Ahh, maybe that's the secret: un-enhancement surgery. Let us know if the transformation works! Fun (in a funny-sad way) post, Laura. Congrats on the cover and EP.

These "studies" are nothing but crap, and are clearly designed by insecure men to hound women into demoralized desperate submission. Remember that "man shortage?" That "study" was debunked -- many years later, sure, after it became "conventional wisdom," but debunked nonetheless. I'm willing to bet these more recent "studies" will someday be debunked too. In the meantime, file under "U" for "unreliable intel."

Ignore the studies, take proper care of yourself, and pursue your interests -- sooner or later, you'll bump into a man who shares your interests, and, for that and other reasons, will find your curves hot. You're an individual, not a data-point. Academic "studies" are irrelevant to your poersonal life.

You also have to consider the source. Most university studies tend to poll university students, so think about that sample size and where it's coming from. It's been one of my biggest pet peeves about all university survey research. They realize that they can post these surveys in their courses with their grad students doing the information gathering, so they then try to project that information out onto the masses, as if a bunch of 19-25 year olds in a particular set of classes (quite often social sciences where these surveys take place) can answer for the opinions of the cross populations of the entire country, and sometimes the world.

Funny and smart. The post, not you. God, I didn't mean to call you smart, not that. You are *so* not smart. (Just in case an available man is lurking :)

CrazeCzar:

I'll ignore the snarky response and just stick to what I was talking about because my response was designed to allow the original poster to feel better about herself. So, here's an answer to your question, which was really not necessary as what I stated was not all that complex and in need of clarification.

This is directly from the report that generated the information: "The sample consisted of 381 university students (194
male, 187 female) who agreed to participate in exchange for
course credit. The data from six participants who did not
identify themselves as heterosexual were excluded, resulting
in a data set of 192 men (age M=18.85, SD=1.29) and 183
women (age M=18.69, SD=1.45). Approximately one
quarter of the sample (51 men and 57 women) reported
being in a committed romantic relationship."

The point I was making is that like most university studies, they polled university students. Their age average was even lower than I predicted. Then they take that sample and try to make an argument that these college students are representative of the whole. The author does not live in that environment, unless she lives at the University of Texas on campus. And that's all I was trying to say. Wasn't trying to make some erudite argument. I'm just not a fan of university research that attempts to argue larger issues that pertain to the general population.

Jeez, I guess being a playmate, having no opinions except what to make for dinner, and being a Stepford wife is what many men look for. Why don't they just but a blow up doll? I guess it would be hard to have an inanimate object as arm candy! R

If the study is true, then it is good to know I will be looking where others are not. :)

Ha! This is great. :)

Duane: I'll also add that many of the male college students who participate in such studies are: a) inexperienced and not really understanding what they want in a relationship anyway; b) a little bit insecure about their sexuality and sexual image among their peers; c) somewhat inclined to act picky about women, just to make it look like they CAN be picky; and d) maybe still suffering from the "virgin/whore complex," and inclined to think that the curviest women are both the most popular and the sluttiest, and therefore least trustworthy as faithful wives. That's FOUR factors making that group less representative of men as a whole.

They obviously did not ask my husband. I've worked hard to keep my curves for which my hubby is always grateful. Really, where do they come up with this nonsense. Did UT also build a time machine? Can't imagine anyone living in this century really feels that way.
R

My darling wife has curves in all the right places, an' she's right smart, too!

Well this is just great. All that surgery and nothing to show for it...
>>>r

These are all great comments, so much thanks to you all!

@Duane, SO interesting to find out exactly who these researchers survey. Wouldn't surprise me at all to discover college boys dig the skinny, dippy type. In some ways, I think the younger we are the more basic (and blah!) our models of sexual desirability are. Let's hope or all these Justin Bieber fans are going to make awful romantic choices as grown women.

@motherwell, @libmomrn, @donna carbone, I agree these studies are crap. I have yet to see one that says good looking, educated, hardworking people (male or female) are destined to be happy. That's the one I'll choose to believe.

@CrazeCzar, hmmm, Ashley Madison. Well, if life hands you lemons...

@lainey, @gwool, thanks for not messing with my game. Your comments made me smile. ; )

Again, thanks, all!

