Politically correct beauty (c. 1977- ) is the idea that all races of women are equally beautiful. Black women are as beautiful as white women are as beautiful as Asian women. Like in a Benetton ad.
Many people say they believe it – and want to believe it – but few truly believe it deep down.
You see this idea everywhere:
- You see it in Playboy, as white as it is. In 1990 Hugh Hefner thought it was time for a black woman to become Playmate of the Year. And so Renee Tenison was chosen. She was beautiful, but from the magazine you can tell that Hefner is not into black women.
- You see it in comments on this blog. I have quite a few lists of beautiful women, so people ask why there are no women from Africa or Asia. The idea is that women from these places are just as beautiful as the light-skinned black American women that some say I prefer.
- You even see it in my post “Black women are beautiful”. From the title you might think I have little patience for politically correct beauty – which is true – but the post is shot through with that kind of thinking:
- I wrote it because everywhere all I hear is “white women are beautiful”. No one ever says that, of course, but most of what you see on American television and in magazines shouts it. So I am no different than the commenters who want to see Asian women on my blog.
- In keeping with politically correct beauty, I make no universal claims that black women are more beautiful than white women or anyone else – it is just a matter of personal taste.
- I show how the things I like in black women are found in other women too, like Kim Kardashian. I try to make my taste in women seem as raceless as I can. But why?
My wife thinks I have a thing for East Asian women. Some years ago she asked me what kind of woman I like.
“All kinds,” I said.
“So if you got married again, would you marry an Oriental woman?”
“Maybe. It depends.”
Why? Because back then I believed in politically correct beauty. But despite my high-minded ideas I found myself drawn mainly to black women all the same. The ones I see walking down the street in New York look better to me than all those white women I see in Hollywood and Vogue.
If I ran Playboy the women would be different but it would still be just as narrow. I think that is true for any man.
So some may talk the talk, as I once did, but deep down each man likes particular kinds of women. And so the white people who run the film and fashion industries follow their tastes too and hide it from themselves with their politically correct ideas.
See also:
Abagond,
Your post is very honest without the ad hominem attacks that characterize other peoples’ blogs when it comes to race and beauty. I like how you handled this very sensitive and divisive subject because when I read posts, it’s the name-calling, the ad-hominem attacks, the put-dows, and the divisiveness that characterize most posts.
Again, good post.
Stephanie B.
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Thank you.
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I also find this refreshingly honest. The whole color blind thing is so annoying to me because it’s obviously dishonest. Yes, some men I’m attracted to are East or Southeast Asian but the bulk are black, white or biracial and very All-American. I’m not sure why people feel a need to give a politically correct response. I absolutely think attractiveness is spread pretty evenly, but who I consider attractive and people I’m attracted to aren’t the same.
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I consider the vast majority of women to be within the ‘beauty rnage’ of women of other races, so I’d say that: for tha most, women of various races (since you’re going to go by entire groups) are equally beautifyl. 😉
^^haha, just my silly attempt at refuting your rather sound article. .. I don’t think I can contest this, but you know what: I’ll give my best shot at contesting this in my next, though out post
peace.
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Nice article, though I don’t exactly agree.
I think it’s “cute”.
Yet, putting it bluntly, it’s abit confused/specious in nature.
PC Beauty: “the idea that all races of women are equally beautiful”
For one, an *idea that all ‘races’ of women are unequally beautiful*
is just as suspect. Of course, concerning either statement: beauty has been shown to be subjective.
Even so it is easy to see how one could think: a set idea of ‘beauty’ whereby every man thinks the same, and thinks the same of all defined ‘races’ women, is definitely impossible given the subjective nature of beauty. There is the nonsensical and even contradictory (oxymoronic) nature of the ***term***, “PC beauty”.
Two things though: 1: races of homo sapien sapiens don’t exist in scientific taxonomy.
There is no biological basis for specifying a species or even a sub-species of a human dichotomy.
As of yet: If you found some one that was biologically a different ‘race’, he would be the first of his kind to have evolved so.
