Re: [Mid] My point?

On Wed, 14 Jan 1998, Badger Bagbane wrote:

> Badger Bagbane wrote:
>
> > Playboy and Penthouse. A woman
> > standing 5'11" with the vitals of
> >
> > 36C-28-33 cannot weigh 110 lbs.
> > There is just too much bone and
> > muscle mass.

      That's true. 200 is probably more like it.
      5'11" (just short of 6') and 110 is worrisome.
      That's a weight appropriate for someone closer to 5'.
      Come to think of it, I remember an old classmate,
      a lady of slender build, and small frame, who was 110 and
      5'2", or thereabouts. If you scaled her proportionately up
      to 5'11, that would come out to 165 lbs. (Volume increases
      as the cube of linear dimensions, under scaling).
      Factor in the necessary increase in body density, required
      by the increase in the relative thickness of the bones
      and especially the muscle, and you see that at 180, she would still
      be quite thin.

     (Strength of each, being dependent on cross sectional area, not
      volume, increases as the square of the scaling factor, not the cube,
      so more muscle, proportionately speaking, will be needed to provide
      the same degree of mobility. Nature does these things, for a reason,
      as I can tell you from an Engineer's point of view.

      A physician will confirm the height-weight relation. One did, in
      fact. (I asked if this relation sounded reasonable. Offhand,
      without the height weight chart in front of him, it did).)

      At 5'11" and 110, the equivalent of someone at 5'2" weighing 73
      pounds, we are talking about anorexia, here. I recall that at 80 %
      of optimal body weight, a person is considered severely
      malnourished. Here, we would be at about 67 %, or maybe a little
      lower.

      If Krysta has been encountering people who think that someone that
      tall, should weight that little, I see her point. I was made a
      little uncomfortable by it, at first, because it almost seemed like
      she was trying to tell someone else what his sexual preferences
     "should be". A concept that would not only be kind of presumptuous,
      IF that was what she was getting at (not that I think that it was),
      but would miss the point. It would be like saying that one "should"
      have blue eyes.

      One looks, someone's appearance has an effect on
      one, and that effect determines one's preferences in this area. One
      doesn't get to choose them, though one can try to live a lie, and
      pretend that they are something that they're not - an unjust thing
      to ask anyone to do. There would be a little bit of the mentality of
      a rapist, or a stalker, reflected in such an action. It would imply,
      that someone was disputing the man's right to say "no" to someone
      who was interested in him, and we know where that sort of thing
      leads. Next thing you know, chicken carcasses are piling up on
      his doorstep. Or something like that.

      This is true, even when the preferences are ones that others have
      trouble fathoming. Some of us may have trouble understanding why
      an allegedly heterosexual man, would prefer a physical trait that
      gives a woman a physique more reminiscent of that of a young boy,
      but that isn't important. He sees her through his eyes, not ours.

      But......

      It would be a big step from someone acknowledging the fact, that he
      prefers women so thin that they are a few pounds away from a visit
      to the ICU, and saying that he should act on this, and encourage
      women to starve themselves, to make themselves more attractive to
      him. (Not that I mean to imply that Badger here has gone that far.
      I wouldn't know.) If Krysta has been encountering people who've been
      doing this, her annoyance is pretty easy to understand, and share.
      
      I can remember an occasion when a group of young males thought it
      was hysterically funny to scream comments about her weight, from
      the safety of a moving car, at a former girlfriend of mine, while
      I was with her. I have heard people offer unsolicited commentary
      about the weight of women who they weren't thinking of dating
      (like other straight women, for example), that seemed to point in
      that direction. So, I guess I see Krysta's point.

      I hope that she doesn't assume that what is fashionable, is
      necessarily that which is widely desired, by the opposite sex ?
      Sometimes, it is merely what has been promoted as if it were
      what was so widely desired, by people who know a great deal less
      about what men tend to find attractive, then they think they do.
      In my entire life, I've known exactly one straight male, personally,
      who liked the waif look. To hear some people talk, you'd think
      that we all dreamed of marrying Kate Moss. Not so.

> What about body builders. These
> guys can be 5'11" and weigh 250lbs
> and have a chisled body. Are they
> overweight? My point is that the

      Some would argue, yes. I seem to remember there was some question,
      as to whether carrying all of that extra muscle mass around, would
      put a strain on the heart, which would have to pump enough blood to
      keep it nourished. I don't know what the resolution on that was.

From: Joseph Dunphy <stats@xnet.com>
+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+ to unsubscribe, send a message to
`~-, ,-~`~-, ,-~`~-, ,-~`~-, ,-~` sca-middle-request@dnaco.net with
. | | | | | | | | 'unsubscribe' as its body.
Received on Wed Jan 14 12:59:32 1998