@easternstargeek and @manhattankid, more comments that made me smile. Thanks!

People think about women marrying for status, but it goes both ways. A plump woman may be sexy, but she isn't prestigious, and she signals an inadequate commitment to class standards. Most people educate their children, maintain their marriage, and stay financially responsible for the same reason they maintain their personal appearance: it's a class obligation. A person who lets one go is a step closer to letting the others go as well. This affects how other people judge everything about a person and their partner as well. If a guy puts up with the embarrassment of a flabby wife, what other compromises is he willing to make, for example, in his job performance?

So that's the ruthless reason. It's easy to tell ourselves such things don't matter to *us*, or at least to self-consciously adjust for them the way we adjust for our embarrassing racist assumptions that we haven't quite rooted out. But we can all agree that these unworthy motivations dominate the lives of *other* people, so they're worth noting.

Going beyond the baldly immoral reason for snubbing chubby women, there are two justifications that men are willing to stand behind. The first is concrete, practical, and undeniable: a chubby (read "curvy" if you want) wife is likely to get chubbier in the future and is likely to fall short in physical stamina and longevity compared to her skinnier competitors. When guys look around at people in their fifties and sixties (and yes, we do this, we aren't just led around by our short-term lusts) we see the stark difference between active, happy people running around the world enjoying their retirement and supporting their kids and the folks who are prematurely consigned to the couch or, even worse, a Lil' Rascal. We know what fate we want for ourselves, we know the outcome is uncertain, and we would much prefer to be paired with a partner in this struggle against decline instead of chained to someone who must be dragged or abandoned.

The second reason that men are willing to stand behind, at least the more honest of us, is that we mistrust the emotional strength and resources of women who can't control their eating despite the huge price they pay. So many motivations can be leveraged to control one's food intake: health, vanity, ambition, and frugality, among others. Every consideration from the most lofty (environmental impact) to the most practical (health) to the most base human desires (vanity, social competitiveness) all stand arrayed against the temptations of cheesecake and Doritos. If all those combined isn't enough, isn't it reasonable to worry that a person may be ineffectual in the face of other challenges as well? I know it isn't PC to suspect what used to be called the "moral strength" of people who struggle unsuccessfully with their weight, but in the unaccountable privacy of our minds -- and what could be more private and unaccountable than deciding who to love? -- we are free to follow our own judgment.

Hey dkh, I think we're talking here about big tits, ya know? Hourglass waist, then hips that you'd know were there. Voluptuousness doesn't have to be pudgy; it's curvaceous and sensual. Not fat. You and Rubins are going a tad too far.

Interesting post clearly.

Luscious Lois :)

@Lois, even if you don't read "curvy" as a euphemism (as it usually is,) the trajectory is clear, for women just like for men. Sure, some people turn it around and shape up later in life, but it's a really, really, really bad bet to marry someone a little overweight at thirty hoping they'll still just be a little overweight at forty and fifty. Frankly, it's an unfair expectation for your spouse. You can't marry someone who's fifteen pounds overweight at thirty and act surprised and disappointed if they're forty pounds overweight a decade later.

As for the aesthetic aspect, I never said curves weren't sexy. That's why there's a difference between short-term tastes and long-term tastes. Give men a little credit for weighing practical interests against our love of luscious T&A.

I'm feeling inappropriately giggly after dkh has weighed in. Not that I disagree with his analysis, exactly. Just that it's so Eeyorish compared to the more lighthearted tone everybody else, including the poster, is taking. In my opinion, there are always two levels of analysis, the deep and the surface. Most of everything we say and do just scratches the surface. The deep always amounts to what can each selfish human do to survive and reproduce. And that gets a tad boring after a while.

ms T&S ... i'd rather have a "soft-landing" in the evening (who wants to be impaled on a hip bone?) ... lew

@Lainey, I think you're too pessimistic. Life isn't so bad you can't look it in the face once in a while. Considering the anger evident in the original blog post, and the author's unsuccessful struggle to deal with it, it didn't seem appropriate to laugh it off. (Does she really buy her lame attempt to link healthy body weight with ignorance, stupidity, and low expectations for women? That's a transparent bit of sour grapes that would be grossly offensive except that as an overweight woman lashing out at women who aren't overweight, she is exercising permissible underdog license.)

