean there isn't polarization. But if you just can't stand the

> word

> being used that way, take it up with the editors of the Oxford dictionary,

> and substitute whatever word means the above to you.

I suppose we'll have to agree to disagree at this point. Like I said,

I don't see it as two opposing tendencies at all. I see the ideal for

men and women at different spots on the spectrum, but I think the

general tendency for both is in the same direction. If you take an

example of the hairiest adult men, and the least hairy adult men, I'm

guessing the ideal, or the average of the various ideals, lies

somewhat more toward the latter than the former. And in the grander

scheme of things, the evolutionary trend has been for humans to be

closer to hairless than hairy among the spectrum for primates, as

well-- a somewhat different, but also related, matter.

> [Chris]

> Of course we don't, but it has nothing to do with his point. His

> point was that we evolved inherent physical traits, not behavioral

> traits, that project a youthful aura.

>

> Doesn't work. You're saying we lost our hair to look like young humans?

No, not really. In portraying Gould's argument, I'm not looking at a

particular species, but saying that the general tendency for all

primates is to accumulate more hair with age, and that hairlessness is

a youth-associated trait, and youth-associated traits bring out an

affective, attractive, and caring response in those observing them.

It isn't to look like anyone or any thing in particular, but to

express the traits that stimulate the caring response.

> Why did our young humans lose their hair? It's a circular argument.

I honestly can't make any sense out of this statement.

> Sorry. 's Secret doesn't qualify as the fashion industry. It

> qualifies as porn <g>. And like porn, it showcases women with much bigger

> breasts and hips than the fashion industry.

You're joking, right? It's a clothing catalogue, and sections of it

show women fully dressed. The sections that show little clothing are

doing so because they're advertising underwear. The intent isn't to

arouse men to supply them with masturbatory material, but to induce

women to feel as if they can be as sexy as the models in it if they

buy the same apparel-- a totally different phenomenon.

I'm not very familiar with the fashion industry, but 's Secret

is somewhere among it-- perhaps on the lower end, but whether or not

it is high fashion, it's fashion, not porn.

> I do think this is shifting. There are more big busted women shown in mags

> like Vogue, etc. But it's still very much trying to make women look like

> young boys.

I'll take your word for it, since I don't really know much about it.

Chris

[Guest guest]

Where I live, a woman choosing not to shave isn't

> completely unheard of--no one gives me a second glance and many of my

> friends don't shave either--but in most places in the Western world

not

> shaving is akin to--I dunno, choosing not to brush your teeth or

bathe

> or wear clothes or something. I'm perfectly clean, I just don't

shave.

>

>

> Lynn S.

>

>Lynn, where do you live? i'd love to live somewhere where i could run

into another woman who doesn't shave. much.

laura in nj

[Guest guest]

On 7/3/05, Heidi Schuppenhauer <heidis@...> wrote:

>

> >Oh, anyway, I think the primary features I recall Gould discussing

> >were hairlessness (you know, compared to an ape) and sort of bubbly

> >facial features. I just noticed that it seems that some of the facial

> >features, like roundness, are more accentuated in Price's primitives.

> >

> >Chris

>

> Gads, I have NO IDEA what makes a woman " attractive " to a guy!

> I mean, I know what makes a guy attractive to ME, and it has

> more to do with his ability to TALK and LISTEN than it does with

> his anatomy.

Perhaps I need to make a clarrification. I think that I may have

caused some confusion in dealing with two issues in one thread: sexual

attraction between a male and female, and social caring attraction

between parent/guardian and child/one being cared for. The quoted

paragraph about deals with the latter: Gould was saying that the fact

that we retain relatively youthful characteristics through our lives

as humans facilitates the extended parental care and social networks

we require. Humans are weaned off of parental care much more slowly

than other animals.

> My suspicion though, is that if we have complete control

> over our genome and looks (a day that is coming soon, at

> least in theory) most people will end up with light brown

> skin and lighter hair. I mean, most white folks try to get

> tan, and a lot of darker folks try to get lighter: there seems

> to be some built in " ideal brown " in our brains.

I think that seems true, but it is very difficult for me to try to

analyze what is cultural here and what is wired in our brains. In

American culture, whites have been dominant from the beginning--

that's not so fixed anymore, but the cultural ideal that developed

among African American women was for beautiful to be lighter skin,

straighter hair, etc. Now, I wonder how far back the tanning thing

goes for whites. Was there any obsession with tanning in the 19th

century? In Europe in general? What is the overall tendency? Is

tanning a new thing because our cultures have been homogenizing over

the last third century? Urban culture has taken over the youth

culture, for example, and the tables have turned in many ways in who

is imitating whom.

