Thursday, March 1, 2007

Is Overweight the new "Good Looking"?

In chapter six, Cairo Nights: Dancing Sheik to Sheik, I found it very interesting how the men were attracted to women of a larger size. In America men consider most large women to be disgusting and are not attracted to their physical appearance. In this chapter it is the total opposite. Is it just because these are the only women that they get to see that aren’t covered head to toe in clothing? In America a lot of women are pressured to be skinny mostly because of their hobbies, but in fact, the majority of Americans are overweight. The men described the belly dancers as big ladies with fat bulging out of the clothing that they were wearing, and yet they were still attracted to them. Was it because as the night went on they became more drunk and they were the only women around? Or was it simply because of the difference in society and what they classified as “good looking”? -rb

1 comment:

Baghdad Blog said...

I'm not sure if saying "American men consider most large women to be disgusting and are not attracted to their physical appearance" was the right way to describe it. Sure MOST men in our culture would prefer a lean slimmer woman but saying that fat women are disgusting seems a little over the line. Also I do not think that men are attracted to bigger women in the Middle East because of "beer goggles" (becoming increasingly drunk which impairs your judgment of women). In old England times it was very attractive to be pale and fat. However it was for a specific reason, pale implied that you did not work much outside labor. If a person was tan it would show that they were often outside working the fields and would imply that they were poor enough to be forced to that level. Weight was attractive because it showed the fact that they had enough wealth and status to be able to constantly feed themselves and they would never starve. If I was a skinny starving man and I met a fat woman I would certainly get the idea that if I was with her that I would never go hungry again. AM