Knee-jerk defiance will only get her so far. The curvy commenters here might be well-adjusted and happy enough with their weight to laugh it off, but the OP is not. What happens if a study comes out tomorrow saying that men who appreciate brains and ambition in a woman have a stronger preference for fitness, and men who have more "traditional" expectations of women are more tolerant of curves? Hey, it could happen, and if it does, she'll need a better foundation for accepting herself than execrating men who don't find her attractive. She has a weakness, she's (gasp!) not perfect, and some men will pass on her because of it, for both just and unjust reasons. It's a universal aspect of human experience, and anger is a very poor way of dealing with it (though it might be progress, depending on where she's coming from.)

I see you're trying to be sarcastic against scientists & their research, but it comes about )( that close to manhating in my opinion.
the research is part of an area called "evolutionary psychology" that the public understands [not surprisingly] about as well as sarah palin or whats-her-name o'donnell understand evolution....

I havent looked at the study closely [doubt you have either...]. the males thinking in it could be regarded as wishful thinking. obviously, thinking is different than behavior or outcomes. obviously, reality interferes with that typically. an obvious question is whether females cooperate with the males shallow expectations. the answer is, generally, no.

well that explains a lot. tho there's hope for me, it seems, if i ever decide i want to remarry ... curves are sort of square now, and gravity, well, it's got a strong magnetic pull. (aging is awesome.) but i still have a pretty face ... but damn. i'm smart and complicated. eh. who wants to get married again anyway?

I guess dkh, you are still basing your "fat women can't make "good" decisions about themselves in the face of overwhelming prejudice, so why should I marry them" argument on the idea that women willfully choose to be fat by their behavior, and their behavior only. I think weight gain and loss is far more complicated than that, with new research regarding stress hormones, insulin resistance, and other, non food/diet related factors play a huge part in whether or not a person can lose weight easily, or not.

It is simply ridiculous to assume, when diets have such a towering failure rate, that fat women are fat due solely to a lack of moral fiber.

I think we are in the bronze age of knowledge regarding fat, and fat loss, and that simple calories in-out is just not that simple.

People need to remove the morality from fat. That is an outmoded idea. And those who are proponents of it tend to be naturally and easily thin themselves, or the sort of rigid fanatic that is the thin equivalent of the dry drunk.

Almost no one would be fat if they could simply diet and lose it and keep it off. The fact that this is still in dispute, after all this failure and growth in girth of our society, really puzzles me.

Fat isn't moral failing. Its a complex syndrome we are only beginning to understand.

dkh, I think it's ironic that you think I'm the one being pessimistic. You know that I called you Eeyore first, right? ;) You say there is anger evident in this post, and I don't see that as the tone at all. It's funny and sarcastic, but the bitterness, if it's there at all, is entirely bloodless.

Persephone brings up an interesting point that I meant to say myself earlier. Your original analysis suggests women are choosing their roundness and science is moving away from that. Which begs an evolutionary explanation, does it not? We could as easily interpret some women's curviness (chubbiness if you prefer) as survival-selected--famine protection, blah, blah, blah. I think marriage is cultural, so it seems likely that men's reasons for choosing thin women to marry and curvy women for one-nighters is not really relevant in terms of reproduction but rather is related to cultural considerations.

vzn, I'm surprised you see this as borderline man-hating. As the mother of three sons, my radar to such things is pretty sensitive. I don't see it here.

Its SHIT like this that makes me lose faith in science. And I'm sure they polled nothing but inexperienced college students.

Typical, and such bullshit. :)

-R-

@Persephone13, I haven't been under a rock the last twenty years ;-)

The human body is undeniably complicated, but so is a television set. Even a light switch is complicated beyond my ability to understand it if it I look at it the right way. The question is, is there a simple way of looking at weight control? Sure. For any person who does not have serious medical condition, if they eat the right amounts of the right foods, they can make themselves underweight or overweight or anything in between. That isn't controversial. Despite all the searching, nobody has found any complications that invalidate that one simple perspective.

That doesn't mean that it isn't harder for some people, or that different people might not need different amounts of food. All it means is that anyone who is overweight can lose weight by improving their diet. The challenge is not in what your body does with food, however complicated that may be. The challenge is in what food you put in your body. Correspondingly, the most challenging biological mystery is how your body regulates what you put in your mouth, not what it does with it afterwards.

