Beauty And The Beholder

There have been a number of university projects to try and quantify beauty, but when it comes down to it, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. This reminds me of Michelle Obama who said just that recently. Is Michelle Obama beautiful or ugly? This is what Tarina Tang thinks!

There seems to be a choice mechanism built into our genes that makes us choose people with a symmetrical facial structure. A number of experiments have been made averaging faces and displaying the average on a screen. As the number of faces increases, the averaged face becomes more attractive to the viewer.

Not withstanding the above paragraph many people are found to be attractive even though they may not be beautiful or handsome.

Regardless of how symmetrical a persons face may be they are not desirable if their body shape does not conform to their cultural norm, which varies enormously around the world. Chaucer and Shakespeare preferred a buxom wench reflecting that eras preference for slightly plump women with a gap between their two front teeth.

Fashion magazines have influenced some young woman into thinking that ultra skinny is cool, causing diet, mental and health problems. I once saw what looked like a skeleton in a bikini on a beach esplanade.

The fashion houses choose skinny models because they want to show off the lines of the clothing not the curves of the model. It won’t be long before female clothing is modeled by skinny men. Now that fashion houses are also catering for the larger woman we are seeing more curves in the advertisements for clothing..

When we refer to a person who is good-looking we normally say a man is handsome and a woman is beautiful. Back in the middle ages the word handsome was used for either sex, for instance a handsome wench. We also refer to things as being beautiful, like a beautiful flower, one never calls a flower handsome, but we do have handsome rewards. Such is the peculiarity of the English language.

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