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05 jul 06 "What do you think of HELEN of troy?" hmm. so what, exactly, are you trying to say here? hmm? to whom are you referring with those upper case letters in there, hmm? do you think i'm not on to you? hmm? i'm going to go over to your house later and beat you. here\s an anagram for your name: "cows are teeth." helen of troy is (was -- she's all rotted-up now) the ideal of female beauty. everyone knows this, duh. but let's talk really briefly about female beauty. biology and culture a bit, in a really cursory, informal, and dumb way. i'm starting to enjoy just answering questions any damn old way i please, as opposed to "thoughtfully addressing the asker" in any way. i'll still do it if the question is particularly fun or interesting, ie, that RPG character one at the top of the queue. i even drew a picture for that one. funny that i can still draw in tha junior high school style of superhero comics. but it needs to be noted that i haven't improved any since then -- eight grade was pretty much my peak in terms of drawing comic book characters. i'm pretty sure that most people, maybe, accept that there are some innate beauty standards quietly lurking beneath our attraction to other sapiens. ie, it's not all cultural, and bikini models in 'sports illustrated' represent the penultimate attractive female. we're talking about females here, so we won't go into calvin klein men's underwear models. there is clearly a standard for male beauty as well, one that was harped on in antiquity along with helen's standard (guilded youths, adonis, all those discus sculptures, etc). i'm sure other cultures did it too. for instance, did you see "gladiator", especially that scene in the begining when the severely-bearded lombard, or visigoth, or whatever tribal chief waves a roman messenger's head in the air, throws it in the direction of the roman army, and shouts something in proto-germanic? awesome. but yes -- beauty standards. they exist, but in fact they're not so important. it's a cliche, but if you're very fond of someone, you tend to find them attractive regardless of improper facial configuration or even a blob-like carcass. moreover, you can step outside of your affection and make note of the ways your mate deviates from classical attractiveness, and yet continue to find him or her "attractive". amazing, the power of the intellect; it overwhelms any apelike tendencies. as long as the eyes aren't too close together or too small, the nose isn't too bulbous or acquiline, and the face not too flabby and untaught, and the face is sufficiently lightbulb-shaped (wider at the top), then any facial bone configuration is ok by me. i think. i'm not sure about thin lips. it's hard to quantify these things and lay down the law as to what constiutes a beautiful face or a heinous face. and when you look at women walking around, you obvious can't say "she's ugly" or "she's pretty" -- you can, however, readily compare two women and rank them. women do this too -- that's why we talk about pairs or groups of friends considering who's "the ugly one". roald dhal, in his book "the twits", illustrates how a nice-looking person can become ugly by thinking ugly thoughts, and vice versa (i'm never sure if i'm using that expression properly), with this really amusing and cute picture of a woman with a "wonky nose and crooked teeth" who is just beaming away; indeed, she's very attractive. perhaps you don't lust after her like sailor moon (admit it), but she's "attractive" nonetheless. however, it's tough to pick up ugly thoughts when looking at a photograph in cosmo of a woman 99% of the population is going to agree is "beautiful". if faced with the choice of spending eternity with a beatiful yet really mean woman vs. an ugly but wonderfully kind woman, of course i'd choose the later, except that i'd really rather not have to make that decision. there are theories (my theories, but i'm sure they're not original) that beatiful women (and men) tend not to have nice personalities, because they've been rewarded by society their whole lives for having a proper BMI and facial bone structure, and therefore haven't had to develop any attractive personality traits, since people (friends and romancers) want them regardless of how awful they are. basically, they turn out selfish, because the focus has always been on them regardless of effort on their part to make themselves positively notable; they're rewarded so lavishly for their physical beauty that they can turn themselve out to be as sociopathic as they want. but usually, they stop at being really bratty and self-centered. blah blah exceptions, blah blah not you, etc. the converse (inverse? who knows) is often true, too -- a very unattractive women will sometimes be so desperate for to people like her (since people, being horrible, tend to avoid the ugly) that she'll develop this wonderful, giving, attentive personalty to compensate. like i said, it's a cliche. and be advised, this doesn't apply only to women; men are subject to the same BS. it's just that the question was about 'helen of troy', not 'hank of troy'. haha, i totally made up "cows are teeth." i wonder if anyone actually spent time trying to figure that one out. the argument could be made that i owe you for your time. answer: i don't think too much of her, because she was probably a bitch. |
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