When the question boils down to behavior, i.e., what you put in your mouth, you unavoidably get to judgment, unless you want to deny the validity of all judgment (which is fine with me.) Nobody is a fan of phrases such as "moral fiber" and "moral failing" anymore, but we do embrace our obligation to make other people happy, which of course means making ourselves happy. We accept the task of understanding and managing our own psychology so we can make ourselves happy and healthy and avoid behaviors that make us sick and unhappy. That's the challenge we set ourselves and the challenge we prepare our kids for. People who are overweight and miserable because of it are not coping successfully with that challenge. That's unattractive, because it's not something people are eager to bring into their lives to influence themselves and their children.

As for people who are "fat and happy," ignoring the health risks of overweight is a gamble that some people get away with, and I guess some people do not mind the physical compromises of living in an overweight body, but frankly, I think it's a bad choice that people make because they aren't thinking about the consequences when they're 50+. I'm over thirty now, so most of the rest of my life will be spent on the far side of fifty. Plus, of all the people you've met who claimed to feel that way, how many aren't in denial, or secretly nursing insecurity? I would much rather be with someone who admitted they were unsatisfied with their weight and showed a commitment to managing it in the long term than with somebody who was significantly overweight and claimed not to care.

This all may sound harsh, but remember all we're discussing is whether it makes sense to have some aversion to overweight when choosing a mate. My interest in the topic and my willingness to be long-winded about it is a reflection of my own sustained engagement with first losing and now keeping off a significant amount of unwanted weight, not an obsession with trim female bodies. Everybody has a list of things they care about in a mate, and everybody ends up compromising on many of those items. Body weight is just one item on the list.

@Lainey We're so far removed from the conditions we evolved in and for, I don't think it's any mystery that we do things that aren't optimal for present-day first world conditions. And I do think it's pessimistic to resort to laughing off something that someone cares so much about. The optimistic response is that if her weight makes her so insecure and vulnerable that a completely un-noteworthy study about male sexual taste (reporting a boring, conventional-wisdom-confirming result) can make her feel this deeply hurt, then she should lose weight. That's actually a pretty damned optimistic outlook, isn't it? Am I the only one loony enough to suggest it?

As for how I can tell she's hurt, she went straight to comparing an aversion to overweight when choosing a spouse to an aversion to women of color, intelligent women, and ambitious women. That screams defensiveness, especially since the leap is completely unjustified. As far as I'm aware, doctors don't recommend being stupid and unambitious.

I enjoyed the post and took it in the spirit in which it was intended. Just read through the comments and as usual, any woman who questions the attitudes of men is "angry," "defensive," makes "leaps of logic" -- gah, can't these woman-haters at least come up with some new lines? Biology teaches us that women and men choose mates based on their fertility, and part of that is based on physical attributes. Half-starved women are rarely as fecund as women who have an average amount of meat on their bones. When did "curvy" become equal to fat? Of course now I will be attacked for being fat, which I am not, but I have a woman's body and I'm certainly not ashamed of it.

The fact that the study group was mostly young men, young men who have doubtless been inundated with the "pornofication" of our culture and especially women, tells me everything I need to know about these skewed results. Only waifs with huge, surgically-enhanced boobs, shaved mounds and empty heads are seen as desirable, especially if they're on their knees. Funny thing then that even the most causal observation of people in public places indicates that most men and women seem to go for all types of men and women. Same as it ever was.

I screwed up with failing to hit myself in the head with a hammer. Now you tell me....

So women who lose the curves will be seen as wives and not sex partners?

There's a recipe for heartbreak....

No hope for me too, brown-skinned, curvy, 127 pounds, Software Engineer with an engineering degree in Comp Science. You ruined ny day... :) Rated.

I'm sorry, I don't understand this post (or maybe I don't understand the responses). A lot of people who're responding to this post seem to be upset with the study (this study is crap, blah blah blah...). But this study seems to validate me (a male). I don't want to ever get married and I find attractive and severely intelligent women attractive. In other words, according to this study, the most dim witted and unattractive people will reproduce. That suits me fine. Who'd want to be married to a single person their entire life when they could get educated, get a career and then have a whole lot of fun sex adventures for the rest of their life? Once again, science shows that marriage is boring and lame.

