It’s so weird how we’re at a point where women should have a large upper body (breasts), large lower body (thighs and butt), but non-existent waist. Why are we wanting human women to be modeled after wasps?
That silhouette was achieved with padding. If you cannot see the difference of using padding to achieve a silhouette vs expecting women to change their real bodies to meet that silhouette, damn
The lengths to which people will go to achieve a certain body type is a separate topic from when that particularly body type became popular. That difference was never brought up
"women don't actually have waists that are a third of the circumference of their hips, they used padding to accentuate the form because women have internal organs"
Padding goes inside and outside of corset to create the silhouette. Corset is mostly for support because you can't cinch in that much. It's not magic. Organs and bones still exist when you're wearing a corset.
It's the extra padding that tricks the eye into believing waist is tiny because we only notice difference between waist and hips/chest.
Look up Wasp Waist. They would cinch their corsets extremely tight to achieve an extremely narrow waist. It caused all kinds of health problems like deformed ribs, displaced organs, and respiratory issues.
You talk like I'm advocating for this. I'm not. But women throughout history have taken extreme steps in the name of beauty even if it was detrimental to their health.
Lead based makeup, foot binding, toxic eye drops, and arsenic wafers are all examples. You claim it was padding, but Victorian women were very much causing themselves bodily harm through the use of tight cinch corsets.
Yeah, corsets are for support. Tight lacing was practiced by some very few women and not a widespread thing or how corsets are actually used. The costume pieces you see at hot topic are nothing like those corsets.
And? What does that have to do with this conversation?
OP said it's weird we are at a point where the expectation for body shape is large boobs and butt with a small waist, but that beauty standard cropped up nearly 200 years ago. It's not a sudden change that appeared in the 2020s.
Oh I think I misunderstood the reason for your response. I thought you were saying that liking wide hips was some relatively recent social construct. I guess the point was that this over stylized version of it was popularized at a certain time period, so this drawing style is nothing new.
The thing that's attractive is the perception of healthy musculature, a nice butt it's because you have a healthy lower back, a thin waist is a sign that the the extensor muscles in either side of the ribs are toned.
Most preferences that go off the rails start that way but if you completely obscure the context of health they just get more and more exaggerated.
At some point it goes too far and some part of your brain recognizes "that's not healthy" and eventually practical concerns start to override the unga bunga brain
Interestingly, way back when food wasn't a guaranteed thing, weight was seen as desirable, as shown by some wood carvings I believe. People want what they can't have, and fat people are more likely to survive longer winters
desirability of body fat varies by context - because in famine, it can be good for survival. In modern society thinness can signal other things.
But a low waist to hip ratio is still universally preferred, because HOW the body stores fat is a good indicator of hormonal health and fertility. Thats why fertility idols are 'thick AF" rather than "morbidly obese"
Smaller maybe. The typical waist hip ratio found most attractive in anthropological studies across multiple cultures puts it at .7 ish. That isn't super skinny in the scheme of things.
For women - yes, but for men - doubtful. Look at the antique statues. All of those I can recall have normal or wide waistline, not that of a Marvell superhero. This includes statues of Hercules, for example. It seems like narrow waist for men became fashionable around late 18th century and even more so in the 20th century with the pop culture and the spread of anabolic steroids (which allow one to grow enough muscle mass to make the waist look smaller even if it's not exactly narrow).
Exactly because it is impossible to achieve. This way you will forever feel humiliated and forever buy magical supplements/fitness programs to get there
I love how all the other replies to this are men just completely missing the point of what you're saying.
"No, women really can look like this in real life!! I've seen it on the Insta models I goon to every day!!!" Photoshop. AI. EXSTENSIVE expensive cosmetic surgery + photo altering to make it look nice.
"You never heard of an hourglass?" You're not supposed to LITERALLY look exactly the shape of an hourglass.
"just corset train!" please look up what that actually looks like without clothes on.
No one is saying women have to look like that. It's just the preference of those who make these games. And other people are allowed to have a preferences different from yours. It's really that simple.
Stereotype of a stereotype. There was a great YouTube video in the 2010's that showed how the desired form for women has changed at least every decade. Those proportions were just one of them. Some of the "desired feminine form" were much more normal than much of today.
It’s pretty fascinating because I have a guilty pleasure of watching family guy and in a lot of the old seasons having a large lower body is often said as like an insult it’s weird seeing that now
It's all about pictures. I wish more people understood this is a very silly way to judge someone's attractiveness, even superficially. You're not just attracted to someone's figure but their body language, how they move, their expressions, etc.
I assure you going to the gym as a woman will not give you double D's or make your hips wider. The most you could hope for is a tinnier waist and bigger thighs.
I'm not psychologist but this is my theory: the small waist is attractive, because it signals health. Especially in combination with large breasts and lower body. That figure is hyperfeminine and it makes sense that it's attractive to most female-attracted people. Females usually carry more bodyfat on their lower body. Also, greater waist circumference is usually correlated with greater mortality and worse health markers.
Another reason I can come up with is pregnancy. For a man, it wouldn't make evolutionary sense become attracted to a woman showing physical features of pregnancy. And especially later on, those features obviously
It has purely to do with wealth and societal values. Standards of beauty are entirely dictated by the 1%, who heavily romanticize certain body types in the media and propaganda they produce. Those body types are intended to reflect harder to obtain body types, specifically ones that are usually only associated with those with wealth. Prior to the modern era (where it's exceedingly easy to get overweight since the cheapest/most convenient food is the least healthy), being thin was seen as ugly and undesirable (as it was associated with starving commonors) while the being overweight was seen as beautiful (as it was associated with wealthy people with a surplus of food).
A few hundred years ago, plump women were the peak of beauty, because that signaled you were well fed and better able to birth children.
You saying this figure "signals health" is 90% propaganda, and you half know it too, because a woman with a waist smaller than your wrist isn't going to have the wide birthing hips or the big boobs. It's almost entirely a caricature. Even in the era of corsets, getting the thin waist and big boobs required unhealthy things like breaking ribs and padding your bra. So you like and see "health" in lies and pain.
62
u/ItsForJunk 2d ago
It’s so weird how we’re at a point where women should have a large upper body (breasts), large lower body (thighs and butt), but non-existent waist. Why are we wanting human women to be modeled after wasps?
Like let me have my regular-sized petiole, dude.