From: joe@spdcc.com (Joseph Francis)
Newsgroups: soc.motss
Subject: Unvarying standards of male unattractiveness
Date: 5 Jan 93 14:17:35 GMT
Article-I.D.: spdcc.1993Jan5.141735.4227
Organization: S.P. Dyer Computer Consulting, Cambridge MA

I saw the following, and all the rather flaccid follow-ups:

>It's sad that fashion dictates that women must hide behind a
>mask of makeup to be "beautiful."  The idea that women are
>attractive only when you cannot see their real selves is an 
>idea perpetuated by men because (1) it support a multi-billion
>dollar cosmetics industry owned mostly by men, and (2) it is
>demeaning to women to not be able to be accepted as they really
>are.  Thus, men are able to maintain a power structure that
>obviously favors men and puts-down women; and makes lots of money
>in the doing!   

You have a conventional misunderstanding of cosmetics, their history,
use, and purpose. I can't go into detail, but it would be useful for
you to read up on the history of a single company, Max Factor. Like
Brassieres, /women's/ make-up as we know it today derives almost
entirely from its use in film, and an attempt to emulate the look that
film provides - smooth, poreless, glamorous (glistening) high-gloss,
high-key, high-contrast. For people of European descent, powders and
pomades, beauty-marks, lip glosses, hair bleaching, and so on, go back
very far; they are almost always a mark of leisure and abandon,
self-involvement, many things.  If you ever read the medical lore of
Trotula (thought to be the oldest known female /healer/ in written
history) part of her gynecological lore is about such things as
lightening hair. A tremendous amount of this was to highlight the fact
that the users of such ornament didn't get chapped lips (not living
virtualy out-of-doors), had pale skin (didn't sunburn in the fields),
had blond hair (always considered a mark of refinement) etc. Modern
cosmetics highlight different status values - suntanning (leisure
class), and so on, culminating in the classic "Conspicuous
Consumption", used to differentiate social classes through
ostentation. One can see the gradual emergence of modern make-ups for
people of African descent since they were so conspicuously left out of
film and never developed those style cosmetics. As they emerged into
middle- and upper-classes, the necessity for differentiation started
emerging, and so did appropriate cosmetics.

---

It is a senseless mistake to believe that the purpose of cosmetics is
merely to support a 'male-dominated' industry. A tremendous amount of
cosmetic usage has nothing to do with male standards of feminine
beauty; it has to do with female standards of feminine beauty, and
class distinction.

---

When I studied advertising photography, one of the interesting points
made was that when it comes to cosmetics, today, the closer the
cosmetic gets to looking like it is medicine or part of a medical
regime, the more expensively it can be priced, and the better it will
sell overall. Why? Because it is about beauty? No, because it is about
the wealth that it implies in having access to a private 'beauty
physician', or the idea of 'taking a cure' in a fabulous 'spa' in some
mythical Euroland. One of the most successful lines in cosmetics today
is 'Clinique'. Ever wonder why?

>As long as women continue to smear that ridiculous colored
>stuff all over their faces, they cannot be taken seriously.

This is a useless criticism. As long as women are female they cannot
be taken seriously in a culture which pretends that men are the only
powered class in existence, and that the male way of doing things is
the only correct way. Look at things pragmatically. If women are
judged not only on competency but also on beauty, then a woman who
fails to conform to beauty conventions is at a disadvantage. A woman,
or man, who fails to conform to work conventions in dress is at a
disadvantage too - try not wearing a blue wool suit and being a sales
rep for IBM, for example. 

A better criticism of cosmetics would come from a question of balance
between an expenditure of effort for results. Is it really necessary
to spend an hour to line the lips, apply lipstick, a foundation,
highlights, eyeliner, shadow, blush, darken eyebrows, a big coif, etc.
to go to work? Is it unfair for women to be at such an uncompetitive
time-disadvantage (yes). Is it enough to have clean smooth skin, a
little lip gloss, unobtrusive and pleasant hair, perhaps a tiny bit of
eyeshadow? Or none at all if one is naturally glowing? What are the
limits?  This is, I think, much more useful, and valid criticism of
cosmetic culture. What are female standards of feminine beauty,
anyway? Who are you, as a man, to call facial make-up ridiculous?

>Don't even ask me what I think about high-heels!

You probably have very little concept of what high heels are, and
were.

>Rember the "bra burning" of the 70's?  Maybe it's time to 
>have a "makeup burning" of the 90's.

Tell me: what do you actually know about brassieres? When, for
example, were they invented. Why. What are their antecedants.
Do you know what a Victorian monobosom is? What is the difference
between a Playtex 18-hour bra and an ordinary French soutien-gorge.