I do believe there are hardwired tendencies, but they interact with

personal ideals of all kinds, culturally conditioned ideals, etc. For

example, someone who is rebellious and anti-establishment at heart

might find things like not shaving-- for women or men-- hot, because

it reflects the ideals they hold tightly to, which might trump some

biologically wired *tendency* to find any given thing attractive. How

do we sort it out?

> There is probably an " ideal hair " too ... which seems, from

> the guys I've talked to at least, to be LONG. The longer

> the better!

There's definitely a beauty to real long hair. Like waist-length

blonde hair. Mmm. But some people's hair doesn't grow, umm, long! I

think various types of hair are hot, but it really depends on how it

meshes with the rest of the person. Some people would look beautiful

with other types of hair and look funny with waist-length straight

hair. In my opinion.

> Also I have to admit that for many years I was blond. I

> lightened my hair on a whim, and was amazed at how differently

> I was treated. Folks who never said " hello " suddenly were

> friendly. I guess as a blond I was more " approachable " .

Or desirable. I believe it. I used to hang out with a girl who had

really, really long naturally blonde hair. She would basically have

exclusive command over the attention in any given place. I think

these things are true even when it is just regular personal

interaction. Suze mentioned before a study that found that teachers

gave more attention to blue-eyed students, for example.

> If a woman is brunette, she is seen as smarter (esp. if

> she wears glasses). I have no idea how this plays out

> in non-northern-european races though, where there

> is typically not so much variation in hair color.

I guess the general trend is to be attracted to not-smart women?

> An intresting parallel is *beards*. Most non-european

> races don't have much in the way of beards. But among

> europeans, beards have a great social meaning: like

> " wisdom " (Santa) or " rebellion " (hippies).

True. But these things ebb and flow. When the Europeans first came

to America, they all wore beards, and they called the Native Americans

feminine for being shaven. By the 19th century, they considered it

" feminine " (!) to wear beards (I can't figure that one out). And you

were likely to get attacked, even.

Chris

[Guest guest]

>

> >It tickles, it gets caught in things, it's scratchy. I prefer

> >the look of smooth skin in both men and women on face, chest, back,

legs and

> >arms. For me this isn't about being juvenile because many adults are

> >naturally quite hairless. Hairlessness in these areas could just be

a

> >physical preference like some people preferring very hairy people

(both men

> >and women).

> >

> >YR

>

> And most non-European races ARE hairless! Or at least more hairless.

>

>

> Heidi Jean

Hi Heidi:

Just one aside: wouldn't it be more correct to say non-white or non-

caucasian rather non-European? Arabs and Jews are non-European and can

be hairy, can't they? On the other hand, Lapps are European and are

probably more on the hairless side. I hear that the Ainu, who live in

Hokkaido (Japan) and are a probably a mixture of Causasoid and

Mongoloid races, are the hairiest in the world. By the way, I think

they were almost entirely paleo " until the Japanese moved into Hokkaido

and attempted to settle them in agriculture " . (from Britannica).

Cheers,

José

[Guest guest]

> LOL! There is such a thing as too much hair for men!!

not sure about that, Mike...i like my men 'furry'. there was a b

ball player in HS...they called him 'gorilla legs'. i thought that

was the sexiest thing i'd ever seen. my dh has a fairly hairy

back...ooooooo! grew a beard after we were married...i LOVE beards.

i don't get the whole 'hairless' culture thing. to each his own.

>

> By the way, I know a female who in early college years decided not

to

> shave her mustache,

i pluck so i guess i'm being hypocritical here. it seemed when i hit

30...plucking became a necessity. at that time i wanted to maximize

my dating opportunities. but i still do it...vanity.

> By the way, I heard someone say once that if you shave your armpits

> they won't get stinky. I seriously doubt this is true, but can

> someone step in and lay down some facts on this one for me please?!

