it definitely seems to be driven by marketing … even for the men. my colleague was telling me he would love to grow a beard, but his primary function is sales and it just wont do it for him.

moustaches arent quite in for guys up here in canada – only police men or strippers in leatherchaps seem to prefer the taches… but beards seem to be catching on.

the other day… i was sitting in this side room in a coffee shop and it got quite surreal…. every man in the room had a beard – and all women were either hugely preggers or were feeding their kids… however these women arrived at their current states, i’m sure body fluids were exchanged which implies arousal and thusly counters the popular notion that only a certain body type is entitled to sexuality. but this coffeeshop is the favored haunt of adbusters, greenpeace, free palestine, fairtrade etc. types – so probably not a representative sample of the world at large.

Yeah, I wracked my brain for months to figure out how it was that I could always tell a desi apart from all other kinds of brown people, even from the back. I realized it’s the extra brown love

but i guess this notion of hair and beauty is a societal construct .. i thikn armpit hair is ok for instance, even hot sometimes… way better than imagining a straight razor going up and down going ghrr ghrr … even unibrows can be ok… and heck.. but belly hair especially if it is spread out far and wide can be weird.

Yeah, it’s not as big a deal for desi women as it is for black women, but all women of color have to deal with the hair issue, and it’s a pretty sensitive racism/colonialism issue for some. I think the reason for today’s hairless ideal is one part porn industry, one part “sex sells” advertising, and half part white supremacy. If you think about it, any kind of shaving is bodily mutilation to some degree. For a lot of women of color, it literally does go “ghrr ghrr” because we have thick, dark (visible) body hair. Sometimes it gets brutal and the only thing you can do is wax, but HairFromTheHairBelt grows out really quickly (my first-year college roommate’s hair grew out in 6 hours!), and you can imagine how expensive that might get, with razors or with professional waxing. And then there’s the stubble (really, what’s in it for a guy to prefer “clean” looking legs that feel like cacti after a day?). And as for the melanin, it can overproduce in areas where the skin experiences a lot of razor irritation (i.e. armpits, bikini). For me, I live in Santa Barbara, and the peer pressue to be nekkid everywhere is irresistable, so I do what I gotta do

Btw, sorry about all the spelling errors in my last comment… and for the threadjack

If you really don’t give a damn, then ignore me. Trust me, I’d count it a blessing to have your hot air directed elsewhere.

Nowhere above did I ‘debate at length’ about discrimination against darker South Asians. Mostly, I was arguing about Anand’s inane comments. Nor have I restricted my critical comments to men (please do point out anything above which you consider to be ‘hurling abuse’ – none of it was abusive, though some was, admittedly, abrasive). You’ve categorized me for some reason as anti-male, probably because any assertion on the part of a female is automatically understood by you as anti-male. In short, your accusations about my behaviour are based on presuppositions about my character, and not on any actual behaviour on my part.

I suspect this is because you are inherently afraid of being challenged – and especially afraid of your moral integrity being questioned. On a previous thread, you dissolved into a foaming rage when I questioned you. It was amusing.

oh is that what it is… it makes sense… i have noticed the puckers and the little wrinkles to be darker on some people but thought this is just a high-density area for hair – at least there’s this tamil sales clerk at the grocery store i go to and her upper lip curls up and it’s mighty dark between the lip and the nose.. i’ll give it a closer look next time. but i guess this notion of hair and beauty is a societal construct .. i thikn armpit hair is ok for instance, even hot sometimes… way better than imagining a straight razor going up and down going ghrr ghrr … even unibrows can be ok… and heck.. but belly hair especially if it is spread out far and wide can be weird. then again, i am pretty sure there are fetishists of all kind. and then in canada, women stop shaving after october. it’s a hairy situation.

out of curiosity, what do the gay females think about anchal. dont be shy. this thread needs a queer bend to make it complete.