Next two paragraphs are a bit off-topic, but it might be worth noting:
It is easy to see how people mistake the .01% observed overall genetic variation in Humans to imply “races”. As such, this biologically insensible viewpoint grasps on lack of understanding of phenomena, for instance, ‘variation’ in the number of “copies” of certain genes, and the higher incidence of certain naturally selected genes and their subsequent flow between spatially separated populations, mutations in genes that regulate melanin content and so forth, which have no bearings on the overall integrity of humans as a single species.
As mentioned time and again, even chimpanzees that look visibly similar in phenotype (<- subjective) from a single chimp population, actually show greater genetic variation than the entire human genome. But phenotype is usually assumed to automatically be indicative of genotype.
Regardless of whether we use the term, races or ethnicities, closely related peoples generally share a more common occurance of certain physical attributes.
2: of course it’s possible for someone to consider all ‘races’ equally attractive:
Think about this: there are a number of African descent women in my opinion look ‘better’ than most women of other ethnies, a number of Asian women who look ‘better’ than most women of other races in my opinion, and a number of white women I think look better than most women of other races. And so on.
For me, most of the race range overlap. Meaning, that in that equal overlap, there are various races of women so: for the most part, at least, all races of women look equally as beautiful. 😉
Personally, I find nice, round, voluptuous lips, high, exotically feminine jaws, and rounded eyes highly beautiful.
I also find Asian girls attractive. Their faces (the flat, but particular curvature of the chin) and their (a little bit differenly) rounded exotic eyes. (I once saw a woman in a cowboy hat, sunglasses, and western dress who I could still tell she was asian because of the way the rawa was rounded). Go figure.
The eyes I was talking about:
http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1104/838922951_049f08e07c.jpg?v=0
^left
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2144/2068061171_02deb1d689.jpg?v=0
The face/jaw I was talking about:
Beauty IMO transcends race — this is unfrefutable because it is my opinion. How’s that for an article refutation? (:
And why are there mainly black responses on this particular page?
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There are mainly black responses on most of my pages, not just this one. The blogosphere, in case you did not know, is pretty segregated. All the black kids sit together, as they say:
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Thanks for the pictures. I especially liked that third one:
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Blak Attak: I used to think something like you, overlaps and all that, but it was all a head game. When I walked down the street I was still looking mainly at black women.
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The picture at the top isn’t about equal beauty. It’s about equal rights.
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Oh. Right. Sorry. I replaced that Benetton ad with a morph of Zhang Ziyi and Vivica Fox. Thanks.
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Interesting indeed.
Personally I don’t think all races are equally beautiful. It’s pretty dumb to say that. Each race has a certain character, like a type of music. Just because you like jazz more than rock doesn’t make much a difference, but when race is involved people are afraid to say they have a preference, for fear of being deemed racist.
I’ll admit I am more attracted to white people and I notice them more. But I think most races care more for their own races, naturally. I was reading a few articles about the psychology of beauty. One of them was saying how what we think is beautiful is often what we think is the least novel. One study showed that people concider people with the most typical features to be the most beautiful.
That is why people hate seeing pictures of themselves. The pictures show their faces flipped. Most people are used to seeing their faces one way in the mirror. Since a photograph shows the opposite, we don’t like what we see. We’re not used to it.
I think what complicates this issue a bit is the fact that who is concidered “beautiful” is often outside of the stereotype for their face. For white women, thick eyebrows and hair and olive skin is concidered to be very attractive. With black women, the lighter the skin color, the more attractive she seems, to everybody, white and black people alike. Notice almost all runway black models are fairly light-skinned. The most famous black model today, Chanel Iman, is actually half Korean! In many Asian countries, the bigger your eyes and the curvier you are, the better.
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Also, Asian women go tanning and lighten their hair. So I think there is a certain universal standard of beauty but I think it is also culturally defined to an extent.
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Roxy,
I appreciate your honesty but some of your commentary seems incorrect. I understand that you’re far more in white beauty. That’s great. Yet, within East Asian and black cultures, the standards of beauty have more range. I don’t know that curvy bodies are all the rage in East Asia. Perhaps in some circles but not all over. Also, Chanel Iman is not the most famous runway model out at the moment. I doubt most people know who she is. Most of the black runway models I’ve seen wouldn’t be considered “light skinned” at all by American standards, anyway. So that was pretty ignorant.