> That would be the coolest thing... I'd be googling " wax " faster than

> you could say " thai deodorant stones have their limitations " ...

an aside; since i've sworn off aluminum deoderants, it's been very

frustrating trying to find one that actually works. finally

have...tropical traditions roll on (www.tropicaltraditions.com).

it's not cheap but very worth it. dh and son like it too.

laura in nj

[Guest guest]

On 7/3/05, Rathbone <yvonr@...> wrote:

> There is something jumbled here. I think because I was originally

> responding to a different poing, really a different subject, brought up by

> someone else and you've tried to make my arguments fit as a response to the

> above instead.

I think I've taken your points one-on-one, agreeing with some,

disagreeing with others, not making them fit into any particular

argument. In my first response to you, I did reference my original

point about Gould's argument in the last paragraph where you weren't

directly addressing it, but it wasn't to guide your argument back into

my mold; it was to address the point about juvenility and

prepubescence with respect to my original point, to share my opinion.

Keep in mind that I started this thread, and its evolution beginning

with Heidi's first response has evolved from the few sentences I wrote

about Gould's argument that Heidi quoted.

While you may not have had Gould's argument in mind in the paragraph I

responded to in which I brought it back up, your response was to

Lynn's response to Heidi's response to that very point.

> Let's see if we can sort it out by returning to the beginning and letting

> me

> respond directly to your above paraphrase of Gould's point. First, the

> argument: adults who retain youthful characteristics get more social care

> and hence are selected for. Therefore there will be an evolutionary

> selection towards adults who maintain youthful characteristics. In

> primates

> who get hairier with age, this will select for relative hairlessness and

> hence we are now quite hairless. Am I understanding correctly?

Basically, only hairlessness was only one of the features he

discussed. He also emphasized facial features. Additionally, I

believe he had a special emphasis on the pre-adult level, pointing out

that our period of parental care is much longer than that of other

animals, due to our complexity and need for a more complex set of

survival skills than the ability to procure food on our own.

> If so, I have a couple of issues I need to hammer out. One is sexual

> selection in primates. We don't know how humans have been selecting for

> mates for the past few thousands of years. We do have some historical

> records and the behavior of modern primates to give us some idea of the

> range of behaviors around selecting mates. The historical records are

> mostly for the small section of the population that had access to writing,

> generally royalty. These were almost always arranged marriages with other

> royalty selected for political reasons and then a lot of concubines

> selected

> for how much they turned on the king. This process most closely resemble

> the selction process of Goodhall's Chimps, which I'll describe below.

Ok, but the characteristics he's referring to would predate the

timeframe involving writing by a long-shot. The need for an extended

parental care period extends toward the beginning of human existence,

whereas writing is closer to the end of human existence to date.

> This process would select both for youthful characteristics in women, and

> virility into later adulthood for men (something not directly tied to

> " hairfulness, " but somewhat correlated with it.) If the majority of the

> people not in the historic record were selecting mates along the same

> process, I don't see how juvenile traits would be selected over more adult

> traits.

I think you're totally displacing the emphasis by focusing on the

range of characteristics we now know as human, whereas Gould was

emphasizing the range of characteristics we know as primate, or more

generally as animal, where humans place quite emphatically on the

youthful side of the spectrum.

That said, I'm not particularly sure why you see the conflict. A man

who appears older at 20 than a man who appears younger at 20 will not

necessarily have greater virility to a later age.

Furthermore, while I'll take your word for this element of history

that I'm unknowledgeable of, I don't see why this would be a sensible

characteristic to favor at all. Even if a woman marries a man 10

years her senior, a man's timeframe of virility is so much longer than

a woman's window of fertility that any variation in it is completely

irrelevant to reproduction. (Although I suppose they would also

select for sexual satisfaction?) I would also think that women would

tend to choose mates based on their ability to support and protect and

provide for the family to a greater extent than they'd consider

virility into old age, which would be much harder to judge, and which

judgments would inevitably have very low reliability.

> If the majority of " the masses " selected mates in a more

> egalitarian manner, then probably youthful traits would be selected for by

> both men and women, although I suspect that even here, plenty of women

> would

> go for the more established male, regardless of how much he was able to

> retain his youthful traits.

If that's the case, it would support the analysis I offered. So, for

example, if we consider one trait of youthfulness to be hairlessness,

we would expect, out of the scenario you describe above:

1) both women and men would have a general preference towards hairlessness

2) men would generally have more hair than women, since the criterion

for men was less important to women than the same criterion for women

was to men

3) it would be socially acceptable for men to have a greater amount of

hair than women

4) insofar as hair could be seen as a sign of maturity, and thereby of

ability to protect and provide for a family, yet also a sign of

youthfulness, there could be some ambiguity or conflict in ideals of

hairiness/hairlessness of men.

