Slightly underweight or curvy/slightly overweight?

Post Reply New Topic

the additional issue with those examples is that size 8 was half turned away from the camera - that sends subliminal message of unavailability or unwillingness to engage (body language!!) and also, size 12 has bigger boobs and is pale and has long dark hair which seems to be current ideal for men. Gentlemen no longer prefer blondes, for sure

I personally thought 14 was the hottest but if I was a bloke I probably would have gone for 12 anyway because proportionally she would be better fit, unless I was a big bloke in which case I could go for 14 again

"Researchers"? It was an online survey done by a men's magazine! I think that tells us all we need to know about its scientific validity.

Having said that, the results are quite believable, so I'm not saying it's wrong, just unscientific.

Ok, the results are not surprising as you said.

I don't understand why this whole anorexia conspiracy theory is linked to straight men's preferences, I've never seen men seeing a woman like 12 and 14 and say she should be thinner, but I hear them saying about someone like 8 that she needs to be meater and they wouldn't be shy to tell her that directly.

It's the thin women who face pressure from men the most, not the average or even slightly overweight women.
As for obese women, no one even dares to tell them anything.

For me, anywhere from 15-17% to 40%.

Yes I agree.

Absolutely agree with this. As someone else said earlier (and as I've been saying all along), it is about pressure from the media and the fashion industry (which the media follows). I also do not disagree that the fashion industry probably is controlled by mostly women and gay men.

Personally, I don't care that much about size or looks - in men or in women. I'm attracted to what's on the inside. Therefore, if someone is so insecure or shallow as to starve themselves, or spend endless hours in a gym pumping themselves up or taking any kind of drug to make themselves conform with an artificial societal standard of beauty, they are probably not the kind of person I would want to be with in any case. I also would not want to be with someone who was so insecure or inconsiderate of their own health that they would not try to address their obesity, if it were within their power to do so.

For example, I have an early-30s friend who is considered to be obese at 5'10" and 240 lbs. She walks 5 miles daily, hikes 15-20 miles once a week in the mountains (weather permitting), swims 5-10 miles 3 times a week, and consumes <2000 calories a day of mostly lean protein, whole grains and vegetables. Her doctor cannot discern any medical problems, aside from having a naturally slow metabolism. Her heart and circulatory system are healthy, her BP is fine, her cholesterol is excellent. If I were sexually attracted to women, I'd be very attracted to her. She's healthy, and she has a fabulous personality.

She has, on a couple different occasions, kept up the same exercise regimen while reducing her caloric intake to less than 1500 calories a day for fairly long periods of time (6 months or greater). All that happened was that, after an initial small loss (<20 lbs), she actually began to GAIN weight, and it lowered her immune function to where she was catching every passing virus, her BP fell to dangerous levels, and her cholesterol actually went up. There's actually a "famine mode" that gets triggered in the body when caloric intake is insufficient. The ease with which famine mode can be triggered is possibly linked to the factors which cause Type II diabetes. Yo-yo dieting is also linked with Type II diabetes. Some people are just destined to be generously-sized, but there's probably just as few who are naturally this way as there are those who are naturally underweight.

Jessica Simpson was very attractive when she was younger, but she was never what I considered to be emaciated, or even noticeably underweight. Her face does not have the ideal bone structure to carry the extra weight she has developed as she's gotten older. Some women look better with thinner faces, some look better with plumper faces.

I just wish fashion/media would stop promoting practically emaciated women (and men) as being some ideal standard of beauty. Conversely, I don't want to see the promotion of obese people as the ideal standard of beauty, either. HEALTHY is beautiful, NATURAL is beautiful, IMO.

I actually prefer women with a little extra weight on them.

I don't want a woman who looks like a stick.

Slightly curvy please.

I'm never going to date/bang somebody who I know, is deliberately trying to starve themselves.

Only boys have a six pack, real men have a keg.

