On Fri, 15 Mar 2002, Marianne Fuller wrote:

> Ardeith writes:
> I'd say, "Apparently American men need to grow up.
> A man is far more than seven or eight inches of engorged
> flesh.  A woman is far more that a few ounces of fatty
> tissue surrounding some mammary glands."
>
> I have to say, I know a lot of American men, and almost none of them are
> anything like as shallow as this picture implies.

In another post, Fawn made the distinction between what is
initially attractive and what is subsequently attractive.  For
both sexes, initial attraction tends to be physical, but in
different ways, clearly.  We also cannot assume that anything
that men or women find attractive is thus for some adaptive
reason -- although it is fun to speculate.

There are a number of evolutionary puzzles about human sexuality.
Concealed ovulation is one, which Jared Diamond discusses in The
Third Chimpanzee.  Another is the fact that the human penis is
considerably larger than that of other primates.  There is no
obvious reason why that should be so.  The location of the
clitoris is such that most women do not achieve orgasm as a
result of penetration.  This is a bit puzzling, too.  Menopause,
another human idiosyncrasy, remains unexplained.

> It seems to me that
> various industries present the grotesque idea that women need to be thin and
> hipless as 12 year old boys, but with large plastic breasts. I know very few
> guys who subscribe to this idea, and those few are men who really do not
> like women.

My theory is that the implant boom is a result of overexposure
and habituation, similar to what happens to drug addicts.  There
is no question that men are stimulated by the sight of women's
bodies.  This stimulation may be plastic and subject to all
manner of cultural variation, but it's there.  Recent research
indicates the the brain of activity of men viewing pornographic
images is similar to that of men using cocaine.  That is, we get
a "jolt" from the sight of breasts, or whatever, and it is a
pleasurable jolt.  Women sometimes complain about men staring at
their chests, but I think they do not appreciate how powerful and
instinctive this response is (They don't complain about men
staring at their butts because they don't see it, but they see us
staring at *other* women's butts, and complain about that).  But
as we are culturally exposed to more an more of this stimulus, it
loses some of its effect and so, like addicts, we look for more
and bigger.

This is, incidentally, an occupational hazard for me.  As a
college prof, and as we enter spring in the US, the women in my
classes start appearing in some very abbreviated clothing (and
they can be very carefree about what they do with their legs
during classes). It is a distraction, to say the least,
entertaining as it might be under other circumstances.
Consequently, the warmer the weather gets, the more I tend to
direct my gaze slightly over the heads of the class.  This may be
the origin of a certain stereotype about professors who don't
make eye contact.

Obligatory paleofood connection: Are any paleofoods aphrodisiacs?

Todd Moody
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