Appearance: Feminine Women, Androgynous Women?

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What type of person do you find sexier?
Feminine women (if you are heterosexual male) 47%  47%  [ 26 ]
Androgynous women (if you are hetoersexual male) 11%  11%  [ 6 ]
Masculine men (if you are heterosexual female) 16%  16%  [ 9 ]
Androgynous men (if you are heterosexual female) 13%  13%  [ 7 ]
I am homosexual or bisexual 13%  13%  [ 7 ]
Total votes : 55

slowmutant
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14 Apr 2008, 9:24 am

crimebabe wrote:
oops sorry slowmuntant

i thought in my head you were taking the piss out of bisexual people which of course you werent

sorry agen im just having a bad day and have seemed to be picking up all the wrong things


No worries, crimebabe.



crimebabe
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14 Apr 2008, 9:27 am

slowmutant wrote:
crimebabe wrote:
oops sorry slowmuntant

i thought in my head you were taking the piss out of bisexual people which of course you werent

sorry agen im just having a bad day and have seemed to be picking up all the wrong things


No worries, crimebabe.


thanx for understanding


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Jainaday
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14 Apr 2008, 9:36 am

Daewoodrow wrote:
Jainaday wrote:

Awe.

I still feel a pleasant twinge of reassurance every time I see/hear a guy mention that he prefers his women with substantial brains. Had some pretty scarring early dating experiences in that respect. My current boyfriend is awesome about that . . .

What you describe is also a lot like what I'm looking for; someone who is at least in some respects stronger than me, who always pushes me . . Kindness is very important to me as well, though.


Thankyou. For me, the idea of liking a woman is complicated. I've met alot of attractive women, but how attractive they are meant absolutely nothing when I tried to talk to them. I couldn't imagine spending time with a woman who doesn't challenge my mind at all simply because she looks good, I may as well just watch a TV show for that.

And clothes and makeup are just variables. If I can make a woman fall for me by wearing expensive clothes and getting a nice hairstyle, then what does that say about her? She would never have found me interesting if I had been less presentable, so she obviously doesn't love me. I use the same logic for women. If I go for a woman because I like her dress and makeup, how far could that really go?


Two thoughts; first, as endearing as your stance may be, there are plenty of things to be done with an attractive person in real life that can not be done with a tv show.

Second, as endearing as your stance definitely is, I believe the dress and grooming issue is a bit more complicated than that. While the choices a person makes about how to physically/socially present him/her self to the world are a terrible sole reason to choose them as a romantic partner, I can see how it would be a legitimate initial filtration mechanism.

To many people, a "slovenly" appearance clearly represents a lack of self respect, respect for others, and understanding of social norms. To many people, when viewing someone who doesn't conform to norms in dress or grooming, it doesn't even cross their mind that this may be a result of well thought out differing values rather than simple ineptness.

It's possible that someone twice my age who asked for my phone number when I was waiting tables or walking through a grocery store parking lot could be my perfect match; however, it seems likely to me that such an approach indicates a shallow (not to mention sometimes creepy) variety of interest. . . so I don't respond positively to those kinds of advances. Similarly, I think people often "filter" according to grooming and dress because they believe it is likely to indicate other characteristics they find undesirable.


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NeantHumain
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14 Apr 2008, 9:40 am

slowmutant wrote:
Quote:
So feminine means wearing half a shirt?


Not necessarily. Being feminine isn't any one thing. It isn't about being a skank. It isn't about any one way of dressing. I suspect you know this perfectly well.

For the purpose of this thread, a woman with a feminine appearance would be readily identified as female; a woman with an androgynous or even masculine appearance may be mistaken at first glance for a male or "sex indeterminant."



Jainaday
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14 Apr 2008, 9:41 am

NeantHumain wrote:
slowmutant wrote:
Quote:
So feminine means wearing half a shirt?


Not necessarily. Being feminine isn't any one thing. It isn't about being a skank. It isn't about any one way of dressing. I suspect you know this perfectly well.