---

Comments on comments:

Discussion of makeup-as-mask falls into a trap that people believe
that naked, unadorned skin is more 'true' and allows the person to 'be
themselves' much more than presenting an image to the world. I would
argue that we have images of ourselves that we present to the world
constantly (gee, that photograph doesn't 'look like me', 'I wouldn't
be caught dead wearing that', etc.), and that make-up, paradoxically,
allows ourselves to be even more of what we are than is possible
naturally. Word to remember: amplification.  We've had arguments about
leather and other clothing, which are variations on this theme. Oscar
Wilde took another tack in his "The Truth of Masks" in which people
can act most naturally under the cover of anonymity or the deceit of a
'mask' which protects.

Perfumes, delicious unguents, scented soaps as a waste of time and
money.  Pleasure (fetishistic, sybaritic, hedonistic) takes many
forms. Some people may derive pleasure from the use of cigars; others
are happy feeling the tight tug of lycra; the scratchy feel and slight
oilyness of lanolin of a raw wool sweater. Others have fond feelings
recalled by a relaxing hot scented bath full of foam. Others may
delight in the glow of skin scrubbed fresh after a mud bath. The
secret 'sinning' of pop-tarts at 3am from a 7-11. A delicately lacy
bra put on by a lover with warm hands. A Buffalo-Plaid shirt awareness
with an open window in a truck on a cold winter day through the
countryside. Hours spent in IRC chat nonsense, and posting-pun
chaingangs. Pussies with tangled cunt hairs just at the tip of the
nose; falling asleep with a fat cock in your hand. Pleasure pursuit is
much too varied and idiosyncratic to believe that any single prejudice
can be justified on any general grounds.

Perfumes, delicious unguents, scented soaps and the like are a form of
pleasure-pursuit in /pampering/, the comfortable regression or
progression into a world of sans-souci. Granted that shampoo need not
be anything except a liquid soap, but for some why not /splurge/ and
if it is a fantasy, have strawberries or pleasant-smelling 'herbal'
'treatment' (back to clinics). Moisturizers for those who /want/ them,
without prejudice of /purpose/ and /intent/ (I find those who are
'against' such things invariably are those for whom the delight in
the silly is rather heavy-handed, or for whom such things will have
no effect, whether because they are already in good shape, or because
they are irretrievable.)

I won't discuss the mysogynistic implications of 'chemical
feminization'. They are all too obvious, and actually shocking for
high-minded motssers.

---

If anyone believes that current 'naturalness' is much more than a
fashion, then there are such serious deficiencies of current-events
awareness and advertising presence that any discussion is quite useless.

---

I rarely wear jewelry (a watch), scents (thought I do like the smell
of Tenex), I do wear lip waxes when I think of it (I have very dry
lips and skin), and I have moustache and hair wax (to tame what has
become an extremely bushy beard and moustache). I put some oils on my
skin when it is dry, I brush my teeth with a rather flavorless
nArm&Hammer toothpaste, though I do like to get bubble-gum Crest
sometimes to remind myself of things, I'll probably put highlights in
my hair when it gets down to my shoulders, if it isn't too curly (it
is falling into ringlets). All this is not because I'm not sensitive
to such things (I am, and I love sitting down sometimes, in front of a
mirror, and putting on 'MUDD', or deep-cleaning masques, or trimming
my beard and moustache very precisely with scissors and comb; I used
to have a Stainless-steel Tiffany watch that was broken in a wrestling
match with my brother, and I never had the money to fix it (if you
know what brazing stainless is like)), I never wear scents simply
because I don't understand them (I'll admit), and I occasionally wear
a Celtic jewel that a friend gave me.) I like to pamper, coddle, and
indulge myself. I just have to put it into perspective (where I live
in Paris, my means, the harsh realities of having a beard). 

---

Adornment and pampering are their own justification.

---

Further discussion should include a smart trans-cultural comparison
of, say, male adornment in India, Ceylon, Thailand, the expressiveness
of Tattoage, Nyabingi lip-plates, 'war paint', Assyrian 'perfumed and
curled beards' for kings, 19th-century male hair, beard, and moustache
curling, the reasons for prohibitions of female adornment in
repressive religious cultures, and 'the dandy' as epitomized by Beau
Brummel (heterosexual), or D'Orsay. Otherwise the discussion is merely
badly-informed opinion and prejudice masquerading as thought. 




-- 
US Jojo; damp, slighly soiled, but tasty nonetheless.
Newsgroups: soc.motss