Also, Iman’s mother is half Korean. Meaning that Chanel is mostly black, so get your facts straight.
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Also,
Many East Asian women do tan. Yet the entire continent of Asia is famously preoccupied with fair skin, quite shamelessly. The western (read: Nordic white) ideal has plagued many non-white cultures, unfortunately.
A better example for you to use would be the difference of acceptance of body types by say, black Americans and whites. Curviness and sometimes, near-heavyset figures are seen as desirable to many black folks in the States. Hence why the Melyssa Fords and Bria Myles and Buffie The Bodies are mainly known to lots of black people yet would be random black chicks to white people who saw walking by on the street. They’d probably deem their bodies “unacceptable”.
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Roxy:
I have never known Asians to be into curviness either, though no doubt some are. Asia is a big place. Can you be more specific?
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Roxy: that is an interesting idea about light-skinned black women – that they are considered to be more beautiful because they are less common. I have always thought of it as an effect of white standards of beauty on blacks – cultural brainwashing.
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Yeah, Asia is the biggest continent in the world. In which regions or countries are curvier bodies supposedly more desirable?
About lightly-complexioned black women, yeah, Aba, I believed the bias towards them come from two things: the idealogy of privilege that comes with light skin in a colonized society (seen as “elite”); the anti-black attitudes of the U.S. (and of course the Euro standard of beauty); and …they’re less common. If black women are so stigmatized because they don’t look white, a black woman who looks whiter (overall, not just color) could be seen as desirable. She’s “different” and not a “regular black girl”. That seems to be the attitude for the blacks who have biases towards that.
Yet at the same time, you can say that the Alek Wek/Grace Jones types being less common propelled their ascent. No?
About the black runway models, who are these droves of “light skinned” black women though? Just at looking at pictures of Fashion Week online and my knowledge of the several successful black models, they did not fit that profile at all.
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I do believe that the white standard of beauty drives much of many people’s bias for whiter looking black women, as well as anti-black prejudice overall.
Yet, the white standard of beauty may drive it most because hair and features play a BIG part in that.
Most black people who are either fair or light brown in skin tone, look distinctively black. Their features tend to be stereotypically black, their hair isn’t straight, etc. They look predominately African, just with a lighter tone.
The lightly complexioned women who presented as desirable usually look less black overall, in features and hair. That’s not most light skinned black women, in reality.
But then again, that drives home the idea that what’s less common for many people stands out as more beautiful.
Am I making sense, Aba?
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Yes. Having an uncommon look is part of it: both Tyra Banks and Angelina Jolie look kind of strange when you think about it, but that is part of their beauty. I agree that that has helped Alek Wek and Grace Jones.
But I think, overall, white ideas of beauty and feelings about blackness, like you said, play a bigger part.
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Roxy: even though the fashion industry pushes a thin, Nordic, white girl beauty, and pushes it hard, its black models are not particularly light-skinned, not from what I can recall at least. Black women, it seems, are valued for looking “exotic”. The more exotic the better, which often means very dark skin a la Alek Wek.
Where you see light-skinned black beauty is mainly in the entertainment industry, particularly Hollywood: Halle, Beyonce and so on.
I have not done the numbers or anything, so I could be wrong, but that is how it seems to me.
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Thanks for the fruitful comments and for calling on some of my shit.
I think I was more concerned with giving my opinion that came from personal experience rather than being entirely correct. I think if I really thought about it more I would analyze things a little differently. Sometimes I miss just throwing out my opinion carelessly like that, being a university student and all. 🙂
Mynameismyname: I think when I said “cury” I should have been more specific. “Cury” is rather relative. In Japan and China were girls are rail thin, the models have much more “definition” and “shape.” They have fuller figures but they aren’t necessarily concidered “curvy” in America.