For the purpose of this thread, a woman with a feminine appearance would be readily identified as female; a woman with an androgynous or even masculine appearance may be mistaken at first glance for a male or "sex indeterminant."


Interesting. . thanks for the clarification.


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juliekitty
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14 Apr 2008, 10:06 am

Jainaday wrote:
To me, well, I'm a woman, so however I dress. . . I'm dressed like a woman.


Heretic! :wink:



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14 Apr 2008, 10:14 am

slowmutant wrote:
Quote:
So feminine means wearing half a shirt?


Not necessarily. Being feminine isn't any one thing. It isn't about being a skank. It isn't about any one way of dressing. I suspect you know this perfectly well.



I find it a little frustrating that you seem to see this as a simplistic, even obvious issue.

I sometimes choose to dress in ways that are obviously feminine, but at other times it is exceedingly uncomfortable or inconvenient. I have at various times experienced negative consequences for not presenting myself in a way that others presented feminine.

I have been criticized at various times for being unfeminine for:
- avoiding skirts
- not wearing makeup
- not wearing heels
- having a muscular physique
- wearing too much black
- wearing the wrong other colors
- not caring to take a great deal of time with my appearance
- not shaving my legs

Besides being of dubious fairness, it is desturbing to me that the essence of my femininity is, to some other people, apparently deeply connected to my willingness to spend a great deal of my time and money on
-grooming rituals that don't actually improve my hygene
and
-clothing items that are restrictive of movement if I wish to preserve modesty, or that, in the case of heels, are painful and potentially hazardous to my health to wear.

These are not the things that strike me as being important about whether or not I am or identify strongly as a woman, and they certainly don't strike me as the things that should be considered important about me as human being.

Furthermore, it is confusing and frustrating to know that despite all these individual complaints about what isn't feminine, I am quite sure I could come up with an outfit that went against all of them and would still be perceved as feminine; the boundary is not clear, let alone obvious.


As for the suggestion that the clothes presented in women's fashion magazines are obviously feminine, I'd have to disagree. Besides the routine cycle of androgynous styles that come through every few years, many of those clothes and (ways of presenting) are attached to bodies so slender that they are no longer, when fully clothed, discernably female. On top of this, the clothes themselves would often seem grotesque or extemely bizarre worn by a real, grown-up sized woman in the real world.

I think perhaps what you intended to reference was the kind of fashion presented for women's consumption in malls, but I am not sure of this, and I am especially not sure what characteristics of that clothing you would particluarly identify as being feminine.


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LiendaBalla
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14 Apr 2008, 11:49 am

:oops: Any of the above with in the pole?



Last edited by LiendaBalla on 14 Apr 2008, 12:15 pm, edited 4 times in total.

slowmutant
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14 Apr 2008, 11:52 am

Jainaday wrote:
slowmutant wrote:
Quote:
So feminine means wearing half a shirt?


Not necessarily. Being feminine isn't any one thing. It isn't about being a skank. It isn't about any one way of dressing. I suspect you know this perfectly well.



I find it a little frustrating that you seem to see this as a simplistic, even obvious issue.

I sometimes choose to dress in ways that are obviously feminine, but at other times it is exceedingly uncomfortable or inconvenient. I have at various times experienced negative consequences for not presenting myself in a way that others presented feminine.

I have been criticized at various times for being unfeminine for:
- avoiding skirts
- not wearing makeup
- not wearing heels
- having a muscular physique
- wearing too much black
- wearing the wrong other colors
- not caring to take a great deal of time with my appearance
- not shaving my legs

Besides being of dubious fairness, it is desturbing to me that the essence of my femininity is, to some other people, apparently deeply connected to my willingness to spend a great deal of my time and money on
-grooming rituals that don't actually improve my hygene
and
-clothing items that are restrictive of movement if I wish to preserve modesty, or that, in the case of heels, are painful and potentially hazardous to my health to wear.