This study rules (as does any other scientific study that validates my life choices).

I'm delighted to say that the University of Texas is talking out of its ass. My wife has curves and a better brain than I have and I married her for those attributes as well as many others.

Not true. I have curves and recently my dear SO insisted on marrying me. So here's at least one good anecdote to the contrary.

A plump woman may be sexy, but she isn't prestigious, and she signals an inadequate commitment to class standards.

First, these are subjective associations, which vary from person to person and change over time. (Sometimes "plumpness" is associated with wealth and class: at least it proves she's not too poor to feed herself. It can also be associated with health: a bigger, well-fed woman is more likely than an anorexic to crank out healthy babies; and skinny women often "look" sick.) And second, the original subject was "curvy" women, not "plump" women. They're not the same, and dkh shows his own shallowness by confusing those two terms.

...it's a really, really, really bad bet to marry someone a little overweight at thirty hoping they'll still just be a little overweight at forty and fifty.

That MAY be true...if all you give a shit about is her physical shape.

Give men a little credit for weighing practical interests against our love of luscious T&A.

I'm perfectly happy to give such credit to men who earn it. Trouble is, you -- and the guys who publish these crap studies -- aren't in that category.

Knee-jerk defiance will only get her so far...

Yet another insecure male trying to keep women from getting too uppity. Dude, did it ever occur to you that some guys find defiance HOT (not to mention useful and necessary)?

Excellent, funny stuff. Funny/sad, as someone else commented.

I’m not sure if I want to get into the debate on whether men should date overweight women, seems a tad mean-spirited. However, I do want to point out that “curvy” in the study and in my post, refers to women with sexy, hourglass shapes. A nice rack and junk in the trunk, as some might say. Sadly, no one would be surprised by (or write a post about) a study suggesting men prefer to marry women who aren’t obese.

And yes, as many folks here have noted, I meant this all in good fun. Clearly, the people running or participating in these studies have no idea what’s happening out here in real life.

Every single one of your comments made my day. Thank you!

Everybody is working awfully hard to equate a reasonable, practical concern about a partner's long-term fitness and health prospects with the most unsavory kind of male objectification. Evidently my concern for quality of life after fifty is just a lame attempt to hide my obessesion with "surgically enhanced boobs" and "shaved mounds."

Luscious Lois's critique hit the closest to home when she teased me for being so gloomy and practical while everyone else was joking about "big tits." One moment I was being teased for not giving due credit to "curvaceous and sensual" women with "hips you know are there," and the next I was being condemned as a shallow horndog. I plead somewhat guilty to the first and utterly baffled at the second.

@motherwell, that's an awfully hostile comment. I haven't got personal with anybody here, except to observe that the OP has some anger around her weight, which I can't objectively prove if people are bent on denying it. I admit that body weight is a factor in choosing a spouse, and you say that I'm shallow and only care about a woman's body. Nice. Do you deny that a man's physical condition and future health prospects influence your evaluation of him as a long-term partner? If not, does that make you shallow and sexist?

At everybody who doesn't think "curvy" is code for overweight, it's kind of pointless to argue about the meaning of a word, but my reaction is that you just haven't been paying attention to how the word is used these days. You, me, and the scientists don't decide what the word means. The study participants were the ones who interpreted it. It may have originally referred to someone of any weight with a pronounced tendency to carry weight in their hips and breasts, like '60s Marilyn Monroe, but now it has developed another meaning as a polite euphemism for overweight. Every woman with a few extra pounds is claiming the word, no matter how they're shaped. (And isn't that more fair?) College kids are even more likely to assume the new, current usage of the word given their relish for detecting linguistic change and rushing it along to its logical conclusion.

I know you haven't been under a rock...but you are misunderstanding me..

When I refer to stress hormones and other factors (such as insulin resistance) effecting whether weight loss is easy or not...I am Not referring to what you mentioned..(that whatever internal metabolic processes there may be going on within a woman's body, she is choosing what she is eating, and her poor choices are a moral failure transferable to other aspects of personality)...