I really, really love high fashion. Usually what most people concider famous models aren’t the models that are the “hype” of the fashion industry at that time. Naomi Campbell and Tyra Banks are household names, but it’s Chanel Iman and Liya Kebede that are all the hype in the fashion world today, in terms of black models.
Interesting that she’s 1/4 Korean. I shouldn’t believe all I read on the Internet, I guess. 😉 Still you can definitely see it in her eyes.
In terms of light-skinned black women being more beautiful because of the white standard of beauty, maybe you’re right. I could be biased. I mean, I’m white, I’m around white guys, who make comments about hwo beautiful Tyra Banks is, but for some reason, they don’t care much for Naomi Campbell even though she seems far, far more interesting to me. Anyway, thank you for your fruitfull comments.
Abagond: I mean, I haven’t done my numbers either. I could be way off too. I’m just expressing my opinion based on my (biased) experience. I found what you said about Halle versus Alek interesting. If you look at Hollywood, most white actresses (in my opinion) aren’t particularily interesting to look at or special in any way. They just seem like average white women with tons of makeup on. They look very “blah.” At the same time, white models I find to be much more beautiful, because of their strange, alien appearance. There’s a difference in what “common” beauty and what “novel” beauty is, definitely, in both black and white women. Perhaps Halle is popular among white men because, as attractive as she is, she doesn’t have the same strong character Alek does, which is why she isn’t a model.
Again, just personal reflections. =)
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***That’s “curvy.” I made two typos. Horrible keyboard… and proofreading skills.
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I just wanted to add, that sometimes beauty isn’t necessarily that biased. I have olive skin. When I was younger, I had very very dark skin. Many people thought I looked black. I have thick curly black hair. For a European I look very Middle Eastern. Yet when I notice other people I am either attracted to Carribean people or stereotypically European looking people, never people who look like me. I don’t particularily like my type of beauty. =)
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Roxy,
Interesting commentary.
Tyra Banks is “light skinned”? By what standard? Like Liya, she’s actually very much in normal color range as most other black women (medium brown to dark brown). I think Tyra’s dark hazel eyes and long blonde weaves affect people’s judgement of her color. Without the warpaint on her face and the string in her head, everyone can see her for what she really is: a regular ol’ black chick from Inglewood, CA who did good.
LOTS of white men like Naomi. LOTS. Hell, the broad’s dating history gives evidence of that. LOL.
Not all white men have a color bias with black women either. Even Abagond will tell you. Usually when white men pursue or date/marry black women, she’s OBVIOUSLY black. Not “ambigious”. Not neccessarily ‘light skinned’.
Halle Berry is not the only black actress in Hollywood. She’s not even the most successful. There’s a variety of black women in that twisted, crazy, racist industry. Many of whom blow Berry away in looks and talent. You should look them up.
I agree, most of the white women in the media look very plain. They’re nothing special. Without the makeup, the majority of them look downright scary!
I think Berry has an “universal” look. I don’t know, she’s just simply really-attractive. That may explain some of her widespread appeal.
Where in Europe are you from? You seem to have an interesting look from what you describe. Do you model?
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Preferences in black women (speaking in general):
fashion industry: tall, thin, exotic (Iman)
Hollywood: thin, white-looking (Halle Berry) or cutesy pie (Gabrielle Union), European hair
black men’s magazines: thick, light-skinned, long black hair (Vida Guerra 😉 )
white men who date black women: thin, middle-class, “obviously black”: dark-skinned, natural hair
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Good morning, Abagond,
I think your take on preferences of the industry are pretty interesting.
Your take on the fashion industry is right on, for the most part.
Is Halle really that white looking, tho? But then again, I get what you’re trying to say. Most of the black women in Hollywood that I can think of didn’t look white tho. And Euro hair? Don’t most black women straighten their hair like lots of white women dye their’s?
