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Andrew Lindemann Malone's Internet Playpen |
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The Quantification of DesireThis is in response to a research letter that appeared in the British medical journal The Lancet:
To the Editor: Tovee et al's research letter in August 15's issue [1] purported to statistically derive an equation which could be used to judge the sexual attractiveness of a woman's body. The equation as published, y = 4.65 - 0.15(age) + 3.79(waist/hip ratio) - 0.026(body-mass index, kg/meters2) + 0.035(body-mass index2) - 0.0014(body-mass index3), does not accurately reflect a woman's sexual attractiveness in several statistically germane cases and, more importantly, ignores previously published literature on this subject. This makes this equation unusable and, indeed, laughable in certain contexts. Firstly, when one plugs in the values for Pam Grier, who according to authorities is "built like a brick shithouse" [2], one finds that the negatively weighted age term outweighs the other terms of the equation to such an extent that Grier's attractiveness barely registers. When she is 55, in fact, her attractiveness according to this equation will be somehow negative. On the other end of the extreme scale, an embryo at age 8 months has an age of negative two-thirds, yet a waist-hip ratio of 1 or less and body-mass ratio in the acceptable (20-25 kg/m2) range, in which case we come out with the assertion that men are irresistibly attracted to the human embryo, and the younger the better. This does not correlate with common sense or experience in the preferences of male lascivious impulses, except in certain Mormon communities. In addition, the published literature on the subject makes Tovee's assertion that body-mass ratio matters more than any other variable in this equation a debatable subject at best. A leading publisher in this field puts it thusly: "I like big butts, and I cannot lie, and you other brothers can't deny when a girl walks in with an itty bitty waist and a round thing in your face, you get sprung" [3]. This contradicts Tovee directly, as he mentions body-mass ratio nowhere in this communication, and his views seems to be consistent with general opinion, at least in the American literature. Tovee also discounts the importance of waist/bust ratio, which the previously-quoted author addressed in another communication [4]. In fact, most of the qualities valued by America's leading perverts are unaddressed by Tovee's equation [see references 5, 6, 7, 8]. There are also certain distressing lapses in methodology. I would like to note that the only competing study on this matter that Tovee cites is also from a foreign journal [9]. The process Tovee's judges used, while not elaborated on in the research letter, seems not to have been the belligerent-collaborative judgment procedure developed on construction sites in America, and whose validity has not been successfully challenged to my knowledge. The standard 1-to-10 scale used in this context seems also to permit a greater degree of expression in the ratings. Tovee's use of a scale that allows for fewer degrees of approval or disapproval, and which does not conform to the international norm for such judgments, is essentially inexplicable and casts doubt on the rigor and reliability of the research. In short, Tovee's equation does achieve the laudable goal of excluding starving children and Calvin Klein models from consideration from true sexual attractiveness via its emphasis on body-mass ratio, but this is far from the last word when it comes to achieving the goal of objectifying women quantitatively.
Acknowledgments I thank Dr. Eric Chenoweth for performing statistical analysis on the equation.
References
- Dr. Andrew Lindemann Malone Private practice (author for correspondence)
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All this tasty writing ©2002-11 by Andrew Lindemann Malone. All rights reserved. |