It seems that those four points are generally true.

> You see, like a lot of male scientists (and a good many female scientists

> as

> well), Gould completely ignores the role of rape and sexual coercion in

> sexual selection.

Again, since he was referring to the usefulness of the trait for the

survival of the offspri8ng, and therefore the family, and not

referring to a mechanism for how sexual attraction could reflect this

need, as I've pointed out several times, rape or coercion would not be

a factor with respect to his specific point. The most apparent reason

for its irrelevancy is that even if rape or coercion tended to produce

a child that possessed characteristics that decreased the affinity of

the parents for that child, that child would have a proportionally

decreased chance of survival and reproductive success.

> But how predominant this behavior was would have a

> profound effect on what kinds of traits were being selected for. We can

> see

> the range of behaviors in our close relatives, the chimps.

>

> In Goodall's chimps, the tendency if for the dominant male chimp to have

> sex

> with whoever he wants. There is quite a bit of rape and even when the sex

> is not violent, the female has little say in whether the events happens.

> The male chimp may choose females that are less hairy and therefore select

> for this youthful trait. The female chimps that stay less hairy might be

> selected for mating more often and for longer parts of their lives. But

> they will most likely be selected by a male chimp who's retention of

> youthful appearance traits plays no part in his ability to pass on his

> genes. Males build up muscle mass a lot between late adolescence and full

> adulthood. Fully male chimps would have more ability to dominate other

> males. It is even likely that a male chimp *who loses youthful

> characteristics sooner* would have an advantage. Therefore, both traits

> will be passed on and associated with different social roles.

Well, I have a small list of responses to this:

1) These are chimps, not humans, and I think the same type of social

networks and extensions of parental care periods, family associations,

etc, that Gould is speaking of in humans would also mitigate the

extent to which rape is responsible for procreation.

2) To the extent your reasonsing is correct and reflects human

activity, it still does not contradict Gould's point but merely

mitigates the effect of the phenomenon to which Gould is referring,

causing the trend towards youthful traits to be lessened but not

stopped or reversed.

3) I think it is apparent that humans possess the features Gould was

talking about, among them, relative hairlessness (compared to other

primates), so the fact that his theory is born out by the results

makes it more supported than a theory that suggests the opposite

result would occur (which only applies here to the extent you are

saying there would be a trend toward more quickly developing age

characteristics)

4) Since genes are contributed by both the female and the male, the

trend in your scenario would probably still be towards youthfulness,

since the correlation between youthfulness of the female mate and the

male's desire for youthfulness would be 100%, assuming that the male's

power was effectively equal to his will, whereas any correlation

between an older appearance of the male, hairness, etc, and strength

to subdue a female is indirect and would play a considerably lesser

role.

5) The mechanism for Gould's theory is that the parents have greater

affinity for a child for a longer period of time who retains youthful

characteristics. It is not enough for a child to merely be produced

to result in an adaptive function for a parental behavior; it is

required that this child survive and be reproductively successful.

> In the Bonobos, however, there is a very different situation. This is a

> subspecies of chimps that live in a different area. They have a completely

> different social structure. They are known for having lots of sex, being

> the only other species besides humans where the female regularly indulges

> in

> sex even when she's not in estrus. But for the Bonobos, sex is always by

> choice of both partners. The males do not force females to have sex. But

> the males don't mind because they can always just go off and find another

> partner, even a male partner. (An aside: The Bonobo males get a *lot* more

> sex than the regular chimps). Here I can see that if hairlessness engenders

> social care, then both males and females will be selected for

> hairlessness.

Ok.

> Now that I've worked through this argument, here's my hypothesis. If the

> loss of hair in humans is, at least in part, the effect of a selection of

> partners who stay youthful longer, it indicates that at some point in the

> past, female protohumans had a lot more choice of partners than in the

> historical time.

I think that might be a factor, but it appears to me that the

overriding force is whether or not that affinity of the parents for

the children, and grandchildren, etc, is sufficient to facilitate the

social networks associated with human-ness. Populations that didn't

provide for this for whatever reason (rape included, if your analysis

is correct), would either tend away from human-type organization,

perish, or tend toward a weaker human-type organization than societies

that did provide for it, and thereby be subject to the conquering or

assimilation by more fit human/proto-human populations.