Just taking a look at various covers of King, Smooth, and some others (via Google search) “surprised” me. In terms of shade, many weren’t light, so perhaps that’s not room of thumb? (I do hear that lighten up a lot of their models tho. Hmmm) Yet, long black weaves were almost mandatory. And of course, they all had body although some were thin w/ a big ass, so to speak. I notice that a few covers did have non-black or mixed Latina women (Guerra, Tila Tequila [who’s not thick at all; just by going off comments on their site, she’s not well received either], CoCo, Rosci [who’s thin], etc.) Interesting. Maybe they attempt to have diversity? Who knows. I just don’t think patterns are rigid in the women they use.
White men w/ black women: Not all are thin! And MANY have relaxed hair or extensions. And when I said “obviously black”, I mean unquestionably black. Like many, you seem to equate “light skinned” with being “white looking”, “less black” and “unauthentic” so when I say “obviously black”, I mean the general black woman. That’s less about color but more about the overall look.
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By Euro hair I meant not natural.
King magazine has a good mix of women, but Smooth and Black Men follow more of a formula. To a sickening degree, if you ask me.
The two best exceptions to what I said about Hollywood are two I think you brought up before: Queen Latifah and Whoopi Goldberg, who have probably made far more money in Hollywood than other black actresses.
Halle Berry looks black, but it is easy enough to find pictures on the Internet where she looks very close to white:
When I saw her in “Boomerang” she looked decidedly black, but in “Gothika” she looked very close to white. Maybe that is all that Hollywood lighting and make-up and so on.
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Goodafternoon gentlemen,
I was looking at pictures of Tyra on Google and to me she definitely seems lighter-skinned due to her hair and whatnot. But in magazines she’s airbrushed and with tons of makeup, so that could make her look even lighter-skinned…
I actually went to Abagond’s page where he shows how white men tend to date typically “black” looking women. I guess now looking back that seems more obvious to me. For instance, my mother’s best friend is Nigerian, so she’s very quite dark, and her husband is white as snow. I don’t know how I overlooked that.
I’m a Russian Jew from Latvia. You can definitely see more Jew in me than Russian, although I seem to look more and more European as years go by. On my citizenship card I look very dark, and that’s my primary use of I.D. Needless to say I tend to have problems with people believing it’s in fact me on the card. And I do model, but not professionally. My main occupation is research. I will graduate this year with a degree in Psychology. Cultural psychology is something I am very interested in persuing. Hence, my interest in the topic.
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Roxy,
Is Tyra darker than you? I’ve seen MANY candid photos of Tyra and she’s just not lightly colored at all IMO. There’s a recent photo of her next to Serena Williams at a fashion event. They are barely any lighter than one another.
And yeah, airbrushing can make anyone look “bright” in the face. LOL.
I’m also fascinated with social and cultural psychology. I don’t study it in school but in my free time, it’s amongst the vast variety of topics that I like to ponder.
Aba,
When trying to gauge a celeb’s actual physical apperance, you have to find CANDID photos. Photos of them going about their day, in adequate lighting, for instance. Publicity shots, like that one of Halle Berry above, are not realistic. They are the work of a great graphic designer and computer software. And because black people are naturally darkly-pigmentated, it’s possible for someone’s skin color to have dramatic alterations depending on lighting and what not.
For instance:
Female rapper Queen Pen-
Natural tone: http://www.nypost.com/seven/05192008/photos/new015b.jpg
Bright constrast: http://www.bivi.net/celebrity/QUEENPEN-V.jpg
Damn near white! (she’s the one in the middle wearing white):
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2294/2255260436_ceb6011432.jpg?v=0
See?
My perspective of color and the alteration of people’s physical appearance comes from my extensive appearance as a photographer and cameraman. Man oh man, there’s SOOO many tricks to change someone’s entire looks. That’s why you can RARELY judge any famous person’s looks on their photos or television images. There’s just too many tricks. Most of the celebs I’ve met in person look so different in person (many are shorter; some are heavier, etc.). It’s fascinating. It’s all make-believe what you see in the entertainment world.
I checked out an issue of King magazine once. It was the one with Tocarra on the cover. Man, that magazine was basically filled with ads and suprisingly, lots of articles about men! Not too many ladies! LOL. What part of the game is that?! 🙂
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You look so beautiful lady God realy made you perfect.
