Re: Female characters

In article <1180824553.928343.258540@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
Nicky <nicky.matthews@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On Jun 2, 6:15 pm, "Suzanne Blom" <sueb...@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
"Tony Williams" <Tony.Willi...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message

news:1180755876.097152.235980@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx



On Jun 2, 1:22 am, Cyli <cyl...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

I have, however, known some men who notice and may mention it to other
men, but who get more excited by legs or butts or faces. A cup or D
cup is nowhere near as important to them as the other.

When it comes to aesthetic appreciation, I'm a whole-body man :-)

There are a couple of issues to do with female attractiveness which
rarely seem to get much attention these days. One of them is posture:
I have seen no end of potentially very good-looking women spoil it all
by slouching around with shoulders slumped. Someone who has been
trained to hold herself and walk well (a dancer or actor) starts with
a massive advantage (in my eyes, at any rate). The other is voice: I
have been driven away wincing (internally) from good-looking women as
soon as they have opened their mouths. A pleasantly-modulated voice
can be a powerfully seductive asset but, again, no-one seems to bother
about this apart from actors. As authors, perhaps these are issues we
should bear in mind in describing our characters, rather than focusing
only on the physical appearance.

Have you ever considered the possibility that some women do this
deliberately so they have a chance of being something other than a pretty
whatever? One difference between men & women is that women get hit on a lot
more. It can get very wearing.
One of the more bizarre things about Larry Niven's novels is the scene where
he describes how effectively immortal women first are awkward then become
polished, & then later, realizing it attracts men, become awkward again. As
tho any woman by that age wouldn't realize that she can attract men any time
she chooses--& as tho she wouldn't have other things she wanted to do most
of the time. The universe where a woman has to seem childish to attract a
man is also a place I don't want to be. Larry Niven seems to have no
awareness that what he is saying anything at all odd.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

But I think that equates to the real western world where some women
spend a fortune to eradicate lines and to ape the attributes of very
young women:high breasts, large eyes, blonde hair, plump lips, smooth
skins. Women in general spend quite a bit of money trying to appear
more youthful/childish thatn they really are.


Nicky

Well, sure -- the whole culture has gone youth-crazy in the States,
where "death" is a dirty word. Men get hair-implants, teeth-
capping, and sometimes, yes, expensive skin treatments to look
younger too. It's more important for women, however, since
while a woman's general health apparently declines somewhat
when she becomes a wife (while her husband's rises), her
economic fortunes are still, to a great extent, dependent on
not just a marriage "up" (since men still earn more) but one
that lasts -- which declines as a possibility if she "lets herself
go" or even doesn't keep up with current self-mutilations intended
to measure up to examples of beauty set by the media and the
rich and pampered.

If you look closely at stats about the growing problem of
impoverished elderly in the US, at any rate, a rapidly growing
proportion of these are women, often women dumped for
younger wives during the upset of the male menopause, and left,
despite no-fault divorce and high-profile examples of rich
divorcees who left or were left by the likes of Donald Trump,
in narrowed economic straits. There are studies proving this,
too: divorce raises most ex-husbands' income and drastically
reduces most ex-wives', particularly divorce in the middle years
when there's no question of child support but a successful man
is likely to be earning at least twice as much as his successful
ex-wife.

So even older women try hard to stay competitive, often not
for sexual reasons (women have their own physical problems
with post-middle-aged sexual activity of course, which can
make intercourse actively painful even with various aides
etc., and those who are willing to be honest about it will even
admit that they've been tired of the whole thing for some time
anyway -- there were some responses along these lines in a
recent AARP magazine's letter pages after one of those "Sex
stays beautiful after sixty" articles that please some women
and make others groan) -- but for economic ones, and of
course psychological ones as well. Nobody enjoys the
experience of being kicked out to make way for some child who
doesn't have any aches and pains yet, or just of losing the
comfort of accustomed companionship.

The "childish" thing is something else, and I think it's downright
pernicious: it's deliberately playing to the susceptibility of men
to the role of strong, wise, protective daddy who also gets to be
sexual with a female "child" who is far too waif-like to pose any
perceptible threat. It has been noted that this whole skinny
twiggy child-woman thing, as the darling of the fashion and
entertainment world (yes, with exceptions, but you know what
I'm talking about) has taken root and flourished into its present
insidious form at the same time that actual women have at
least entertained the possibilities of parity with men in various
public and economic spheres. The scrawny baby-woman type
is trying hard not to frighten the horses, IMO, as she wants the
horse to foot her bills . . .

Hmm. I must be feeling a bit cynical tonight, no?

SMC
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