> And as for the correlation between hairlessness and trends in personal

> hygiene bevahior (the original discussion I was having with Lynn and

> others),

Which was three responses away from my original email, the summary of

Gould's theory, which was actually the origin of this thread (and

therefore the " original " discussion).

> I believe that the reason we are seeing the male ideal shifting to

> a less hairy one is because women are being more empowered to make their

> own

> selections in sex partner. Instead of the older, established male who has

> already lost his youthful appearance choosing the young fertile wife, both

> partners are selecting and selecting for partners whose appearance

> engenders

> the social care response.

That's an interesting point, and seems to have some plausibility. I

wonder if you are exaggerating the choicelessness of women in choosing

a mate. I'm not doubting in any way that rape has been and continues

to be a significant and detestable human behavior. But I have a

reasonable amount of knowledge of American women's history, and I

suggest that women were not powerless to choose their mate in earlier

periods.

Although, where are you suggesting a change has taken place towards a

preference for hairlessness? I'm not really sure of the history of

hair in sexual attraction.

I wonder if another powerful factor would be an increase in general

superficiality due to the influence of mass media, etc. Also, to the

increase of number of sexual partners most people have. (Giving the

chance to more finely tune a choice based on physical characteristics,

or the liklihood of lesser satisfaction with sub-optimal physical

characteristics due to the liklihood one's had better in the past or

could get better in the future.)

> >> Sorry. 's Secret doesn't qualify as the fashion industry. It

> >> qualifies as porn <g>. And like porn, it showcases women with much

> bigger

> >> breasts and hips than the fashion industry.

>

> >You're joking, right?

>

> No.

>

> >It's a clothing catalogue, and sections of it

> >show women fully dressed. The sections that show little clothing are

> >doing so because they're advertising underwear. The intent isn't to

> >arouse men to supply them with masturbatory material, but to induce

> >women to feel as if they can be as sexy as the models in it if they

> >buy the same apparel-- a totally different phenomenon.

>

> What nice clearcut categories you impose on the world around you. Of

> course it's a clothing catalogue. So is the Abercrombie & Fitch catalog

> and

> they were recently told they had to tone down the bulges in the pants of

> the

> male models if they didn't want to be stopped by the post office for

> peddling pornography across state lines.

Well I don't really tag any value on the post office's opinion.

> The VS catalog is renowned for

> first being appealing to men. Women didn't go to VS at first. It was men,

> picking up the catalog because it appealed to their taste in women who

> brought the brand to women.

I didn't know that, thank you. I'm not sure about who gets the

catalogues now (except that I have the general impression that women

buy their own clothes most of the time), but from what I've seen it is

almost entirely women who populate the outlet stores.

> And plenty of men use it for masturbatory

> material.

I'm sure, but I suspect that the intension of the photographers and

designers of the catalogue is to influence women more than men. I

supsect that many more dollars are transferred from a woman's purse

than a man's wallet in this case.

> The whole point was to get a catalog for yourself and when your

> wife found it in the garage, you could tell her you were getting her a

> surprise (generally the item that turned you on the most while you were

> masturbating.)

The point for whom? For the male, or for the catalogue producers?

The catalogue goes out for free, unlike porn mags, so the point is to

sell the product.

> Now that VS has become more acceptable to women, you will find more fully

> dressed women, and women in poses intended to appeal to women as you

> describe above.

Right, and I was referring the present VS catalogues.

> But the models themselves are still a type that appeals to

> men more than your average fashion model.

As differentiated from the " average " Paris/Milan high-fashion runway

models who appeal to women?

> Again, the difference between the VS catalog (which is also porn, i.e.

> sexually appealing to many hetero men)

If your definition of porn is something that is sexually appealing to

many heterosexual men, then it isn't surprising to me that we're

debating this point.

> and your average catalog is that the

> VS catalog shows women with physical traits associated with sexual

> maturity.

> Of course, they are more biologically impossible than the concentration

> camp

> victims in Vogue because no woman that thin has breasts that big.

Some of the models, yes, but it seemed to me that most of them had

biologically plausible bodies-- ones that certainly require work,

though. It's pretty hard for a man to pack on a lot of muscle mass

without packing on fat, too, so it's pretty hard to get the muscular

look while staying cut enough to have a sex-pack or some semblance

thereof, but it's certainly possible with hard work and dedication.

Most of the VS models that I looked at browsing through didn't have

Pamela bodies, which *are* probably biologically impossible.