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I think every woman is beautiful regardless of her race, body type, eye color, or skin color. I just wish people would stop making me feel lke because I’m not white or Asian, or have a light color eye color that I’m not as attractive.
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@abagond:
“Roxy:
I have never known Asians to be into curviness either, though no doubt some are. Asia is a big place. Can you be more specific?”
I have to tell you, abagond, that curves are embraced in the Philippines. As you know, I’m of Filipino descent and we love our women to have hips and breasts. Perhaps we do lack a bit in the posterior area, but some of us actually have something to back it up.
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I love the high fashion look. I’ve seen a lot in person and those women are stunning. Also I think the black “hollywood types” are pretty,ie Gabrielle Union, Sanna Lathan, ect.
Never understood the men’s magazine type women though.
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It is their bodies.
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But I do believe all races are equally beautiful/handsome! That is, I don’t think there’s an “ugly race”.
However, there are always personal preferences. I don’t find all men (or types of men) equally handsome. I just don’t. There are always exceptions (men I consider handsome even if they’re “not my type” and men who should be my type, but for some reason they aren’t).
But even if I don’t find some “types” (I won’t say races) of men handsome, that doesn’t mean they’re ugly. That is just my opinion. Other women could have different opinions (and they often do).
However, I wouldn’t make my personal “hottest men” list more politically correct by adding guys from every possible corner of the world. Is that what you mean by “politically corect” beauty?
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This is a pretty weird conversation in that, obviously, there is a larger range of beauty with each grouping of women than between them. There is outer beauty and inner beauty which make a HUGE difference. And then there is no accounting for taste, especially in partners.
One thing I noticed recently after I completely fell in love with an African woman, that since that time when I see another African women I am more attuned to an African sense of beauty, or grace, that I did not see so clearly before. In fact, I also see this in African men more these days, and have more of a sense of affection towards people of African descent. Before I would have felt more this black/white divide because of all the painful history.
One’s sense of beauty is a subtle thing that probably says more about ourself than the other person.
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abagond:
The morphed picture in this post. Is it actresses Vivica Fox and Zhang Ziyi?
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Yes it is.
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If you click on the picture you will see what it was morphed from.
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Thanks abagond! I knew I recognized the actresses, but I wasn’t exactly sure.
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I think that I used to think more like Abagond does now, and have transitioned to thinking more like Abagond used to, in regard to beauty perception.
Growing up, I had a very strong esthetic preference for Black women, almost exclusively. In fact, the term “Black women” was then, so broadly defined, that one could find almost any look under that banner. However, in spite of that broad diversity, I had fairly stereotypical views about why I preferred Black women. I could run down for you what the “Black body” looked like; What Black lips were like; what Black proportions were. All of this was, of course nonsense. For every Black woman, that I could point out, who fit my descriptions, there were five others who didn’t.
As I got older, I began to broaden my esthetic appreciation, not because I wanted to be politically correct, but because the world, as I experienced it, began to change. People were no longer quite as exclusive in their associations. I began to meet and spend more time with people from other racial backgrounds, and as I did, I began to notice and appreciate women of different ethnicities, in the context of our association. Somehow, it made a difference, when I got to know people, it changed my perception from the days when I was assessing them from across the street.
That didn’t mean that I thought Black women were any less lovely, and it didn’t mean that I developed a “preference” for anybody else over Black women. It just meant that I began to find different features, styles, and body types, each to be sexy in their own ethnic context. In other words, I could look at two totally different women, from two totally different racial backgrounds, and appreciate their type of beauty for completely for different reasons.
The best that I can compare it with is art appreciation. You don’t enjoy a Renoir in the same way that you would a Kandinsky or a Pollock. One is an Impressionist, the other two are Modern abstractionists. Either style of painting looks good and fits within their own context. A Renoir might not look that great in a modern loft, while a Pollock might look downright ridiculous hanging in a French Tudor, filled with antiques. Of course, you can enjoy them both, but you enjoy them in different ways and for different reasons.
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^^^^
Exactly. My sentiments exactly.
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I disagree. I’m a girl but I’m attracted to different types of guys. It depends on the individual
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this is true
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