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Thursday, January 29, 2015

Brazilian standards of beauty

An article on Yahoo News yesterday described how Brazilian Andressa Urach was suffering from septic shock and had been placed on life support after having gotten extensive plastic surgery. She has had silicone breast implants, butt implants, leg implants,  a nose job, and gel and botox injections, all in the pursuit of "perfection."

Here is Andressa before she got sick:


I know, I know, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. One man's meat is another man's poison. Blah blah blah.

I can look at certain women and think they're quite good-looking, even when they're not my type. But I look at Urach and all I see is grotesqueness. The pity is, she was probably fairly attractive before.

I know Brazilian guys are into big butts and pneumatic-looking women, but the fact that one of the things Urach did to herself was take anabolic steroids strongly implies that actual femininity was not high on her list of desired attributes.

She now reminds me a bit of one of those prehistoric fertility dolls:


(The Venus of Willendorf, above, dates from circa 24,000 to 22,000 BC.)

Urach's new proportions also make her look a little like one of those dwarf strippers with seemingly exaggerated curves.

She makes Kim Kardashian look like Grace Kelly.

Which reminds me of something that happened while we were playing Jeopardy the other night and I got an answer right about some current tween idol (I can't remember who). My son said, in a tone of utter contempt, "Dad, for Crissakes, you're sixty years old. You're not supposed to know that."

In any case, those of us who like to keep up with the Kardashians can take some comfort in knowing that our gals are exemplars of ethereal beauty compared to Urach.

7 comments:

Steven said...

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder... to an extent.

There are a lot of studies showing that certain waist to hop ratios are most attractive as they indicate optimal health and fertility. Its to do with hormone levels and immune function. Similar thing for body fat.

And there are certain objective things that make faces more beautiful or handsome. Faces aren't all rated equally, as they would be if everyone had an equal number of admirers. Some people are 9s and others are 4s.

Interestingly, the more average a face is, the better looking it is. I don't mean average in looks but average features. So if you superimpose a thousand faces onto each other, the face you see will be made of the boldest lines (where the highest number of faces coincide). The aggregate face you get is really good looking and the more faces you use the better.

This is apparently something to do with rare features being associated with deleterious mutations that reduce fitness.

(I'd be interested to know your sons reaction to that soldier video.)

Steven said...

And by the way, I don't get the big butt thing but she's got nice tits.

John Craig said...

Steven --
Yes, I've seen those studies, and they make sense. The traits people like correlate with health, and, in the case of women, child-bearing potential. And for men, people prefer those features which indicate high testosterone and the ability to be a good provider (in the caveman days).

Yes, the "average" that you describe basically means even features.

Haven't heard back from my so yet on that video.

Anonymous said...

Her derriere kind of reminds me of Kim Kardashian! Too much plastic surgery is NEVER good (for anyone).

-birdie

John Craig said...

Birdie --
Amen.

Lucian Lafayette said...

Audry Hepburn
Natalee Wood
Hedy Lamarr
Maureen O'Hara

You get the idea.

John Craig said...

Luke --
Hepburn was a particular favorite of mine.

Some of my all time favorites are included in this post:

http://justnotsaid.blogspot.com/2011/12/youve-got-to-be-kidding.html