And the skinny/giant-fake-boob thing is kind of out of style for most

men anyway, I think.

Chris

[Guest guest]

On 7/3/05, Masterjohn <chrismasterjohn@...> wrote:

> Some of the models, yes, but it seemed to me that most of them had

> biologically plausible bodies-- ones that certainly require work,

> though. It's pretty hard for a man to pack on a lot of muscle mass

> without packing on fat, too, so it's pretty hard to get the muscular

> look while staying cut enough to have a sex-pack or some semblance

> thereof,

Ha! That should be a six-pack-- I suppose.

Chris

[Guest guest]

On 7/3/05, Lynn Siprelle <lynn@...> wrote:

> >> Lynn, where do you live? i'd love to live somewhere where i could run

> > into another woman who doesn't shave. much.

>

> The People's Republic of Southeast Portland, Oregon.

Any political association with the People's Republic of Western Mass?

Chris

[Guest guest]

What's SE PDX?

I think I ran into some of those Eugene OR folks in DC once. They're

magnets for rubber bullets and pepper spray. I ran.

I think they're all vegetarians too. I saw a 60 minutes episode where

one informed the audience that broccoli was a revolutionary's favorite

food.

Chris

On 7/3/05, Lynn Siprelle <lynn@...> wrote:

> >> The People's Republic of Southeast Portland, Oregon.

> >

> > Any political association with the People's Republic of Western Mass?

>

> Very possibly! There seems to be a little circuit consisting of

> Portland/Eugene, Santa Fe NM, Madison WI, Vermont, Berkeley, and

> Western Mass.

>

> Lynn S.

> viva SE PDX!

>

> ------

> Lynn Siprelle * web developer, writer, mama, fiber junky

> http://www.siprelle.com * http://www.thenewhomemaker.com

> http://www.deanspeaksforme.com * http://www.knitting911.net

>

>

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[Guest guest]

On 7/3/05, Masterjohn <chrismasterjohn@...> wrote:

> Some of the models, yes, but it seemed to me that most of them had

> biologically plausible bodies-- ones that certainly require work,

> though. It's pretty hard for a man to pack on a lot of muscle mass

> without packing on fat, too, so it's pretty hard to get the muscular

> look while staying cut enough to have a sex-pack or some semblance

> thereof, but it's certainly possible with hard work and dedication.

> Most of the VS models that I looked at browsing through didn't have

> Pamela bodies, which *are* probably biologically impossible.

> And the skinny/giant-fake-boob thing is kind of out of style for most

> men anyway, I think.

It occurred to me afterwards that my comparison here is invalid,

because it's probably more or less impossible to increase breast size

through hard work or dedication. Trimming up, yes, and then breast

size is probably left to genetics at that point, maybe some poorly

understood hormonal action too. So let me say instead that a

significant minority of women can be very slim while having large

breasts without anything fake.

Chris

[Guest guest]

butting in here... but I live in the greater Houston area & know

quite a few hairy ladies

> Where I live, a woman choosing not to shave isn't

> > completely unheard of--no one gives me a second glance and many

of my

> > friends don't shave either--but in most places in the Western

world

> not

> > shaving is akin to--I dunno, choosing not to brush your teeth or

> bathe

> > or wear clothes or something. I'm perfectly clean, I just don't

> shave.

> >

> >

> > Lynn S.

> >

> >Lynn, where do you live? i'd love to live somewhere where i

could run

> into another woman who doesn't shave. much.

>

> laura in nj

[Guest guest]

I am sooooo way behind on emails. I know I saw this online & replied asking if

you were talking about pits. But reading again, I think you're more talking

about pubs and yes, I think it's gross to shave. That's what makes you a

WOMAN!!!!!! IMHO

But on the same hand (and not really sure why it's so different to me but it

is), to not shave anywhere else when a woman is gross too.

Kris

domestication of humans (was milk & dairy)

> It is said that the popularity of " blondes " stems from a similar

> ideal ... the giggly, girl-like woman is more appealing, and among

> Europeans, blond hair is mainly a childish feature.

I stopped shaving when I realized that the only naturally hairless

females were children. It grossed me out for the longest time, the

thought that women who shave were emulating pre-pubescent children. Now

I occasionally do, like once a year maybe, and I can see it as more of

a personal choice. But for the people that have just never thought

about it--it's just what you do--it still grosses me out.

Lynn S.