From: blowfish@carina.unm.edu (rON.)
Subject: Humans as Physical Creatures.
Date: Tue, 29 Sep 92 07:25:58 GMT
Organization: University of New Mexico, Albuquerque

In article <ewright.717639272@convex.convex.com> ewright@convex.com (Edward V. Wright) writes:
>In <sd#pfm-@lynx.unm.edu> blowfish@carina.unm.edu (rON.) writes:
>>Lets just take recent history for example. The US Civil war? Hitler's 3rd
>>Reich? Those two are big events that started almost exclusivley on the fact
>>that one person looked different from another person. The point? Human Beings
>>take personal appearances seriously.
>If the Civil War and the 3rd Reich are the results of people taking
>physical appearance seriously, perhaps that is a sign that people
>ought not to take physical appearance seriously.

Good riposte :)
The whole point, though, was to show that We Humans >do< take physical
appearance seriously. In fact, it has only been in the very recent that
human culture has taken a turn away from making distinctions based on
physical appearance- this is called, here in the US at least, "Political
Correctness".

The problem with that (and, therefore, the problem with your problem) is
that people >are< different physically. It matters not if you don't want to
think so (by saying you 'don't care about physical appearances' you >are<
saying that you pay no attention to physical differences. I think this is
a big root of the arguments against you...because you >do< pay attention
to physical appearances, even if you don't admit it to yourself.)

People are different, physically. I am tall and thin. Trygve is tall, but
built like a Viking warrior. Dawn has interesting (from reports) Publically
Displayed bumpy bits. Larry and the other Larry both have facial hairs. Etc.

The point? Given that humans are physical creatures, and given that you are
a human, I find it next to impossible to believe that you pay >no< attention
at all to physical characteristics.

I'll presume your response: "I >do< pay attention to physical characteristics,
it's just that I think physical characteristics are unimportant." Right?

And again, I'm going to disagree. A question- are you planning on having sexual
relations any time in your life? Not a put-down- a serious question. If you
are (or have), then physical characteristics are going to play quite an
important role, since sex is a physical act. This is part of why people asked
if you were gay- (again, not a put-down, a serious point) it is a physical
characteristic if your sexual partner has a penis or a vagina- and if you
are a heterosexual male, it is going to be reasonably 'important' that your
sexual partner has the proper plumbing. :)

>>The other book, on animal mating, shows that animals, in general, base thier
>>mate selection on a combination of two things- physical appearance and
>>dominance in a social strata. This is important because Human Beings, like
>>it or not, are animals. Some of these things are ground into our being.
>It is not true that animals, in general, select their mates based
>on physical appearance.  The animals that rely on appearance to
>select their mates are generally those that have good vision, such
>as birds.  Mammals, in general, have very poor vision and usually
>rely on their sense of smell for mating instead.  

OK- allow me to change 'physical appearance' to 'physical characteristics'.
Appearance is a physical characteristic.
I do, however, disagree with your statement that Mammals rely more on their
sense of smell than on vision(physical appearances) or dominance(usually
related to physical characteristics).
While its true that most >insects< use phernomes to attract mates, Mammals,
in general, don't have that sensitive of an olfactory system to distinguish
smells like that.
In Mammals that are closer to mankind- apes for example, physical character-
istics play a very large role in mate selection. The one variety of ape with
colorful genital displays, for example, or displays of strength for another.
Usually, these displays of physical characteristics establish a dominance
heirarchy, from which mate selection is then made.
Smell, on the other hand, is generally used more for identification purposes-
marking out territory by urinating on things as used by dogs, or detecting
the presence of an 'enemy', and not as often for mating purposes. I will
admit that smell does play a part in mating, but I believe it is more geared
towards identification than towards attracting a mate.

So whats my point again?
Human beings are physical creatures. We are animals. We've been wired in a
particular way, by god or evolution (whichever you believe in), and all the
bitching in the world isn't going to change that.
In human beings, since we don't establish dominance heirarchys by who can
croak the loudest, have tended towards using physical characteristics as a
method of determining dominace hierachies for mating purposes.
Now, those of us on the 'low' end of the hierarchy (Hey, I'm not exactly what
one could consider 'well muscled' :) have to rely on other methods for
attracting mates- a sense of humor, developing our intelligence, etc. These
things help 'even the score' a bit. But still, a very large factor in mate
determination is physcial appearance. To that end, we on the lower end of
the mating heirarchy have to improve our chances on that end, too. I have
long hair and wear contact lenses instead of glasses. Why? They make me look
better. I recognize I'll never be a svelt rippling mass of muscle, but I'm
interested in finding a mate, and I'll do what I can (within reason, of course)
in order to improve my chances in such.

Have I compromised anything by enchancing my appearance or improving my
non-physical characteristics? No. In fact, I feel better about myself-
feel better physcially (as well as the added bonuses of being somewhat
fit, but we'll not talk about that here). I haven't compromised a thing to
the societal bastards (as I call 'em) who, as you put it (paraphrased, now :)
'make sure the hunk always gets the girl'.

If you're on the low(er) end of the dominance heirarchy when it comes to
mating, but refuse to do anything to improve your lot, you have no room to
gripe when the mating material tends towards the top of the hierarchy,
leaving you at home on a Saturday night. If you've got intelligence- use it!
Ask yourself 'Hey, I'm a smart sorta dude, what can >I< do to improve my
lot? How can I raise my level on the dominance heirarchy to an equivilant, if
not superior level to those Muscle Bound Weenies?'

And if the answer comes back as 'improve your physical conditioning', then
don't come compalining to me because you don't want to.
r.
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