These are not the things that strike me as being important about whether or not I am or identify strongly as a woman, and they certainly don't strike me as the things that should be considered important about me as human being.

Furthermore, it is confusing and frustrating to know that despite all these individual complaints about what isn't feminine, I am quite sure I could come up with an outfit that went against all of them and would still be perceved as feminine; the boundary is not clear, let alone obvious.


As for the suggestion that the clothes presented in women's fashion magazines are obviously feminine, I'd have to disagree. Besides the routine cycle of androgynous styles that come through every few years, many of those clothes and (ways of presenting) are attached to bodies so slender that they are no longer, when fully clothed, discernably female. On top of this, the clothes themselves would often seem grotesque or extemely bizarre worn by a real, grown-up sized woman in the real world.

I think perhaps what you intended to reference was the kind of fashion presented for women's consumption in malls, but I am not sure of this, and I am especially not sure what characteristics of that clothing you would particluarly identify as being feminine.


Now you're just being contrary. You know what I mean.

You're arguing for the sake of arguing. Clearly you are plenty smart enough to understand this gender-image stuff. No matter what a person's sex or performed gender is, it is always considerate to look your best. Grooming shows respect for yourself and for others.

Why ask questions to which you obviously know the answer?



Jainaday
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15 Apr 2008, 8:34 am

slowmutant wrote:
Now you're just being contrary. You know what I mean.

You're arguing for the sake of arguing. Clearly you are plenty smart enough to understand this gender-image stuff. No matter what a person's sex or performed gender is, it is always considerate to look your best. Grooming shows respect for yourself and for others.

Why ask questions to which you obviously know the answer?


I'm actually not.

While I do understand in a generalized sense, it seems worth while to me to move closer to a precise understanding of something that's had such a big impact on my life. When I was seriously attempting ballroom dance, especially, it was something I had to fight with every day. That was when--and why--I have most of the "feminine" clothes that I have now, and in some contexts I can dress in them and clearly be percived as very feminine. . . but I among my ballroom friends, I'd bet that even now I'd always have the sense that I was doing something wrong. . . and, in particular, that I was being perceved as somewhat asexual. . . even more bizarre an experience in a context where everything you do is gendered, and which is characterized by a certain sense of highly gendered chivalry. . . and you may say that if that's what I'm worried about, I should learn more about it in that context, but that is not at all the only context where it crops up.

Apparently this seems like a pointless exercise to you, but examining closely what various people's idea of feminine dress entails has been essential to my figuring out the things I already know. I wish you wouldn't assume that because I have a firm base understanding I'm merely trying to be obnoxious by trying to learn more--especially on a site like this, where asking precise questions about social norms should by all rights be acceptable behavior.


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Tim_Tex
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15 Apr 2008, 8:36 am

I don't find any particular gender role sexier than the other.

Just for the records, to quote Miss Swan from MadTV, "I look-a like a man".


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15 Apr 2008, 7:01 pm

NeantHumain wrote:
slowmutant wrote:
Quote:
So feminine means wearing half a shirt?


Not necessarily. Being feminine isn't any one thing. It isn't about being a skank. It isn't about any one way of dressing. I suspect you know this perfectly well.

For the purpose of this thread, a woman with a feminine appearance would be readily identified as female; a woman with an androgynous or even masculine appearance may be mistaken at first glance for a male or "sex indeterminant."


I may have answered the poll incorrectly then. Since to me, unless they are in very convincing drag or something, all men obviously look like men, I took "androgynous" to mean males with feminine features- skinny, big eyes/long lashes, smaller jaw, longish hair, ect. An example might be a young Cary Elwes- obviously male, but his facial features are as feminine as his Princess Bride.
I suspect I have this preference because my daddy looked like this- so I grew up used to it, and if genetics have anything to do with attraction, my mother has the same taste. None of the guys I go for would ever be mistaken as females though.