Baby Got Back

eNtRopY

Why do we (straight men) find curvy women so attractive? What is the evolutionary advantage of having the desire to mate with a woman who has T & A?

eNtRopY

LURCH

What you're lookin' at there is stored fat. Makes her more likely to survive the lean times. On a man, it would impede hunting, but for gathering, it poses no serious problems (assuming, of course, that the old thinking about "male=hunter, female=gatherer" is correct).

Galatea

I couldn't really comment to much about the size of breasts or booty and their evolutionary advantages (besides what Lurch said about fat deposits.)

However, I believe female curvature has been studied with respect to the hips and waist specifically. There seem to be evolutionary advantages of mating with a woman with large hips - she's more likely to be able to carry the baby to term, less likely to need a C-Section, things of that nature. There is also some correlation between birth weight and intelligence though it hasn't been proven.

I believe one of the positive things about a smaller waste is that women who carry weight on their mid-region tend to be more at risk for heart problems among other things although I can't be very specific because it's been a while since I read about all of this.

RageSk8

Actually, no such correlation can be made, at least not to the extent many here want. The waist-hip ratio (about .7, golden ratio strikes again!) is what, through current studies, has been shown to have cross-cultural significance. The difference is that even with that ratio and consistency in face symmetry generally being preferred, there is a WIDE range of what is considered attractive. Ratios and symmetry can produce a myriad of attractive types - there really is no extra-cultural attractive person. So, although the ratios stay generally consistent, we can't computer generate or find on the street a person who would be attractive in multiple cultures. Anyways, many very thin women can have the right ratios, women no man would say has "T&A", and guess what? In many major demographics these women are attractive. Take Penelope Cruz [6)], she doesn't have what could be considred T&A, but I would bang the hell of that girl. Many males (and females for that matter) would agree with me. Now, she doesn't have T&A, but she does have nice hips, I am sure she is close to the ratio.

So, anyways, one cannot make a correlation between "T&A" getting a lot of men aroused and evolution (not in the meaning that some on this thread stretch). In that we have not been programed to like T&A, there does seem to be a "program" for the ratio of hips to waist (I wouldn't really go this far - the ratio appears in many areas of the body as well as art and archetecture meaning the program is a much more general and broad quirk of perception). What biology - not evolution in my opinion, as I really do not see a way to show selection pressure for such genes in a specific time frame with physical evidence - can account for is something nonetheless amazing - the type of body men who like T&A will find attractive. After all, Oprah has T&A, just very bad T&A. Now many would say that this is not amazing - the Greeks could do much the same. This is true if one is of the impression that we have finally got "in-touch with reality" - however it misses the pragmatic force of our, granted, analogous explanation. We have become coherent in talking about biology while abandoning any mysticism - in the sense that our picture is related to much more "tangible" and "useable" ideas. Simply put, really what distinguishes our knowledge of T&A and the Greeks' is that our knowledge is related to a coherent, complex system of the human body. This doesn't "tell us anymore" about T&A really - it just shows that we have much more intellectual use of T&A, way beyond pure aesthetics and mathematical metaphysics. Isn't this a great world we live in? A world where T&A has intellectual significance?