So I’ve long been disgusted by the socially approval of complaints about models being too skinny and demands that ‘real’ women, i.e., less skinny women, be depicted in the media. I’ve already skewered most of the arguments elsewhere but the long and short of it is that the people who complain about skinny models aren’t demanding we show more ugly people on TV. Rather they are just complaining about which features are considered beautiful¹.

Sure, often these views are voiced as mostly meaningless gripes the same way men might gripe that it should be illegal for women to prefer the guy with the fancier car, full head of hair etc… So long as these complaints are taken no more seriously than this they are a harmless way to express frustration and worry about one’s sexual desirability. However, some speakers take these complaints quite seriously and that amounts to an (unconsciously) selfish ploy to get ahead by denigrating the competition. After all some people will always be more beautiful than others so at best they are demanding we change the standards to put themselves closer to the top. In men we recognize the analogous unpleasant behavior (dismissing every guy who is popular with the ladies as an asshole or sissy) isn’t praiseworthy and we should do the same in women².

This is simple human psychology. We all (men and women) resent those we fear are more attractive/more successful than us and we look for ways to bring them down so we don’t feel so bad about ourselves. It would thus be unfair to assign more than a little blame to the men and women who look for excuses to dismiss their potential competitors. They are just groping for ways to feel better about themselves. The true culprit here is society which doesn’t call out this behavior for what it is³.

Still, one might have thought that this is just a zero sum game. Some body type will be regarded as most appealing and those women will be the winners and others the losers. But maybe not if the (still speculative) research discussed on the freakonomics blog turns out to be true.

Finally (and more speculatively), women’s perceptions of an ‘ideal’ female body are larger than men’s perceptions of the ‘ideal’ male body, and individuals with larger ‘ideal’ body images are significantly more likely to be obese.

As an a priori matter this certainly seems a plausible result. People who view their body type as just a little overweight might be less motivated to do something about it than those who view theirs as significantly overweight. Moreover, given what we are discovering about the effect of gut bacteria on obesity it’s quite plausible that becoming a little overweight puts you at greater risk of becoming even further overweight. Since the societal harms from obesity dwarf those from anorexia it might be a health harm to encourage the adoption of a less skinny ideal form (noting that the form found most attractive by men isn’t actually unhealthily skinny, e.g., Pamela Anderson holds the record for being a playboy centerfold the most times).

Of course what would be most desirable is to do something about the stress and self-pity that mating expectations inflict on us. While society tells men they aren’t supposed to complain about it this is a problem faced equally by both sexes. If you could get most dating aged boys to be honest you would find just as much angst about having to ask girls out, being expected to act confident and suave when kissing girls as depicted in the media, not looking weak or unmanish, etc.. as girls have about their bodies. Now I realize that any women reading this are likely to be skeptical that such silly little things could possibly be as stressful as the body image propaganda they are exposed to but just step back for a second and think of how silly it must seem to men to see all these extremely hot girls who can crook their finger and sleep with any guy they want fretting about a few pounds the guys don’t even notice. Looking at it from the perspective of the gender trying to be impressed all heterosexual fretting about attractiveness seems absurd and too silly to possibly warrant the angst it causes.

This, however, is as hard a problem as they come. Worrying about our sexual attractiveness is an essential evolutionary strategy. One can find examples of cultures who put less emphasis on slenderness or machoness but you can’t find any society where both sexes didn’t compete over and fret about attractiveness. I actually have much greater hopes for solving this problem for women in the relatively near future than I do for men. When true VR becomes possible anyone will be able to look like anything they want but the sort of things men worry about, status, machoness, confidence, accouterments of success seem much more difficult to equalize. Ultimately I don’t think that problem is solvable short of massive genetic engineering or powerful psychoactive drug regimens. One day perhaps but probably in the distant future.