Wrong. What I am saying, and its my fault for not making this more clear, is that new science is rather strongly making it clear that there are hormonal syndromes that not only effect metabolism, and the like..but effect our CHOICES...as in...portion sizes, cravings, desires for crap, and energy level.

Hard to believe, I guess, but these drives are comparable to the drive to sleep. They are so strong, that telling someone (97%0 of someones, anyway) that they should just "eat less and exercise more" is like saying "just sleep three hours a night only, and you will lose weight"...You can do it for a while..fatties can be strong willed indeed, but eventually your body will crash..and you WILL binge.

You are assigning moral blame to a physiological phenomenon...and this is outdated thinking...

Can these internal programs be turned off? Hell yes..get your cortizone and other stress hormones down, work on internal fears of being thin (thats a big one for women...a BIG one...that is often unconscious....given how women are objectified)....and, if you get it right....the weight will come off.

I am proof of this, but there are many others. Twenty five pounds and counting that are coming off without effort. No white knuckle discipline needed...just omega3s , stress reduction, and ADDing whole foods to whatever diet you currently consume (there's more too it, but we have hijacked this poor woman's blog enough, no?). Once I had lowered, drastically, the stress hormones in my body, my DESIRE for crap left, my portion size was effortlessly halved, and the weight stared coming off..

And..unlike white knuckle, willpower,
"moral fiber" dieting..it gets easier as time passes, and the weight loss SPEEDS UP, rather than slows down.

So, you know..you are part of that tiny percentage of people that can lose weight regardless of stress level, metabolic issues, etc. Good for you. But to say that your VERY untypical success is proof that anyone can do what you did is wrong.

I think the way we approach dieting now is ass backwards..I hope to see it change. .....

Now I gotta stop, cuz arguing on the internet is stupid.

Basta.

Everybody is working awfully hard to equate a reasonable, practical concern about a partner's long-term fitness and health prospects with the most unsavory kind of male objectification.

That is a flat-out misrepresentation of what we've said here.

Evidently my concern for quality of life after fifty is just a lame attempt to hide my obessesion with "surgically enhanced boobs" and "shaved mounds."

No, it's just shallow, shortsighted, and not representative of how men in general think of women.

...I haven't got personal with anybody here...

No, you just directed some insultingly shallow ideas at no one in particular.

...except to observe that the OP has some anger around her weight...

Are you sure you're commenting in the right thread? The only anger I'm seeing from her is at those idiotic "studies," not her own weight.

...which I can't objectively prove if people are bent on denying it.

You COULD prove it, if the author had actually written anything you could quote to show as evidence. But she didn't, so you can't.

At everybody who doesn't think "curvy" is code for overweight, it's kind of pointless to argue about the meaning of a word, but my reaction is that you just haven't been paying attention to how the word is used these days.

The word "curvy" is used INCORRECTLY these days. It's not the same as "overweight," and anyone who confuses the two is either a slob, an idiot, or a liar. That includes the participants in this study -- they don't decide what words mean either. (And if the participants are confused about what the word "curvy" means, and if the meaning wasn't clarified by those in charge, then that further invalidates the study. Just another bit of inexcusable sloppiness.)

Curvy means fat??? All this time I thought it was a compliment, was I misinformed! Thank god Im married, I don t have to go through painful curve reduction surgery!
Who answered this poll? Has to be college boys.

funny, the predominant study that I have heard quoted over and over Ad nauseam states that men prefer to mate with a female who has an hourglass figure.. several studies of the function of the human brain and sexual attraction, men prefer women with a waist-to-hip ratio of between 0.67 and 0.80. This is thought to be because we are hard-wired to choose the most fertile and biologically capable mate with whom to reproduce. Supposedly all of the great beauties, regardless of their actual size, from Marilyn Monroe ( a size 12 in her heyday) to Halie Berry ( a size 4), are in this range. Women with these specific ratios are generally more fertile and more capable of maintaining a pregnancy with fewer complications.

Love the debate here, folks!! Here's something to chew on.

Curve - n
1. a continuously bending line that has no straight parts
2. something that curves or is curved, such as a bend in a road or the contour of a woman's body

Curvy - (see curvaceous) adjective Informal.
(of a woman) having a well-shaped figure with voluptuous curves.

Fat 1. having too much flabby tissue; corpulent; obese: a fat person.