Actually I'm really skinny; but it's just genetics.

Give me thin/skinny, any day of the week.

I can work with skinny, I like how skinny looks, buying gifts for skinny is easy.

I like models. I like waifs. I like girls that can throw on tight and loose and look good without going all ape about how outfits no longer fit them.

Yeah, but then you have 50 million renditions of "does this make me look fat?"

HAHA! The funny thing is that the skinny girls that I've dated have asked that - and I've told them "yes" simply "just because" and they either laugh of shrug it off.

The curvy/overweight ones are the ones that get all bent out of shape. Heck, even if I said "no" (sweat pants/shirt does wonders I suppose) I still get into the stupid games.

Then the fight ensues. Then the "you don't like how I look" and the "you never cared for me" and "blah blah blah" sets in.

I go and read a book then.

For some reason, albeit slightly off topic, this kinda reminds me of when people go thru mid-life crisis, and my question is always: why are you trying to relive your younger days, and be attractive to younger people? Is being Prom King really still that high of a priority for you?

It has been said that men who prefer waif thin ladies are not really heterosexual or have some sort of psychological issue with mommy. Either way, if a man is regarding the woman he is with in a dehumanising way (something to put on the arm to make oneself look good perhaps?), we are not looking at a healthy relationship. Apologies for singling this out, but the post was a poster child for the age of affectation we seem to be living in.

(so sorry if this sounds rude - I used to like WP because you could discuss anything, but I'm finding I'm always getting into trouble lately, so if this is out of order, apologies, it's just me playing at being a armchair psychologist)

Yeah, OT but I'll play (it's a Thursday and I don't want to go to work just yet).

In this day and age, obesity is near epidemic. We see it in the results of studies, the diets that many eat, and simply by walking down the street of America (where I reside). As a male, if we are successful, we of course want our "goods" such as home, automobile, and the like to reflect it. This means driving a MBZ or BMW, whereas a TOY would do just as well. This means we wear a shirt and a tie, even though a hoodie is more comfortable.

So if I want someone who is "special" and an eye-turner, so be it. I will also buy her diamonds and cashmere, to showcase who she is and how special she is - to me. And this will also set her apart from everyone else.

She's good looking and capable.

Is that so wrong? Wanting something that is special and not typical?

As for "mommy issues", I find it difficult to imagine anyone that doesn't have some sort of "mommy issues" when you look at it in the context of their parental relationships. The truth of the matter is that relativism matters when calling something out like this. I have had a really good relationship with her, even after decades of back and forth. When I've fallen, she's been there even allowing me to move back home. She's helped me out financially, and is available to swing on by and have a chat. We go out to breakfast periodically and lunch (just last week) and dinner... periodically. Do I want someone like her? No, as I saw her relationship with her and my father implode - but I'm still on good terms with both and as an adult, understand the mistakes that were made.

Regardless...

I like red heads, blondes and brunettes. Girls who are thin/athletic. Girls that can go to a coffee shop with me and have a conversation on politics, mathematics, sociology or we could just people watch. On the weekends, we'd go do something and that would be snow-shoeing or ski/snow-boarding.

I've had that, and have had girls who were overweight and had a problem "keeping up". I made due, but realized that it wasn't what I wanted as I kept pushing and tried to change them into a person who would be capable of doing what I liked to do.

I thought you said you were snowboarding today?



Honestly, I have no idea about the right and wrong. But you still paint a picture of commercialism and displaced relating - I mean you are still describing this other person in terms of an object, a toy.

I'm just interested, that's all, if this objectification is maybe a reflection of autism, and perhaps it isn't possible to relate to others in the same way that NTs do, even when we want to. I just don't know.

I reflect on my relationships and realise that even with the understanding I have of people I am never really 'connecting' in the way that other people do - or the way I observe them connecting. Do you find you connect with your partners, whatever their size?

Does the size really matter in terms of whether you are able to connect with that other person?