Sorry tashie, I didn’t understand a word you said here. In case it helps to clafiry anything: I was talking about the extra melanin around the cavaties and folds. Not saying there can’t be hair too, as we do come from the hair belt, but they’re two different things. When I said “it” was cute, I was referring to the extra brown, not the extra hair

And Razib, that link ruined my brunch. Those guys were such racist, sexist assholes. Anyway, don’t you know the vacation rules? No cellphones, no computers.

I take your response above as a veiled (and of course long-winded) admission that your comment about ‘male minds’ was completely irrelevant to the discussion at hand.

Nonsense. You were confused about why more men here were not responding positively to Anchal. You were then debating at length about the bigotry against darker people within South Asian society, which as we all know is particularly pronounced towards women. As indicated by this thread and numerous others on previous occasions, you think that hurling abuse at perceived male “offenders” is a way to change deeply-entrenched negative attitudes. In reality, the world doesn’t work that way.

I’m not comfortable with you calling me Jai anymore and I think that henceforth you should address any comments towards me by using the full name “Jai Singh”, which was my former handle on SM (along with many other matters involving the personalities of long-term commenters and the wider context of the discussions they have with each other, this is something you are unaware of because you haven’t been here long enough). If you are unable to stick to the topic or generally be civil, then it would be better for you to refrain from talking to me on SM at all in future.

For the record, you’re not important enough from my perspective for me to care either way about whether you have a positive opinion of me or not, so making repeated references to alleged “long-windedness”, “ever-righteous Jai” or any of your usual strawman arguments — which are now a frequent theme on your part towards large numbers of other commenters on this blog — is irrelevant to me and just wastes your own time and everybody else’s. I just don’t care enough about you to give a damn about your opinions, and I doubt anyone else here is really interested in hearing what you think of me either.

Now stop sidetracking the discussion as usual and stick to the topic, if you are capable of being a positive influence on this blog and a constructive participant.

i bet money that anchal joseph sees this at some point when she google’s herself. type her into google, SM is one of the 2 in the top 10.

Exactly, hence my post #168. Of course it depends on whether she would actually give a damn about what anyone here says about her. Let’s hope she’s mature and resilient enough to ignore the negative stuff — professional modelling is well-known for being a ruthlessly cut-throat business, so presumably she’ll have to be pretty tough anyway if she wants to be successful in her field. I guess all the rest of us can do is offer her some well-deserved congratulations for getting this far on America’s Next Top Model and wish her the very best of luck in her ambitions.

I did say on the previous thread about her that I thought she had the right look for American/Western catwalk modelling and for cosmetics/perfumes advertising campaigns (based on what many professional models in this part of the world look like, regardless of their ethnicity), but someone actually working “within the business” like JaneofallTrades would be a better person to comment on that.

Of course you never bait anyone at all – no! The endless references to insidious conspiracies, hijacking, my ‘as usual, wild misinterpretations’ and the ‘way my mind works’ (which you seem to know more intimately than the most intrusive psychotherapist) – NONE of these things constitutes baiting. Why not? Why – because they were voiced by the ever-righteous Jai.

I take your response above as a veiled (and of course long-winded) admission that your comment about ‘male minds’ was completely irrelevant to the discussion at hand. Both males and females are influenced by complex factors when deciding who they find attractive. End of story.

You made a distinction between men and women which has no rational basis

There are distinctions between how male and female minds work in terms of sexual attraction and what members of each gender find attractive. This of course depends on the specific individual and there are also major areas of commonality between men and women in this area. But there are still differences in some aspects, influenced both by “hard-wired” biological factors and societal influences.

Presumably the factors which influence women’s attraction to men are not ‘fixed’ either, but also influenced by a plethora of societal factors.

Correct, but I am focusing on men here because the topic is female attractiveness from a male perspective, as introduced into the thread by your own queries about why more male commenters here have supposedly not responded to Anchal’s attractiveness.

but once again, I am not surprised.

Please don’t attempt to sidetrack the discussion by trying to bait me or any other commenters here.